e pupil. If you were a
failure we should both be bitterly disappointed. Don't you see? And as
for leaving us--why need you? We should miss you horribly. You've never
been quite our paid servant. And now you're something like our son."
Tears started in the sweet lady's clear eyes. "Even if you did go to
your own chambers, I shouldn't let our new secretary have this
room"--they were in what the household called "the office"--really
Paul's luxuriously furnished private sitting room, which contained his
own little treasures of books and pictures and bits of china and glass
accumulated during the six years of easeful life--"He will have the
print room, which nobody uses from one year's end to another, and which
is far more convenient for the street door. And the same at Drane's
Court. So when you no longer work for us, my dear boy, our home will be
yours, as long as you're content to stay, just because we love you."

Her hand was on his shoulder and his head was bent. "God grant," said
he, "that I may be worthy of your love."

He looked up and met her eyes. Her hand was still on his shoulder. Then
very simply he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

He told his Princess all about it. She listened with dewy eyes. "Ah,
Paul," she said. "That 'precious seeing' of love--I never had it till
you came. I was blind. I never knew that there were such beautiful
souls as Ursula Winwood in the world."

"Dear, how I love you for saying that!" cried Paul.

"But it's true."

"That is why," said he.

So the happiest young man in London worked and danced through the
season, knowing that the day of emancipation was at hand. His
transference from the Winwoods to the League was fixed for October i.
He made great plans for an extension of the League's, activities,
dreamed of a palace for headquarters with the banner of St. George
flying proudly over it, an object-lesson for the nation. One day in
July while he was waiting for Colonel Winwood in the lobby of the House
of Commons, Frank Ayres stopped in the middle of a busy rush and shook
hands.

"Been down to Hickney Heath again? I would if I were you. Rouse 'em up."

As the words of a Chief Whip are apt to be significant, Paul closeted
himself with the President of the Hickney Heath Lodge, who called the
Secretary of the local Conservative Association to the interview. The
result was that Paul was invited to speak at an anti-Budget meeting
convened by the Association. He spoke, and