The buzz of conversation increased, a protesting voice called "Order, order," and then Harry faltered and stopped, stopped quite noticeably. A general cheer rose to encourage him--for the House of Commons can be generous, especially to those who are dropping out of the race--and twisting his hands together suddenly, almost with the air of a man waking from a dream, Harry Rames staggered on again. Cynthia's heart went out to him in a rush of pity. What he must be suffering! He had staked so much upon this afternoon. So much had been expected of him. Cynthia's thoughts went back to the week at Bramling. With what high hopes that company had counted upon his leadership! "If he would only finish!" she prayed. She looked upon him as a man in torment. She leaned her elbows on the rail in front of her, closed her ears with her thumbs and shut her eyes. She took at once with the exaggeration of her years the blackest view. "He has attacked his own government and frightened no one. His career will be affected, perhaps ruined. A really bad mistake may take a man years to overcome in the House of Commons. Who was it said that? Mr. Smale. This is a really bad mistake. The debate itself may collapse. That would mean ruin." So she reasoned until in a clap the truth of the mistake came upon her, its cause, its meaning. "I ought to have foreseen his failure," she murmured. "It was bound to come. Sooner or later it was bound to come. For his heart is never in the theme but always in the career." She might indeed have looked upon it as a retribution, a just retribution. "And a year ago I should so have looked upon it," she reflected, and sat back in her seat amazed at the change which two years had wrought in her. The magnitude of it was now for the first time revealed to her. Success following success, each in its anticipated sequence, had sealed up from her the knowledge of herself. It had needed the failure to reveal it. She leaned back in a confusion of her emotions. She heard no longer any word of the debate. For a little while the House of Commons vanished and was not. She glanced swiftly backward across the months of her married life and detected one by one the indications of the change. Gradually she had ceased to clamor for ideas, she had come to look only at the man and she had desired him to tower above his fellows, because that was his desire. And the reason for the change? She jumped to it with her heart on fire. She loved him. But while she thus began to make her account with herself a perfunctory cheer and the Speaker's distinct pronouncement of another name broke in upon her reckoning. The voice of her neighbor brought her back to earth. "Mr. Howard Fall. I hear he's quite a favorite speaker."