The debate was fierce and prolonged. Eglington would not agree to any
modification of his speech, to any temporising. Arrogant and insistent,
he had his way, and, on a division, the Government was saved by a mere
handful of votes--votes to save the party, not to indorse Eglington's
speech or policy.
Exasperated and with jaw set, but with a defiant smile, Eglington drove
straight home after the House rose. He found Hylda in the library with
an evening paper in her hands. She had read and reread his speech, and
had steeled herself for "the inevitable hour," to this talk which would
decide for ever their fate and future.
Eglington entered the room smiling. He remembered the incident of the
night before, when she came to his study and then hurriedly retreated.
He had been defiant and proudly disdainful at the House and on the way
home; but in his heart of hearts he was conscious of having failed to
have his own way; and, like such men, he wanted assurance that he could
not err, and he wanted sympathy. Almost any one could have given it to
him, and he had a temptation to seek that society which was his the
evening before; but he remembered that she was occupied where he could
not reach her, and here was Hylda, from whom he had been estranged,
but who must surely have seen by now that at Hamley she had been
unreasonable, and that she must trust his judgment. So absorbed was he
with self and the failure of his speech, that, for a moment, he forgot
the subject of it, and what that subject meant to them both.
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