who
had always made it a point to know everybody, and who was as friendly
with Sir Rupert as with the chieftains of his own party. Sir Rupert had
expressed to Wynter a wish to meet Ericson; so when the dinner came off
he found himself placed at the right-hand side of Ericson, who was at
his host's right-hand side. The two men got on well from the first. Sir
Rupert was attracted by the fresh unselfishness of Ericson, by something
still youthful, still simple, in a man who had done and endured so much,
and he made himself agreeable, as he only knew how, to his neighbour.
Ericson, for his part, was frankly pleased with Sir Rupert. He was a
little surprised, perhaps, at first to find that Sir Rupert's opinions
coincided so largely with his own; that their views of government agreed
on so many important particulars. He did not at first discover that it
was Ericson's unconstitutional act in enforcing his reforms, rather than
the actual reforms themselves, that aroused Sir Rupert's admiration. Sir
Rupert was a good talker, a master of the manipulation of words, knowing
exactly how much to say in order to convey to the mind of his listener a
very decided impression without actually committing himself to any
pledged opinion. Ericson was a shrewd man, but in such delicate
dialectic he was not a match for a man like Sir Rupert.

Sir Rupert asked the Dictator to dinner, and the Dictator went to the
great house in Queen's Gate and was presented to Helena, and was placed
next to her at dinner, and thought her very pretty and original and
attractive, and enjoyed himself very much. He found himself, to his
half-unconscious surprise, still young enough and human enough to be
pleased with the attention people were paying him--above all, that he
was still young enough and human enough to be pleased with the very
obvious homage of a charming young woman. For Helena's homage was very
obvious indeed. Accustomed always to do what she pleased, and say what
she pleased, Helena, at three-and-twenty, had a frankness of manner, a
straightforwardness of speech, which her friends called original and her
detractors called audacious. She would argue, unabashed, with the great
leader of the party on some high point of foreign policy; she would talk
to the great chieftain of Opposition as if he were her elder brother.
People who did not understand her said that she was forward, that she
had no reserve; even people who understood her, or thought they did