lf, a little plainer. It was
the second time in three weeks that Lady Selina had asked him, and he
was well aware that several other men at this dinner-table, of about the
same standing and prospects as himself, would be very glad to be in his
place. Lady Selina, though she was unmarried, and not particularly
handsome or particularly charming, was a personage--and knew it. As the
mistress of her father's various fine houses, and the kinswoman of half
the great families of England, she had ample social opportunities, and
made, on the whole, clever use of them. She was not exactly popular, but
in her day she had been extremely useful to many, and her invitations
were prized. Wharton had been introduced to her at the beginning of
this, his second session, had adopted with her the easy, aggressive,
"personal" manner--which, on the whole, was his natural manner towards
women--and had found it immediately successful.

When he had replaced his pocket-book, he found himself approached by a
man on his own side of the table, a member of Parliament like himself,
with whom he was on moderately friendly terms.

"Your motion comes on next Friday, I think," said the new-comer.

Wharton nodded.

"It'll be a beastly queer division," said the other--"a precious lot of
cross-voting."

"That'll be the way with that kind of question for a good while to
come--don't you think"--said Wharton, smiling, "till we get a complete
reorganisation of parties?"

As he leaned back in his chair, enjoying his cigarette, his half-shut
eyes behind the curls of smoke made a good-humoured but contemptuous
study of his companion.

Mr. Bateson was a young manufacturer, recently returned to Parliament,
and newly married. He had an open, ruddy face, spoilt by an expression
of chronic perplexity, which was almost fretfulness. Not that the
countenance was without shrewdness; but it suggested that the man had
ambitions far beyond his powers of performance, and already knew himself
to be inadequate.

"Well, I shouldn't wonder if you get a considerable vote," he resumed,
after a pause; "it's like women's suffrage. People will go on voting for
this kind of thing, till there seems a chance of getting it. _Then_!"

"Ah, well!" said Wharton, easily, "I see we shan't get _you_."

"_I_!--vote for an eight-hours day, by local and trade option! In my
opinion I might as well vote for striking the flag on the British Empire
at once! It would be the death-knell of al