He was right in his supposition.

They had decided about it, and they were waiting, in a group that made every effort to look casual, to tell him when he arrived.
They had delegated what Horace Williams called "the job" to Mr Farquharson, and he was actually struggling with the preliminaries of it, when Bingham, uncomfortable under the curious quietude of the young fellow's attention, burst out with the whole thing.
"The fact is, Murchison, you can't poll the vote.

There's no man in the Riding we'd be better pleased to send to the House; but we've got to win this election, and we can't win it with you." "You think you can't ?" said Lorne.
"You see, old man," Horace Williams put in, "you didn't get rid of that save-the-Empire-or-die scheme of yours soon enough.

People got to think you meant something by it." "I shall never get rid of it," Lorne returned simply, and the others looked at one another.
"The popular idea seems to be," said Mr Farquharson judicially, "that you would not hesitate to put Canada to some material loss, or at least to postpone her development in various important directions, for the sake of the imperial connection." "Wasn't that," Lorne asked him, "what, six months ago, you were all prepared to do ?" "Oh, no," said Bingham, with the air of repudiating for everybody concerned.

"Not for a cent.