the smile with which
she gave him her gloved hand to touch.

"Have you been out of town all these Sundays?" she said to him, with the
slightest air of soft reproach. "I am always at home, you know--I told
you so!"

She spoke with the ease of one who could afford to make whatever social
advances she pleased. Wharton excused himself, and they chatted a little
in the intervals of her perpetual greetings to the mounting crowd. She
and he had met at a famous country house in the Easter recess, and her
aristocrat's instinct for all that gives savour and sharpness to the
dish of life had marked him at once.

"Sir Hugh wants you to come down and see us in Sussex," she said,
stretching her white neck a little to speak after him, as he was at last
carried through the drawing-room door by the pressure behind him. "Will
you?"

He threw back an answer which she rather took for granted than heard,
for she nodded and smiled through it--stiffening her delicate-face the
moment afterwards to meet the timid remarks of one of her husband's
constituents--asked by Sir Hugh in the streets that afternoon--who
happened to present her with the next hand to shake.

Inside, Wharton soon found himself brought up against the ex-Secretary
of State himself, who greeted him cordially, and then bantered him a
little on his coming motion.

"Oh, I shall be interested to see what you make of it. But, you know, it
has no _actuality_--never can have--till you can agree among yourselves.
You _say_ you want the same thing--I dare say you'll all swear it on
Friday--but _really_--"

The statesman shook his head pleasantly.

"The details are a little vague still, I grant you," said Wharton,
smiling.

"And you think the principle matters twopence without the details? I
have always found that the difficulty with the Christian command, 'Be ye
perfect.' The principle doesn't trouble me at all!"

The swaying of the entering throng parted the two speakers, and for a
second or two the portly host followed with his eye the fair profile and
lightly-built figure of the younger man as they receded from him in the
crowd. It was in his mind that the next twenty years, whether this man
or that turned out to be important or no, must see an enormous
quickening of the political pace. He himself was not conscious of any
jealousy of the younger men; but neither did he see among them any
commanding personality. This young fellow, with his vivacity, his
energy, and his