who is strong enough and fearless enough."

Mr. Brott glanced towards his twinkling eyes.

"Do you happen to know what my politics are?" he asked.

Mr. Sabin hesitated.

"Your views, I know, are advanced," he said. "For the rest I have
been abroad for years. I have lost touch a little with affairs in this
country."

"I am afraid," Mr. Brott said, "that I shall shock you. You are an
aristocrat of the aristocrats, I a democrat of the democrats. The people
are the only masters whom I own. They first sent me to Parliament."

"Yet," Mr. Sabin remarked, "you are, I understand, in the Cabinet."

Mr. Brott glanced for a moment around. The Prime Minister was somewhere
in the winter gardens.

"That," he declared, "is an accident. I happened to be the only man
available who could do the work when Lord Kilbrooke died. I am telling
you only what is an open secret. But I am afraid I am boring you. Shall
we join the others?"

"Not unless you yourself are anxious to," Mr. Sabin begged. "It is
scarcely fair to detain you talking to an old man when there are so many
charming women here. But I should be sorry for you to think me hidebound
in my prejudices. You must remember that the Revolution decimated my
family. It was a long time ago, but the horror of it is still a live
thing."

"Yet it was the natural outcome," Mr. Brott said, "of the things
which went before. Such hideous misgovernment as generations of your
countrymen had suffered was logically bound to bring its own reprisal."

"There is truth in what you say," Mr. Sabin admitted. He did not want to
talk about the French Revolution.

"You are a stranger in London, are you not?" Mr. Brott asked.

"I feel myself one," Mr. Sabin answered. "I have been away for a few
years, and I do not think that there is a city in the world where social
changes are so rapid. I should perhaps except the cities of the country
from which I have come. But then America is a universe of itself."

For an instant Mr. Brott gave signs of the man underneath. The air of
polite interest had left his face. He glanced swiftly and keenly at his
companion. Mr. Sabin's expression was immutable. It was he who scored,
for he marked the change, whilst Mr. Brott could not be sure whether he
had noticed it or not.

"You have been living in America, then?"

"For several years--yes."

"It is a country," Mr. Brott said, "which I am particularly anxious to
visit. I see my chances, however, grow fewer an