and a big old desk for me to sit at and work between fire and

window, and another desk specially made for me by that expert if I

chose to stand and write, and open bookshelves and bookcases and

every sort of convenient fitting. There were electric heaters

beside the open fire, and everything was put for me to make tea at

any time-electric kettle, infuser, biscuits and fresh butter, so

that I could get up and work at any hour of the day or night. I

could do no work in this apartment for a long time, I was so

interested in the perfection of its arrangements. And when I

brought in my books and papers from Vincent Square, Margaret seized

upon all the really shabby volumes and had them re-bound in a fine

official-looking leather.

I can remember sitting down at that desk and looking round me and

feeling with a queer effect of surprise that after all even a place

in the Cabinet, though infinitely remote, was nevertheless in the

same large world with these fine and quietly expensive things.

On the same floor Margaret had a "den," a very neat and pretty den

with good colour-prints of Botticellis and Carpaccios, and there was

a third apartment for sectarial purposes should the necessity for

them arise, with a severe-looking desk equipped with patent files.

And Margaret would come flitting into the room to me, or appear

noiselessly standing, a tall gracefully drooping form, in the wide

open doorway. "Is everything right, dear?" she would ask.

"Come in," I would say, "I'm sorting out papers."

She would come to the hearthrug.

"I mustn't disturb you," she would remark.

"I'm not busy yet."

"Things are getting into order. Then we must make out a time-table

as the Baileys do, and BEGIN!"

Altiora came in to see us once or twice, and a number of serious

young wives known to Altiora called and were shown over the house,

and discussed its arrangements with Margaret. They were all

tremendously keen on efficient arrangements.

"A little pretty," said Altiora, with the faintest disapproval,

"still-"

It was clear she thought we should grow out of that. From the day

of our return we found other people's houses open to us and eager

for us. We went out of London for week-ends and dined out, and

began discussing our projects for reciprocating these hospitalities.

As a single man unattached, I had had a wide and miscellaneous

social range, but now I found myself falling into place in a set.

For a time I acquiesced in this. I went very little to my clubs,

the Climax and the National Liberal, and participated in no bachelor

dinners at all. For a time, too, I dropped out of the garrulous

literary and journalistic circles I had frequented. I put up for

the Reform, not so much for the use of the club as a sign of serious

and substantial political standing. I didn't go up to Cambridge, I

remember, for nearly a year, so occupied was I with my new

adjustments.

The people we found ourselves among at this time were people, to put

it roughly, of the Parliamentary candidate class, or people already

actually placed in the political world. They ranged between very

considerable wealth and such a hard, bare independence as old

Willersley and the sister who kept house for him possessed. There

were quite a number of young couples like ourselves, a little

younger and more artless, or a little older and more established.

Among the younger men I had a sort of distinction because of my

Cambridge reputation and my writing, and because, unlike them, I was

an adventurer and had won and married my way into their circles

instead of being naturally there. They couldn't quite reckon upon

what I should do; they felt I had reserves of experience and

incalculable traditions. Close to us were the Cramptons, Willie

Crampton, who has since been Postmaster-General, rich and very

important in Rockshire, and his younger brother Edward, who has

specialised in history and become one of those unimaginative men of

letters who are the glory of latter-day England. Then there was

Lewis, further towards Kensington, where his cousins the Solomons

and the Hartsteins lived, a brilliant representative of his race,

able, industrious and invariably uninspired, with a wife a little in

revolt against the racial tradition of feminine servitude and

inclined to the suffragette point of view, and Bunting Harblow, an

old blue, and with an erratic disposition well under the control of

the able little cousin he had married. I had known all these men,

but now (with Altiora floating angelically in benediction) they

opened their hearts to me and took me into their order. They were

all like myself, prospective Liberal candidates, with a feeling that

the period of wandering in the wilderness of opposition was drawing

near its close. They were all tremendously keen upon social and

political service, and all greatly under the sway of the ideal of a

simple, strenuous life, a life finding its satisfactions in

political achievements and distinctions. The young wives were as

keen about it as the young husbands, Margaret most of all, and I-

whatever elements in me didn't march with the attitudes and habits

of this set were very much in the background during that time.

We would give little dinners and have evening gatherings at which

everything was very simple and very good, with a slight but

perceptible austerity, and there was more good fruit and flowers and