“So I believe.”

Blessington put his hand to his neat tie and pulled it.  He was extremely polite, but he had an inordinate sense of duty.

“Forgive me, sir,” he said, “but about that contract—­I know I’m a frightful bore.”

“Oh, the contract!” Chilcote looked about him absently.  “By-the-way, did you see anything of my wife yesterday?  What did she do last night?”

“Mrs. Chilcote gave me tea yesterday afternoon.  She told me she was dining at Lady Sabinet’s, and looking in at one or two places later.”  He eyed his papers in Chilcote’s listless hand.

Chilcote smiled satirically.  “Eve is very true to society,” he said.  “I couldn’t dine at the Sabinets’ if it was to make me premier.  They have a butler who is an institution—­a sort of heirloom in the family.  He is fat, and breathes audibly.  Last time I lunched there he haunted me for a whole night.”

Blessington laughed gayly.  “Mrs. Chilcote doesn’t see ghosts, sir,” he said; “but if I may suggest—­”

Chilcote tapped his fingers on the table.

“No.  Eve doesn’t see ghosts.  We rather miss sympathy there.”

Blessington governed his impatience.  He stood still for some seconds, then glanced down at his pointed boot.

“If you will be lenient to my persistency, sir, I would like to remind you—­”

Chilcote lifted his head with a flash of irritability.

“Confound it, Blessington!” he exclaimed.  “Am I never to be left in peace?  Am I never to sit down to a meal without having work thrust upon me?  Work—­work—­perpetually work?  I have heard no other word in the last six years.  I declare there are times”—­he rose suddenly from his seat and turned to the window—­“there are times when I feel that for sixpence I’d chuck it all—­the whole beastly round—­”

Startled by his vehemence, Blessington wheeled towards him.

“Not your political career, sir?”

There was a moment in which Chilcote hesitated, a moment in which the desire that had filled his mind for months rose to his lips and hung there; then the question, the incredulity in Blessington’s face, chilled it and it fell back into silence.

“I—­I didn’t say that,” he murmured.  “You young men jump to conclusions, Blessington.”

“Forgive me, sir.  I never meant to imply retirement.  Why, Rickshaw, Vale, Cressham, and the whole Wark crowd would be about your ears like flies if such a thing were even breathed —­now more than ever, since these Persian rumors.  By-the-way, is there anything real in this border business?  The ’St. George’s’ came out rather strong last night.”

Chilcote had moved back to the table.  His face was pale from his outburst and his fingers toyed restlessly with the open newspaper.

“I haven’t seen the ’St. George’s’,” he said, hastily.  “Lakely is always ready to shake the red rag where Russia is concerned; whether we are to enter the arena is another matter.  But what about Craig, Burnage?  I think you mentioned something of a contract.”