“I don’t admire them.”
“You would like to help them to become more admirable. Ah! The Anglo-Saxon is strong within you. You are not at all like Renan. And then you went in for Parliamentary honors too; three years ago, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you keep on?”
“Because I didn’t keep my seat when my party went out. The honors were dubious, Miss Archinard. I cut a very ineffective figure.”
“I remember meeting a man here at the time who said you weren’t ‘practical,’ and I liked you for it too. If only you had kept in we should surely have met. Hilda and I were in London this spring.”
“Were you? And I was in Japan. I only got back three weeks ago.”
“How you do dash about the globe. But you have been to Allersley since getting back?”
“Only for a day or two. But tell me about your spring in London.”
“We were with Lady Mainwaring.”
“Ah, I did not see her when I was at Allersley. That accounts for my having had no news of you. You did not see my sister in London; she has been in the country all this year. You went to Court, I suppose?”
“Yes, Lady Mainwaring presented us.”