art in politics?'

'There are exceptions to every rule. And the programme of the platform,
be good enough to try and understand, doesn't always apply to domestic
circumstances. If one happens to have married a very pretty and
delightful girl--'

'Oh, of course!'

'I repeat, a very pretty and charming girl, with no turn whatever for
seriousness, one can't pretend to offer an instance in one's own house
of the political woman. Once more understand--in England politics must
be pursued with gravity. We don't fly about and chatter and scream like
Frenchmen. No man will succeed with us in politics who has not a
reputation for solid earnestness. Therefore, the more stupid a man, the
better chance he has. I am naturally fond of a joke, but to get a name
for that kind of thing would ruin me. You are clever, Paula, very
clever in your way, but you don't, and you never will, understand
politics. I beg of you not to damage my prospects. Cultivate a safe
habit of speech. You may talk of the events of the season, of pigeon
shooting, of horse racing, of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and so
on; it's what everybody expects in a fashionable lady. Of course if you
_had_ been able to take up politics in earnest--but, never mind. I like
you very well as you are. How well you look in that dress!'

'I rather think you're right,' Paula remarked, after a short pause,
turning about a bracelet on her wrist. 'It'll be better if you go your
way and I go mine.'

'Precisely; though that's an unkind way of putting it.'

He sat looking at the ground, and a smile of another kind came to his
face.

'By-the-by, I've something to tell you--something that'll amuse you
very much, and that you _may_ talk about, just as much as you like.'

She made no reply.

'Your friend Egremont has come out in a new part--his first appearance
in it, absolutely, though he can't be said to have created the _role_.
He's run away with a girl from Lambeth--in fact, the girl who was just
going to be married to his right-hand man, his librarian.'

Paula looked up in astonishment: then, with indignant incredulity, she
said:

'What do you mean? What's your object in talking nonsense of that kind?'

'Again and again I have to tell you that I never talk nonsense; I am a
politician. I heard the news this morning from Tasker. The man
Grail--Egremont's librarian--was to have been married two days ago,
Monday. Last Friday night his bride-elect disappeared. She's a very