“I suppose I shall be grossly impertinent if I ask what it is that holds you?” “I cannot now tell you, Robert, but--I must remain in England.” Her voice had a tremor in it, which she did her best to subdue. She was smiling still, but in a forced, self-conscious way. Asquith leaned back; he had lost his look of cheerful confidence. “But it isn’t such a grave matter, after all,” said Isabel, restoring the former tone. “It was a very kind thought of yours, very kind--but you won’t quarrel with me because I can’t come? It will make no difference in your plan for the Calders, surely?” “I can’t say, I’m sure,” Asquith replied, in an almost petulant manner, strangely at variance with his ordinary tone. He had thrust his hands into his pockets, and was tapping the carpet with his foot. “What nonsense!” Isabel exclaimed, with growing good humour. “As if you would allow such a scheme to be overthrown just because one of the party failed you! I can suggest half a dozen delightful people who will be happy to go with you.” “No doubt; but I wanted you.” “Robert, you are undeniably Oriental; the despotic habit still clings to you. If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, neither does one day’s hunting make an Englishman.” His countenance cleared. “Well,” he said, “this is certainly not final. Let us wait till that wedding is over.” “It is final,” she returned, very positively. “The wedding will not in the least alter things.” “What then are you going to do?” he asked, with deliberation, gazing at her steadily. Her eyes fell, and she seemed half to resent his persistence, as she answered: “I am going to live on three hundred a year.” “H’m! Do you think of living in London?” “No; I do not think of living in London. Proceed, sir, with the cross-examination.” “I think I have been rude enough for one day,” he returned, with a quiet smile as he rose from his chair. She held her hand to him with the friendly grace which could repay even when it disappointed. “Thank you, with all my heart,” she said. “Only--remember how dear independence must be to me.” “Are you acquainted with Mr. Lyster?” Robert asked, with a transition to easier topics. “I don’t think I know any one of that name.” “Some one who arrived here a few minutes after I did. It seems we came in the same train.” “To be sure; a friend the Strattons were expecting. Shall we go to the drawingroom?” There they found the gentleman in question conversing with Mrs. Stratton, a man of smooth appearance and fluent speech. His forte seemed to be politics, on which subject he discoursed continuously during luncheon. There happened to be diplomatic difficulties with Russia, and Mr. Lyster--much concerned, by-the-bye, with Indian commerce--was emphatic in denunciation of Slavonic craft and treachery, himself taking the stand-point of disinterested honesty, of principle in politics.