"All the same it didn't prevent his losing his seat."
"By half-a-dozen votes: it was too odious!" her ladyship cried.
"I remember—I remember. And in such a case as that why didn't they immediately put him in somewhere else?"
"How one sees you live abroad, dear Peter! There happens to have been the most extraordinary lack of openings—I never saw anything like it—for a year. They've had their hand on him, keeping him all ready. I daresay they've telegraphed him."
"And he hasn't told you?"
Lady Agnes faltered. "He's so very odd when he's abroad!"
"At home too he lets things go," Grace interposed. "He does so little—takes no trouble." Her mother suffered this statement to pass unchallenged, and she pursued philosophically: "I suppose it's because he knows he's so clever."
"So he is, dear old man. But what does he do, what has he been doing, in a positive way?"
"He has been painting."
"Ah not seriously!" Lady Agnes protested.