Sir George Tressady — Volume I

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

"When do you speak?"

The question fell out abruptly, and took George by surprise.

"I? On Monday, I believe, if I get my turn. But I fear the British Empire will go on if I don't!"

She threw a glance of scrutiny at his thin, whimsical face, with its fair moustache and sunburnt skin.

"I hear you are a good speaker," she said simply. "And you are entirely with Lord Fontenoy?"

He bowed lightly, his hands on his sides.

"You'll agree our case was well put? The worst of it—"

Then he stopped. He saw that Lady Maxwell had ceased to listen to him. She turned her head towards the door, and, without even saying good-bye to him, she hurried away from him towards the further end of the room.

"Maxwell, I see!" said Tressady to himself, with a shrug, as he returned to his seat. "Not flattering—but rather pretty, all the same!"

He was thinking of the quick change that had remade the face while he was talking to her—a change as lovely as it was unconscious.