ce
beside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed with
sawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?"

She looked up at him a moment without speaking.

"Which means," she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?"

"No," said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--not
yet."

"You think you will get it some day?"

He raised his eyes.

"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day."

She laughed.

"You had better come over to us."

"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny you
want all the new blood you can get!"

"If you only understood your moment and your chance," she said quickly,
"you would make the opportunity and do it at once."

He looked at her aggressively.

"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said.

"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, I
have been talking to your Miss Boyce."

He started.

"Where?"

"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautiful
Socialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of the
advantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among the
poor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all much
edified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that business
will remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager to
undo a mistake." Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwell
get more and more unsatisfactory."

Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" he
said, not without a tone of contempt.

"Oh! very well," said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her white
shoulders.

He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments upon
it.

"Tell me what she said," he enquired presently.

Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recovered
himself.

"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see another
act. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina."

She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and he
went. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculate
on what the real effect of her words had been upon him.

As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and of
Raeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he told
himself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina,
but nevertheless he felt that her news might