CHAPTER XXXVIII

JASPER KIMBER SPEAKS

That day the adjournment of the House of Commons was moved "To call
attention to an urgent matter of public importance"--the position of
Claridge Pasha in the Soudan. Flushed with the success of last night's
performance, stung by the attacks of the Opposition morning papers,
confident in the big majority behind, which had cheered him a few hours
before, viciously resenting the letter he had received from David that
morning, Eglington returned such replies to the questions put to him that
a fire of angry mutterings came from the forces against him. He might
have softened the growing resentment by a change of manner, but his
intellectual arrogance had control of him for the moment; and he said to
himself that he had mastered the House before, and he would do so now.
Apart from his deadly antipathy to his half-brother, and the gain to
himself--to his credit, the latter weighed with him not so much, so set
was he on a stubborn course--if David disappeared for ever, there was at
bottom a spirit of anti-expansion, of reaction against England's world-
wide responsibilities. He had no largeness of heart or view concerning
humanity. He had no inherent greatness, no breadth of policy. With
less responsibility taken, there would be less trouble, national and
international--that was his point of view; that had been his view long
ago at the meeting at Heddington; and his weak chief had taken it,
knowing nothing of the personal elements behind.

The disconcerting factor in the present bitter questioning in the House
was, that it originated on his own side. It was Jasper Kimber who had