“Well, that is intelligible,” said Lady Selina Farrell, looking at her neighbour, as she crumbled her dinner-roll.  To crumble your bread at dinner is a sign of nervousness, according to Sydney Smith, who did it with both hands when he sat next an Archbishop; yet no one for a good many years past had ever suspected Lady Selina of nervousness, though her powers had probably been tried before now by the neighbourhood of many Primates, Catholic and Anglican.  For Lady Selina went much into society, and had begun it young.

“Still, you know,” she resumed after a moment’s pause—­“you play enthusiasm in public—­I suppose you must.”

“Oh! of course,” said Wharton, indifferently.  “That is in the game.”

“Why should it be—­always?  If you are a leader of the people, why don’t you educate them?  My father says that bringing feeling into politics is like making rhymes in one’s account book.”

“Well, when you have taught the masses how not to feel,” said Wharton, laughing, “we will follow your advice.  Meanwhile it is our brains and their feelings that do the trick.  And by the way, Lady Selina, are you always so cool?  If you saw the Revolution coming to-morrow into the garden of Alresford House, would you go to the balcony and argue?”

“I devoutly hope there would be somebody ready to do something more to the point,” said Lady Selina, hastily.  “But of course we have enthusiasms too.”

“What, the Flag—­and the Throne—­that kind of thing?”

The ironical attention which Wharton began at this moment to devote to the selection of an olive annoyed his companion.

“Yes,” she repeated emphatically, “the Flag and the Throne—­all that has made England great in the past.  But we know very well that they are not your enthusiasms.”

Wharton’s upper lip twitched a little.

“And you are quite sure that Busbridge Towers has nothing to do with it?” he said suddenly, looking round upon her.

Busbridge Towers was the fine ancestral seat which belonged to Lady Selina’s father, that very respectable and ancient peer, Lord Alresford, whom an ungrateful party had unaccountably omitted—­for the first time—­from the latest Conservative administration.

“Of course we perfectly understand,” replied Lady Selina, scornfully, “that your side—­and especially your Socialist friends, put down all that we do and say to greed and selfishness.  It is our misfortune—­hardly our fault.”

“Not at all,” said Wharton, quietly, “I was only trying to convince you that it is a little difficult to drive feeling out of politics.  Do you suppose our host succeeds?  You perceive?—­this is a Radical house—­and a Radical banquet?”

He pushed the menu towards her significantly.  Then his eye travelled with its usual keen rapidity over the room, over the splendid dinner-table, with its display of flowers and plate, and over the assembled guests.  He and Lady Selina were dining at the hospitable board of a certain rich manufacturer, who drew enormous revenues from the west, had formed part of the Radical contingent of the last Liberal ministry, and had especially distinguished himself by a series of uncompromising attacks on the ground landlords of London.