Intelligence! that was the note of it all. Many rich people dabbled at the giving of money, but they did it so stupidly, in such a slip-shod fashion, that they got no credit for it. Even millionaires more or less in public life, great newspaper-owners, great brewer-peers, and the like, men who should know how to do things well, gave huge sums in bulk for public charities, such as the housing of the poor, and yet contrived somehow to let the kudos that should have been theirs evaporate. He would make no such mistake as that.
It was easy enough to see wherein they erred.
They gave superciliously, handing down their alms from a top lofty altitude of Tory superiority, and the Radicals down below sniffed or growled even while they grudgingly took these gifts--that was all nonsense. These aristocratic or tuft-hunting philanthropists were the veriest duffers.
They laid out millions of pounds in the vain attempt to secure what might easily be had for mere thousands, if they went sensibly to work. Their vast benefactions yielded them at the most bare thanks, or more often no thanks at all, because they lacked the wit to lay aside certain little trivial but annoying pretensions, and waive a few empty prejudices. They went on, year after year, tossing their fortunes into a sink of contemptuous ingratitude, wondering feebly why they were not beloved in return.
It was because they were fools. They could not, or they would not, understand the people they sought to manipulate.
What could not a man of real brain, of real breadth and energy and force of character, do in London with two hundred thousand pounds? Why, he could make himself master of the town! He could break into fragments the political ascendency of the snob, "semi-detached" villa classes, in half the Parliamentary divisions they now controlled.
He could reverse the partisan complexion of the Metropolitan delegation, and lead to Westminster a party of his own, a solid phalanx of disciplined men, standing for the implacable Democracy of reawakened London.
With such a backing, he could coerce ministries at will, and remake the politics of England. The role of Great Oliver himself was not too hopelessly beyond the scope of such a vision.
Thorpe threw his cigar-end aside, and then noted that it was almost dark. He strode up to the terrace two steps at a time, and swung along its length with a vigour and exhilaration of movement he had not known, it seemed to him, for years. He felt the excitement of a new incentive bubbling in his veins.
"Her Ladyship is in her sitting-room, sir," a domestic replied to his enquiry in the hall. The title arrested his attention from some fresh point of view, and he pondered it, as he made his way along the corridor, and knocked at a door. At the sound of a voice he pushed open the door, and went in.
Lady Cressage, looking up, noted, with aroused interest, a marked change in his carriage. He stood aggressively erect, his big shoulders squared, and his head held high.
On his massive face there was the smile, at once buoyant and contained, of a strong man satisfied with himself.
Something impelled her to rise, and to put a certain wistfulness of enquiry into her answering smile.
"Your headache is better then?" she asked him.
He looked puzzled for a moment, then laughed lightly.
"Oh--yes," he answered. Advancing, he caught her suddenly, almost vehemently, in his arms, aud covered the face that was perforce upturned with kisses. When she was released from this overwhelming embrace, and stood panting and flushed, regarding him with narrowed, intent eyes, in which mystification was mellowed by the gleam of not-displeased curiosity, he preferred a request which completed her bewilderment.
