by this new aspect--wavering and remote--as
though some hidden grief emerged and vanished. He had the haggard air of
a man who scarcely sleeps. All that she had ever heard of the French
affair rushed through her mind, stirring there an angry curiosity.

These impressions took, however, but a few minutes, while they exchanged
some conventionalities. Then Cliffe said, scrutinizing the face and form
beside him with that intentness which, from him, was more generally
taken as compliment than offence:

"Will you excuse the remark? There are no women who keep their first
freshness like Englishwomen."

"Thank you. If we feel fresh, I suppose we look it. As for you, you
clearly want a rest."

"No time to think of it, then; I have come home to fight--all I know; to
make myself as odious as possible."

Mary laughed.

"You have been doing that so long. Why not try the opposite?"

Cliffe looked at her sharply.

"You think I have made a failure of it?"

"Not at all. You have made everybody furiously uncomfortable, and you
see how civil even the Radical papers are to you."

"Yes. What fools!" said Cliffe, shortly. "They'll soon leave that off.
Just now I'm a stick to beat the government with. But you don't believe
I shall carry my point?"

The point concerned a particular detail in a pending negotiation with
the United States. Cliffe had been denouncing the government for what he
conceived to be their coming retreat before American demands. America,
according to him, had been playing the bully; and English interests were
being betrayed.

Mary considered.

"I think you will have to change your tactics."

"Dictate them, then."

He bent forward, with that sudden change of manner, that courteous
sweetness of tone and gesture, which few women could resist. Mary's
heart, seasoned though it were, felt a charming flutter. She talked, and
she talked well. She had no independence of mind, and very little real
knowledge; but she had an excellent reporter's ability; she knew what to
remember, and how to tell it. Cliffe listened to her attentively,
acknowledging to himself the while that she had certainly gained. She
was a far more definite personality than she had been when he last knew
her; and her self-possession, her trained manner, rested him. Thank
Heaven, she was not a clever woman--how he detested the breed! But she
was a useful one. And the smiling commonplace into which she fell so
often was positively welcome to him