s you can."

Miss Buttermish drew up a chair to the table, sat down and produced a
note-book and pencil; while Eloquent, speechless with astonishment and
dismay, stood on the other side of it holding the shiny visiting-card
in his hand.

Miss Buttermish tapped with her pencil on the table and regarded him
enquiringly.

Apparently quite young, she was also distinctly pleasing to the eye.
She wore an exceedingly well cut, heavily braided black coat and skirt,
the latter of the tightest and skimpiest type of a skimpy period. Her
hat was of the extinguisher order, entirely concealing her hair, except
that just in the front a few soft curls were vaguely visible upon her
forehead. A very handsome elderly-looking black fox stole threw up the
whiteness of her rounded chin in strong relief, and her eyes looked
large and mysterious through the meshes of her most becoming veil.
Eloquent was conscious of a certain familiarity in her appearance. He
was certain that he had seen her before somewhere, and couldn't recall
either time or place.

"I'm waiting, Mr Gallup," she remarked pleasantly. "You must have made
up your mind one way or other upon this important question, and it will
save both my time and your own if you state your views--may I say, as
briefly as possible."

Eloquent gasped . . . "I fear," he said, "that I have by no means made
up my mind with any sort of finality--it is such a large
question. . . . I have not yet had time to go into it as thoroughly as
I could wish. . . . There is so much to be said on both sides."

"There," Miss Buttermish interrupted, "you are mistaken; there is
_nothing_ to be said for the '_antis_.' Their arguments are
positively . . . footling."

"I cannot," Eloquent said stiffly, "agree with you."

"Sit down, Mr Gallup," Miss Buttermish said kindly, at the same time
getting up and seating herself afresh on a corner of the sofa. "We've
got to thresh this matter out, and you've got to make up your mind
whether you are for or against us. You are young, and I think that you
hardly realise the forces that will be arrayed against _you_ if you
join hands with Mr Asquith on this question."

Miss Buttermish sat up very stiff and straight on the end of the sofa,
and Eloquent, still standing with the table between them, felt rather
like a naughty boy in the presence of an accusing governess. The
allusion to his youth rankled. He did not sit down, but stood where he
was, staring darkl