She laughed softly, leaning back amongst the cushions of the chair and
looking around the room, her kindly eyes filled with interest.

"It is a most characteristic mess," she declared. "I am sure an
interviewer would give anything for this glimpse into your tastes and
habits. Golf clubs, all cleaned up and ready for action; trout rod,
newly-waxed at the joints--you must try my stream, there is no water in
yours; tennis racquets in a very excellent press--I wonder whether
you're too good for a single with me some day? Typewriter--rather
dusty. I don't believe that you can use it."

"I can't," he admitted. "I have been writing my letters by hand for the
last two days."

She sighed.

"Men are helpless creatures! Fancy a great politician unable to write
his own letters! What has become of your secretary?"

Tallente threw some books to the floor and seated himself in the vacant
easy-chair.

"I shall begin to think," he said, a little querulously, "that you don't
read the newspapers. My secretary, according to that portion of the
Press which guarantees to provide full value for the smallest copper
coin, has 'disappeared'."

"Really?" she exclaimed. "He or she?"

"He--the Honourable Anthony Palliser by name, son of Stobart Palliser,