Oliver loved every hint of human life—­all busy sights and sounds—­and was listening now, smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the clear air.  Then he set his lips, laid his fingers on the keys once more, and went on speech-constructing.

* * * * *

He was very fortunate in the situation of his house.  It stood in an angle of one of those huge spider-webs with which the country was covered, and for his purposes was all that he could expect.  It was close enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy persons had retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England; and yet it was as quiet as he could wish.  He was within ten minutes of Westminster on the one side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other, and his constituency lay before him like a raised map.  Further, since the great London termini were but ten minutes away, there were at his disposal the First Trunk lines to every big town in England.  For a politician of no great means, who was asked to speak at Edinburgh on one evening and in Marseilles on the next, he was as well placed as any man in Europe.

He was a pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black wire-haired, clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and white-skinned; and he appeared this day extremely content with himself and the world.  His lips moved slightly as he worked, his eyes enlarged and diminished with excitement, and more than once he paused and stared out again, smiling and flushed.

Then a door opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of papers, laid them down on the table without a word, and turned to go out.  Oliver lifted his hand for attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.

“Well, Mr. Phillips?” he said.

“There is news from the East, sir,” said the secretary.

Oliver shot a glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.

“Any complete message?” he asked.

“No, sir; it is interrupted again.  Mr. Felsenburgh’s name is mentioned.”

Oliver did not seem to hear; he lifted the flimsy printed sheets with a sudden movement, and began turning them.

“The fourth from the top, Mr. Brand,” said the secretary.

Oliver jerked his head impatiently, and the other went out as if at a signal.

The fourth sheet from the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb Oliver’s attention altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning back motionless in his chair.  Then he sighed, and stared again through the window.

Then once more the door opened, and a tall girl came in.

“Well, my dear?” she observed.

Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.

“Nothing definite,” he said.  “Even less than usual.  Listen.”

He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat on his left.

She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes, firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders.  She had walked slowly across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a very graceful and stately attitude.  She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of patience; but her eyes flickered with interest.