But I will escort you through the garden, if I may." His hostess turned sharply, and walked back towards the front of the house where Sir Luke and Mr.Frome, a young and rising Under-Secretary, were waiting for her.

Meadows accompanied her, but found her exceedingly ungracious.

She did, however, inform him, as they followed the other two towards the exit from the garden, that she had come to the conclusion that the subject he was proposing for his second series of lectures, to be given at Dunstable House during the winter, "would never do." "Famous Controversies of the Nineteenth Century--political and religious." The very sound of it was enough to keep people away! "What people expect from you is talk about _persons_--not ideas.

Ideas are not your line!" Meadows flushed a little.

What his "line" might be, he said, he had not yet discovered.