"Practically," replied Rames. "I have still to be formally adopted as prospective candidate by the Three Hundred, but that will be done at a meeting on Monday night." "Then there is no longer any reason why we should keep the matter secret, especially from Miss Daventry, who lives not five miles from your constituency. Cynthia," and both men turned toward her, "Captain Rames is going to stand for Ludsey at the next election." Captain Rames smiled modestly, expecting congratulations. He liked congratulations, especially from pretty girls, but he was disappointed. He saw only a wrinkle of perplexity upon Cynthia's forehead and a shadow in her eyes. "Why?" she asked. "You disapprove?" said Rames. Cynthia drew back. "I have no right to disapprove," she said coldly, and Harry Rames planted himself sturdily on both his feet in front of her. "Nevertheless you do," he insisted. In spite of herself, a faint smile of amusement played about Cynthia's lips as she watched him. She felt constrained to accept his challenge. "I should have thought--" she said with a trifle of hesitation; "it's not my business, of course--you may think it an impertinence--but since you challenge me, I should have thought that you would have done better to have gone back to the Antarctic again." "That's just what Smale said," remarked Mr. Benoliel, and he moved away. "That's just what Smale said, what every one will say. But it's all wrong," Rames exclaimed emphatically. "I was very glad to go South. I am very glad now that I went; but once is enough." A little wrinkle of disdain showed about Cynthia's mouth. "No doubt there were many hardships." Captain Rames was nettled. "Yes, there were, Miss Daventry, a great many, and singularly unpleasant ones. I have been twenty-four hours in a sleeping-bag with two other men. The sleeping-bag was sewn up on the inside, it was within a tent, we were so close together that we could only turn round one at a time, and we smoked in the bag, and still we were deadly cold. And I hate being cold. Yes, there were hardships, and though it's easy enough to remember them lightly here in the Admiralty, they were not delightful when they happened. But I should face them once more if I wanted to go back. Only I don't. I never want to see an ice-pack again as long as I live." The bluff confidence with which he spoke convinced Cynthia that it was not a fear of the hardships which had affected him. There she had been wrong, and she made amends. "I have no doubt the hardships wouldn't deter you if you wanted to go," she admitted. "But what I don't understand is why you don't want to." And a greater emphasis crept into her voice than she had meant to use, and gave to her words the wistfulness of an appeal. "I should have thought," she cried, "that you could never have rested until you had finished what you had begun." "That's true to the letter," he replied. "That's why I am standing for Ludsey." Cynthia looked up at him in surprise.