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"Stenson," said I, when my man appeared, "take this to Miss Carlotta and say with my compliments she should not have left it in the drawing-room." Stenson, thinking I had rung for whisky, had brought up decanter and glasses. As he set the tray upon the small table, I noticed Pasquale look with some curiosity at my man's impassive face. But he said nothing more about the slipper.
As my five days' visit, however, has not advanced me to that pitch of wisdom, I am foolishly concerned in my mind as to her welfare, and anxious to dissolve the triumvirate, Miss Griggs, Stenson, and Antoinette, whom I have entrusted with the reins of government.
"I can honestly say that I, at any rate, have never forgotten it," Mr. Stenson answered gravely. "There isn't a man in my Government who has a single personal feeling in favour of, or a single benefit to gain, by the continuance of this ghastly war. On the other hand, there is scarcely one who does not realise that the end is not yet.
She returned in dismay. Water would not get it off. I rang for Antoinette, but Antoinette had gone out. It being too delicate a matter for Stenson, I fetched a pot of vaseline from my own room, and as Carlotta did not know what to make of it, I with my own hands cleansed Carlotta. She screamed with delight, thinking it vastly amusing. Her emotions are facile. I cannot deny that it amused me too.
Stenson waited on us, grave and imperturbable as if we had put back the clock of time a twelvemonth. The only covert reference he made to the event was to murmur discreetly in my ear: "I have brought up a bottle of the Pommery, Sir Marcus, in the hope you would drink some." I was touched, for the good fellow had no other way of showing his solicitude. Carlotta allowed him to fill her glass.
"I am afraid Stenson must have misdelivered my message," said I. "Then you do not want me at all, and I must go away?" Oh, those eyes! I am growing so tired of them. I hesitated, and was lost. "Please let me stay and talk to Pasquale." "Mr. Pasquale," I corrected. She echoed my words with a cooing laugh, and taking my consent for granted, curled herself up in a corner of the sofa.
Our whole cause may be paralysed, all that we have worked for all these months will be in vain, and this accursed and bloody war may be dragged on until our politicians see fit to make a peace of words." "I know Mr. Stenson well," the Bishop declared, "and I am perfectly convinced that he is too sane-minded a man to dream of taking such a step as you suggest.
Stenson switched on an electric light. "Sit down, Orden," he invited. "There is no need for us to stand glaring at one another. There is enough of real importance in the nature of our interview without making melodrama of it." The Prime Minister threw himself into an easy chair. Julian, with a little sigh of relief, selected a high-backed oak chair and rested his foot upon a hassock.
The peace is not the Kaiser's peace. It is the peace of the Socialist Party in Germany, and the day the terms are proclaimed, democracy there will score its first triumph." "I find neither in the European Press nor in the reports of our secret service agents the slightest warrant for any such supposition," Mr. Stenson pronounced with emphasis. "You have read Freistner's letter?" Fenn asked.
Julian addressed a question to the Bishop across the table. Lord Maltenby consulted Doctor Lennard as to the date of the first Punic War. Mr. Stenson admired the flowers. Catherine, who had been sitting with her eyes riveted upon the Prime Minister, turned to her neighbour. "Tell me about your amateur journalism, Mr. Orden?" she begged. "I have an idea that it ought to be interesting."
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