"I have just come from the
Prime Minister."
"Well?"
"I find that Palliser has been conducting a regular conspiracy behind my
back, with reference to this wretched peerage. He has practically
forged my name and has placed me in a most humiliating position. You, I
suppose, were his instigator in this matter?"
"I suppose I was," she admitted.
"What was to be his reward--his ulterior reward, I mean?"
"I promised him twenty thousand pounds," she answered, with cold fury.
"It appears that I overvalued your importance to your party. Tony
apparently did the same. He thought that you had only to intimate your
readiness to accept a peerage and the thing would be arranged. It seems
that we were wrong."
"You were doubly wrong," he replied. "In the first place, there were
difficulties, and in the second, nothing would have induced me to accept
such a humiliating offer."
"How did you find this out?" she enquired.
"The Prime Minister offered me the peerage less than an hour ago," he
answered. "I need not say that I unhesitatingly refused it."
Stella ceased buttoning her gloves.
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