is
company," Mr. Foley remarked, rising. "On the other hand, I would very
much rather that you made your bow to my niece to-night than went to
Maxendorf."

Maraton felt suddenly a twinge of something I which was almost
compunction. Mr. Foley's face was white and tired. He had the air of
a man oppressed with anxieties which he was doing his best to conceal.

"If I can," he said, "I should like very much to see Lady Elisabeth.
Perhaps I shall be in time after our interview with Maxendorf, or
before. I will go home and change, on the chance."

The Prime Minister nodded, but his slightly relaxed expression seemed to
show that he appreciated Maraton's intention. Selingman looked after
him gloomily as he left the room.

"What devilish impulse," he muttered, "leads these men to pass into your
rotten English politics! It is like a poet trying to navigate a
dredger. Bah!"

"Need you go into that gloomy chamber again, my friend?"

Maraton shook his head.

"I have finished," he declared. "There will be no division."

"But do you never speak there?"

"Up to now I have not uttered more than a dozen words or so," Maraton
replied. "You try it yourself--try speaking to a crowd of well-dressed,
well-fed, smug units of respectability, each with his mind full of his
own affairs or the affairs of his constituency. You try it. You
wouldn't find the words stream, I can tell you."

Selingman grunted.

"And now--what now?"

"To my rooms--to my house," Maraton announced, "while I change."

"It is good. I shall talk to your secretary. I shall talk to Miss
Julia while you disappear. Shall I rob you, my friend?"

"You would rob me of a great deal if you took her away," Maraton
answered, "but--"

Selingman interrupted him with a fiercely contemptuous exclamation.

"You have it--the rotten, insular conceit of these Englishmen! You
think that she would not come? Do you think that if I were to say to
her,--'Come and listen while I make garlands of words, while I take you
through the golden doors!'--do you think that she would not put her hand
in mine? Fancy--to live in my fairy chamber, to listen while I give
shape and substance to all that I conceive--what woman would refuse!"

Maraton laughed softly as they passed out into the Palace yard.

"Try Julia," he suggested.

CHAPTER XXX

Selingman had the air of one who has achieved a personal triumph as,
with his arm in Maraton's, he led him towards the man whom they had come