was a member of the London County Council, and was a chairman
of a County Council in his own part of the country. He was a strong
advocate of Local Option, and wore at his courageous buttonhole the blue
ribbon which proclaimed his devotion to the cause of temperance. He was
an honoured and a sincere member of the League of Social Purity. He was
much interested in the increase of open spaces and recreation grounds
for the London poor. He was an unaffectedly good young man, and if
people sometimes smiled quietly at him, they respected him all the same.
Soame Rivers had said of him that Providence had invented him to be the
chief living argument in favour of the principle of hereditary
legislation.

Sir Lionel Rainey and Lord Courtreeve did not get on at all. Sir Lionel
had too many odd and high-flavoured anecdotes about life in Siam to be a
congenial neighbour for the champion of social purity. He had a way,
too, of referring everything to the lower instincts of man, and roughly
declining to reckon in the least idea of any of man's, or woman's,
higher qualities. Therefore, the Dictator did not take to him any more
than Lord Courtreeve did; and Sir Rupert began to think that his
luncheon party was not well mixed. Soame Rivers saw it too, and was
determined to get the company out of Siam.

'Do you find London society much changed since you were here last, Sir
Lionel?' he asked.

'Didn't come to London to study society,' Sir Lionel answered, somewhat
gruffly, for he thought there was much more to be said about Siam. 'I
mean in that sort of way. I want to get some notions to take back to the
King of Siam.'

'But might it not interest his Majesty to know of any change, if there
were any, in London society during that time?' Rivers blandly asked.

'No, sir. His Majesty never was in England, and he could not be expected
to take any interest in the small and superficial changes made in the
tone or the talk of society during a few years. You might as well expect
him to be interested in the fact that whereas when I was here last the
ladies wore eel-skin dresses, now they wear full skirts, and some of
them, I am told, wear a divided skirt.'

'But I thought such changes of fashion might interest the King,' Rivers
remarked with an elaborate meekness.

'The King, sir, does not care about divided skirts,' Sir Lionel
answered, with scorn and resentment in his voice.

'I must confess,' the Dictator said, glad to be free of Siam,