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The occasional visits to Hickney Heath were, after all, but rare, though distinct, episodes in his busy life. He had his parliamentary work for Colonel Winwood, his work for Miss Winwood, his work for the Young England League. He had his social engagements. He had the Princess Zobraska. He also began to write, in picturesque advocacy of his views, for serious weekly and monthly publications.
Who first to hear the wondrous news but his Princess? That there was a vacancy in Hickney Heath he knew, as all Great Britain knew; for Ponting, the Radical Member, had died suddenly the day before. But it had never entered his head that he could be chosen as a candidate. "Mais j'y ai bien pense, moi," came the voice through the telephone.
"Eh bien, je viendrai. You ought to speak well. Couldn't you persuade them to give the place a better name? Hickney Heath! It hurts the roof of one's mouth. Tiens would it help the Young England League if you announced my name in the newspapers?" "Dear Princess, you overwhelm me. But " "Now, don't ask me if it is wise." She smiled in mockery.
Suppose you're detained at Hickney Heath?" "The Conqueror," he cried, with a gay laugh, "belongs to the Detainers not the Detained." She looked at him out of her clear eyes, and shook an indulgent head. "I know," said he, meeting her glance shrewdly. "He has got to use his detaining faculty with discretion. I've made a study of the little ways of conquerors. Ali!
This morning she learned worse. She learned that you were the son of a convict. What does she do? She comes somehow I don't know how to Hickney Heath and hears you publicly give yourself away and she drives straight here with a message for you. It's for you, the message. Who else?" She stood before Paul, a flashing Jane unknown. "Would a woman who didn't love you come to this house to-night?
For all the fierceness of political passions, parliamentary elections are but sombre occurrences to the general public. Rarely are they attended by the picturesque, the dramatic, the tragic. But already the dramatic had touched the election of Hickney Heath, stimulating interest in the result.
Paul Savelli, the young man of the social moment, had an army of helpers, members of Parliament making speeches, friends on the Unionist press writing flamboyant leaders, fair ladies in automobiles hunting for voters through the slums of Hickney Heath. Silas Finn had scarcely a personal friend.
As the words of a Chief Whip are apt to be significant, Paul closeted himself with the President of the Hickney Heath Lodge, who called the Secretary of the local Conservative Association to the interview. The result was that Paul was invited to speak at an anti-Budget meeting convened by the Association. He spoke, and repeated his success.
Party feeling ran high in those days at Hickney Heath, for a Liberal had ousted a Unionist from a safe seat at the last General Election, and the stalwarts of the defeated party, thirsting for revenge, supported the new movement. If a child was not born a Conservative, he should be made one. That was the watchword of the League.
Even if he hadn't, and was elected, he would not be allowed to take his seat in Parliament. On the other hand, those in whose Radical bosoms burned fierce hatred for the Tories, spoke loud in condemnation of their cowardly tactics. There was considerable free-fighting in the ordinarily dismal and decorous streets of Hickney Heath.
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