as four years older than you?'

'Oh, I knew that. No. She said _she_ knew she was all the charming
things I'd been saying, but there was only one way to prove it, and that
was to marry some one young enough to be her son. She'd noticed, she
said, that was what the _most_ attractive women did--and she named
names.'

Lady John laughed. '_You_ were too old!'

He nodded. 'Her future husband, she said, was probably just entering
Eton.'

'Exactly like her.'

'No, no.' Dick Farnborough waived the subject away. 'I wanted to see you
about the secretaryship.'

'You didn't get it then?'

'No. It's the grief of my life.'

'Oh, if you don't get one you'll get another.'

'But there _is_ only one,' he said desperately.

'Only one vacancy?'

'Only one man I'd give my ears to work for.'

Lady John smiled. 'I remember.'

He turned his sanguine head with a quick look. 'Do I _always_ talk about
Stonor? Well, it's a habit people have got into.'

'I forget, do you know Mr. Stonor personally, or'--she smiled her
good-humoured tolerant smile--'or are you just dazzled from afar?'

'Oh, I know him! The trouble is he doesn't know me. If he did he'd
realize he can't be sure of winning his election without my valuable
services.'

'Geoffrey Stonor's re-election is always a foregone conclusion.'

Farnborough banged his hand on the arm of the chair. 'That the great man
shares that opinion is precisely his weak point'--then breaking into a
pleasant smile as he made a clean breast of his hero-worship--'his
_only_ weak point!'

'Oh, you think,' inquired Lady John, lightly, 'just because the Liberals
swept the country the last time, there's danger of their----'

'How can we be sure _any_ Conservative seat is safe, after----' as Lady
John smiled and turned to her papers again. 'Forgive me,' said the young
man, with a tolerant air, 'I know you're not interested in politics
_qua_ politics. But this concerns Geoffrey Stonor.'

'And you count on my being interested in him like all the rest?'

He leaned forward. 'Lady John, I've heard the news.'

'What news?'

'That your little niece, the Scotch heiress, is going to marry him.'

'Who told you that?'

She dropped the paper she had picked up and stared. No doubt about his
having won her whole attention at last.

'Please don't mind my knowing.'

But Lady John was visibly perturbed. 'Jean had set her heart on having a
few days with just her family in the secret, before the flood