"Yes,—what taste she has! However, it was I really who advised her to take the house."
"Naturally," said Darrell.
Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase wall.
"I suppose the dear lady has a hundred slaves of the lamp, as usual," said Ashe. "You advise her about her house—somebody else helps her to buy her wine—"
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Harman, offended,—"as if I couldn't do that!"
"Hullo!" said Darrell, as they neared the drawing-room door. "What a crowd there is!"
For, as the butler announced them, the din of talk which burst through the door implied indeed a multitude—much at their ease.
They made their way in with difficulty, shaping their course towards that corner in the room where they knew they should find their hostess. Ashe was greeted on all sides with friendly words and congratulations, and a passage was opened for him to the famous "blue sofa" where Madame d'Estrées sat enthroned.
She looked up with animation, broke off her talk with two elderly diplomats who seemed to have taken possession of her, and beckoned Ashe to a seat beside her.
"So you're in? Was it a hard fight?"
"A hard fight? Oh no. One would have had to be a great fool not to get in."
"They say you spoke very well. I suppose you promised them everything they wanted—from the crown downwards?"
"Yes—all the usual harmless things," said Ashe.
Madame d'Estrées laughed.
"And you took your seat to-night?"
"I did. It fell jolly flat. The news of Portsmouth had just come in."
"Ah!—that's a blow. Anything else happened to you?"
She looked at him across the top of her fan.
"You can't wait for your newspaper?" he said, smiling, after a moment's pause.
She shrugged her shoulders good-humoredly. "Oh, I know—of course I know. Is it as good as you expected?"
"As good as—" The young man opened his mouth in wonder. "What right had I to expect anything?"
"How modest! All the same they want you—and they're very glad to get you. But you can't save them."
"That's not generally expected of Under-Secretaries, is it?"
"A good deal's expected of you. I talked to Lord Parham about you last night."
William Ashe flushed a little.
"Did you? Very kind of you."
"Not at all. I didn't flatter you in the least. Nor did he. But it's true. They're sure you'll do well. You'll help them at least to fall decently, and then when you all come back—"
"Goodness!" said Ashe, "you are looking ahead."
She laughed.
"Well, it's pretty plain, isn't it, that the other side will come in, and equally plain that they'll never be able to keep in? And then you'll get your chance."
She bent forward and lightly patted the sleeve of his coat with the fingers of a very delicate hand. In her sympathetic aspect, Madame d'Estrées was no doubt exceedingly attractive. There were, of course, many people who were not moved by it; to whom it was the conjuring of an arch pretender. But these were generally of the female sex. Men, at any rate, lent themselves to the illusion. Ashe, certainly, had always done so. And to-night the spell still worked; though, as her action drew his particular attention to her face and expression, he was aware of slight changes in her which recalled his mother's words of the afternoon. The eyes were tired; at last he perceived in them some slight signs of age and harass. Up till now her dominating charm had been a kind of timeless softness and sensuousness, which breathed from her whole personality—from her fair skin and hair, her large, smiling eyes. She put, as it were, the question of age aside. It was difficult to think of her as a child; it was impossible to imagine her as an old woman. A ripe yet subtle bloom; perfect physical health; a skilled command of voice and gesture; a taste in jewels and in dress that suited with what an earlier generation would have called the "opulence" of her charms—
