“I promised him twenty thousand pounds,” she answered, with cold fury.  “It appears that I overvalued your importance to your party.  Tony apparently did the same.  He thought that you had only to intimate your readiness to accept a peerage and the thing would be arranged.  It seems that we were wrong.”

“You were doubly wrong,” he replied.  “In the first place, there were difficulties, and in the second, nothing would have induced me to accept such a humiliating offer.”

“How did you find this out?” she enquired.

“The Prime Minister offered me the peerage less than an hour ago,” he answered.  “I need not say that I unhesitatingly refused it.”

Stella ceased buttoning her gloves.  There was a cold glitter in her eyes.

“You refused it?”

“Of course!”

She was silent for a moment.

“Andrew,” she said, “you have scarcely kept your bargain with me.”

“I am not prepared to admit that,” he replied.  “You had a very considerable social position at the time when I was in office.  It was up to you to make that good.”

“I am tired of political society,” she answered.  “It isn’t the real thing.  Now you are out of Parliament, though, even that has vanished.  Andrew!”

“Well?”

She leaned a little towards him.  She began to regret that he had not accepted her invitation to visit her in her suite.  Years ago she had been able to bend him sometimes to her will.  Why should she take it for granted that she had lost her power?  Here, however, even persuasions were difficult.  He sat upon a straight, high-backed chair by her side and his face seemed as though it were carved out of stone.

“You have always declined, Andrew, to make very much use of my money,” she said.  “Could we not make a bargain now?  I will give you a hundred thousand pounds and settle five million dollars on the holder of the title forever, if you will accept this peerage.  I wouldn’t mind a present to the party funds, either, if that helped matters.”

Tallente shook his head.

“I am sorry for your disappointment,” he said, “but nothing would induce me to accept a seat in the Upper House.  I have other plans.”

“They could be changed.”

“Impossible!”

“You might be forced to change them.”

“By whom?”

The smile maddened her.  She had meant to be subtle.  She became flamboyant.  She leaned forward in her chair.

“What have you done with Tony Palliser?” she demanded.

Tallente remained absolutely unruffled.  He had been expecting something of this sort.  The only wonder was that it had been delayed so long.

“A threat?” he asked pleasantly.

“Call it what you like.  Men don’t disappear like that.  What did you do with him?”

“What do you think he deserved?”

She bit her lip.

“I think you are the most detestable human being who ever breathed,” she faltered.  “Supposing I go to the police?”