Page:The council of seven.djvu/127

 *—she did not despair, even now, of seeing this renegade back in the fold.

At any rate, the renegade's mother was fain to inform the edified Helen that the knock on the head he had received the previous day from the Hellington miners would do him all the good in the world. "A gentleman has no right to go among the rabble. They have no more use for him, than he should have for them. I hope they've hit him hard enough, that's all."

Even Helen, a woman of the world, hardly knew whether to be shocked or amused by this downrightness. She compromised by being both. And greatly daring, she ventured presently to take up cudgels for her stricken hero.

Was it possible Lady Elizabeth didn't realize that one day John might become Prime Minister?

The Die-hard would be surprised at nothing, but in times like these it was little enough to any one's credit to become Prime Minister.

Helen, a little staggered, yet secretly charmed, did her best to develop the subject, but the old lady would have none of it. Abhorring John's ideas, she refused to take their owner seriously. The truth was she had never quite got over the shock of his flaunting a red necktie at Christ Church and being called in consequence "Comrade" Endor.

At the back of Lady Elizabeth's mind, no doubt, lay the hard fact that this Miss Sholto was not the least fantastic of "Comrade" Endor's "isms." She had no