The pages, finding nothing to do, crept toward the Speaker's desk and sat down on the carpeted steps. One little black-eyed fellow fixed his gaze on Pembroke's face, and at the next point he made, the page, without waiting for his elders, suddenly clapped furiously. A roar of laughter and applause followed. Pembroke smiled, and did not break silence again until the Speaker gave him a slight inclination of the head. In that pause he had glanced at Olivia in the gallery. Her face was crimson with pride and pleasure.
Outside in the corridors, the word had gone round that there was something worth listening to going on inside. The aisles became packed. A slight disturbance behind him showed Pembroke that a contingent of women was being admitted to the floor—and before him, in the reporters' gallery, where men were usually moving to and fro, every man was at his post, and there was no passing in and out.
Pembroke began to feel a sense of triumph. His easy, but forcible delivery was not far from eloquence. He felt the pulse of his audience, as it were. At first, when he began, it was entirely cold and critical, while his blood leaped like fire through his veins, and it took all his will-power to maintain his appearance of coolness. But as his listeners warmed up, he cooled off. The more subtly he wrought them up, the more was he master of himself. His nerve did not once desert him.
Gradually he began to lead up to where he hoped
