For some weeks after his chief's dinner party, Tallente slackened a little in his grim devotion to work.

A strangely quiescent period of day-by-day political history enabled him to be absent from his place in the House for several evenings during the week, and although he spent a good many hours with Dartrey at Demos House, carefully discussing and elaborating next season's programme, he still found himself with time to spare, and with Jane's note buttoned up in his pocket, he deliberately turned his face towards life in its more genial and human aspect.
He dined one night at the club to which he had belonged for many years, a club frequented chiefly by distinguished literary men, successful barristers, and a sprinkling of actors.

His arrival created at first almost a sensation, a slight feeling of constraint even, amongst the little gathering of men drinking their aperitifs in the lounge under the stairs.

Somehow or other, there was a feeling that many of the old ties had been broken.

Tallente stood for new and menacing things in politics.