He rose slowly and stood silent for a couple of seconds, his body braced, his fingers touching the sheaf of notes that lay in front of him.  To the waiting House the silence was effective.  It might mean over-assurance, or it might mean a failure of nerve at a critical moment.  Either possibility had a tinge of piquancy.  Moved by the same impulse, fifty pairs o eyes turned upon him with new interest; but up in the Ladies’ Gallery Eve clasped her hands in sudden apprehension; and Fraide, sitting stiffly in his seat, turned and shot one swift glance at the man on whom, against prudence and precedent, he had pinned his faith.  The glance was swift but very searching, and with a characteristic movement of his wiry shoulders he resumed his position and his usual grave, attentive attitude.  At the same moment Loder lifted his head and began to speak.

Here at the outset his inexperience met him.  His voice, pitched too low, only reached those directly near him.  It was a moment of great strain.  Eve, listening intently, drew a long breath of suspense and let her fingers drop apart; the sceptical, watchful eyes that faced him, line upon line, seemed to flash and brighten with critical interest; only Fraide made no change of expression.  He sat placid, serious, attentive, with the shadow of a smile behind his eyes.

Again Loder paused, but this time the pause was shorter.  The ordeal he had dreaded and waited for was passed and he saw his way clearly.  With the old movement of the shoulders he straightened himself and once more began to speak.  This time his voice rang quietly true and commanding across the floor of the House.

No first step can be really great; it must of necessity possess more of prophecy than of achievement; nevertheless it is by the first step that a man marks the value, not only of his cause, but of himself.  Following broadly on the lines that tradition has laid down for the Conservative orator, Loder disguised rather than displayed the vein of strong, persuasive eloquence that was his natural gift.  The occasion that might possibly justify such a display of individuality might lie with the future, but it had no application to the present.  For the moment his duty was to voice his party sentiments with as much lucidity, as much logic, and as much calm conviction as lay within his capacity.

Standing quietly in Chilcote’s place, he was conscious with a deep sense of gravity of the peculiarity of his position; and perhaps it was this unconscious and unstudied seriousness that lent him the tone of weight and judgment so essential to the cause he had in hand.  It has always been difficult to arouse the interest of the House on matters of British policy in Persia.  Once aroused, it may, it is true, reach fever heat with remarkable rapidity, but the introductory stages offer that worst danger to the earnest speaker—­the dread of an apathetic audience.  But from this consideration Loder, by his sharp consciousness of personal difficulties, was given immunity.