est. He had never attended
a primary meeting in his life, always having been too busy with his own
career to realise this duty, and too nomadic in his habits to acquire a
personal interest in local affairs. To him politics was the pastime of
the rich, who could afford it, or the business of the poor, who used it
as a means of support. The very word, as Emmet used it, conveyed an
impression to his mind like that which Borrow received when his gipsy
friends mentioned the mysterious "business of Egypt." He made a
comment that drew his companion on to speak of Cobbens with his former
bitterness, though in a smothered tone, as if he feared some chance
listener in the car that was now filling rapidly.

"But you'll find nothing doing in the park," Emmet said presently, with
an abrupt change of subject. "The season has just closed, and there is
n't a person on the place."

"So much the better," Leigh answered. "I 'm not in the mood for
merry-go-rounds and picnickers."

The seat became crowded to the point of discomfort, and Emmet, with a
significant look, went back to join the conductor on the platform.
Leigh interpreted the look to mean that some of the political business
on which he was bent lay with this man, and their earnest conversation
confirmed his impression. Left alone, he took Emmet's place at the end
of the seat and began to watch the passing scene. The car swung down a
steep street and crossed a long bridge over the river, from which he
had a view of a wide blue basin, where a score of little yachts lay
motionless as floating gulls. In the other direction several sand-bars
showed brown, ribbed backs, sparsely covered with coarse grass, and
Leigh wished that he could find himself dropped upon one of them, that
he might have the pleasure of wading ashore. The fancy put him in a
better frame of mind, and the afternoon began to brighten. In front of
him the open country beckoned, and before committing himself to it, he
turned for a farewell look at Warwick. The city stood upon the high
river wall, roof above roof shimmering in the hazy light, every line of
chimney, spire, and tower softened by the distance, like a blurred
etching against a pale blue background.

The country was similar to that through which he had passed the day
before, only now the quality of the air was a little more drowsy, the
quietude more absolute, and he awoke to the fact that the Indian Summer
had begun. The car had gone about