th him. 'You can't go on like this for much longer, you
know. You had better take a rest. There's no need for all this work.'

'There is,' replied Drake. 'I want to clear off arrears, because I am not
sure that I oughtn't to go out again to Matanga. You see I can do it
quite easily. Parliament meets in a fortnight to vote supplies. It will
adjourn, it's thought, three weeks later. I could leave England in
September, and get back easily in time for the regular sessions.'

'But why should you go at all?' asked Fielding. 'You haven't been back a
year as it is.'

'I know,' said Drake slowly. 'But it seems to me that it would inspire
confidence, and that sort of thing, if one of us were out there as much
as possible. You see, thanks to you and Burl, I can leave everything
here quite safely,' and he returned to his desk as though the discussion
was ended.

A week later he received an invitation to dinner from Mr. Le Mesurier,
and the invitation was so worded that he could find no becoming excuse to
decline it. The dinner was given, the note stated, in order to celebrate
his victory at Bentbridge. Fielding and he went together, and when they
arrived, they found Mallinson taking off his coat in the hall.

'Where have you been all this time?' asked Fielding. 'I haven't seen
you about.'

'At Clapham,' replied Mallinson.

'I don't know it.'

'It's a suburb to the south-west.'

'That's why.'

'My mother lives there.'

'I am very sorry.'

The words might have been intended to convey either an apology, or an
expression of sympathy with his mother. Mallinson preferred to take them
in the former sense. 'I took my wife down there,' he continued. 'She
wanted more quiet than one can get in London.'

Fielding noticed, however, that Clapham quiet had not materially
benefited Mrs. Mallinson. He commented on her worn appearance to Mrs.
Willoughby, when they were seated at the dinner-table.

'She has been staying, she tells me, with her husband's people,' replied
Mrs. Willoughby. 'I fancy she finds them trying.'

Clarice was placed next to Drake, upon the opposite side to Mrs.
Willoughby, and out of ear-shot, and was endeavouring to talk to him
indifferently. 'You never take a holiday, I suppose. Where are you going
this year?' she asked.

'To Matanga,' said Drake.

'Matanga! Oh no.' The words slipped from her lips before she was able to
check them.

'I think that my place is there,' returned Drake, 'at all events for t