years. She was beautiful, notwithstanding the strained look of anxiety
which at that moment disfigured her face, the lurking fear which made
her voice sound artificial, the nervousness which every moment made
fresh demands upon her self-restraint.

"It came up from the sea," she said. "One moment Tony and I were
sitting out under the trees to keep away from the sun, and the next we
were driven shivering indoors; It was just like running into a fog bank
in the middle of the Atlantic on a hot summer's day."

"I found the difference in temperature amazing," he observed. "I, too,
dropped from the sunshine into a strange chill."

She tried to get rid of the subject.

"So you lost your seat," she said. "I am very sorry. Tell me how it
happened?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"The Democratic Party made up their mind, for some reason or other, that
I shouldn't sit. The Labour Party generally were not thinking of
running a candidate. I was to have been returned unopposed, in
acknowledgment of my work on the Nationalisation Bill. The Democrats,
however, ratted. They put up a man at the last moment, and--well, you
know the result--I lost."

"I don't understand English politics," she confessed, "but I thought you
were almost a Labour man yourself."