"No incense, please," said Lady Wereminster sharply. "Not care for the world—a good-looking woman like you! Stuff and nonsense! You're living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth. People can't go and stand on pillars like St. Simeon Stylites, and be comparatively disregarded. The telephone has made that impossible. Why, if anybody did such a thing now, within half-an-hour he would have a row of Pressmen at his feet, expecting him to fall off."
"But I don't want to sit on a pillar or do anything remarkable," said Evelyn. "I came here because I was tired out. I had a lot of work over that Albert Hall meeting, you know. As for Mr. Farquharson, the one or two things we did together are over now. One doesn't expect a future Prime Minister to go on calling on insignificant people like ourselves day after day."
"Umph!" Lady Wereminster looked her up and down critically. "The man's not in Parliament yet, even. So you were tired out? And never let one of your friends know? Is the air supposed to be especially good here, by the bye?"
"It's the best in Sussex," said Evelyn promptly. "We are I don't know how many hundred feet above the sea. There's no known disease we can't cure in about ten minutes. Didn't you notice the russet-apple faces of the village children as you came?"
"All I can say is you don't do the air credit," said Lady Wereminster; "you're drawn and pale, and you've got deep lines under your eyes. And your protégé, by the way, has scarcely been heard in public since you left. If you don't come back and look after him, people will say the famous Albert Hall speech was his swan-song."
Evelyn laughed outright.
"What utter nonsense! My dear lady, there's nothing that man can't do. If he's quiet now it's for a purpose. He means to show us we can't do without him and so force our hands."
"Perhaps you're right," said Lady Wereminster slowly, proceeding once more to enfold herself in a voluminous motor veil. "By the way, you never asked me how I found out your hiding-place. Your husband gave me your address—in the very strictest confidence. I'm not sure he hasn't given it to other people too. I saw him standing in a corner last night at the Beadons' party, with Mr. Farquharson; the future Prime Minister wrote down something on his shirt-cuff as your husband left. It may have been an appointment, I don't know." She turned briskly. "Well, there's the motor. You won't change your mind and let me take you back? Good-bye, then, wilful woman."
She was gone. And Evelyn, standing alone at the gate watching her out of sight, found her voice at last and called, "Come back, come back," too late. She even ran a few steps in the direction that the motor had taken before realizing the utter futility of her action.
Only one's thoughts can keep pace with a forty horse-power car!