previous speakers was furious, came over and appealed to Lord Faramond,
who merely said, "Wait."

Gaston kept on. The flippant amusement of the Opposition continued.
Something, however, in his grim steadiness began to impress his own party
as the other, while from more than one quarter of the House there came a
murmur of sympathy. His courage, his stone-cold strength, the disdain
which was coming into his voice, impressed them, apart from his argument
or its bearing on the previous debate. Lord Faramond heard the
occasional murmurs of approval and smiled. Then there came a striking
silence, for Gaston paused. He looked towards the Ladies Gallery. As if
in a dream--for his brain was working with clear, painful power--he saw,
not Delia nor her mother, nor Lady Dargan, but Alice Wingfield! He had a
sting, a rush in his blood. He felt that none had an interest in him
such as she: shamed, sorrowful, denied the compensating comfort which his
brother's love might give her. Her face, looking through the barriers,
pale, glowing, anxious, almost weird, seemed set to the bars of a cage.

Gaston turned upon the House, and flashed a glance towards Lord Faramond,
who, turned round on the Treasury Bench, was looking up at him. He began
slowly to pit against his former startling admissions the testimony of
his few principles, and to buttress them on every side with apposite
observations, naive, pungent. Presently there came a poignant edge to
his trailing tones. After giving the subject new points of view, showing
him to have studied Whitechapel as well as Kicking Horse Pass, he
contended that no social problem could be solved by a bill so crudely
radical, so impractical.

He was saying: "In the history of the British Parliament--" when some
angry member cried out, "Who coached you?"