'I repeat, a very pretty and charming girl, with no turn whatever for seriousness, one can't pretend to offer an instance in one's own house of the political woman. Once more understand--in England politics must be pursued with gravity. We don't fly about and chatter and scream like Frenchmen. No man will succeed with us in politics who has not a reputation for solid earnestness. Therefore, the more stupid a man, the better chance he has. I am naturally fond of a joke, but to get a name for that kind of thing would ruin me. You are clever, Paula, very clever in your way, but you don't, and you never will, understand politics. I beg of you not to damage my prospects. Cultivate a safe habit of speech. You may talk of the events of the season, of pigeon shooting, of horse racing, of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and so on; it's what everybody expects in a fashionable lady. Of course if you _had_ been able to take up politics in earnest--but, never mind. I like you very well as you are. How well you look in that dress!' 'I rather think you're right,' Paula remarked, after a short pause, turning about a bracelet on her wrist. 'It'll be better if you go your way and I go mine.' 'Precisely; though that's an unkind way of putting it.' He sat looking at the ground, and a smile of another kind came to his face. 'By-the-by, I've something to tell you--something that'll amuse you very much, and that you _may_ talk about, just as much as you like.' She made no reply. 'Your friend Egremont has come out in a new part--his first appearance in it, absolutely, though he can't be said to have created the _role_. He's run away with a girl from Lambeth--in fact, the girl who was just going to be married to his right-hand man, his librarian.' Paula looked up in astonishment: then, with indignant incredulity, she said: 'What do you mean? What's your object in talking nonsense of that kind?' 'Again and again I have to tell you that I never talk nonsense; I am a politician. I heard the news this morning from Tasker. The man Grail--Egremont's librarian--was to have been married two days ago, Monday. Last Friday night his bride-elect disappeared. She's a very pretty girl, Tasker tells me--wonderfully pretty for one in her position, a work-girl. Egremont seems to have thought it a pity to let her be wasted. He's been meeting her secretly for some time--in the library, of all places, whilst the man Grail was at work, poor fellow! And at last he carried her off. There's no getting on his track, I'm told. The question is: What will become of the embryo library? The whole thing's about the finest joke I've heard for some time.' Paula had reddened. Her eyes flashed anger. 'I don't know whether you've invented it,' she said, 'or whether your secretary has, but I know there isn't one word of truth in it.' 'My dear child, it's no invention at all. The affair is the common talk of Lambeth.' 'Then do you mean to say Mr. Egremont has married this girl?'