"I like it so much," he replied, "that I feel like settling here for the
rest of my life."

She shook her head.

"You will never be able to do that," she said, "at least not for many
years. The country will need so much of your time. But it is
delightful to think that you may come here for your holidays."

"If you read the newspapers," he remarked, a little grimly, "you might
not be so sure that the country is clamouring for my services."

She waved away his speech with a little gesture of contempt.

"Rubbish! Your defeat at Hellesfield was a matter of political jobbery.
Any one could see through that. Horlock ought never to have sent you
there. He ought to have found you a perfectly safe seat, and of course
he will have to do it."

He shook his head.

"I am not so sure. Horlock resents my defeat almost as though it were a
personal matter. Besides, it is an age of young men, Lady Jane."

"Young men!" she scoffed. "But you are young."

"Am I?" he answered, a little sadly. "I am not feeling it just now.
Besides, there is something wrong about my enthusiasms. They are
becoming altogether too pastoral. I am rather thinking of taking up the
cultivation of roses and of making a terraced garden down to the sea.