“You must remember, dear,” she said, “that Mr. Mannering and I are in rather a peculiar position.  My great-grandfather, my father and my uncle were all Prime Ministers of England, and they were all staunch Liberals.  My family has always taken its politics very seriously indeed, and so have I. It is not a little thing, this, after all.”

“But you will do it!” Hester exclaimed.  “I am sure that you will.”

Berenice rose to her feet.  A sense of excitement was suddenly quivering in her veins, her heart was beating fiercely.  After all, this child was wise.  She had been drifting into the dull, passionless life of a middle-aged woman.  All the joys of youth seemed suddenly to be sweeping up from her heart, mocking the serenity of her days, these stagnant days, sheltered from the great winds of life, where the waves were ripples and the hours changeless.  She raised her arms for a moment and dropped them to her side.

“Oh, I do not know!” she cried.  “It is such an upheaval.  If he were here—­if he asked me himself.  But he will never come now.”

“I believe that he would come to-morrow,” Hester said, “if he were sure—­”

Berenice laughed softly.  There was colour in her cheeks as she turned to Hester.

“Tell him to come and have tea with me to-morrow afternoon,” she said.  “I shall be quite alone.”

* * * * *

Hester felt all her confidence slipping away from her.  The echoes of her breathless, passionate words had scarcely died away, and Mannering, to all appearance, was unmoved.  His still, cold face showed no signs of agitation, his dark, beringed eyes were full of nothing but an intense weariness.

“Do I understand, Hester,” he asked, “that you have been to see the Duchess?—­that you have spoken of these things to her?”

Her heart sank.  His tone was almost censorious.  Nevertheless, she stood her ground.

“Yes!  I have told you the truth.  And I am glad that I went.  You are very clever people, both of you, but you are spoiling your lives for the sake of a little common sense.  It was necessary for some one to interfere.”

Mannering shook his head slowly.

“You meant kindly, Hester,” he said, “but it was a mistake.  The time when that might have been possible has gone by.  Neither she nor I can call back the hand of time.  The last two years have made an old man of me.  I have no longer my enthusiasm.  I am in the whirlpool, and I must fight my way through to the end.”

She sat at his feet.  He was still in the easy-chair into which he had sunk on his first coming into the room.  He had been speaking in the House late, amidst all the excitement of a political crisis.

“Why fight alone,” she murmured, “when she is willing to come to you?”

He shook his head.

“There would be conditions,” he said, “and she would not understand.  I may be in office in a month with most of her friends in opposition.  The situation would be impossible!”