Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina,
however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne,
after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own and
her husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attempt
some feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was Lord
Alresford's gout?

Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by the
political situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but he
thought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session.
Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He feared
that the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But
_he_ had done his best.

Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been the
recipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicing
over the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford," from any
further chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talk
made her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of being
indiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odd
disjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her craving
idealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed at
her, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends of
eternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task of
Sisyphus; but she would not let it alone.

"I do not agree with you," she said with cold shyness in answer to Lady
Selina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doing
very well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long."

Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders.

"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with the
indulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think!
The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end of
September. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented?
_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believes
so _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favour
of doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have been
easily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no good
supposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!"

"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To those
who knew its author well, the monosyllable cou