"A polite way of stopping my tongue, eh? But what I’ve said is for your good, Evelyn, as unpleasant things always are in the view of the person who says them. Every one’s discussing this sudden flight of yours, and the world can’t talk about anything long without saying something scandalous. And we all miss you so! Creagh’s depressed, Wereminster’s so irritable that I can hardly face him at meal-times, and as for Dora Beadon, she’s more odious than ever." "You dear old impostor, I’ve only been away a week!" "A week, my dear—a day’s enough to start a sensation in London, if it’s properly spread. You see, try as you will, you can’t escape being a personality. You’re known, and you’re watched. Must I speak plainer? Well, then—when it happens that the motor of a very notorious personage has been waiting outside your house day after day for six weeks or more, and the visits suddenly cease and you run away into the country, the world scents out a quarrel, and begins agitating itself as to the meaning of it all." "I care very little for the world’s opinion," said Evelyn. "No incense, please," said Lady Wereminster sharply. "Not care for the world—a good-looking woman like you! Stuff and nonsense! You’re living in the twentieth century, not the sixteenth. People can’t go and stand on pillars like St. Simeon Stylites, and be comparatively disregarded. The telephone has made that impossible. Why, if anybody did such a thing now, within half-an-hour he would have a row of Pressmen at his feet, expecting him to fall off." "But I don’t want to sit on a pillar or do anything remarkable," said Evelyn. "I came here because I was tired out. I had a lot of work over that Albert Hall meeting, you know. As for Mr. Farquharson, the one or two things we did together are over now. One doesn’t expect a future Prime Minister to go on calling on insignificant people like ourselves day after day." "Umph!" Lady Wereminster looked her up and down critically. "The man’s not in Parliament yet, even. So you were tired out? And never let one of your friends know? Is the air supposed to be especially good here, by the bye?" "It’s the best in Sussex," said Evelyn promptly. "We are I don’t know how many hundred feet above the sea. There’s no known disease we can’t cure in about ten minutes. Didn’t you notice the russet-apple faces of the village children as you came?" "All I can say is you don’t do the air credit," said Lady Wereminster; "you’re drawn and pale, and you’ve got deep lines under your eyes. And your _protégé_, by the way, has scarcely been heard in public since you left. If you don’t come back and look after him, people will say the famous Albert Hall speech was his swan-song." Evelyn laughed outright. "What utter nonsense! My dear lady, there’s nothing that man can’t do. If he’s quiet now it’s for a purpose. He means to show us we can’t do without him and so force our hands."