‘Bella mia, you are greatly disillusioned for a young girl.’

’I don’t feel that the term is applicable to me.  I am disillusioned, father, because I am getting reasonably old.’

‘You live too much alone.’

‘I prefer it.’

Mr. Newthorpe seemed to be turning over a thought.

‘I suppose,’ he said at length, with a glance at his daughter, ’that what you have just said explains our friend’s return to his oil-cloth.’

‘Not entirely, I think.’

’H’m.  You sent him about his business, however.

Annabel looked straight before her at the sea; her lips barely smiled.

‘You are mistaken.  He gave me no right to do so.’

‘Oh?  Then I have been on a wrong tack.’

‘Shall we walk homewards?’

Towards the end of August, Mr. and Mrs. Dalmaine were at Eastbourne for a few days.  Paula spent one hour with her cousin in private, no more.  The two had drifted further apart than ever.  But in that one hour Paula had matter enough for talk.  There had been a General Election during the summer, and Mr. Dalmaine had victoriously retained his seat for Vauxhall.  His wife could speak of nothing else.

’What I would have given if you could have seen me canvassing, Bell!  Now I’ve found the one thing that I can do really well.  I wish Parliaments were annual!’

‘My dear Paula, what bas made you so misanthropic?’

’I don’t understand.  You know I never do understand your clever remarks, Bell; please speak quite simply, will you?  Oh, but the canvassing!  Of course I didn’t get on with people’s wives as well as with people themselves; women never do, you know.  You should have heard me arguing questions with working men and shopkeepers!  Mr. Dalmaine once told me I’d better keep out of politics, as I only made a bungle of it; but I’ve learnt a great deal since then.  He admits now that I really do understand the main questions.  Of course it’s all his teaching.  He puts things so clearly, you know.  I suppose there’s no one in the House who makes such clear speeches as he does.’

‘The result of your work was very satisfactory.’

’Wasn’t it!  Fifteen hundred majority!  Then we drove all about the borough, and I had to bow nicely to people who waved their hats and shouted.  It was a new sensation; I think I never enjoyed anything so much in my life.  He is enormously popular, my husband.  And everybody says he is doing an enormous lot of good.  You know, Bell, it was a mere chance that he isn’t in the Ministry!  His name was mentioned; we know it for a fact.  There’s no doubt whatever he’ll be in next time, if the Liberal Government keeps up.  It is so annoying that Parliaments generally last so long!  Think what that will be, when he is a Minister!  I shouldn’t wonder if you come to see me some day in Downing Street, Bell.’

‘I should be afraid, Paula.’

’Nonsense!  Your husband will bring you.  Don’t you think Mr. Dalmaine’s looking remarkably well?  I’m so sorry I haven’t got my little boy here for you to see.  We’ve decided that he’s to be Prime Minister!  I hope you read Mr. Dalmaine’s speeches, Bell?’