“Am I the other?”

“Who else?”

“I’m glad you have the courage to class Madame Brandt and myself together.”

“Why?” I asked.

“It proves beyond a doubt that you are honest with me.  Now tell me about a few externals—­things that don’t matter—­but help one to form an impression.  Is she educated?”

“From books, no; from observation, yes.”

“Her manners?”

“Observation had educated them.”

“Accent?”

“She is sufficiently polyglot to have none.”

“She dresses and talks and behaves generally like a lady?”

“She does,” said I.

“In what way then does she differ from the women of our class?”

“She is less schooled, less reticent, franker, more natural.  What is on her tongue to say, she says.”

“Temper?”

“I have never heard her say an angry word to or of a human creature.  She has queer delicacies of feeling.  For instance——­”

I told her of Anastasius Papadopoulos’s tawdry, gimcrack presents which Lola has suffered to remain in her drawing-room so as not to hurt the poor little wretch.

“That’s very touching.  Where does she live?”

“She has a flat in Cadogan Gardens.”

“Is she in London now?”

“Yes.”

“I should like very much to know her,” she said calmly.

I vow and declare again that the more straightforward and open-eyed, the less subtle, temperamental, and neurotic are women, the more are they baffling.  I had wondered for some time whither the catechism tended, and now, with a sudden jerk, it stopped short at this most unexpected terminus.  It was startling.  I rose and mechanically placed my empty tea-cup on the tray by her side.

“The wish, my dear Eleanor,” said I, quite formally, “does great credit to your heart.”

There was a short pause, marking an automatic close of the subject.  Deeply as I admired both women, I shrank from the idea of their meeting.  It seemed curiously indelicate, in view both of my former engagement to Eleanor and of Lola’s frank avowal of her feelings towards me before what I shall always regard as my death.  It is true that we had never alluded to it since my resurrection; but what of that?  Lola’s feelings, I was sure, remained unaltered.  It also flashed on me that, with all the goodwill in the world, Eleanor would not understand Lola.  An interview would develop into a duel.  I pictured it for a second, and my sudden fierce partisanship for Lola staggered me.  Decidedly an acquaintance between these two was preposterous.

The silence was definite enough to mark a period, but not long enough to cause embarrassment.  Eleanor commented on my present employment.  I must find it good to get back to politics.

“I find it to the contrary,” said I, with a laugh.  “My convictions, always lukewarm, are now stone-cold.  I don’t say that the principles of the party are wrong.  But they’re wrong for me, which is all-important.  If they are not right for me, what care I how right they be?  And as I don’t believe in those of the other side, I’m going to give up politics altogether.”