“They shall be given away to-morrow,” he promised.

“I should think so,” she replied.  “And you might part with the battered straw hat you were wearing, at the same time.”

“It shall be done,” he promised meekly.

She became reminiscent.

“We were all so interested in you in those days.  Lord Peters told us, after you were gone, that some day you would be Prime Minister.”

“I am afraid,” he sighed, “that I have disappointed most of my friends.”

“You have disappointed no one,” she assured him firmly.  “You will disappoint no one.  You are the one person in politics who has kept a steadfast course, and if you have lost ground a little in the country, and slipped out of people’s political appreciation during the last decade, don’t we all know why?  Every one of your friends—­and your wife, of course,” she put in hastily, “must be proud that you have lost ground.  There isn’t another man in the country who gave up a great political career to learn his drill in a cadet corps, who actually served in the trenches through the most terrible battles of the war, and came out of it a Brigadier-General with all your distinctions.”

He felt his heart suddenly swell.  No one had ever spoken to him like this.  The newspapers had been complimentary for a day and had accepted the verdict of circumstances the next.  His wife had simply been the reflex of other people’s opinion and the trend of events.

“You make me feel,” he told her earnestly, “almost for the first time, that after all it was worth while.”

The slight unsteadiness of his tone at first surprised, then brought her almost to the point of confusion.  Their eyes met—­a startled glance on her part, merely to assure herself that he was in earnest—­and afterwards there was a moment’s embarrassment.  She accepted a cigarette and went back to her easy-chair.

“You did not answer the question I asked you a few minutes ago,” she reminded him.  “When is your wife returning?”

The shadow was back on his face.

“Lady Jane,” he said, “if it were not that we are old friends, dating from that box of chocolates, remember, I might have felt that I must make you some sort of a formal reply.  But as it is, I shall tell you the truth.  My wife is not coming hack.”

“Not at all?” she exclaimed.

“To me, never,” he answered.  “We have separated.”

“I am so very sorry,” she said, after a moment’s startled silence.  “I am afraid that I asked a tactless question, but how could I know?”

“There was nothing tactless about it,” he assured her.  “It makes it much easier for me to tell you.  I married my wife thirteen years ago because I believed that her wealth would help me in my career.  She married me because she was an American with ambitions, anxious to find a definite place in English society.  She has been disappointed in me.  Other circumstances have now presented themselves.  I have discovered that my wife’s affections are bestowed elsewhere.  To be perfectly honest, the discovery was a relief to me.”