"I ought to have gone too, but some one had to stay and look after
things in the House. Rather a nuisance his being called away just now."

Tallente preserved a noncommittal silence. Miller rolled a cigarette
hastily, took up his unwrapped umbrella and an ill-brushed bowler hat.

"Well, I must be going," he concluded. "If there is anything I can do
for you during the chief's absence, look me up, Mr. Tallente. It's all
the same, you know--Dartrey or me--Demos House in Parliament Street, or
the House. You haven't forgotten your way there yet, I expect?"

With which parting shaft Mr. James Miller departed, and the secretary,
Opening the door of Nora's sitting room, ushered Tallente in.

"Mr. Tallente," she announced, with a subdued smile, "fresh from a most
engaging but rather one-sided conversation with Mr. Miller."

Nora was evidently neither attired nor equipped this afternoon for a tea
party at Claridge's. She wore a dark blue princess frock, buttoned
right up to the throat. Her hair was brushed straight back from her
head, revealing a little more completely her finely shaped forehead.
She was seated before a round table covered with papers, and Tallente
fancied, even as he crossed the threshold, that there was an electric
atmosphere in the little apartment, an impression which the smouldering
fire in her eyes, as she glanced up, confirmed. The change in her
expression, however, as she recognised her visitor, was instantaneous.
A delightful smile of welcome chased away the sombreness of her face.

"My dear man," she exclaimed, "come and sit down and help me to forget
that annoying person who has just gone out!"