She led the way into the dining-room, where a dainty but substantial meal was spread--a piece of salmon with crisp salad, a truffled pie, a cold fruit-tart. Only one place was laid. It had seemed to Lady Phayre she could give him kinder welcome if she sat by him as he ate than if she went through the formal pretence of joining him at the meal. Then she wondered, in the feminine way, whether he was cognisant of it. The servant uncorked the champagne and retired. Lady Phayre sat down near him, resting her elbow on the table. At first he leaned back in his chair, looked at his plate, then at her. “I feel too sick at heart to eat. The thought of those poor starving women and children!” “Your going without food will not fill their mouths, you know,” said Lady Phayre in sympathetic remonstrance. “I suppose I feel my own personal humiliation too,” he said ungraciously, as if forcing out the admission. “One may as well be honest. It’s the biggest thing I’ve set my hand to as yet, with everything depending upon it. And to have to throw it up when victory was staring one in the face! It is maddening!” He bent forward impatiently and took up his fork. He laid it on his plate, and turned to Lady Phayre. “You are the only person in the world I could say that to.” “Do you know why?” The words were half whispered, but she looked at him full and clearly. “Because you are yourself, I suppose--your good opinion dear to me, your sympathy a necessity.” “And all that because you know I believe in you.” Her eyes fell beneath his gaze, which was stern and yet half pleading. Then she raised them again slowly, with the delicious upward sweep of her lashes, and repeated-- “I believe in you.” A thrill ran through the man; his dark, powerful face lit up. Lady Phayre shifted her attitude, and broke into a silvery laugh. “And all this time you are not eating. If you don’t begin at once I shall go away.”