niece with an evident wish to be kind. Alice, too, was almost
affectionate, and Uncle Ewen came hurrying out of his study to greet
her. But Connie had not been an hour in the house before she had
perceived that everybody in it was preoccupied and unhappy; unless,
indeed, it were Alice, who had evidently private thoughts of her own,
which, to a certain extent, released her from the family worries.

What was the matter? She was determined to know.

It happened that she and Alice went up to bed together. Nora had been
closeted with her father in the little schoolroom on the ground floor,
since nine o'clock, and when Connie proposed to look in and wish them
good night, Alice said uncomfortably--

"Better not. They're--they're very busy."

Connie ruminated. At the top of the stairs, she turned--

"Look here--do come in to me, and have a talk!"

Alice agreed, after a moment's hesitation. There had never been any
beginnings of intimacy between her and Connie, and she took Connie's
advance awkwardly.

The two girls were however soon seated in Connie's room, where a blazing
fire defied the sudden cold of a raw and bleak October. The light danced
on Alice's beady black eyes, and arched brows, on her thin but very red
lips, on the bright patch of colour in each cheek. She was more than
ever like a Watteau sketch in black chalk, heightened with red, and the
dress she wore, cut after the pattern of an eighteenth-century sacque,
according to an Oxford fashion of that day, fell in admirably with the
natural effect. Connie had very soon taken off her tea-gown, loosened
and shaken out her hair, and put on a white garment in which she felt at
ease. Alice noticed, as Nora had done, that Connie was fast becoming a
beauty; but whether the indisputable fact was to be welcomed or resented
had still to be decided.

Connie had no sooner settled herself on the small sofa she had managed
to fit into her room than she sprang up again.

"Stupid!--where are those letters!" She rummaged in various drawers and
bags, hit upon what she wanted, after an impetuous hunt, and returned
to the fire.

"Do you know I think Mr. Pryce has a good chance of that post? I got
this to-day."

She held out a letter, smiling. Alice flushed and took it. It was from
Lord Glaramara, and it concerned that same post in the Conservative
Central Office on which Herbert Pryce had had his eyes for some time.
The man holding it had been "going" for months, but was now