Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/230

 She felt annoyed. Again she asked herself who he could be. When and where had she seen him? And then a light broke. It may have been the checked trousers, it may have been the prognathous jaws, but her mind was suddenly flung back upon that recent visit to Beaconsfield Villas, and a certain unforgettable scene. This slightly fantastic figure was no less a person than Lady Muriel's fiancé, the new Home Secretary.

II

Crossing to Broad Place she could not check a laugh. Wounded, angry, humiliated by the pressure of a recent event, there still lurked in her a true appreciation of the human comedy. What a pill for Bridport House to have to swallow! It was poetic justice that the pride which strained at a gnat so harmless as herself should have to gulp a real live camel in the person of the Right Honorable Gentleman.

But the laugh, after all, was hollow. Tears of vexation leaped to her eyes. And they owed more to the perception of her own inadequacy in this smarting hour than to the act of Fate. "Wretch that I am!" She was ready to chasten herself with scorpions as she crossed the familiar path into Albert Gate.

Within a very few yards were the loyal, warm-hearted friends of her own orbit. And there, alas! was the rub. Her own orbit could not satisfy her now. She craved something that all their kindness, their cheerfulness, their frank affection could not give. "Just common or garden snobbishness, my dear, that's the nature of your complaint," whispered a monitor within. "You are no better