“It’s not quite as bad as that. In Parliament you would get the training you need. If I know you, you’d forge ahead. At any rate, you would be in the movement. And your chance would come.” Lionel answered her sharply, with incisive curtness: “You have not painted a flattering portrait of politicians, yet you urge me to become one of them.” “I described them as I see them, because you are so preposterously modest. You look up to them. Many of them could look up to you. Place and power are easily within your grasp. Men with half your advantages have climbed high.” Her flattery tickled him, but he stuck doggedly to his point. “Parliament would mean a bigger allowance. Father couldn’t afford it.” Her tone became light again. “As to that, you are like poor Beau. You must make the right sort of marriage. Unlike poor Beau, you are well able to do it.” He moved uneasily. “Margot—have you talked this over with Father?” “On my honour—no. Why do you ask?” “Your views are his views. He put it to me within a few hours of my return home. ‘You must marry a nice little girl with a bit of money.’” The adjective “little” may have caused her embarrassment. And his voice, as he spoke, was low and troubled. He seemed, too, to be deliberately looking away from her. She saved an awkward situation with a ripple of laughter. “Why, of course,” she went on, quite herself again. “I could find you half a dozen nice girls. Do you prefer them—little?” He stammered out a reply: “I—I d-don’t know. You see I—I haven’t quite got to father’s point of view. I mean to say I never thought of marrying at all. It wasn’t exactly beyond my horizon, but——!” He broke off, raising troubled eyes to her. She handled him with extreme delicacy and patience. “I understand perfectly. Young men of your type don’t think of marriage till—till love imposes the thought of it on them. But is it possible, Lionel, that you have never been in love?” “Never—in the sense you mean.” “Really? What a sensation to come! But—how shall I put it?—wouldn’t you like to be? Every girl worth her salt thinks of a possible husband—generally a quite impossible man. Have you never thought of a possible wife?” “In the abstract—yes. Are you pulling my leg, Margot?” “Heaven forbid! I am nearly, not quite, as solemn as you are.” But she laughed gaily, contradicting her own words. Her laughter was so infectious that Lionel laughed with her. The ice between them broke and drifted away. He chuckled, like his father. “I say, you must think me a mug.” “I feel,” she paused, meeting his glance roguishly, “I feel old enough to be your mother, and really I’m one year younger than you.” “One year and three months.” “You looked me up?” “I did.” She inferred, possibly, more than was strictly warrantable. Suddenly the dressing gong boomed out. Margot got up. Lionel protested: “You don’t take half an hour to shove on a frock, do you?” “Sometimes. I am wearing a new frock to-night. I hope you will like it.”