“It was last night that I knew about all this,” she said. “I went in to see Lady Feo about engaging a new personal maid. Her great friend was there,—Mrs. Malwood, who was Lady Glayburgh in the first year of the War, Lady Pytchley in the second, Mrs. Graham Macoover in the third, married Mr. Aubrey Malwood in the fourth and still has him on her hands. I was kept waiting while they finished their talk. Mrs. Malwood had to hurry home because she was taking part in the theatricals at the Eastminsters. I heard Lady Feo say that Mr. Fallaray had decided to throw his bomb in the House this afternoon. She was frightfully excited. She said she didn’t give a damn about the Irish question—and I wish she didn’t speak like that—but that it would be great fun to have a general election to brighten things up and give her a chance to win some money. I don’t know how Lady Feo knew that her husband had decided to take this step, because they never meet and I don’t believe he ever tells her anything that he has on his mind. I shouldn’t be surprised if she got it from Mr. Fallaray’s secretary. I’ve seen them whispering in corners lately and once she starts her tricks on any man, good-by loyalty. My word, but she’s a wonderful woman. A perfect devil but very kind to me. I’ve no grumbles. If we do have a general election, and I hope to goodness we don’t, there’s only one man to be Prime Minister, and that’s Mr. Fallaray. But there’s no chance of it. All the Prime Minister’s newspapers are against him, and all his jackals, and he has more enemies than any man in the Cabinet, and not a soul to back him up. Office means too much to them all and they’re all in terror of being defeated in the country. He’s the loneliest man in the whole of London and one of the greatest. That’s what I say. I’ve been with the family ten years and there are things I like about Lady Feo, for all her rottenness. But I know this. If she’d been a good wife to that man and had given him a home to come back to and the love that he needs and two or three children to romp with even for half an hour a day, there’d be a very much better chance for England in this mess than there is at present.” Stopping for breath, she looked up and caught the eyes of the girl whose face had flushed at the sight of the picture on the cover of the magazine. They were filled with something that startled her, something in which there was so great a passion that it threw a hot dart at her spinsterhood and left her rattled and confused. IV Miss Breezy was to receive another shock that evening.