in eastern Russia, you
know, long before the Trans-Siberian railway was built, and she's
enormously interested in those parts. In any case I should like to see
her again."

"She does not see many people nowadays," said Cicely; "I fancy she is
breaking up rather. She was very fond of the son who went down, you
know."

"She has seen a great many of the things she cared for go down," said
Yeovil; "it is a sad old life that is left to her, when one thinks of all
that the past has been to her, of the part she used to play in the world,
the work she used to get through. It used to seem as though she could
never grow old, as if she would die standing up, with some unfinished
command on her lips. And now I suppose her tragedy is that she has grown
old, bitterly old, and cannot die."

Cicely was silent for a moment, and seemed about to leave the room. Then
she turned back and said:

"I don't think I would say anything about Gorla to her if I were you."

"It would not have occurred to me to drag her name into our
conversation," said Yeovil coldly, "but in any case the accounts of her
dancing performance will have reached Torywood through the
newspapers--also the record of your racially-blended supper-party."

Cicely said nothing. She knew that by last night's affair she had
definitely identified herself in public opinion with the Shalem clique,
and that many of her old friends would look on her with distrust and
suspicion on that account. It was unfortunate, but she reckoned it a
lesser evil than tearing herself away from her London life, its successes
and pleasures and possibilities. These social dislocations and severing
of friendships were to be looked for after any great and violent change
in State affairs. It was Yeovil's attitude that really troubled her; she
would not give way to his prejudices and accept his point of view, but
she knew that a victory that involved estrangement from him would only
bring a mockery of happiness. She still hoped that he would come round
to an acceptance of established facts and deaden his political malaise in
the absorbing distraction of field sports. The visit to Torywood was a
misfortune; it might just turn the balance in the undesired direction.
Only a few weeks of late summer and early autumn remained before the
hunting season, and its preparations would be at hand, and Yeovil might
be caught in the meshes of an old enthusiasm; in those few weeks,
however, he might be f