g on a
bantering warfare. Involuntarily Ashe watched for the recognition
between him and Kitty. Did Kitty's lips move? Was there a signal? If so,
it passed like a flash; Kitty hurried away, and Ashe was left, haughtily
furious with himself that, for the first time in his life, he had played
the spy.

He turned in his discomfort to leave the dancing-room. He himself
enjoyed society frankly enough. Especially since his marriage had he
found the companionship of agreeable women delightful. He went
instinctively to seek it, and drive out this nonsense from his mind.
Just inside the larger drawing-room, however, he came across Mary
Lyster, sitting in a corner apparently alone. Mary greeted him, but
with an evident coldness. Her manner brought back all the preoccupations
of his walk from the House. In spite of her small cordiality, he sat
down beside her, wondering with a vicarious compunction at what point
her fortunes might be, and how Kitty's proceedings might have already
affected them. But he had not yet succeeded in thawing her when a voice
behind him said:

"This is my dance, I think, Miss Lyster. Where shall we sit it out?"

Ashe moved at once. Mary looked up, hesitated visibly, then rose and
took Geoffrey Cliffe's arm.

"Just read your remarks this evening," said Cliffe to Ashe. "Well, now,
I suppose to-morrow will see your ship in port?"

For it was reasonably expected that the morrow would see the American
agreement ratified by a substantial ministerial majority.

"Certainly. But you may at least reflect that you have lost us a deal of
time."

"And now you slay us," said Cliffe. "Ah, well--'<i>dulce et decorum est</i>,'
etcetera."

"Don't imagine that you'll get many of the honors of martyrdom," laughed
Ashe--in Cliffe's eyes an offensive and triumphant figure, as he leaned
carelessly upon a marble pedestal that carried a bust of Horace Walpole.

"Why?" Cliffe's hand had gone instinctively to his mustache. Mary had
dropped his arm, and now stood quietly beside him, pale and somewhat
jaded, her fine eyes travelling between the speakers.

"Why? Because the heresies have no martyrs. The halo is for the true
Church!"

"H'm!" said Cliffe, with a reflective sneer. "I suppose you mean for the
successful?"

"Do I?" said Ashe, with nonchalance. "Aren't the true Church the people
who are justified by the event?"

"The orthodox like to think so," said Cliffe. "But the heretics have a
way of coming out top."