s what I envy you," she exclaimed, "your public school and
University education! They make us feel our inferiority, and it isn't
fair."

Admission of inferiority was so unexpected a thing on Miss Tomalin's
lips, that her interlocutor glanced at her. Mrs. Toplady, in her corner
of the railway carriage, seemed to be smiling over a newspaper article.

"The feeling must be very transitory," said Dymchurch, with humorous
arch of brows.

"Oh, it doesn't trouble me very often. I know I should have done just
as much as men do, if I had had the chance."

"Considerably more, no doubt, than either Honeybourne or I."

"You have never really put out your strength, I'm afraid, Lord
Dymchurch," said May, regarding him with her candid smile. "Never in
anything--have you?"

"No," he responded, in a like tone. "A trifler--always a trifler!"

"But if you _know_ it--"

Something in his look made her pause. She looked out of the window,
before adding:

"Still, I don't think it's quite true. The first time I saw you, I felt
you were very serious, and that you had thought much. You rather
overawed me."

Dymchurch laughed. In her corner, Mrs. Toplady still found matter for
ironic smiling as she rustled over the evening journal; and the train
swept on towards London.

CHAPTER XVI

For a week after Lady Ogram's return, Dr. Baldwin called daily at
Rivenoak. His patient, he said, was suffering from over-exertion; had
she listened to his advice, she would never have gone to London; the
marvel was that such an imprudence had had no worse results. Lady Ogram
herself of course refused to take this view of the matter; she was
perfectly well, only a little tired, and, as the hot nights interfered
with her sleep just now, she rested during the greater part of the day,
seeing Lashmar for half an hour each afternoon in the little
drawing-room upstairs. Her friendliness with Dyce had much increased;
when he entered the room, she greeted him almost affectionately, and
their talk was always of his brilliant future.

"I want to see you safely in Parliament," she said one day. "I can't
expect to live till you've made your name; that isn't done so quickly.
But I shall see you squash Robb, and that's something."

Of his success at Hollingford she seemed never to entertain a doubt,
and Lashmar, though by no means so sanguine, said nothing to discourage
her. His eye noted ominous changes in her aspect, and her way of
talking, even the sou