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She turned at random to another paragraph. “Lie quietly concealed in the fern and bramble in the gap by the old rowan tree, and you may see, almost every evening during early summer, a pair of lesser whitethroats creeping up and down the nettles and hedge- growth that mask their nesting-place.”

The insufferable monotony of the proposed recreation! Eleanor would not have watched the most brilliant performance at His Majesty’s Theatre for a single evening under such uncomfortable circumstances, and to be asked to watch lesser whitethroats creeping up and down a nettle “almost every evening” during the height of the season struck her as an imputation on her intelligence that was positively offensive. Impatiently she transferred her attention to the dinner menu, which the boy had thoughtfully brought in as an alternative to the more solid literary fare. “Rabbit curry,” met her eye, and the lines of disapproval deepened on her already puckered brow. The cook was a great believer in the influence of environment, and nourished an obstinate conviction that if you brought rabbit and curry-powder together in one dish a rabbit curry would be the result. And Clovis and the odious Bertie van Tahn were coming to dinner. Surely, thought Eleanor, if Arlington knew how much she had had that day to try her, he would refrain from joke-making.

At dinner that night it was Eleanor herself who mentioned the name of a certain statesman, who may be decently covered under the disguise of X.

“X,” said Arlington Stringham, “has the soul of a meringue.”

It was a useful remark to have on hand, because it applied equally well to four prominent statesmen of the day, which quadrupled the opportunities for using it.

“Meringues haven’t got souls,” said Eleanor’s mother.

“It’s a mercy that they haven’t,” said Clovis; “they would be always losing them, and people like my aunt would get up missions to meringues, and say it was wonderful how much one could teach them and how much more one could learn from them.”

“What could you learn from a meringue?” asked Eleanor’s mother.

“My aunt has been known to learn humility from an ex-Viceroy,” said Clovis.

“I wish cook would learn to make curry, or have the sense to leave it alone,” said Arlington, suddenly and savagely.

Eleanor’s face softened. It was like one of his old remarks in the days when there was no abyss between them.

It was during the debate on the Foreign Office vote that Stringham made his great remark that “the people of Crete unfortunately make more history than they can consume locally.” It was not brilliant, but it came in the middle of a dull speech, and the House was quite pleased with it. Old gentlemen with bad memories said it reminded them of Disraeli.

It was Eleanor’s friend, Gertrude Ilpton, who drew her attention to Arlington’s newest outbreak. Eleanor in these days avoided the morning papers.

“It’s very modern, and I suppose very clever,” she observed.

“Of course it’s clever,” said Gertrude; “all Lady Isobel’s sayings are clever, and luckily they bear repeating.”

“Are you sure it’s one of her sayings?” asked Eleanor.

“My dear, I’ve heard her say it dozens of times.”

“So that is where he gets his humour,” said Eleanor slowly, and the hard lines deepened round her mouth.

The death of Eleanor Stringham from an overdose of chloral, occurring at the end of a rather uneventful season, excited a certain amount of unobtrusive speculation. Clovis, who perhaps exaggerated the importance of curry in the home, hinted at domestic sorrow.

And of course Arlington never knew. It was the tragedy of his life that he should miss the fullest effect of his jesting.