the winter garden which made her own house famous. "I must apologise,
Mrs. Van Fosdyke," he said, "for my late appearance. I travelled up
from Devonshire this afternoon and found snow all the way. We were
nearly two hours late."

"It is all the more kind of you to have turned out at all, then," she
told him warmly. "I don't mind telling you that I should have been
terribly disappointed if you had failed me. It has been my one desire
for months to have you three--the Prime Minister, Lethbridge and
you--under my roof at the same time."

"You find politics interesting over here?" Tallente asked, a little
curiously.

She flashed a quick glance at him.

"Why, I find them absolutely fascinating," she declared. "The whole
thing is so incomprehensible. Just look at to-night. Half of Debrett
is represented here, practically the whole of the diplomats, and yet,
except yourself, not a single member of the political party who we are
told will be ruling this country within a few months. The very anomaly
of it is so fascinating."

"There is no necessary kinship between Society and politics," Tallente
reminded her. "Your own country, for instance."

Mrs. Van Fosdyke, who was an American, shrugged her shoulders.

"My own country scarcely counts," she protested. "After all, we came
into being as a republic, and our aristocracy is only a spurious