"But sometimes he goes back to his study on his return and sits up all night working," said Dora.
"What if he should on this occasion? It only means that he will discover his loss a few hours earlier, that's all. You've only got to warn me, to send me a code telegram under an assumed name three hours before you get the papers, as we have already arranged, for me to be punctually outside your window ready to receive them at the hour you name. If you do your work properly, Farquharson could turn the whole house topsy-turvy, ravage it from garret to cellar and find no traces. I assure you it's all as simple as the alphabet," he laughed; "the very ABC of trivial burglary to help a friend."
"For the first time in my life I feel almost sorry for Mrs. Farquharson," said Lady Wereminster a few days later. "She's got the most extraordinarily furtive and hang-dog air; I met her just now in a Bond Street shop and touched her on the shoulder, and she started as if she were being shot. Are you going to the House to-morrow night, Evelyn? Mr. Calvert says the Government expects a rather furious attack upon this Treaty question; it will resolve itself, of course, mainly into a personal attack upon Richard Farquharson. He's hated by the Press, you know; I suppose because they can get nothing out of him. For that matter, I suppose all the public is longing to know something about this business of the Treaty; it involves so many issues. The prospect of a Continental war isn't cheering in view of the fact that our Army was decimated, and the strength of our Fleet lowered, by the late Government. One can't wipe out their mistakes with a sweep of the pen, or an eloquent word or two. By the way, my nephew was lucky in the ballot, and sent me two spare seats in the gallery. If you can come, I'll sit there with you if you like."
"Oh, I've been longing to go," said Evelyn. "How good you are. It seems to me that we are on the brink of a worse crisis than we have faced for years--only absolute tact and diplomacy will see us through. Mr. Farquharson has both, luckily; he will need them to-morrow night."
"I should think he would," said Lady Wereminster grimly. "What the House of Commons is coming to I don't know. We are getting as bad as the French Chamber. The language we use is absolutely scriptural in its plain speaking. At the beginning of the century it was said of our political system that it resolved itself into a succession of great duels; it seems to me now to have become an arena in which one man faces an angry rabble of men who shriek defiance and invective. We are losing our national dignity and reserve, Mr. Hare says; I think he's right. I suppose Mr. Farquharson knows what he has to expect, if not I should like to warn him. They say he exceeds his rightful powers of office--they always say that, of course, of a strong man. They forget that when he came into office he had to deal with what in many ways was an almost impossible situation, that in spite of all our royal visits to other nations and our own reception of royal guests, there is not a Power but covets our possessions. A fig for alliance, I say. There is a Power that is very nearly allied to us by blood which has done us serious mischief before now in our diplomatic relations, and will again."