Fontenoy himself had spoken before dinner, throwing scorn upon the clause, as the ill-conceived finish of an impossible Bill. So the landlords were to be made the executants, the police, of this precious Act? Every man who let out a tenement-house in workmen's dwellings was to be haled before the law and punished if a tailor on his premises did his work at home, if a widow took in shirtmaking to keep her children. Pass, for the justice or the expediency of such a law in itself. But who but a madman ever supposed you could get it carried out! What if the landlords refused or neglected their part? _Quis custodiet?_ And was Parliament going to make itself ridiculous by setting up a law, which, were it a thousand times desirable, you simply could not enforce? The speech was delivered with amazing energy. It abounded in savage epigram and personality; and a month before it would have had great effect. Every Englishman has an instinctive hatred of paper reforms. During the dinner-hour Tressady met Fontenoy in the Lobby, and suddenly stopped to speak. The young man was deeply flushed and holding himself stiffly erect. "If you want me," he said--"you will find me in the Library. I don't want to spring anything upon you. You shall know all I know." "Thank you," said the other with slow bitterness--"but we can look after ourselves. I think you and I understood each other this morning." The two men parted abruptly. Tressady walked on, stung and excited afresh by the memory of the hateful half hour he had spent that morning in Fontenoy's library. For after all, when once he had come to his decision, he had tried to behave with frankness, with consideration. Fontenoy hurried on to look for the young viscount with the curls and shoulders, and the two men stood about the inner lobby together, Fontenoy sombrely watching everybody who came out or in. It was about ten o'clock when Tressady caught the Speaker's eye. He rose in a crowded House, a House conscious not only that the division shortly to be taken would decide the fate of a Government, but vaguely aware, besides, that something else was involved--one of those personal incidents that may at any moment make the dullest piece of routine dramatic, or rise into history by the juxtaposition of some great occasion. The House had not yet made up its opinion about him as a speaker. He had done well; then, not so well. And, moreover, it was so long since he had taken any part in debate that the House had had time to forget whatever qualities he might once have shown. His bearing and voice won him a first point. For youth, well-bred and well-equipped, the English House of Commons has always shown a peculiar indulgence. Then members began to bend eagerly forward, to crane necks, to put hands to ears. The Treasury Bench was seen to be listening as one man.