Moreover, the respectful reception he met with could not but impress her; it gave reality to what Miss Derwent sometimes laughed at, his claim to be a force in the great world.  Then, that eternal word “Empire” gained somewhat of a new meaning.  She joked about it, disliking as much as ever its baser significance but she came to understand better the immense power it represented.  On that subject, her father was emphatic.

“If,” remarked Dr. Derwent once, “if our politics ever fall into the hands of a stock-jobbing democracy, we shall be the hugest force for evil the poor old world has ever known.”

“You think,” said Irene, “that one can already see some danger of it?”

“Well, I think so sometimes.  But we have good men still, good men.”

“Do you mind telling me,” Miss Derwent asked, “whether our fellow-traveller seems to you one of them?”

“H’m!  On the whole, yes.  His faults are balanced, I think, by his aristocratic temper.  He is too proud consciously to make dirty bargains.  High-handed, of course; but that’s the race—­the race.  Things being as they are, I would as soon see him in power as another.”

Irene pondered this.  It pleased her.

On the morning after Arnold’s proposal, she knew that he and her father had talked.  Dr. Derwent, a shy man, rather avoided her look; but he behaved to her with particular kindliness; as they stood looking towards the coast of England, he drew her hand through his arm, and stroked it once or twice—­a thing he had not done on the whole journey.

“The brave old island!” he was murmuring.  “I should be really disturbed if I thought death would find me away from it.  Foolish fancy, but it’s strong in me.”

Irene was taciturn, and unlike herself.  The approach to port enabled her to avoid gossips, but one person, Helen Borisoff, guessed what had happened; Irene’s grave countenance and Arnold Jacks’ meditative smile partly instructed her.  On the railway journey to London, Jacks had the discretion to keep apart in a smoking-carriage.  Dr. Derwent and his daughter exchanged but few words until they found themselves in Bryanston Square.

During their absence abroad, Mrs. Hannaford had been keeping house for them.  With brief intervals spent now and then in pursuit of health, she had made Bryanston Square her home since the change in her circumstances two years ago.  Lee Hannaford held no communication with her, content to draw the modest income she put at his disposal, and Olga, her mother knew not why, was still unmarried, though declaring herself still engaged to the man Kite.  She lived here and there in lodgings, at times seeming to maintain herself, at others accepting help; her existence had an air of mystery far from reassuring.

On meeting her aunt, Irene found her looking ill and troubled.  Mrs. Hannaford declared that she was much as usual, and evaded inquiries.  She passed from joy at her relatives’ return to a mood of silent depression; her eyes made one think that she must have often shed tears of late.  In the past twelvemonth she had noticeably aged; her beauty was vanishing; a nervous tremor often affected her thin hands, and in her speech there was at times a stammering uncertainty, such as comes of mental distress.  Dr. Derwent, seeing her after two months’ absence, was gravely observant of these things.