“Well, Mr. Breakspeare!” exclaimed the hostess, with some heartiness.  “Why must I have the trouble of inviting you to Rivenoak?  Is my conversation so wearisome that you keep away as long as you can?”

“Dear lady, you put me to shame!” cried Mr. Breakspeare, bending low before her.  “It’s work, work, I assure you, that forbids me the honour and the delight of waiting upon you, except at very rare intervals.  We have an uphill fight, you know.”

“Pull your coat off,” the hostess interrupted, “and let us have something to eat.  I’m as hungry as a hunter, whatever you may be.  You sedentary people, I suppose, don’t know what it is to have an appetite.”

The editor was ill-tailored, and very carelessly dressed.  His rather long hair was brushed straight back from the forehead, and curved up a little at the ends.  Without having exactly a dirty appearance, he lacked freshness, seemed to call for the bath his collar fitted badly, his tie was askew, his cuffs covered too much of the hand.  Aged about fifty, Mr. Breakspeare looked rather younger, for he had a very smooth high forehead, a clear eye, which lighted up as he spoke, and a pink complexion answering to the high-noted and rather florid manner of his speech.

Walking briskly forward—­she seemed more vigorous to day than yesterday—­the hostess led to the dining room, where a small square table received her and her three companions.  Lady Ogram’s affectation of appetite lasted only a few minutes; on the other hand, Mr. Breakspeare ate with keen gusto, and talked very little until he had satisfied his hunger.  Whether by oversight, or intentional eccentricity, the hostess had not introduced him and Lashmar to each other; they exchanged casual glances, but no remark.  Dyce talked of what he had seen at the mill; he used a large, free-flowing mode of speech, which seemed to please Lady Ogram, for she never interrupted him and had an unusual air of attentiveness.  Presently the talk moved towards politics, and Dyce found a better opportunity of eloquence.

“For some thirty years,” he began, with an air of reminiscence, “we have been busy with questions of physical health.  We have been looking after our bodies and our dwellings.  Drainage has been a word to conjure with, and athletics have become a religion—­the only one existing for multitudes among us.  Physical exercise, with a view to health, used to be the privilege of the upper class; we have been teaching the people to play games and go in for healthy sports.  At the same time there has been considerable aesthetic progress.  England is no longer the stupidly inartistic country of early Victorian times; there’s a true delight in music and painting, and a much more general appreciation of the good in literature.  With all this we have been so busy that politics have fallen into the background—­politics in the proper sense of the word.  Ideas of national advance have been either utterly lost sight of, or