"But thinking a man interesting and thinking him a man one would like to marry are quite different, surely?" suggested fastidious Mr. Coxon.

"Thinking him interesting and thinking him a man one would be likely to marry are quite different," corrected Eleanor, emerging from Tomes.

"By the way, who was Mrs. Medland?" asked Alicia.

Coxon hesitated for a moment: Eleanor raised her eyes.

"I believe her name was Benyon," he answered. "I—I know nothing about her."

"Didn't you know her?"

"No, I was in England, and she died a year after I came back—before I went into politics at all."

"I wonder if she was nice."

"My dear Alicia, what can it matter?" asked Eleanor.