"I was wondering," she said, "whether Sir Leslie was right, when he said that you had too much conscience ever to be a great politician." "It mirrors Borrowdean's outlook upon politics precisely," he remarked. She smiled at him with a sudden radiance. She had risen to her feet, and with a quick, graceful movement leaned over him. This new womanliness which he had found so irresistible was alight once more in her face. Her eyes sought his fondly, she touched his lips with hers. The perfume of her clothes, the touch of her hair upon his cheek, were like a drug. He had no more words. "You may have one peach and one glass of the Prince's Burgundy, and then you must come and look for me," she said. "We have wasted too much time talking of other things. You haven't even told me yet what I have a right to hear, you know. I want to be told that you care for me better than anything else in the world." He caught her hands. There was a rare passion vibrating in his tone. "You do not doubt it, Berenice?" "Perhaps not," she answered, "but I want to be told. I am a middle-aged woman, you know, Lawrence, but I want to be made love to as though I were a silly girl! Isn't that foolish? But you must do it," she whispered, with her lips very close to his. He drew her into his arms. "I am not at all sure," he said, "that I have enough courage to make love to a Duchess!" "Then you can remember only that I am a woman," she whispered, "very, very, very much a woman, and--I'm afraid--a woman shockingly in love!" She disengaged herself suddenly, and was at the door before he could reach it. She looked back. Her cheeks were flushed. There was even a faint tinge of pink underneath the creamy white of her slender, stately neck. "Don't dare," she said, "to be more than five minutes!" Mannering poured himself out a glass of wine, and sat quite still with his head between his hands. He wanted to realize this thing if he could. The grinding of the great wheels fell no more upon his ears. He looked into a new world, so different from the old that he was almost afraid. And in her room, Berenice waited for him impatiently. CHAPTER VII A BLOW FOR BORROWDEAN There was a somewhat unusual alertness in Borrowdean's manner as he passed out from the little house in Sloane Gardens and summoned a passing hansom. He drove to the corner of Hyde Park, and dismissing the cab strolled along the broad walk. The many acquaintances whom he passed and repassed he greeted with a certain amount of abstraction. All the time he kept his eyes upon the road. He was waiting to catch sight of some familiar liveries. When at last they came he contrived to stop the carriage and hastily threaded his way to the side of the barouche.