Nobodys Man | Page 3

shivering indoors; It was just like running into a fog bank
in the middle of the Atlantic on a hot summer's day."
"I found the difference in temperature amazing," he observed. "I, too,
dropped from the sunshine into a strange chill."
She tried to get rid of the subject.
"So you lost your seat," she said. "I am very sorry. Tell me how it
happened?"

He shrugged his shoulders.
"The Democratic Party made up their mind, for some reason or other,
that I shouldn't sit. The Labour Party generally were not thinking of
running a candidate. I was to have been returned unopposed, in
acknowledgment of my work on the Nationalisation Bill. The
Democrats, however, ratted. They put up a man at the last moment,
and--well, you know the result--I lost."
"I don't understand English politics," she confessed, "but I thought you
were almost a Labour man yourself."
"I am practically," he replied. "I don't know, even now, what made
them oppose me."
"What about the future?"
"My plans are not wholly made."
For the first time, an old and passionate ambition prevailed against the
thrall of the moment.
"One of the papers this morning," she said eagerly, "suggested that you
might be offered a peerage."
"I saw it," he acknowledged. "It was in the Sun. I was once unfortunate
enough to be on the committee of a club which blackballed the editor."
Her mouth hardened a little.
"But you haven't forgotten your promise?"
"'Bargain' shall we call it?" he replied. "No, I have not forgotten."
"Tony says you could have a peerage whenever you liked."
"Then I suppose it must be so. Just at present I am not prepared to write
'finis' to my political career."

The butler announced dinner. Tallente offered his arm and they passed
through the homely little hall into the dining room beyond. Stella came
to a sudden standstill as they crossed the threshold.
"Why is the table laid for two only?" she demanded. "Mr. Palliser is
here."
"I was obliged to send Tony away--on important business," Tallente
intervened. "He left about an hour ago."
Once more the terror was upon her. The fingers which gripped her
napkin trembled. Her eyes, filled with fierce enquiry, were fixed upon
her husband's as he took his place in leisurely fashion and glanced at
the menu.
"Obliged to send Tony away?" she repeated. "I don't understand. He
told me that he had several days' work here with you."
"Something intervened," he murmured.
"Why didn't you wire?" she faltered, almost under her breath. "He
couldn't have had any time to get ready."
Andrew Tallente looked at his wife across the bowl of floating flowers.
"Ah!" he exclaimed. "I didn't think of that. But in any case I did not
make up my mind until I arrived that it was necessary for him to go."
There was silence for a time, an unsatisfactory and in some respects an
unnatural silence. Tallente trifled with his hors d'oeuvres and was
inquisitive about the sauce with which his fish was flavoured. Stella
sent away her plate untouched, but drank two glasses of champagne.
The light came back to her eyes, she found courage again. After all, she
was independent of this man, independent even of his name. She
looked across the table at him appraisingly. He was still sufficiently
good-looking, lithe of frame and muscular, with features well-cut
although a little irregular in outline. Time, however, and anxious work
were beginning to leave their marks. His hair was grey at the sides,

there were deep lines in his face, he seemed to her fancy to have
shrunken a little during the last few years. He had still the languid,
high-bred voice which she had always admired so munch, the same
coolness of manner and quiet dignity. He was a personable man, but
after all he was a failure. His career, so far as she could judge it, was at
an end. She was a fool to imagine, even for a moment, that her whole
future lay in his keeping.
"Have you any plans?" she asked him presently. "Another
constituency?"
He smiled a little wearily. For once he spoke quite naturally.
"The only plan I have formulated at present is to rest for a time," he
admitted.
She drank another glass of champagne and felt almost confident. She
told him the small events of the sparsely populated neighbourhood,
spoke of the lack of water in the trout stream, the improvement in the
golf links, the pheasants which a near-by landowner was turning down.
They were comparative newcomers and had seen as yet little of their
neighbours.
"I was told," she concluded, "that the great lady of the neighbourhood
was to have called upon me this afternoon. I waited in but she didn't
come."
"And who is that?"