hould discover that you have deceived them, before they
have been obliged to leave the country!"

"They will be much too busy," Norgate replied, "to think about me."

Anna's face was still troubled. "I did not like that man's look," she
persisted, "when he asked you what you were doing at Camberley. Perhaps
he still believes that you have told the truth, but he might easily have
it in his mind that you knew too many of their secrets to be trusted when
the vital moment came."

Norgate leaned over and drew her towards him.

"Selingman has gone," he murmured. "It is only outside that war is
throbbing. Dearest, I think that my vital moments are now!"

CHAPTER XXXVII

Mr. Hebblethwaite permitted himself a single moment of abstraction. He
sat at the head of the table in his own remarkably well-appointed
dining-room. His guests--there were eighteen or twenty of them in
all--represented in a single word Success--success social as well as
political. His excellently cooked dinner was being served with faultless
precision. His epigrams had never been more pungent. The very
distinguished peeress who sat upon his right, and whose name was a
household word in the enemy's camp, had listened to him with enchained
and sympathetic interest. For a single second he permitted his thoughts
to travel back to the humble beginnings of his political career. He had a
brief, flashlight recollection of the suburban parlour of his early days,
the hard fight at first for a living, then for some small place in local
politics, and then, larger and more daring schemes as the boundary of his
ambitions became each year a little further extended. Beyond him now was
only one more step to be taken. The last goal was well within his reach.

The woman at his right recommenced their conversation, which had been for
a moment interrupted.

"We were speaking of success," she said. "Success often comes to one
covered by the tentacles and parasites of shame, and yet, even in its
grosser forms, it has something splendid about it. But success that
carries with it no apparent drawback whatever is, of course, the most
amazing thing of all. I was reading that wonderful article of Professor
Wilson's last month. He quotes you very extensively. His analysis of your
character was, in its way, interesting. Directly I had read it, however,
I felt that it lacked one thing--simplicity. I made up my mind that the
next time we talked intimately, I would ask you to