Because of Chilcote, he was despised by Chilcote’s wife!  There was no denying that in all the pleasant excitement of the adventure that knowledge had rankled.  It came to him now linked with remembrance of the slight, reluctant touch of her fingers, the faintly evasive dislike underlying her glance.  It was a trivial thing, but it touched his pride as a man.  That was how he put it to himself.  It wasn’t that he valued this woman’s opinion—­any woman’s opinion; it was merely that it touched his pride.  He turned again to the window and gazed out, the engagement book still between his hands.  What if he compelled her respect?  What if by his own personality cloaked under Chilcote’s identity he forced her to admit his capability?  It was a matter of pride, after all—­scarcely even of pride; self-respect was a better word.

Satisfied by his own reasoning, he turned back into the room.

“See to those letters, Greening,” he said.  “And for the rest of the morning’s work you might go on with your Khorasan notes.  I believe we’ll all want every inch of knowledge we can get in that quarter before we’re much older.  I’ll see you again later.”  With a reassuring nod he crossed the room and passed through the door.

He lunched with Fraide at his club, and afterwards walked with him to Westminster.  The walk and lunch were both memorable.  In that hour he learned many things that had been sealed to him before.  He tasted his first draught of real elation, his first drop of real discomfiture.  He saw for the first time how a great man may condescend—­how unostentatiously, how fully, how delightfully.  He felt what tact and kindness perfectly combined may accomplish, and he burned inwardly with a sense of duplicity that crushed and elated him alternately.  He was John Loder, friendless, penniless, with no present and no future, yet he walked down Whitehall in the full light of day with one of the greatest statesmen England has known.

Some strangers were being shown over the Terrace when he and Fraide reached the House, and, noticing the open door, the old man paused.

“I never refuse fresh air,” he said.  “Shall we take another breath of it before settling down?” He took Loder’s arm and drew him forward.  As they passed through the door-way the pressure of his fingers tightened.  “I shall reckon to-day among my pleasantest memories, Chilcote,” he said, gravely.  “I can’t explain the feeling, but I seem to have touched Eve’s husband—­the real you, more closely this morning than I ever did before.  It has been a genuine happiness.”  He looked up with the eyes that, through all his years of action and responsibility, had remained so bright.

But Loder paled suddenly, and his glance turned to the river-wide, mysterious, secret.  Unconsciously Fraide had stripped the illusion.  It was not John Loder who walked here; it was Chilcote—­Chilcote with his position, his constituency —­his wife.  He half extricated his arm, but Fraide held it.