ounds, but he must bring me eight
hundred in cash and it must not be borrowed money. That ought to
satisfy him. He must know quite well that I could get three thousand
pounds for it in the open market."

"These fellows never take any notice of that," Segerson remarked.
"Ungrateful beggars, all of them. I'll tell him what you say, Lady
Jane."

"Thank you."

"Anything else?" the young man asked, showing a disposition to linger.

"Nothing, thanks, until to-morrow morning." There was even then a slight
unwillingness in his departure, which provoked a smile from Lady Jane as
the door closed.

"The young men of to-day are terribly spoilt," she said. "He expected
to be asked to lunch."

"I am glad he wasn't," Tallente observed.

She laughed.

"Why not? He is quite a nice young man."

"No doubt," Tallente agreed, without conviction. "However, I hate young
men and I want to talk to you."

"Young men are tiresome sometimes," she agreed, rising from her chair.

"And older ones too, I am afraid!"

She closed her desk and he stood watching her. She was wearing an
extraordinarily masculine garb--a covert-coating riding costume, with
breeches and riding boots concealed under a long coat--but she
contrived, somehow, to remain altogether feminine. She stood for a
moment looking about her, as though wondering whether there were
anything else to be done, a capable figure, attractive because of her
earnest self-possession.

"Sarah," she called out.

The sound of a typewriter in an inner room ceased. The door was opened
and a girl appeared on the threshold.

"You won't see me again to-day unless you send up for me," her mistress
announced. "Let me have the letters to sign before five. Try and get
away early, if you can. The car is going in to Lynton. Perhaps you
would like the ride?"

"I should enjoy it very much, your ladyship," the girl replied
gratefully. "There is really very little to do this afternoon."

"You can bring the letters whenever you like, then," Lady Jane told her,
"and let Martin know that you are going in with him."

"You study your people, I see," Tallente remarked, as they strolled
together back to the house.

"I try," she assented. "I try to do what I can in my little community
here, very much as you, in a far greater way, try to study the people in
your political programme. Of course," she went on, "it is far easier
for me. The one thing I try to develop amongst them is a genuine, not
a fals