as a political factor; not this man, but another, who had referred to Trafalgar Square as the private thoroughfare of the crown.  The scene had been an animated one, and Mr. Ayrton had hoped to derive a good deal of pleasure from describing it to his daughter; but when he had listened to her, and watched her for a few minutes, he came to the conclusion that it would be absurd for him to make an effort to compete with her.  What was his wretched little story of Parliamentary squalor compared with these psychological subtleties which had interested his daughter all the evening?

He listened to and watched that lovely thing, overflowing with the animation that comes from a quick intelligence—­a keen appreciation of the intelligence of the great artists who had interpreted a story which thrilled the imagination of generation after generation, and he felt that Parliament was a paltry thing.  Parliament—­what was Parliament?  The wrangle of political parties over a paltry issue.  It had no real life in it; it had nothing of the fullness and breadth of the matters that interested such people as had minds—­imagination.

“You are tired,” she cried at last.  “It is thoughtless of me to keep you out of your bed.  You have had a weary night, I am sure.  Was it the Irish again, or the horrid teetotalers?”

“It was both, my dear,” said he.  “Phyllis,” he added solemnly, “an Irish teetotaler is a fearful thing.”

“You shall forget all the intemperate teetotalers in a beautiful sleep,” said she, putting her arms around his neck.  “Good-night, papa!  It was so thoughtless of me to keep you up.  It is one o’clock.”

“It appears to me that you are the one who should be ready to succumb,” said her father.  “I had nothing to stimulate my imagination.  Practical politics has not yet discovered a good working reply to the man who calls his fellow-man a liar, so the political outlook is not very cheering.”

“That is what is greatly needed:  a satisfactory retort—­verbal, of course—­to that every-day assertion.”

“It has become the most potent influence in the House of Commons, during the past year or two; and the worst of the matter is that the statement is nearly always correct.”

“Then there is all the greater need for a modus vivendi”—­she had an ample acquaintance with the jargon of diplomacy.  “I don’t despair of Parliament being able to suggest an efficient retort.”

“Parliament:  two ragamuffins quarreling up an entry over a rotten orange.  Good-night, my child!”

She was at last in her own room:  an apartment of gracious-tinted fabrics and pink satin panels; of tapestried sofas made by French artists before the lovely daughter of Maria Teresa went to her death.  She switched on the lights in the candle sconces, and threw herself down upon one of the sofas.  Her theater wrap and fan she had laid over a chair.

It was not to the drama which she had seen superbly acted at the Parthenon that her thoughts went out; but to the words which her dearest friend had spoken when driving back from the theater.