aded, "that we might have some
interests outside our work?"

"I shouldn't think so," she answered, with an insolence which was above
his head.

"There is no reason why we shouldn't have," he persisted.

"You must tell me your tastes," she suggested. "Are you fond of grand
opera, for instance? I adore it. 'Parsifal'--'The Ring'?"

"I don't know much about music," he admitted. "My sister, who used to
live with me, plays the piano."

"We'll drop music, then," she said hastily. "Books? But I remember you
once told me that you had never read anything except detective novels,
and that you didn't care for poetry. Sports? I adore tennis and I am
rather good at golf."

"I have never wasted a single moment of my life in games," he declared
proudly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Well, you see, that leaves us rather a long way apart, outside our
work, doesn't it?"

"Even if I were prepared to admit that, which I am not," he replied,
"our work itself is surely enough to make up for all other things."

"You are quite right," she confessed. "There is nothing else worth
thinking about, worth talking about. Tell me--you had an inner Council
this afternoon--is anything decided yet about the leadership?"

He sighed a little.

"If ever there was a great cause in the world," he said, "which stands
some chance of missing complete success through senseless and low-minded
jealousy, it is ours."

"Mr. Fenn!" she exclaimed.

"I mean it," he assured her. "As you know, a chairman must be elected
this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his
hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present.
That leader is going to stop the war. He is going to bring peace to the
world. It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway."

"It is indeed," she agreed.

"Yet would you believe," he went on, leaning across the table and
neglecting for a moment his dinner, "would you believe, Miss Abbeway,
that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions
governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a
single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post."

Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in
astonishment.

"I cannot help it," she apologised. "Please forgive me. Do not think
that I am irreverent. It is not that at all. But for a moment the
absurdity of the thing overcame me. I have met some of them, you
know--Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr.