ly has turned slightly pale. The weariness is out of her
manner.

"Trust the instinct of an old man, my dear. There's a woman in it. We
old parliamentary hands are very shrewd, you know, even in these things.
Some one is playing the devil with Jack--with Harding."

Sir John is now putting on his gloves again and gathering up his
parliamentary papers from the parliamentary paper stand on the left.

He cannot see the change in Lady Cicely's face. He is not meant to see
it. But even the little girls in the tenth row of the gallery are wise.

He goes on. "Talk to Harding. Get it out of him. You women can do these
things. Find out what the trouble is and let me know. I must help him."
(A pause. Sir John is speaking almost to himself--and the gallery.) "I
promised his mother when she sent him home, sent him to England, that I
would."

Lady Cicely speaks. "You knew Mr. Harding's mother very well?"

Sir John: "Very well."

"That was long ago, wasn't it?"

"Long ago."

"Was she married then?"

"No, not then."

"Here in London?"

"Yes, in London. I was only a barrister then with my way to make and she
a famous beauty." (Sir John is speaking with a forced levity that
doesn't deceive even the ushers.) "She married Harding of the Guards.
They went to India. And there he spent her fortune--and broke her
heart." Sir John sighs.

"You have seen her since?"

"Never."

"She has never written you?"

"Only once. She sent her boy home and wrote to me for help. That was how
I took him as my secretary."

"And that was why he came to us in Italy two years ago, just after our
marriage."

"Yes, that was why."

"Does Mr. Harding know?"

"Know what?"

"That you--knew his mother?"

Sir John shakes his head. "I have never talked with him about his
mother's early life."

The stage clock on the mantelpiece begins to strike. Sir John lets it
strike up to four or five, and then says, "There, eight o'clock. I must
go. I shall be late at the House. Good-by."

He moves over to Lady Cicely and kisses her. There is softness in his
manner--such softness that he forgets the bundle of parliamentary papers
that he had laid down. Everybody can see that he has forgotten them.
They were right there under his very eye.

Sir John goes out.

Lady Cicely stands looking fixedly at the fire. She speaks out loud to
herself. "How his voice changed--twenty-five years ago--so long as
that--I wonder if Jack knows."

There is heard the r