"Alexander must find time to go and hook him," said May, smiling. "Alexander'll be great on slaughter-houses." "And at the last minute Smiley's been hinting something about Mildmay giving a bit of land to extend the Recreation Ground. A beastly unscrupulous fellow I call Smiley." "Oh, poor Mr. Smiley! He wants to win." "He might play fair, though." "Might he? Oh, well, I suppose so. We've played fair anyhow--pretty fair, haven't we?" "Rather!" "You really think so, Jimmy?" She was serious now; Jimmy reached out his hand and touched hers for a moment; he divined that she was asking him for a verdict and was anxious what it might be. "Rather!" he said again. "That's all right. We've kept to the rules square enough." "Then I'm off to bow and smile!" she cried. As she went by she touched his hand again. "Thanks, Jimmy," she said. Jimmy, left alone, stretched himself, sighed, and lit a cigar; they were nearly out of the wood now, and they had managed to play pretty fair. For his own sake he was glad, since he had been mixed up in the campaign; he had perception enough to be far more glad for May Quisante's. Through all the fever of that day the same gladness and relief were in her heart in a form a thousandfold more intense. They enabled her to do her bowing and smiling, to hope eagerly, to work unceasingly, to be gay and happy in the excitement of fighting and the prospect of victory. She could put aside the memory of Tom Sinnett; they had not been to blame; let that affair be set off against Smiley's hypothetical extension of the Recreation Ground. She felt that she could face people, above all that she could face the Mildmays when the time came for her to meet them at the declaration of the poll. And as regarded her husband she could do more than praise and more than admire; she could feel tenderness and a touch of remorse as she saw him battling against worse than the enemy, against a deadly weariness and weakness to which he would not yield. From to-morrow she determined to lay to heart the doctor's counsel, to try whether he could not be persuaded to stand a little coddling, whether he might not be brought to, if only she could persuade herself to show him more love. When she looked at the Mildmays she understood what had perhaps been in the doctor's mind; dear Lady Mildmay (she was a woman who immediately claimed that epithet with its expression of mingled affection and ridicule) no doubt overdid a little her pleasant part. She made Sir Winterton a trifle absurd. But then with what chivalry he faced and covered the touch of absurdity, or avoided it without offending the love that caused it! Very glad she was that, when Lady Mildmay asked to be introduced, she could clasp hands with the consciousness that her side had played fair, and by a delicate distant reference could honestly assure the enemy's wife that both she and her husband had looked with disfavour on that unpleasant episode.