Mrs. Baxter took perhaps a too private and domestic view of the man whose fate she was discussing; she judged the husband and friend, she had nothing to say to the public character. The voices of his political associates and acquaintances, of his fellow-workers in business, of his followers and enthusiastic adherents in his constituency, did not reach her ears, and perhaps, if they had, would not have won much attention. The consternation of Constantine Blair, Lady Castlefort's dismay, the sad gossiping and head-shaking that went on in the streets of Henstead and round old Mr. Foster's comfortable board, witnessed to a side of Quisanté in which Mrs. Baxter did not take much interest. She did not understand the sort of stupor with which they who had lived with him and worked with him saw the force he wielded and the anticipations he filled them with both struck down by a sudden blow; she did not share the feeling that all at once a gap had been made in life.
But something of this sort was the effect in all the circles which Quisanté had invaded and in which he had moved. The philosophical might already be saying that there was no necessary man; to the generality that reflection would come only later, when they had found a new leader, a fresh inspiration, and another personality in which to see the embodiment of their hopes. Now the loss was too fresh and too complete; for although it might be doubtful how long Quisanté's life would last, there seemed no chance of his ever filling the place to which he had appeared to be destined. Only a miracle could give that back to one who must cling to life, if he could keep his hold on it at all, at the cost of abandoning all the efforts and all the activities which had made it what it was alike for himself and for others. He was rallying slowly and painfully from his blow; a repetition of it would be the certain penalty of any strenuous mental exertion or any sustained strain of labour. In inactivity, in retirement, in the placid existence of a recognised invalid he might live years, indeed probably would; but otherwise the authorities declined to promise him any life at all. His body had played him false in the end. Constantine Blair began to look out for a candidate for Henstead and to wonder whether Sir Winterton would again expose himself to the unpleasantness of a contested election; Lady Castlefort must find another Prime Minister, the fighting men another champion, even the Alethea Printing Press Limited a new chairman. The places he had filled or made himself heir to were open to other occupants and fresh pretenders. That the change seemed so considerable proved how great a figure he had become in men's eyes no less than how utterly his career was overthrown. The comments on his public life were very flattering, but already they praised in the tone of an obituary notice, and the hopes they expressed of his being able some day to return to the arena were well understood to be no more than a kind or polite refusal to display naked truth in the merciless clearness of print.