bonair out of her
house. All the woman in her glowed over him.

"I'm not going to be called an adventurer," he had declared. "I shall
not submit Sophie to the indignity of trailing a despised husband after
her. I'm not going to use her rank and wealth as a stepping-stone to my
ambitions. Let me first attain an unassailable position. I shall have
owed it to you, to myself, to anybody you like--but not to my marriage.
I shall be somebody. The rest won't matter. The marriage will then be a
romantic affair, and romantic affairs are not unpopular dans le monde
ou l'on s'ennuie."

This declaration was all very well; the former part all very noble, the
latter exhibiting a knowledge of the world rather shrewd for one so
young. But when would he be able to attain his unassailable position?
Some years hence. Would Sophie Zobraska, who was only a few months
younger than he, be content to sacrifice these splendid and
irretrievable years of her youth? Ursula Winwood looked into the
immediate future, and did not see it rosy. The first step toward an
unassailable position was flight from the nest. This presupposed an
income. If the party had been in power it would not have been difficult
to find him a post. She worried herself exceedingly, for in her sweet
and unreprehensible way she was more than ever in love with Paul.
Meeting Frank Ayres one night at a large reception, she sought his
advice.

"Do you mind a wrench?" he asked. "No? Well, then--you and Colonel
Winwood send him about his business and get another secretary. Let
Savelli give all his time to his Young England League. Making him mug
up material for Winwood's speeches and write letters to constituents
about football clubs is using a razor to cut butter. His League's the
thing. It can surely afford to pay him a decent salary. If it can't
I'll see to a guarantee."

"The last thing we see, my dear Frank," she said after she had thanked
him, "is that which is right under our noses."

The next day she went to Paul full of the scheme. Had he ever thought
of it? He took her hands and smiled in his gay, irresistible way. "Of
course, dearest lady," he said frankly. "But I would have cut out my
tongue sooner than suggest it."

"I know that, my dear boy."

"And yet," said he, "I can't bear the idea of tearing myself away from
you. It seems like black ingratitude."

"It isn't. You forget that James and I have our little ambitions
too--the ambition of a master for a favourit