Tallente, seeking about for some excuse to remain for a few moments after the departure of the Dartreys, was relieved of all anxiety by Jane's calm and dignified remark.
"I can't part with you just yet, Mr. Tallente," she said. "You are not in a hurry, I hope, and you are so close to your rooms that the matter of taxies need not worry you. And, Mr. Dartrey, next time you come down to my county you must bring your wife over to see me. Woolhanger is so typically Devonshire, I really think you would be interested."
"I shall make Stephen bring me in the spring," Nora promised. "I shall never forget how fascinated we were with the whole place this last summer. Don't forget that you are coming to the House with me tomorrow afternoon."
Jane smiled.
"I am looking forward to it," she declared. "The only annoying part is that that stupid man won't promise to speak."
"I shall have so much to say within the next week or so," Tallente observed, a little grimly, "that I think I had better keep quiet as long as I can."
The moment for which Tallente had been longing came then. The front door closed behind the departing guests. Jane motioned to him to come and sit by her side on the couch.
"I love your friends," she said. "I think Mrs. Dartrey is perfectly sweet and Dartrey is just as wonderful as I had pictured him. They are so strangely unusual," she went on. "I can scarcely believe, even now, that our dinner actually took place in my little room here—Stephen Dartrey, the man I have read about all my life, and this brilliant young wife of his. Thank you so much, dear friend, for bringing them."
"And thank you, dear perfect hostess," he answered. "Do you know what you did? You created an atmosphere in which it was possible to think and talk and see things clearly. Do you realise what has happened? Dartrey has done a great thing. He has thrown over the one menacing power in the advancing cause of the people. He is going to back me against Miller."
"What exactly is Miller's position?" she asked.