Tallente smiled.

"Miller is not one of your favorites, then?"

"Isn't he the most impossible person who ever breathed." she replied.
"He was a conscientious objector during the war, a sex fanatic
since--Mr. Dartrey had to use all his influence to keep him out of
prison for writing those scurrulous articles in the Comet--and I think
he is one of the smallest-minded, most untrustworthy persons I ever met.
For some reason or other, Stephen Dartrey believes in him. He has a
wonderful talent for organization and a good deal of influence with the
trades unions.--By the by, it's all right about the muffins."

She rang the bell and ordered tea. Tallente glanced for a moment about
the room. The four walls were lined with well-filled bookcases, but the
mural decorations consisted--except for one wonderful nude figure, copy
of a well-known Rodin--of statistical charts and shaded maps. There
were only two signs of feminine occupation: an immense bowl of red
roses, rising with strange effect from the sea of manuscript, pamphlets,
and volumes of reference, and a wide, luxurious couch, drawn up to the
window, through which the tops of a little clump of lime trees were just
visible. As she turned back to him, he noticed with more complete
appreciation the lines of her ample but graceful figure, the more
remarkable because she was neither tall nor slim.

"So that was your wife at Claridge's yesterday afternoon?" she remarked,
a little abruptly.

He assented in silence. Her eyes sought his speculatively.