“I found the difference in temperature amazing,” he observed.  “I, too, dropped from the sunshine into a strange chill.”

She tried to get rid of the subject.

“So you lost your seat,” she said.  “I am very sorry.  Tell me how it happened?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“The Democratic Party made up their mind, for some reason or other, that I shouldn’t sit.  The Labour Party generally were not thinking of running a candidate.  I was to have been returned unopposed, in acknowledgment of my work on the Nationalisation Bill.  The Democrats, however, ratted.  They put up a man at the last moment, and—­well, you know the result—­I lost.”

“I don’t understand English politics,” she confessed, “but I thought you were almost a Labour man yourself.”

“I am practically,” he replied.  “I don’t know, even now, what made them oppose me.”

“What about the future?”

“My plans are not wholly made.”

For the first time, an old and passionate ambition prevailed against the thrall of the moment.

“One of the papers this morning,” she said eagerly, “suggested that you might be offered a peerage.”

“I saw it,” he acknowledged.  “It was in the Sun.  I was once unfortunate enough to be on the committee of a club which blackballed the editor.”

Her mouth hardened a little.

“But you haven’t forgotten your promise?”

“‘Bargain’ shall we call it?” he replied.  “No, I have not forgotten.”

“Tony says you could have a peerage whenever you liked.”

“Then I suppose it must be so.  Just at present I am not prepared to write ‘finis’ to my political career.”

The butler announced dinner.  Tallente offered his arm and they passed through the homely little hall into the dining room beyond.  Stella came to a sudden standstill as they crossed the threshold.

“Why is the table laid for two only?” she demanded.  “Mr. Palliser is here.”

“I was obliged to send Tony away—­on important business,” Tallente intervened.  “He left about an hour ago.”

Once more the terror was upon her.  The fingers which gripped her napkin trembled.  Her eyes, filled with fierce enquiry, were fixed upon her husband’s as he took his place in leisurely fashion and glanced at the menu.

“Obliged to send Tony away?” she repeated.  “I don’t understand.  He told me that he had several days’ work here with you.”

“Something intervened,” he murmured.

“Why didn’t you wire?” she faltered, almost under her breath.  “He couldn’t have had any time to get ready.”

Andrew Tallente looked at his wife across the bowl of floating flowers.

“Ah!” he exclaimed.  “I didn’t think of that.  But in any case I did not make up my mind until I arrived that it was necessary for him to go.”