who came here and to Narroways wanted to paint him. I used to
think it would make him a spoiled little ape. But nothing spoiled him."

Miss Lyster smiled. "You know, Cousin Elizabeth--and you may as well
confess it at once!--that you think him the ablest, handsomest, and
charmingest of men!"

"Of course I do," said Lady Tranmore, calmly. "I am certain,
moreover--now--that he will be Prime Minister. And as for idleness,
that, of course, is only a <i>facon de parler</i>. He has worked hard enough
at the things which please him."

"There--you see!" said Mary Lyster, laughing.

"Not politics, anyway," said the elder lady, reflectively. "He went
into the House to please me, because I was a fool and wanted to see
him there. But I must say when his constituents turned him out last
year I thought they would have been a mean-spirited set if they
hadn't. They knew very well he'd never done a stroke for them.
Attendances--divisions--perfectly scandalous!"

"Well, here he is, in triumphantly for somewhere else--with all sorts of
delightful prospects!"

Lady Tranmore sighed. Her white fingers paused in their task.

"That, of course, is because--now--he's a personage. Everything'll be
made easy for him now. My dear Mary, they talk of England's being a
democracy!"

The speaker raised her handsome shoulders; then, as though to shake off
thoughts of loss and grief which had suddenly assailed her, she abruptly
changed the subject.

"Well--work or no work--the first thing we've got to do is to marry
him."

She looked up sharply. But not the smallest tremor could she detect in
Mary Lyster's gently moving hand. There was, however, no reply to her
remark.

"Don't you agree, Polly?" said Lady Tranmore, smiling.

Her smile--which still gave great beauty to her face--was charming, but
a little sly, as she observed her companion.

"Why, of course," said Miss Lyster, inclining her head to one side that
she might judge the effect of some green shades she had just put in.
"But that surely will be made easy for him, too."

"Well, after all, the girls can't propose! And I never saw him take any
interest in a girl yet--outside his own family, of course," added Lady
Tranmore, hastily.

"No--he does certainly devote himself to the married women," replied
Miss Lyster, in the half-absent tone of one more truly interested in her
embroidery than in the conversation.

"He would sooner have an hour with Madame d'Estrees than a week with t