curious instinct of
selection. I care for some one else; I have cared for some one else
ever since the first night I set foot in England."

"Then I'll get her," Selingman declared. "In time I'll get her."

They all dined together at the little restaurant on the borders of Soho.
Selingman was the giver of the feast and his spirits were both wonderful
and infectious. The roar of London was recommencing. Newspapers were
being sold on the streets. The strange cruisers seemed mysteriously to
have disappeared from the Atlantic. The fleet, imprisoned no longer,
was on its way to the North Sea. There was none of the foolish,
over-exuberant rejoicing of bibulous jingoism, but a genuine, deep
spirit of thankfulness abroad. Men and women were glad but thoughtful.
There were new times to come, great promises had been made. There were
rumours everywhere of a new political Party. "We pause to-night,"
Selingman declared, "at the end of the first chapter. Almost I am
tempted to linger in this wonderful country--at any rate until the
headlines of the next are in type. You go down to the House tonight?"
"At nine o'clock," Maraton replied, glancing at the clock.

"Will they remember," Selingman continued thoughtfully, "that you were
the Samson who pulled down the pillars, or will they merely hail you as
the deliverer? Will they think of that ghostly ride of yours on the
locomotive, I wonder, when you tore screaming through the darkness, with
the risk of a buffer on the line at every mile; stepped from the engine,
grimy, with your breath sucked out of--you by the wind, and the roar of
the locomotive still throbbing in your ears--stepped out to deliver your
message to the waiting throngs? Magnificent! A subject worthy of me
and my prose! I shall write of it, Maraton. I shall sing the glory of
it in verse or script, when your fame as a politician of the moment has
passed. You will live because of the garland that I shall weave."

Maraton sipped his wine thoughtfully.

"But for your overweening humility, Selingman," he began--

Selingman struck the table with his fist.

"It is a night for rejoicings, this," he thundered. "I will not have my
weaknesses exposed. Let us, for to-night, at any rate, see the best in
each other. Glance, for instance, at Miss Julia. Admire the exquisite
pink of my carnations which she has condescended to wear; see how well
they become her."

"I feel like a flower shop," Julia laughed.

"And you look like t