Lady Maxwell listened to what he had to say, a sort of silent passion in her face all the time--a noble passion nobly restrained. When he stopped, George caught her reply. "He has neither _seen_ nor _felt_--every sentence showed it--that is all one can say. How can one take his judgment?" George's mouth twitched. He slipped, smiling, into a place beside Letty. "Did you hear that?" he inquired. "Fontenoy's speech, of course," said the under-secretary, looking round. "She's pitching into Leven, I suppose. He's as cranky and unsound as he can be. Shouldn't wonder if you got him before long." He nodded good-temperedly to Tressady, then got up to speak to a man on the edge of the further group. "How amusing!" said George, his satirical eyes still watching Lady Maxwell. "How much that set has 'seen and felt' of sweaters, and white-lead workers, and that ilk! Don't they look like it?" "Who are they?" Letty was now using all her eyes to find out, and especially for the purpose of carrying away a mental photograph of Lady Maxwell's black hat and dress. "Oh! the Maxwells' particular friends in the House--most of them as well provided with family and goods as they make 'em: a philanthropic, idealist lot, that yearns for the people, and will be the first to be kicked downstairs when the people gets its own. However, they aren't all quite happy in their minds. Frank Leven there, as Benson says, is decidedly shaky. He is the member for the Maxwells' division--Maxwell, of course, put him in. He has a house there, I believe, and he married Lady Maxwell's great friend, Miss Macdonald--an ambitious little party, they say, who simply insisted on his going into Parliament. Oh, then, Bennett is there--do you see?--the little dark man with a frock-coat and spectacles? He's Lady Maxwell's link with the Independents--oldest workman member--been in the House a long time, so that by now he isn't quite as one-eyed and one-eared as the rest of them. I suppose she hopes to make use of him at critical moments--she takes care to have tools of all sorts. Gracious--listen!" There was, indeed, a very storm of discussion sweeping through the rival party. Lady Maxwell's penetrating but not loud voice seemed to pervade it, and her eyes and face, as she glanced from one speaker to another, drew alternately the shafts and the sympathy of the rest. Tressady made a face. "I say, Letty, promise me one thing!" His hand stole towards hers. Tully discreetly looked the other way. "Promise me not to be a political woman, there's a dear!" Letty hastily withdrew her fingers, having no mind at all for caresses in public. "But I _must_ be a political woman--I shall have to be! I know heaps of girls and married women who get up everything in the papers--all the stupidest things--not because they know anything about it, or because they care a rap, but because some of their men friends happen to be members; and when they come to see you, you must know what to talk to them about."