Tallente found a taxi on the stand and drove at once to Charles Street.
The butler took his hat and stick and conducted him into the spacious
drawing-room upon the first floor. Here he received a shock. The most
natural thing in the world had happened, but an event which he had never
even taken into his calculation. There were half a dozen other callers,
all, save one, women. Jane saw his momentary look of consternation, but
was powerless to send him even an answering message of sympathy. She
held out her hand and welcomed him with a smile.

"This is perfectly charming of you, Mr. Tallente," she said. "I know
how busy you must be in the afternoons, but I am afraid I am
old-fashioned enough to like my men friends to sometimes forget even the
affairs of the nation. You know my sister, I think--Lady Alice
Mountgarron? Aunt, may I present Mr. Tallente--the Countess of
Somerham. Mrs. Ward Levitte--Lady English--oh! and Colonel Fosbrook."

Tallente made the best of a very disappointing situation. He exchanged
bows with his new acquaintances, declined tea and was at once taken
possession of by Lady Somerham, a formidable-looking person in
tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, with a rasping voice and a judicial
air.

"So you are the Mr. Tallente," she began, "who Somerham tells me has
achieved the impossible!"

"Upon the face of it," Tallente rejoined, with a smile, "your husband is
proved guilty of an exaggeration."

"Poor Henry!" his wife sighed. "He does get a little hysterical about