towards Mary Lyster, primarily, that he was moving, Elizabeth
soon discovered; it was towards herself. She braced herself for the
encounter.

The greeting was soon over. After she herself had said the appropriate
things, Lady Tranmore had time to notice that Mary Lyster, whose turn
came next, did not attempt to say them. She looked, indeed, unusually
handsome and animated; Lady Tranmore was certain that Cliffe had noticed
as much, at his first sight of her. But the remarks she omitted showed
how minute and recent was their knowledge of each other's movements.
Cliffe himself gave a first impression of high spirits. He declared that
London was more agreeable than he had ever known it, and that after his
three years' absence nobody looked a day older. Then he inquired after
Ashe.

Lady Tranmore replied that William was well, but hard-worked; she hoped
to persuade him to get a few days abroad at Whitsuntide. Her manner was
quiet, without a trace of either discourtesy or effusion. Cliffe began
to twist his mustache, a sign she knew well. It meant that he was in
truth both irritable and nervous.

"You think they'll last till Whitsuntide?"

"The government?" she said, smiling. "Certainly--and beyond."

"I give them three weeks," said Cliffe, twisting anew, with a vigor that
gave her a positive physical sympathy with the tortured mustache. "There
will be some papers out to-morrow that will be a bomb-shell."

"About America? Oh, they have been blown up so often! You, for instance,
have been doing your best--for months."

His perfunctory laugh answered the mockery of her charming eyes.

"Well--I wish I could make William hear reason."

Lady Tranmore held herself stiffly. The Christian name seemed to her an
offence. It was true that in old days he and Cliffe had been on those
terms. Now--it was a piece of bad taste.

"Probably what is reason to you is folly to him," she said, dryly.

"No, no!--he <i>knows</i>," said Cliffe, with impatience. "The others don't.
Parham is more impossible--more crassly, grossly ignorant!" He lifted
hands and eyes in protest. "But Ashe, of course, is another matter
altogether."

"Well, go and see him--go and talk to him!" said Lady Tranmore, still
mocking. "There are no lions in the way."

"None," said Cliffe. "As a matter of fact, Lady Kitty has asked me to
luncheon. But does one find Ashe himself in the middle of the day?"

At the mention of her daughter-in-law Elizabeth made an invo