"I am expecting the Duke's party at tea," she said peremptorily. "This
will be my only chance to-day."

"Then let's put it off--till to-morrow!" said Meadows, as he rose, still
smiling. "It is most kind of you, but I really must write my letters,
and my brains are pulp. But I will escort you through the garden, if I
may."

His hostess turned sharply, and walked back towards the front of the
house where Sir Luke and Mr. Frome, a young and rising Under-Secretary,
were waiting for her. Meadows accompanied her, but found her exceedingly
ungracious. She did, however, inform him, as they followed the other two
towards the exit from the garden, that she had come to the conclusion
that the subject he was proposing for his second series of lectures, to
be given at Dunstable House during the winter, "would never do."

"Famous Controversies of the Nineteenth Century--political and
religious." The very sound of it was enough to keep people away! "What
people expect from you is talk about _persons_--not ideas. Ideas are not
your line!"

Meadows flushed a little. What his "line" might be, he said, he had not
yet discovered. But he liked his subject, and meant to stick to it.

Lady Dunstable turned on him a pair of sarcastic eyes.

"That's so like you clever people. You would die rather than take
advice."