ccord_?"

"But you are mine, Dudley!" she cried, again throwing her snowy,
half-bare arms around his neck and kissing him passionately.

"Then since you hold me in such esteem, why not act in my interests?" he
asked, for in argument he was as shrewd as a man could possibly be, and
had passed with honours through that school of _finesse_, the Foreign
Office.

"I--well, I decline to release you, if your freedom is to be used in
dallying at the side of another woman," she replied, heedless of his
question.

"But I have no intention of doing so.  Surely you know my nature well
enough?  You know how fully occupied I am as Under-Secretary, and that
my presence here from time to time has scarcely been in harmony with my
duties at the Foreign Office and in the House.  I have little leisure;
and I do not possess that inclination for _amourettes_ which somehow
appears to seize half the legislators sent to Westminster."

"I know!  I know!" she replied, still clinging to him, stroking the dark
hair from his brow with the velvety hand which he had so often kissed.
"I admit that you have always been loyal to me, Dudley.  Sometimes, with
a woman's quick jealousy, I have doubted you, and have watched you
carefully, always, however, to find my suspicions utterly unfounded.  Do
you remember what you told me when we walked together in the park at
Wroxeter that morning last summer?  Do you recollect your vows of
eternal friendship to me--unworthy though I may be?"  She paused, and
there was a slight catch in her voice.

"Alas!  I am fully aware of all my failings, of all my indiscretions, of
all my caprices; but surely you do not heed this spiteful gossip which
is going the rounds?  You do not believe me so black as I am painted--do
you?" and again she stroked his brow with her caressing hand.

"I believe only what I have seen with my own eyes," he answered rather
ambiguously.  "You have been indiscreet--extremely indiscreet--and I
have often told you so.  But your ambition was to become the most _chic_
woman in town, and you have a