“Hush!” said Lady Edna, with a touch on his arm. “You’re not at home or in the House of Commons. You’re in a public place, and you’ll get a crowd round us in no time. Let us pretend we’re a merry party going on a holiday.” Edgar Donnithorpe threw an anxious glance round to see if they had attracted undesired attention. But people passed them by or stood in knots near them, unheeding, intent on their own affairs. “I ask you,” he said in a low voice, “what you are doing at this railway station with my wife?” Baltazar, his felt hat at the back of his head and his hands thrust into his trousers’ pockets beneath the skirts of his buttoned-up, double-breasted jacket, eyed him in exasperating amusement. “I am seeing Lady Edna off on a railway journey. Was it necessary to ask your permission?” Lady Edna laughed mockingly. “As far as I can make out, my husband expected to find me eloping with your son Godfrey.” Donnithorpe shifted his eyes from one to the other, looking at them evilly. “He was with you for nearly a couple of hours to-day. I had my own very good reasons for suspicion. I went round to your house, Mr. Baltazar, and asked for your son. I saw your Chinese secretary——” He caught Baltazar’s involuntary sudden frown and angry flush. “In justice,” he continued in his thin, sneering manner, “I must absolve him from indiscretion. He knows my position in the Government, and when I informed him that it was imperative I should see your son on important political business, he told me I should find him at Waterloo station.” “You overreached yourself,” said Baltazar with a bantering grin. “Godfrey knows no more about politics than a tom-cat. Quong Ho naturally thought you meant me. You came. Here I am, seeing your wife off. She telephoned me that she was leaving your house—going to stay with friends—wanted a man of the world’s advice on the serious step she was taking—woman-like, of course, she took the step first, and asked for advice afterwards—and I naturally put myself at her ladyship’s disposal. Don’t you think you had better let Lady Edna get on with her journey? Here’s her porter. Come with me and see her safe into her carriage.” He was enjoying himself amazingly. Donnithorpe, baffled, tugged at his thin grey moustache. The porter came up, touching his cap. “Time’s getting on, ma’am. I’ve reserved the two seats——” “One seat,” said Lady Edna swiftly. “Beg your pardon, ma’am. I thought you said the gentleman was going with you.” “One seat. I said I was meeting a gentleman.” The porter wheeled off the luggage. Lady Edna turned to follow, but her husband gripped her viciously by the wrist. “Not yet.” “Drop that,” growled Baltazar. Donnithorpe released her, plunged his hand into his breast pocket and drew out a couple of sheets of paper. “You did say two seats. You meant to go off with him. There’s some damned trickery about it. But I’ve got the whip hand, my lady. Just look at this before you go.”