He might have been a little more communicative. It is possible to suggest that. As a matter of fact, he was the best part of the way to Hyde Park Corner before I realised that I was sitting alone on the bench. VII Had Kirby been at my elbow, his bullet head almost audibly pricing my actions, relentlessly assessing them, even while he admitted that they had done him good, I imagine that I should not have gone. His epithet rankled. I a meddler! I can only say that it is a fortunate circumstance that he never knew Jane. However, I did call on Lady Lexington that afternoon, and found just a snug family party--that was what my hostess called it. In fact, besides myself, the only outsider was Valentine Hare; and could he be called an outsider? His precise appellation hung in suspense. Talk was intimate and bright. In view of Val’s appointment, it was natural that it should turn on the Colonies. Val himself hinted that the Foreign Office would have given more scope for his specialty (he meant North Africa, not the “Religion of Primitive Man”); but Miss Constantine was hot on the Colonies, going so far, indeed, as to get out an atlas and discuss thousands of square miles, and wheat belts, and things like that. Once or twice I fancied that the new Under-Secretary would have been glad not to be quite so new; a few days of coaching from, say, Kirby (Had she had--? At lunch? No; it was hardly thinkable; he couldn’t have taken that moment to instruct her) would have equipped him better for her excellently informed conversation. As for poor Lexington, he broke down entirely when she got out to Assiniboia and Saskatchewan, and said frankly that in his opinion there was more of Canada than any man could be expected to know about. That did not seem to be at all Miss Constantine’s view. She was stopped only by the ocean. I am not sure that a vaulting ambition did not confederate Japan. Val was delighted. Miss Constantine was so cordial, so interested, so congratulatory on his appointment. There was, as it seemed to me, a serenity in her manner which had recently been lacking--a return of her old assurance, softened still, but not now by the air of appeal; it was rather by an extreme friendliness. Val must have felt the friendliness too, I think, for he expanded wonderfully, discoursing with marvellous fecundity, and with a knowledge as extensive as it was indefinite, of the British possessions beyond the seas. All said and done, he knew a lot more than I did; but, then, I was not his competitor. So we got on splendidly together. Lady Lexington beamed, her lord warmed himself happily, Miss Constantine was graciousness itself, Val basked and blossomed--and I wondered what the deuce had happened at Mrs Something Simpson’s flat in Westminster. (Her real name was Whitaker Simpson, and I believe Jane knew it quite well.)