- caped the tumult outwardly except the European
occupants of the diplomatic gallery. They were ostentatiously cool, and talked and laughed during the tempest of applause, while secretly they were more agitated than any of the cheering multitude. They had heard that which meant surrender to each and all of them.
The Speaker's gavel descended presently, and quiet was partially restored. Crane was surrounded by members of both parties congratulating him, and he received their praise with a modesty more sincere than was generally believed. But to him had it been brought home that the crisis was bigger than the man, and the people were bigger than the crisis. Thorndyke, sitting near him, had shared in the tempest of feeling, but a sickening disappointment possessed him when he saw Crane's personal triumph. In all of Thorndyke's years of labour Fate had never given him any such a chance as this. But it was his years of labour which made Crane's success possible. He could imagine the turgid, strained spread-eagleism, the powerful but ill-reasoned speech, which Crane, but for him, would have made. His eyes, in his cold fit of chagrin,
