"Oh! I know--I know. The next few weeks will be intolerable; one will feel sure of nobody." Then her voice changed--took a certain shyness. "A good many people from here are coming down to us at Mile End during the next few weeks--will you come some time, and bring Lady Tressady?" "Thank you," said George, rather formally. "It is very kind of you." Then, in another voice: "And you are really none the worse?" His eyes sought the injured temple, and she instinctively put up her hand to the black wave of hair that had been drawn forward so as to conceal the mark. "Oh no! That boy was not an expert, luckily. How absurd the papers have been!" George shook his head. "I don't know what else one could expect," he said, laughing. "Not at all!"--the flush mounted in the delicate hollow of the cheek. "Why should there be any more fuss about a woman's being struck than a man? We don't want any of this extra pity and talk." "Human nature, I am afraid," said George, raising his shoulders. Did she really suppose that women could mix in the political fight on the same terms as men--could excite no more emotion there than men? Folly! Then Maxwell, who was standing behind her, came forward, greeted Tressady kindly, and they talked for a few minutes about the evening's debate. The keen look of the elder scanned the younger's face and manner the while with some minuteness. As for George, his dialogue with the Minister, at which more than one passer-by threw looks of interest and amusement, gave him no particular pleasure. Maxwell's qualities were not of the kind that specially appealed to him; nor was he likely to attract Maxwell. Nevertheless, he could have wished their ten minutes' talk to last interminably, merely because of the excuse it gave him to be near her!--played upon by her movements and her tones. He talked to Maxwell of speeches, and votes, and little incidents of the day. And all the time he knew how she was surrounded; how the crowd that was always gathering about her came and went; with whom she talked; above all, how that eager, sensitive charm which she had shown in its fulness to him--perhaps to him only, beside her husband, of all this throng--played through her look, her voice, her congratulations, and her dismays. For had he not seen her in distress and confusion--seen her in tears, wrestling with herself? His heart caressed the thought like a sacred thing, all the time that he was conscious of her as the centre of this political throng--the adored, detested, famous woman, typical in so many ways of changing custom and of an expanding world. Then, in a flash, as it were, the crowd had thinned, the Maxwells had gone, and George was running down the steps of the members' entrance, into the rain outside. He seemed to carry with him the scent of a rose,--the rose she had worn on her breast,--and his mind was tormented with the question he had already asked himself: "How is it going to end?"