of the town, on the Liberal committee, dressed in a pea-jacket and proudly nautical, they applied for the vote, and found it oftener than beauty.  Palmet contrasted his repeated disappointments with the scoring of two, three, four and more in the candidate’s list, and informed him that he would certainly get the Election.  ’I think you’re sure of it,’ he said.  ‘There’s not a pretty woman to be seen; not one.’

One came up to them, the sight of whom counselled Lord Palmet to reconsider his verdict.  She was addressed by Beauchamp as Miss Denham, and soon passed on.

Palmet was guilty of staring at her, and of lingering behind the others for a last look at her.

They were on the steps of a voter’s house, calmly enduring a rebuff from him in person, when Palmet returned to them, exclaiming effusively, ’What luck you have, Beauchamp!’ He stopped till the applicants descended the steps, with the voice of the voter ringing contempt as well as refusal in their ears; then continued:  ’You introduced me neck and heels to that undertakerly old Tomlinson, of Wingham’s Institute; you might have given me a chance with that Miss—­Miss Denham, was it?  She has a bit of a style!’

‘She has a head,’ said Beauchamp.

’A girl like that may have what she likes.  I don’t care what she has—­ there’s woman in her.  You might take her for a younger sister of Mrs. Wardour-Devereux.  Who ’s the uncle she speaks of?  She ought not to be allowed to walk out by herself.’

‘She can take care of herself,’ said Beauchamp.

Palmet denied it.  ’No woman can.  Upon my honour, it’s a shame that she should be out alone.  What are her people?  I’ll run—­from you, you know —­and see her safe home.  There’s such an infernal lot of fellows about; and a girl simply bewitching and unprotected!  I ought to be after her.’

Beauchamp held him firmly to the task of canvassing.

‘Then will you tell me where she lives?’ Palmet stipulated.  He reproached Beauchamp for a notorious Grand Turk exclusiveness and greediness in regard to women, as well as a disposition to run hard races for them out of a spirit of pure rivalry.

‘It’s no use contradicting, it’s universally known of you,’ reiterated Palmet.  ’I could name a dozen women, and dozens of fellows you deliberately set yourself to cut out, for the honour of it.  What’s that story they tell of you in one of the American cities or watering-places, North or South?  You would dance at a ball a dozen times with a girl engaged to a man—­who drenched you with a tumbler at the hotel bar, and off you all marched to the sands and exchanged shots from revolvers; and both of you, they say, saw the body of a drowned sailor in the water, in the moonlight, heaving nearer and nearer, and you stretched your man just as the body was flung up by a wave between you.  Picturesque, if you like!’

‘Dramatic, certainly.  And I ran away with the bride next morning?’