"Very well. Excuse me a moment while I go and get on the 'phone to
engage the motor."

I waited, feeling a little sore. I daresay I do talk nonsense and like
talking it, but no politician who ever lived has a right to tell me
so. I intended to greet Gorman when he returned with the proverb about
living in glass houses and throwing stones. He came back, smiling
radiantly. My ill-humour passed away at once.

"Now," he said, "go on with what you were telling me.

"I pointed out to you," I said, "that duchesses, marchionesses,
countesses, and other abandoned women of that kind have been flirting
with military officers in such a way as to interfere with the governing
of this country in accordance with the principles of democracy."

"Is that what they say?" said Gorman.

He picked up one of the papers which I had laid on the table and
satisfied himself that the thing was really in print.

"Well," he said, "they had to say something. I daresay people will
believe them. The English are an extraordinarily credulous race, fools
in fact. That's why I'm a Home Ruler."

"You must remember," I said, "that I'm a Unionist."

"Are you? Speaking confidentially, now, are you really?"

"My father was," I said, "and I don't like to see these things in print
about the party without making some kind of reply. What I'm thinking of
doing is writing a sort of circular letter to all the papers on our side
and saying that to my certain knowledge you and Mrs. Ascher have been
using undue and unfair influence over each other for the last six
months. If it's wrong for a woman to talk politics to a soldier it must
be much more wrong for one to talk art to a politician."

"Mrs. Ascher," said Gorman, "is an extraordinary woman. The more I see
of her, the less inclined I am to be surprised at anything she says
or does. She's tremendously keen just now on Home Rule and Ireland
generally."

"That is amazing," I said.

"It isn't in itself," said Gorman, "but the way she gets at it is. I
mean that theory of hers about----"

"Yes. I know. She will insist on thinking that you and everybody else on
your side are artists."

"And yet," said Gorman, "I can't persuade her to look at Tim's new
invention."

Mrs. Ascher's prejudice against cinematographs, improved or unimproved,
was certainly strong. I found it hard to understand exactly how she
felt. She found no difficulty in regarding Gorman, a devoted politician,
as a hero. When she had no ob