Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/250

 "Yes, yes, Dolly," said Rosewarne hurriedly.

"And for the love of decency, don't Dolly me," said Mrs. Rosewarne with a petulant movement of her shoulders. "It's bad enough to have to answer to an elderly Quaker name like Dorothy."

Rosewarne got up from the table. "For God's sake, be civil to me, if you can't be kind," he said sharply. She regarded him coldly. "What is it you want?" he asked.

Mrs. Rosewarne rapped her knuckles angrily upon the table. "I imagined we had made that pretty clear between us long ago," she said with a sarcastic emphasis; "we agreed that you were to go into Parliament, and we laid our plans to that end. The only thing wanting was the particular seat, and now it s found you ask me what I m talking about."

She looked at him with placid disdain. Rosewarne shuddered; he remembered now, as in a dream, the ambitions she had formed for him.

"No, no, dear," he said. "Tell me. It's all right. I'll see Lord—Lord Hambleton. The——"

Mrs. Rosewarne s expression turned swiftly to complacency. "No," she said, "leave him to me, Freddy. I shall see him this afternoon at the Charters s. You must see Maclagan to-day, and we'll meet and talk the matter over at dinner."

She smiled upon him with a tolerant air of patronage. Rose warne stood by the window, restlessly twitching his fingers.

"You will not be in to lunch?" he asked, dully.

"No; I m going to the Charters's. We have each a long day before us. It s a sort of crisis in our lives. I m tired of this undistinguished competence. Any one can be the partner in a bank. It is the House that opens the gate to success."

She rose and swept her skirts behind her with a motion of her arm