covered, and for his purposes was all that he could expect. It was close
enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy persons had
retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England;
and yet it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of
Westminster on the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other,
and his constituency lay before him like a raised map. Further, since
the great London termini were but ten minutes away, there were at his
disposal the First Trunk lines to every big town in England. For a
politician of no great means, who was asked to speak at Edinburgh on one
evening and in Marseilles on the next, he was as well placed as any man
in Europe.

He was a pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black
wire-haired, clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and
white-skinned; and he appeared this day extremely content with himself
and the world. His lips moved slightly as he worked, his eyes enlarged
and diminished with excitement, and more than once he paused and stared
out again, smiling and flushed.

Then a door opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of
papers, laid them down on the table without a word, and turned to go
out. Oliver lifted his hand for attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.

"Well, Mr. Phillips?" he said.

"There is news from the East, sir," said the secretary.

Oliver shot a glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.

"Any complete message?" he asked.