“Well, at the end of the meeting of my party yesterday, I was sent down to Chilton Park to tell Mr. Fallaray our plans. I was stultified to be told that he had decided to chuck politics.” “And go in for love. Yes, I know. But what has this got to do with Lola,—with Madame de Brézé?” That was the point that beat Feo, the thing that filled her with a sort of impatient astonishment. Was this uncommunicative girl, who seemed to her to be so essentially feminine, whose métier in life was obviously to purr under the touch of a masculine hand, who had been given a holiday to go on a love chase with Chalfont, presumably, somehow connected with politics? It was incredible. “Oh, you’ve seen Fallaray.” “Yes, my dear man, yes! He broke the news to me the moment he came in,” “Did he ask you to give him a divorce?” “He did, without a single stutter.” “And you said——” “But—my dear young Lochinvar, may I make so bold as to ask why this perfectly personal matter has to be discussed in the open, so to speak?” She made her meaning unmistakably clear. This girl was not so close a friend as he might have been led to suppose. “What did you say to Mr. Fallaray?” asked Lola, leaning forward eagerly. And Lytham waited with equal anxiety for an answer. It did not come for an extraordinary moment and only then in the form of a tangent. Feo turned slowly round to the girl who was in the habit of dressing her and putting her to bed. With raised eyebrows and an air of amused amazement, she ran her eyes over every inch of her, as though trying very hard to find something to palliate the insufferable cheek that she was apparently expected to swallow. “My good Lola,” she said finally, “what the devil has this got to do with you?” “Madame de Brézé is the _dea ex machina_,” said Lytham, evenly. It didn’t seem to him to be necessary to lead up to this announcement like a cat on hot bricks, considering that Lady Feo had openly flouted his chief from the first. She had no feelings to respect. “_What did you say?_” He repeated his remark, a little surprised at the gaping astonishment which was caused by it. “Madame de Brézé—Lola—the woman for whom I am to be asked to step aside?—Is this a joke?” “No,” he said. “Far from a joke.” “Ye Gods!” said Feo. And she sat for a moment, holding her breath, with her large intelligent mouth open, her dark Italian eyes fixed on Lytham’s face, and one of her long thin capable hands suspended in mid-air. She might have been struck by lightning, or turned into salt like Lot’s inquisitive wife.