"`Tiny Tentoes, the Cabinet Minister's daughter' would certainly be a good draw!" declared Cicely. "Oh! well, I know you all like French songs, so I sang it. That's all," answered their sprightly young hostess. "But look! it's past eleven, and father said he would be back before ten to see you before you left. I'll telephone to the House." And she descended to the small library on the ground floor, where she quickly "got on" to the House of Commons. When she re-entered the drawing-room she exclaimed: "He left the House more than an hour ago. I wonder where he is? He ought to have been back long before this." Then at her guests' request she sang another French chanson--which, through the half-open window, could have been heard out in Curzon Street--greatly to the delight of the little party. At last, just before midnight. Cicely, pleading that they had to leave by the Continental mail early next morning, excused herself and her husband, and left in a taxi, for which Grant had whistled, after which Sheila and Austin found themselves alone. When two people of the opposite sex, and kindred spirits as they were, find themselves alone the usual thing happens. It did in their case. While Sheila looked over her music, in response to Austin's request to sing another song while awaiting the return of her father, their hands touched. He grasped hers and gazed straight into her face. In those hazel eyes he saw that love-look--that one expression which no woman can ever disguise, or make pretence; that look which most men know. It is seldom in their lives they see it, and when once it is observed it is never forgotten, even though the man may live to be a grandfather. At that instant of the unconscious contact of the hands, so well-remembered afterwards by both of them, Sheila flushed, withdrew her hand forcibly, and rose, exclaiming with pretended resentment: "Don't, Austin--please." Meanwhile there had been what the newspapers term a "scene" in the House of Commons that evening. An important debate had taken place upon the policy of the Imperial Government towards Canada, a policy which the Opposition had severely criticised in an attempt to belittle the splendid statesmanship of the Colonial Secretary, who, having been absent during greater part of the debate, entered and took his seat just as it was concluding. At last, before a crowded House, Reginald Monkton, who, his friends noticed, was looking unusually pale and worn, rose and replied in one of those brief, well-modulated, but caustic speeches of his in which he turned the arguments of the Opposition against themselves. He heaped coals of fire upon their heads, and denounced them as "enemies of Imperialism and destroyers of Empire." The House listened enthralled.