A group parted that had been clustering round a farther door, and Ashe perceived Cliffe, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.  He was surrounded by pretty women, with whom he seemed to be carrying on a bantering warfare.  Involuntarily Ashe watched for the recognition between him and Kitty.  Did Kitty’s lips move?  Was there a signal?  If so, it passed like a flash; Kitty hurried away, and Ashe was left, haughtily furious with himself that, for the first time in his life, he had played the spy.

He turned in his discomfort to leave the dancing-room.  He himself enjoyed society frankly enough.  Especially since his marriage had he found the companionship of agreeable women delightful.  He went instinctively to seek it, and drive out this nonsense from his mind.  Just inside the larger drawing-room, however, he came across Mary Lyster, sitting in a corner apparently alone.  Mary greeted him, but with an evident coldness.  Her manner brought back all the preoccupations of his walk from the House.  In spite of her small cordiality, he sat down beside her, wondering with a vicarious compunction at what point her fortunes might be, and how Kitty’s proceedings might have already affected them.  But he had not yet succeeded in thawing her when a voice behind him said: 

“This is my dance, I think, Miss Lyster.  Where shall we sit it out?”

Ashe moved at once.  Mary looked up, hesitated visibly, then rose and took Geoffrey Cliffe’s arm.

“Just read your remarks this evening,” said Cliffe to Ashe.  “Well, now, I suppose to-morrow will see your ship in port?”

For it was reasonably expected that the morrow would see the American agreement ratified by a substantial ministerial majority.

“Certainly.  But you may at least reflect that you have lost us a deal of time.”

“And now you slay us,” said Cliffe.  “Ah, well—­’dulce et decorum est,’ etcetera.”

“Don’t imagine that you’ll get many of the honors of martyrdom,” laughed Ashe—­in Cliffe’s eyes an offensive and triumphant figure, as he leaned carelessly upon a marble pedestal that carried a bust of Horace Walpole.

“Why?” Cliffe’s hand had gone instinctively to his mustache.  Mary had dropped his arm, and now stood quietly beside him, pale and somewhat jaded, her fine eyes travelling between the speakers.

“Why?  Because the heresies have no martyrs.  The halo is for the true Church!”

“H’m!” said Cliffe, with a reflective sneer.  “I suppose you mean for the successful?”

“Do I?” said Ashe, with nonchalance.  “Aren’t the true Church the people who are justified by the event?”

“The orthodox like to think so,” said Cliffe.  “But the heretics have a way of coming out top.”

“Does that mean you chaps are going to win at the next election?  I devoutly hope you may—­we’re all as stale as ditch-water—­and as for places, anybody’s welcome to mine!” And so saying, Ashe lounged away, attracted by the bow and smile of a pretty Frenchwoman, with whom it was always agreeable to chat.