"We had a division," he said. "I was walking through the lobby and just at the turnstiles where the clerks tick off our names, I found Henry Smale in front of me. The R's and the S's go through the same turnstile. He turned round as I passed through behind him, and said to me in a low voice, 'You have the ear of the House now. Keep your eye on the treasury bench.' That from Smale, who was dissuading me to enter Parliament, means a good deal." Harry Rames turned and looked at Cynthia. "Yes," said Cynthia. There was a smile upon her face rather wistful, rather ironic. "So you have turnstiles in your House of Commons," she said slowly. "No. Did I say turnstiles?" he asked. "There's no actual barrier which revolves. But there's only room for one at a time to pass between the desks. The clerks stand at the desks and register your votes for publication. Otherwise where would party government be?" "You mean if the votes weren't published men would vote according to their convictions?" Rames nodded. "But it's a superficial view," he said. "You have got to take the sum of your policy. As a whole, is it better than the other fellow's? That's what you have to ask yourself when you are going to register a vote upon some particular point which may help to turn your government out and let the other fellows in." "Yes, I see that," said Cynthia; and once more her eyes fell upon the _Times_ and she was suddenly conscious of a queer pride. Others to-day were aware of the success which Harry Rames had made; probably she alone was aware of the thought, and the apprehension and the tribulation of soul which had gone to the making of the success. To the others he would just be one of the inevitably successful--what indeed she had herself been wont to think him. To-day, however, he was to her human as he had never been. He had shown himself to her, bleating with fear like an ordinary man at the approach of the fateful moment which was to put him to the test. He had drawn the picture with a sense of humor, but he had not blurred it. Would he have drawn it for any one else, she asked herself? She turned impulsively toward him: "I wanted you to come to me this week," she said impulsively. "And I thank you very much for telling me not merely that you succeeded, but how near you were to breaking down. But," and she hesitated for a few moments, "I should have been still more grateful if you had come to me the day before you made your speech." "I almost did," said Harry Rames. CHAPTER XIX AND A PROPOSAL Cynthia smiled, but she did not believe. "I think," she said, "that this is the very first time you have gone beyond the truth to say a pleasant thing to me." "It is the truth," he insisted. "I almost did more than come to you. I almost asked you to let me inflict my speech on you before I made it in the House."