elieve me, my dear, they will do nothing," she said placidly in Mary's
ear. That placidity of hers gave her the air of being as relentless as a
Fate. "Parties are Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Let Sir Michael get into
office and he'll do nothing. Those fine young gentlemen over there will
be the office-holders of twenty years to come, the fat sinecurists and
pluralists. The people were better off when, like the lower animals,
they had no souls. They were protected by their betters. Now they are at
war with them and they are more soulless than before. Dear me, how much
fine talk I have heard that never came to anything!"

She would go on till the company had departed, and Lady Agatha would
come to her side, laughing, and ask her what horrible feudal theories
she had been propounding. The two differed on every point but one, and
that was in the mere matter of loving each other. Lady Agatha delighted
in her cousin's conservatism; and always said she would not have it
otherwise if she could. It was a _sauce piquante_ to the dish of their
daily lives.

"You shan't lead Mary astray," she would say with pretended indignation.
"If she knew the things Sir Michael has been saying about her!"

"My dear Agatha, don't _you_ go leading her astray. Politics are no
_metier_ for a woman, or they should be subservient to something else.
Go marry, Agatha, and bring children into the world, and when you have
reared them you can set up a political salon and theorise about the
regeneration of humanity. Let Miss Gray do likewise. You play with these
things when you are young--later on you will find them dry bones."

"Dear me!" Lady Agatha said, with admiration. "What a pity she isn't
with us, Mary! What a pity she is only a destructive critic! Don't
listen to her, child!"

That first evening of their meeting Sir Robin Drummond had come to
Mary's side and turned the page of her music while she sang. She had a
fresh and sweet voice, although of no great range or compass, and she
could sing, without music, song after song of the old English masters,
of Arne and Purcell and Bishop, and their delightful school.

"She brings strawberries and cream to town," said someone who was not
particularly imaginative.

Mary was conscious of the young man's scrutiny as he turned her pages,
and it embarrassed her, but she made no sign.

Afterwards she met Sir Robin many times. He was at this time the adopted
candidate for an East-End constituency, and was