"What post?"
"Didn't you hear? They have made him Under-secretary to the Home
Department. So that he is now in the Government."
She put back the photograph, and moved her chair a little so as to see more of the plane trees and the strips of sunset cloud.
"How is Lord Maxwell?" she asked presently.
"Much changed. It might end in a sudden break-up at any time."
Hallin saw a slight contraction pass over her face. He knew that she had always felt an affection for Lord Maxwell. Suddenly Marcella looked hastily round her. Miss Hallin was busy with a little servant at the other end of the room making arrangements for supper.
"Tell me," she said, bending over the arm of her chair and speaking in a low, eager voice, "he is beginning to forget it?"
Hallin looked at her in silence, but his half sad, half ironic smile suggested an answer from which she turned away.
"If he only would!" she said, speaking almost to herself, with a kind of impatience. "He ought to marry, for everybody's sake."
"I see no sign of his marrying—at present," said Hallin, drily.