"I am never engaged when you want me, and there is never anybody here whose business is of equal importance with your pleasure." "When did you cultivate the art of saying pretty things?" asked Marian, smiling. "Is it a recent acquisition, or one of old standing, which had only rusted from disuse?" "I never had occasion to try whether I possessed the power until you came to me," said Mr. Creswell, with an old-fashioned bow. "There, oddly enough, I was talking about speaking in public, and the trick of pleasing people by public speaking, to those two men when you looked into the room." "Indeed. Who were your visitors?" "I thought you would have recognised old Croke, of Brocksopp; he seemed a little hurt at your running away without speaking to him; but I put him right. The other gentleman has corresponded with you, but never seen you before--Mr. Gould, of London. You wrote to him just after poor Tom's death, you recollect, about that sale." "I recollect perfectly," said Marian. (She remembered In an instant Joyce's allusion to the man in his first memorable letter.) "But what brought him here at this time? There is no question of the sale now?" "No, dearest; but Mr. Gould has a very large practice as a parliamentary agent and lawyer, and he has come down here about the election." "The election? I thought that was all put off!" "Put off?" repeated Mr. Creswell. "Indefinitely? For ever?" "I'm sure you told me so." "Now, that is so like a woman The idea of an election being quietly put aside in that way! No, child, no; it was postponed merely; it is expected to come off very shortly." "And what have these two men to do with it?" "These two men, as you call them, have a great deal to do with it. Mr. Croke is a leading man amongst the Conservative party--that is my party, you understand, child--in Brocksopp, and Mr. Gould is to be my London agent, having Mr. Teesdale, whom you know, as his lieutenant, on the spot." "You speak of 'my party,' and 'my agent,' as though you had fully made up your mind to go in for the election. Is it so?" "I had promised to do so," said Mr. Creswell, again with the old-fashioned bow, "before you did me the honour to accept the position which you so worthily fill; and I fear, even had you objected, that I should scarcely have been able to retract. But when I mentioned it to you, you said nothing to lead me to believe that you did object." "Nor do I in the very smallest degree. On the contrary, I think it most advisable and most important. What are your chances of success?" "Well, on the whole, good; though it struck me that our friends who have just gone were a little too sanguine, and--at least, so far as Mr. Croke was concerned--a little too much disposed to underrate the strength of the enemy." "The enemy? Ah!--I forgot. Who is our opponent?" Mr. Creswell heard the change in the pronoun, and was delighted.