"I can ask Alice and another man."

"I want to see you alone," he insisted, "for the first time, at any rate."

"Then will you take me to that little place you told me of in Soho?" she suggested. "I don't want a whole crowd to know that I am in town just yet. Don't think that it sounds vain, but people have such a habit of almost carrying one off one's feet. I want to prowl about London and do ordinary things. One or two theatres, perhaps, but no dinner parties.

I shan't stay long, I don't suppose. As soon as I hear from Mr.

Segerson that the snow has gone and that terrible north wind has died away, I know I shall be wanting to get back."

"You are very conscientious about your work there," he complained.

"Don't you ever realise that you may have an even more important mission here?"

For a single moment she seemed troubled. Her manner, when she spoke, had lost something of its calm graciousness.

"Really?" she said. "Well, you must tell me all about it to-morrow night. I shall wear a hat and you must not order the dinner beforehand.

I don't mind your ordering the table, because I like a corner, but we must sail into the place just like any other two wanderers. It is agreed?"

He bent over her fingers. His good angel and his instinct of sensibility, which was always appraising her att.i.tude towards him, prompted his studied farewell.

"You will let yourself out?" she begged. "I have taken off my cloak and I could not face that wind."

"Of course," he answered. "I shall call for you at a quarter to eight to-morrow night. I only wish I could make you understand what it means to have that to look forward to."

"If you can make me believe that," she answered gravely, "perhaps I shall be glad that I have come."

CHAPTER VIII

Whilst Tallente, rejuvenated, and with a wonderful sense of well-being at the back of his mind, was on his feet in the House of Commons on the following afternoon, leading an unexpected attack against the unfortunate Government, Dartrey sat at tea in Nora's study. Nora, who had had a very busy day, was leaning back in her chair, well content though a little fatigued. Dartrey, who had forgotten his lunch in the stress of work, was devoting himself to the m.u.f.fins.

"While I think of it," he said, "let me thank you for playing hostess so charmingly the other night."

She made him a little bow.

"Your dinner party was a great success."

"Was it?" he murmured, a little doubtfully. "I am not quite so sure. I can't seem to get at Tallente, somehow."

"He is doing his work well, isn't he?"

"The mechanical side of it is most satisfactory," Dartrey confessed.

"He is the most perfect Parliamentary machine that was ever evolved."

"Surely that is exactly what you want? You were always complaining that there was no one to bring the stragglers into line."

"For the present," Dartrey admitted, "Tallente is doing excellently. I wish, though, that I could see a little farther into the future."

"Tell me exactly what fault you find with him?" Nora persisted.

"He lacks enthusiasm already. He makes none of the mistakes which are coincident with genius and he is a little intolerant. He takes no trouble to adapt himself to varying views, he has a fine, broad outlook, but no man can see into every corner of the earth, and what is outside his outlook does not exist."

"Anything else?"

"He is not happy in his work. There is something wanting in his scheme of life. I have built a ladder for him to climb. I have given him the chance of becoming the greatest statesman of to-day. One would think that he had some other ambition."

Nora sighed. She looked across at her visitor a little diffidently.

"I can help you to understand Andrew Tallente," she declared. "His condition is the greatest of all tributes to my s.e.x. He has had an unhappy married life. From forty to fifty he has borne it philosophically as a man may. Now the reaction has come. With the first dim approach of age, he becomes suddenly terrified for the things he is missing."

Dartrey was thoughtful.

"I dare say you are right," he admitted, "but if he needs an Aspasia, surely she could be found?"

Nora rested her head upon her fingers. She seemed to be watching intently the dancing flames. Her broad, womanly forehead was troubled, her soft brown eyes pensive.

"He is fifty years old," she said. "It is rather an anomalous age. At fifty a man's taste is almost hypercritical and his attraction to my s.e.x is on the wane. No, the problem isn't so easy."

Dartrey had finished tea and was feeling for his cigarette case.

"I rather fancied, Nora, that he was attracted by you."

"Well, he isn't, then," she replied, with a smile.

"He was rather by way of thinking that he was, the other night, but that was simply because he was in a curiously unsettled state and he felt that I was sympathetic."

"You are a very clever woman, Nora," he said, looking across at her.

"You could make him care for you if you chose."

"Is that to be my sacrifice to the cause?" she asked. "Am I to give my soul to its wrong keeper, that our party may flourish?"

"You don't like Tallente?"

"I like him immensely," she contradicted vigorously. "If I weren't hopelessly in love with some one else, I could find it perfectly easy to try and make life a different place for him."

He looked at her with trouble in his kind eyes. It was as though he had suddenly stumbled upon a tragedy.

"I have never guessed this about you, Nora," he murmured.

"You are not observant of small things," she answered, a little bitterly.

"Who is the man?"

"That I shall not tell you."

"Do I know him?"

"Less, I should say, than any one of your acquaintance."

He was silent for a moment or two. Then it chanced that the telephone rang for him, with a message from the House of Commons. He gave some instructions to his secretary.