were rewarded with
adequate results."

Mr. Foley forgot his depression for an instant, and smiled.

"What a theorist you are! It all depends upon the amount of insurance
you take up, whether the risk is covered. We've under-insured for many
years, thanks to that little kink in our disposition. We got a nasty
knock in South Africa and we had to pay our own loss. It did us good
for a year or two. Now the pendulum has just reached the other extreme.
We've swung back once more into our silly dream. Oh, Maraton, it's true
enough that we have great problems to face sociologically! Don't think
that I underrate them. You know I don't. But every time I sit and talk
to you, I have always at the back of my mind that other fear. . . .
Have you seen Maxendorf to-night?"

"I have just left him," Maraton replied.

"An interesting interview?"

"Very!"

Mr. Foley gripped his arm.

"My friend," he said,--"you see, I am beginning to call you that--you
have talked to-night with one of the most wonderful and the most
dangerous enemies of our country. You won't think me drivelling, will
you, or presuming, if I beg you to remember that fact, and that you are,
notwithstanding your foreign birth, one of us? You are an Englishman, a
member of the English House of Parliament."

"I do not forget that," Maraton declared gravely.

"Go and find Lady Elisabeth," Mr. Foley directed. "She was a little
hurt at the idea that you were not coming. I have a few more words to
say to Armley."

Maraton passed on into the rooms, which were only half filled. Some
fancy possessed him to pause for a moment in the spot where he had stood
alone for some time on his first visit to this house, and as he lingered
there, Lady Elisabeth came into the room, leaning on the arm of a great
lawyer. She saw him almost at once--her eyes, indeed, seemed to glance
instinctively towards the spot where he was standing. Maraton felt the
change in her expression. With a whisper she left her escort and came
immediately in his direction. He watched her, step by step. Was it his
fancy or had she lost some of the haughtiness of carriage which he had
noticed that night not many months ago; the slight coldness which in
those first moments had half attracted and half repelled him? Perhaps
it was because he was now admitted within the circle of her friends.
She came to him, at any rate, quickly, almost eagerly, and the smile
about her lips as she took his hand was one of real and