want friends, and, to speak as man to man," he concluded,
tapping the lawyer upon the coat sleeve, "England is our best customer."

"I wish one could believe," the latter remarked, "that yours was the
popular voice in your country."

Seaman rose reluctantly to his feet.

"At half-past two," he announced, glancing at his watch, "I have an
appointment with a woollen manufacturer from Bradford. I hope to get him
to join my council."

He bowed ceremoniously to the lawyer, nodded to Dominey with the
familiarity of an old friend, and made his bustling, good-humoured way
out of the room.

"A sound business man, I should think," was the former's comment. "I
wish him luck with his League. You yourself, Sir Everard, will need to
develop some new interests. Why not politics?"

"I really expect to find life a little difficult at first," admitted
Dominey, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I have lost many of the tastes
of my youth, and I am very much afraid that my friends over here will
call me colonial. I can't fancy myself doing nothing down in Norfolk all
the rest of my days. Perhaps I shall go into Parliament."

"You must forgive my saying," his companion declared impulsively, "that
I never knew ten years make such a difference in a man in my life."

"The colonies," Dominey pronounced, "are a kill or cure sort of
business. You either take your drubbing and come out a stronger man, or
you go under. I had the very narrowest escape from going under myself,
but I just pulled together in time. To-day I wouldn't have been without
my hard times for anything in the world."

"If you will permit me," Mr. Mangan said, with an inherited pomposity,
"on our first meeting under the new conditions, I should like to offer
you my hearty congratulations, not only upon what you have accomplished
but upon what you have become."

"And also, I hope," Dominey rejoined, smiling a little seriously and
with a curious glint in his eyes, "upon what I may yet accomplish."

The Duchess and her companion had risen to their feet, and the former,
on her way out, recognising her solicitor, paused graciously.

"How do you do, Mr. Mangan?" she said. "I hope you are looking after
those troublesome tenants of mine in Leicestershire?"

"We shall make our report in due course, Duchess," Mangan assured her.
"Will you permit me," he added, "to bring back to your memory a relative
who has just returned from abroad--Sir Everard Dominey?"

Dominey had risen t