while he talked to Mary Probyn he counted the rounds. There were
twenty to the mile. Every time he turned he had Miss Tarrant full in
view, which distracted him from Mary Probyn. Mary didn't seem to
mind. She was a nice woman; plain (in a nice, refined sort of way),
and she knew it, and was nice to you whether you talked to her or
not. He did not find it difficult to talk to Mary: she was
interested in Miss Tarrant; she admired her, but not uncritically.

"She is the least bit too deliberate," was her comment. "She
calculates her effects."

"She does," said Straker, "so that she never misses one of them.
She's a consummate artist."

He had always thought her _that_. (Ninth round.) But as her friend
he could have wished her a freer and sincerer inspiration. After
all, there _was_ something that she missed.

(Tenth round.) Miss Tarrant was still behaving beautifully to Mr.
Higginson. Mary Probyn marveled to see them getting on so well
together. (Fifteenth round.)

Reggy had left them; they were not getting on together quite so
well.

(Twentieth round.) They had risen; they were coming down the steps
into the garden; Straker heard Miss Tarrant ordering Mr. Higginson
to go and talk to Miss Probyn. He did so with an alacrity which
betrayed a certain fear of the lady he admired.

Miss Tarrant, alone with Straker, turned on him the face which had
scared Mr. Higginson. She led him in silence and at a rapid pace
down through the rose garden and out upon the lawn beyond. There she
stood still and drew a deep breath.

"You had no business," she said, "to go away like that and leave me
with him."

"Why not? Last year, if I remember----"

He paused. He remembered perfectly that last year she had contrived
pretty often to be left with him. Last year Mr. Higginson, as the
Liberal candidate for East Mickleham, seemed about to achieve a
distinction, which, owing to his defeat by an overwhelming majority,
he had unfortunately not achieved. He had not been prudent. He had
stood, not only for East Mickleham, but for a principle. It was an
unpopular principle, and he knew it, and he had stuck to it all the
same, with obstinacy and absurdity, in the teeth, the furiously
gnashing teeth, of his constituency. You couldn't detach Mr.
Higginson from his principle, and as long as he stuck to it a
parliamentary career was closed to him. It was sad, for he had a
passion for politics; he had chosen politics as the one field for
the on