“I have heard often of your movements from Clara,” he said.  “You have been very kind to her.”

“It has never occurred to me in that light,” she said.  “Clara needs a chaperon, and I need a companion.  We were talking yesterday of going to Cairo for the winter.  My only fear is that I am robbing you of your niece.”

“Please do not let that trouble you,” he said.  “Clara would be a most uncomfortable member of my household.”

“But are you never at all lonely?” she asked.

“I never have time to think of such a thing,” he answered.  “Besides, I have Hester.  She makes a wonderful secretary, and she seems to enjoy the work.”

“I should like to have a talk with you some time,” she said.  “Won’t you come and see me?”

He hesitated.

“It is very kind of you to ask me,” he said.  “Don’t think me churlish, but I go nowhere.  I am trying to make up, you see, for my years of idleness.”

She looked at him steadfastly, and her heart sank.  The change in his outward appearance seemed typical of some deeper and more final alteration in his whole nature.  She felt herself powerless against the absolute impenetrability of his tone and manner.  She felt that he had fought a battle within himself and conquered; that for some reason or other he had decided to walk no longer in the pleasanter paths of life.  She had come to him unexpectedly, but he had shown no sign of emotion.  Her influence over him seemed to be wholly a thing of the past.  She made one more effort.

“I think,” she said, “that as one grows older one parts the less readily with the few friends who count.  I hope that you will change your mind.”

He bowed gravely, but he made no answer.  Berenice took Borrowdean’s arm and passed on.  There was a little spot of colour in her cheeks.  Borrowdean felt nerved to his enterprise.

“Let us go somewhere and sit down for a few minutes,” he suggested.  “The rooms are so hot this evening.”

She assented without words, and he found a solitary couch in one of the further apartments.

“I wonder,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “whether I might say something to you, whether you would listen to me for a few minutes.”

Berenice was absorbed in her own thoughts.  She allowed him to proceed.

“For a good many years,” he said, lowering his voice a little, “I have worked hard and done all I could to be successful.  I wanted to have some sort of a position to offer.  I am a Cabinet Minister now, and although I don’t suppose we can last much longer this time, I shall have a place whenever we are in again.”

The sense of what he was saying began to dawn upon her.  She stopped him at once.

“Please do not say any more, Sir Leslie,” she begged.  “I should have given you credit for sufficient perception to have known beforehand the absolute impossibility of—­of anything of the sort.”