"Yes," Mr. Devenish agreed, "their lot is not attractive. They can't bring themselves to admit failure. They drift along here until the time is past for them to do anything else. The four walls, as you say, have closed about them. They sit here, eating out their hearts, jealous of the others who succeed, and making a bitter pretence of contentment." "They are the prisoners of the House of Commons," said Cynthia, and the phrase struck pleasantly upon Mr. Devenish's ears so used to the slipshod metaphors of the average speaker. "Yes," he said with a quick look of interest. "Yes, that's a true saying. How did you think of it, Mrs. Rames?" "I have sympathy with failures," she replied. "Ah," said Mr. Devenish. "But it's easy to have that when one is married to success," and he turned genially to Captain Rames. A junior whip hurried up to the table. "You are wanted, Mr. Devenish, in the House," he said. Devenish looked at his watch and sprang up. "I have stayed longer than I ought to. We can count upon you then, Rames, for Thursday," and he hurried away. Cynthia followed him with her eyes. He attracted her and he left with her an impression of power, which made his interest in her, obviously expressed, a subtle flattery. She turned back to her husband. "I was mistaken in that man," she said, and as Harry Rames did not answer her, she continued: "You see, Harry, I am doing my best to help you on." "You are indeed," said Harry Rames sulkily. Cynthia stared at him. The sulkiness in his voice set her blood tingling. He could be jealous then! She laughed out loud suddenly, with a girl's joyousness, and, as Harry lifted inquiring eyes to her, the blood mantled into her cheeks, and she sat in a pretty confusion. For a moment both of them were embarrassed, and neither could have told why. Cynthia broke through the embarrassment with the first words which occurred to her: "I can't reconcile Mr. Devenish with his speeches," she said. "Yet there's a continuity," replied Harry. "He is one of your instances of men big enough to widen out. But he's an enthusiast, and he has done in his day a deal of platform work so that the old phrases come trippingly to his tongue. He says, when he's carried away, more than he thinks now, but less than he used to think ten years ago. I fancy that's the explanation." Cynthia looked toward the door through which Mr. Devenish had disappeared. "Tell me about him, Harry," she said. "I will, certainly," said Rames. His ill-humor had passed. He leaned toward his wife with a smile upon his face. It seemed to Cynthia that the moment of embarrassment so quickly gone had brought now as its consequence another moment quite as inexplicable--a moment during which she and Harry were nearer to one another than as yet they had been. "The one thing I think to remember about Devenish is this," Rames continued. "As a boy he had always to walk in the road and he has not forgotten it."