Linda that isn't wanting. I'm not
going to withdraw from politics, you bet, however disenchanted I may
be. It's because the decent, honest, educated men withdraw that
legislation and administration are left to the case-hardened rogues
... and the uneducated ... and the cranks. But don't make things
_too_ hard for me. Keep out of prison ... keep off hunger
strikes--If you're going to be man-handled by the police--Ah! _why_
wasn't _I_ there, instead of in the House? Gardner had all the
luck.... I was glad to hear he was married."

_Vivie_: "Oh you needn't be jealous of poor Frank. And he'll soon be
back in South Africa. You needn't be jealous of _any_ one. I'm all
yours--in spirit--for all time. Now we must be going: it's getting
dusk and we should be irretrievably ruined if we were locked up in
this dilapidated old palm house. Besides, I'm to meet Frank at
Praddy's studio in order to tell him the history of the last
thirteen years."

As they walked away: "You know, Michael, I'm still hoping we may be
friends without being lovers. I wonder whether Linda would get to
like me?"

At Praed's studio. Lewis Maitland Praed is looking older. He must be
now--November, 1910--about fifty-eight or fifty-nine. But he has
still a certain elegance, the look of a lesser Leighton about him.
Frank has been there already for half an hour, and the tea-table
has been, so to speak, deflowered. Vivie accepts a cup, a muffin,
and a marron glace. Then says, "Now, dear Praddy, summon your
mistress, _dons l'honnete sens du mot_, and have this tea-table
cleared so that we can have a hugely long and uninterrupted talk. I
have got to give Frank a summary of all that I've done in the past
thirteen years. Meanwhile Frank, as your record, I feel convinced,
is so blameless and normal that it could be told before any
parlour-maid, you start off whilst she is taking away the tea,
fiddling with the stove, and prolonging to the uttermost her
services to a master who has become her slave."

The parlour-maid enters, and casts more than one searching glance at
Vivie's bruised features, but performs her duties in a workmanlike
manner.

_Frank_: "My story? Oh well, it's a happy one on the whole--very
happy. Soon as the war was over, I got busy in Rhodesia and pitched
on a perfect site for a stock and fruit farm. The B.S.A. Co. was
good to me because I'd known Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Jim; and by
nineteen four I was going well, they'd made me a magistrate, and