You know my sister, I think--Lady Alice
Mountgarron? Aunt, may I present Mr. Tallente--the Countess of
Somerham. Mrs. Ward Levitte--Lady English--oh! and Colonel Fosbrook."
Tallente made the best of a very disappointing situation. He exchanged
bows with his new acquaintances, declined tea and was at once taken
possession of by Lady Somerham, a formidable-looking person in
tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, with a rasping voice and a judicial
air.
"So you are the Mr. Tallente," she began, "who Somerham tells me has
achieved the impossible!"
"Upon the face of it," Tallente rejoined, with a smile, "your husband is
proved guilty of an exaggeration."
"Poor Henry!" his wife sighed. "He does get a little hysterical about
politics nowadays. What he says is that you are in a fair way to form a
coherent and united political party out of the various factions of
Labour, a thing which a little time ago no one thought possible."
Tallente promptly disclaimed the achievement.
"Stephen Dartrey is the man who did that," he declared. "I only joined
the Democrats a few months ago.
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