He left the house and Cynthia sat down for a long time in her room. She had run to the extreme of melancholy with the determination of youth to make the very worst or best of life's daily provision. She had never felt so keenly the vanity of her illusions. She had seldom felt so lonely, she was sure. Even Harry Rames nowadays left her severely to herself. Why didn't he come to see her? She asked the question with indignation. She had never seen him since the supper-party at his hotel in Ludsey on the night before the poll. She had never heard his voice since he had spoken to her over the telephone just after his election. Very likely he had grown tired of her appeals to him to be different from what he was. No doubt she was a bore. Sadly Cynthia admitted it. Yes, she was a bore, and Diana Royle was treacherous, and Harry Rames never came to see her, and, take it all in all, it was a gray and dismal world. CHAPTER XVIII A MAIDEN SPEECH Yet to her astonishment Harry Rames came that very week on the Friday afternoon. Cynthia received him with an elaborate dignity. There was no acidity in her welcome, neither was there any joy. She seemed intensely unaware that she had not seen him for three months. Her nose was perhaps a trifle too high in the air, but she was not conscious of it. On the whole she was greatly pleased with her demeanor. She was behaving as a woman of the world to whom one acquaintance, more or less, is a matter of complete indifference. She offered him tea, and seating herself upon a sofa in front of the table poured it out. Harry Rames took his cup with humility. Cynthia was quick to notice it, no less quick to be gratified by his exhibition of a quality which hitherto he had lacked. He was abashed. He was ashamed. He was uneasy. No doubt he had come expecting the flattery of questions. Her unconsciousness of the length of his absence put him at a loss. When he spoke, it was with difficulty. And then, suddenly, Cynthia saw his lips twitching at the corners. He was not abashed at all. He was simply trying not to laugh. Cynthia grew hot. Alas! her great dignity had barely sustained her in contentment for five minutes! The old indignation shone in her eyes. The indifferent great lady vanished. Almost before she was aware of it she was talking in broken, resentful sentences--as any other ordinary girl might have done who had been wounded and whose wound had betrayed her into speech.