Fenn passed the order on to the waiter, a little crestfallen.

“I don’t often drink anything myself,” he said, “but this seemed to me to be something of an occasion.”

“You have some news, then?”

“Not at all.  I meant dining with you.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Oh, that?” she murmured.  “That is simply a matter of routine.  I thought you had some news, or some work.”

“Isn’t it possible, Miss Abbeway,” he pleaded, “that we might have some interests outside our work?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she answered, with an insolence which was above his head.

“There is no reason why we shouldn’t have,” he persisted.

“You must tell me your tastes,” she suggested.  “Are you fond of grand opera, for instance?  I adore it.  ’Parsifal’—­’The Ring’?”

“I don’t know much about music,” he admitted.  “My sister, who used to live with me, plays the piano.”

“We’ll drop music, then,” she said hastily.  “Books?  But I remember you once told me that you had never read anything except detective novels, and that you didn’t care for poetry.  Sports?  I adore tennis and I am rather good at golf.”

“I have never wasted a single moment of my life in games,” he declared proudly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, you see, that leaves us rather a long way apart, outside our work, doesn’t it?”

“Even if I were prepared to admit that, which I am not,” he replied, “our work itself is surely enough to make up for all other things.”

“You are quite right,” she confessed.  “There is nothing else worth thinking about, worth talking about.  Tell me—­you had an inner Council this afternoon—­is anything decided yet about the leadership?”

He sighed a little.

“If ever there was a great cause in the world,” he said, “which stands some chance of missing complete success through senseless and low-minded jealousy, it is ours.”

“Mr. Fenn!” she exclaimed.

“I mean it,” he assured her.  “As you know, a chairman must be elected this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present.  That leader is going to stop the war.  He is going to bring peace to the world.  It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway.”

“It is indeed,” she agreed.

“Yet would you believe,” he went on, leaning across the table and neglecting for a moment his dinner, “would you believe, Miss Abbeway, that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post.”

Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in astonishment.

“I cannot help it,” she apologised.  “Please forgive me.  Do not think that I am irreverent.  It is not that at all.  But for a moment the absurdity of the thing overcame me.  I have met some of them, you know—­Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr. Evans of South Wales—­”