“Well?”

It was a most eloquent monosyllable, but Borrowdean had gone too far to retreat.

“I propose that we make use of it,” he said.  “Mannering’s attitude is rankly foolish, or I would not suggest such a thing.  But I hold that we are entitled, under the circumstances, to make use of any means whatever to bring him to his senses.”

Berenice smiled.  They were standing together upon a small hillock in the park, watching the golf.

“Charlatanism in politics does not appeal to me,” she said, drily.  “Any party that adopted such means would completely alienate my sympathies.  No, my dear Sir Leslie, don’t stoop to such low-down means.  Mannering is honest, but infatuated.  Win him back by fair means, if you can, but don’t attempt anything of the sort you are suggesting.  I, too, know his history, from his own lips.  Any one who tried to use it against him, would forfeit my friendship!”

“Success then would be bought too dearly,” Borrowdean answered, with a gallantry which it cost him a good deal to assume.  “May I pass on, Duchess, in connexion with this matter, to ask you a somewhat more personal question?”

“I think,” Berenice said, calmly, “that I can spare you the necessity.  You were going to speak, I believe, of the engagement between Lawrence Mannering and myself.”

“I was,” Borrowdean admitted.

“It does not exist any longer,” Berenice said, “I should be glad if you would inform any one who has heard the rumour that it is without any foundation.”

Borrowdean looked thoughtfully at the woman by his side.

“I am very glad to hear it,” he declared.  “I am glad for many reasons, and I am glad personally.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Indeed!  I cannot imagine how it should affect you personally.”

“I perhaps said more than I meant to,” he replied, calmly.  “I am a poor, struggling politician myself, whose capital consists of brains and a capacity for work, and whose hopes are coloured with perhaps too daring ambitions.  Amongst them—­”

“Mr. Mannering has holed out from off the green,” she interrupted.  “Positively immoral, I call it.”

“Amongst them,” Borrowdean continued, calmly, “is one which some day or other I must tell you, for indeed you are concerned in it.”

“I can assure you, Sir Leslie,” she said, looking at him steadily, “that I am not at all a sympathetic person.  My strong advice to you would be—­not to tell me.  I do not think that you would gain anything by it.”

Borrowdean met his fate with a bow and a shrug of the shoulders.

“It only remains,” he said, “for me to beg you to pardon what might seem like presumption.  Shall we meet them on the last green?”

Mannering would have avoided Berenice, but she gave him no option.  She laid her hand upon his arm, and volunteered to show him a new way home.

“You must be on your guard, Lawrence,” she said.  “Lord Redford is very fond of concealing his plans to the last moment, but he is a very clever man.  And Sir Leslie Borrowdean would give his little finger to catch you tripping.  All this avoidance of politics is part of a scheme.  They will spring something upon you quite suddenly.  Don’t give any hasty pledges.”