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COVERING END
301

confidence; as if she might after all understand. "The enemy, yes—everywhere in force. I went for him: misery and ignorance and vice—injustice and privilege and wrong. Such as you see me———"

"You're a rabid reformer?"—she understood beautifully. "I wish we had you at Missoura Top!"

He literally, for a moment, in the light of her beauty and familiarity, appeared to measure his possible use there; then, looking round him again, announced with a sigh that, predicament for predicament, his own would do. "I fear my work is nearer home. I hope," he continued, "since you're so good as to seem to care, to perform a part of that work in the next House of Commons. My electors have wanted me———"

"And you've wanted them" she lucidly put in, "and that has been why you couldn't come down."

"Yes, for all this last time. And before that, from my childhood up, there was another reason." He took a few steps away and brought it out as rather a shabby one. "A family feud."

She proved to be quite delighted with it. "Oh, I'm so glad—I hoped I'd strike a 'feud'! That rounds it off, and spices it up, and, for the