“You puzzle me a little,” she admitted.  “Has any one written more convincingly than you?  Arguments which are founded upon logic and statistics must yield truth, and you have set it down in black and white.”

“On the other hand,” he said, “my unlearned but eloquent friend dismissed all statistics, all the science of argument and deduction, with the wave of a not too scrupulously clean hand.  ‘Figures,’ he said, ’are dead things.  They are the playthings of the charlatan politician, who, by a sort of mental sleight of hand, can make them perform the most wonderful antics.  If you desire the truth, seek it from live things.  If you desire really to call yourself the champion of the people, come and see for yourself how they are faring.  Figures will not feed them, nor statistics keep them from the great despair.  Come and let me show you the sinews of the country, whether they are sound or rotten.  You cannot see them through your library walls.  It is only the echo of their voice which you hear so far off.  If you would really be the people’s man, come and learn something of the people from their own lips.’  This is what my friend said to me.”

“And who,” she asked, “was this prophet who came to you and talked like this?”

“A retired bookmaker,” he answered.  “I will tell you of our meeting.”

She listened gravely.  After he had finished there was a short silence.  The dessert was on the table, and they were alone.  Berenice was looking thoughtful.

“Tell me,” he begged, “exactly what that wrinkled forehead means?”

“I was wondering,” she said, “whether Sir Leslie was right, when he said that you had too much conscience ever to be a great politician.”

“It mirrors Borrowdean’s outlook upon politics precisely,” he remarked.

She smiled at him with a sudden radiance.  She had risen to her feet, and with a quick, graceful movement leaned over him.  This new womanliness which he had found so irresistible was alight once more in her face.  Her eyes sought his fondly, she touched his lips with hers.  The perfume of her clothes, the touch of her hair upon his cheek, were like a drug.  He had no more words.

“You may have one peach and one glass of the Prince’s Burgundy, and then you must come and look for me,” she said.  “We have wasted too much time talking of other things.  You haven’t even told me yet what I have a right to hear, you know.  I want to be told that you care for me better than anything else in the world.”

He caught her hands.  There was a rare passion vibrating in his tone.

“You do not doubt it, Berenice?”

“Perhaps not,” she answered, “but I want to be told.  I am a middle-aged woman, you know, Lawrence, but I want to be made love to as though I were a silly girl!  Isn’t that foolish?  But you must do it,” she whispered, with her lips very close to his.

He drew her into his arms.

“I am not at all sure,” he said, “that I have enough courage to make love to a Duchess!”