Sweet and Twenty Read Free Page A

not yet said more than good day, he could not know she was a fool. But he paid neither young girl any special heed.
    It became clear that his mind was greatly occupied with some other matter than his callers, and Mr. Fellows, at last allowed his preoccupation to come out. “I have been asked to stand for Parliament,”he said.
    “Fancy that!”Lady Monteith rhapsodized.
    “What party?”Martha rapped out suspiciously.
    “Oh, for the Whigs,”he said, on the defense. Sir Gerald had been a Tory, a cause of enmity between them when he himself had switched a few years ago. Martha too had once been a Tory, but she never liked to agree with her family on anything, and for that and other reasons had become a Whig within the recent past. She smiled in satisfaction at his answer, not that it was a matter of great importance one way or the other.
    Mr. Fellows then launched into a political monologue, secure that he was among friends. “After looking into the matter, I concluded the country’s only hope of salvation lies with the Whigs. As Lord Allingham was saying the other night, till we drive those reactionary Tories from the seats of power, there is no hope for England. It was Lord Allingham who convinced me it was my duty to run. A man has a duty beyond his own back yard. He and Basingstoke between them talked me into it, that is to say, for certainly Mr. Basingstoke is a very well-educated gentleman, even though he hasn’t a title.”
    “Being educated surely is part and parcel of being a gentleman,”Martha pointed out. Even a prospective groom was subject to her little moralizings.
    “Yes,”Mr. Fellows agreed, very briefly for him, and he looked uncomfortable.
    “It is not time for a general election, is it?”Lillian asked. She did not happen to be keenly interested in politics, but could not believe a general election had been called without her having heard of it.
    “No, it is only a by-election. Our incumbent, a Tory, died; the Rt. Honorable James Farrington passed away a fortnight ago. You would have heard of it, Lady Monteith.”He turned to his neighbor.
    “I don’t believe I did,”she answered, and wondered that he didn’t offer them a glass of wine or a cup of tea. However, this lapse on the host’s part was soon remedied, and with a plateful of biscuits and a glass of wine before her, Lady Monteith retired from the conversation.
    “So you will be busy politicking the next month or so?”Martha questioned, wondering if this would interfere with his wooing of Sara, at whom he had scarcely bothered to glance the past while.
    “Lord Allingham is giving me a hand with my campaign. A Mr. Hudson is being sent down from London to manage it. He is very influential in the party, though not actually an elected member. He is a sort of party manager—a whip, Allingham called. him. Basingstoke was saying he got our man in in some little borough or other—I forget the name—that was always Tory before. They always send a Tory here from Crockett too, but Hudson will whip me in. There is a wind of change in the country, I think, after the war, with the veterans coming back and being treated like dogs. The next general election may see a changeover from the repressive party that has been riding roughshod over this country the last years.”
    “Back to the days of Fox, eh, Mr. Fellows?”Martha said with a rare polite interest. “That’s the spirit.”
    “Aye, Lord Allingham was mentioning something about Fox the other evening. What an orator the man was! He could talk for hours and sway the entire Parliament. I daresay he was a well-educated gentleman.”
    “What are the issues on which you will fight the campaign?”Martha asked. Shewould have preferred to speak of balls and drives and pleasure outings, but Mr. Fellows seemed to be bent on business.
    He looked a little startled. “Why, against the repressive and reactionary measures of the Tories,”he said.
    “Yes, but what measures?”
    “Oh, you ladies