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je me dois bien cela."

      She insisted, but pronounced the thin liquid in the tall glass very disgusting when it was brought. Nick was amazed, reflecting that it was not for such a discussion as this that his mother had left him with hands in his pockets. He had been looking out, but as his eloquence flowed faster he turned to his friend, who had dropped upon a sofa with her face to the window. She had given her jacket and gloves to her maid, but had kept on her hat; and she leaned forward a little as she sat, clasping her hands together in her lap and keeping her eyes on him. The lamp, in a corner, was so thickly veiled that the room was in tempered obscurity, lighted almost equally from the street and the brilliant shop-fronts opposite. "Therefore why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper?" Nick added with a smile.

      She continued to look at him after he had spoken, then she said: "If you don't want to stand you've only to say so. You needn't give your reasons."

      "It's too kind of you to let me off that! And then I'm a tremendous fellow for reasons; that's my strong point, don't you know? I've a lot more besides those I've mentioned, done up and ready for delivery. The odd thing is that they don't always govern my behaviour. I rather think I do want to stand."

      "Then what you said just now was a speech," Julia declared.

      "A speech?"

      "The 'rot,' the humbug of the hustings."

      "No, those great truths remain, and a good many others. But an inner voice tells me I'm in for it. And it will be much more graceful to embrace this opportunity, accepting your co-operation, than to wait for some other and forfeit that advantage."

      "I shall be very glad to help you anywhere," she went on.

      "Thanks awfully," he returned, still standing there with his hands in his pockets. "You'd do it best in your own place, and I've no right to deny myself such a help."

      Julia calmly considered. "I don't do it badly."

      "Ah you're so political!"

      "Of course I am; it's the only decent thing to be. But I can only help you if you'll help yourself. I can do a good deal, but I can't do everything. If you'll work I'll work with you; but if you're going into it with your hands in your pockets I'll have nothing to do with you." Nick instantly changed the position of these members and sank into a seat with his elbows on his knees. "You're very clever, but you must really take a little trouble. Things don't drop into people's mouths."

      "I'll try—I'll try. I've a great incentive," he admitted.

      "Of course you have."

      "My mother, my poor mother." Julia breathed some vague sound and he went on: "And of course always my father, dear good man. My mother's even more political than you."

      "I daresay she is, and quite right!" said Mrs. Dallow.

      "And she can't tell me a bit more than you can what she thinks, what she believes, what she wants."

      "Pardon me, I can tell you perfectly. There's one thing I always immensely want—to keep out a Tory."

      "I see. That's a great philosophy."

      "It will do very well. And I desire the good of the country. I'm not ashamed of that."

      "And can you give me an idea of what it is—the good of the country?"

      "I know perfectly what it isn't. It isn't what the Tories want to do."

      "What do they want to do?"

      "Oh it would take me long to tell you. All sorts of trash."

      "It would take you long, and it would take them longer! All they want to do is to prevent us from doing. On our side we want to prevent them from preventing us. That's about as clearly as we all see it. So on both sides it's a beautiful, lucid, inspiring programme."

      "I don't believe in you," Mrs. Dallow replied to this, leaning back on her sofa.

      "I hope not, Julia, indeed!" He paused a moment, still with his face toward her and his elbows on his knees; then he pursued: "You're a very accomplished woman and a very zealous one; but you haven't an idea, you know—not to call an idea. What you mainly want is to be at the head of a political salon; to start one, to keep it up, to make it a success."

      "Much you know me!" Julia protested; but he could see, through the dimness, that her face spoke differently.

      "You'll have it in time, but I won't come to it," Nick went on.

      "You can't come less than you do."

      "When I say you'll have it I mean you've already got it. That's why I don't come."

      "I don't think you know what you mean," said Mrs. Dallow. "I've an idea that's as good as any of yours, any of those you've treated me to this evening, it seems to me—the simple idea that one ought to do something or other for one's country."

      "'Something or other' certainly covers all the ground. There's one thing one can always do for one's country, which is not to be afraid."

      "Afraid of what?"

      Nick Dormer waited a little, as if his idea amused him, but he presently said, "I'll tell you another time. It's very well to talk so glibly of standing," he added; "but it isn't absolutely foreign to the question that I haven't got the cash."

      "What did you do before?" she asked.

      "The first time my father paid."

      "And the other time?"

      "Oh Mr. Carteret."

      "Your expenses won't be at all large; on the contrary," said Julia.

      "They shan't be; I shall look out sharp for that. I shall have the great Hutchby."

      "Of course; but you know I want you to do it well." She paused an instant and then: "Of course you can send the bill to me."

      "Thanks awfully; you're tremendously kind. I shouldn't think of that." Nick Dormer got up as he spoke, and walked to the window again, his companion's eyes resting on him while he stood with his back to her. "I shall manage it somehow," he wound up.

      "Mr. Carteret will be delighted," said Julia.

      "I daresay, but I hate taking people's money."

      "That's nonsense—when it's for the country. Isn't it for them?"

      "When they get it back!" Nick replied, turning round and looking for his hat. "It's startlingly late; you must be tired." Mrs. Dallow made no response to this, and he pursued his quest, successful only when he reached a duskier corner of the room, to which the hat had been relegated by his cousin's maid. "Mr. Carteret will expect so much if he pays. And so would you."

      "Yes, I'm bound to say I should! I should expect a great deal—everything." And Mrs. Dallow emphasised this assertion by the way she rose erect. "If you're riding for a fall, if you're only going in to miss it, you had better stay out."

      "How can I miss it with you?" the young man smiled. She uttered a word, impatiently but indistinguishably, and he continued: "And even if I do it will have been immense fun."

      "It is immense fun," said Julia. "But the best fun is to win. If you don't——!"

      "If I don't?" he repeated as she dropped.

      "I'll never speak to you again."

      "How much you expect even when you don't pay!"

      Mrs. Dallow's rejoinder was a justification of this remark, expressing as it did the fact that should they receive on the morrow information on which she believed herself entitled to count, information tending to show how hard the Conservatives meant to fight, she should look to him to be in the field as early as herself. Sunday was a lost day; she should leave Paris on Monday.

      "Oh they'll fight it hard; they'll put up Kingsbury," said Nick, smoothing his hat. "They'll all come down—all that can get away. And Kingsbury has a very handsome wife."

      "She's not so handsome as your cousin," Julia

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