But the sign did not come.
"Speaking quite unofficially," said Frank Ayres, "I think, if you feel like that, you would be a fool to give up your seat." "Very well," said Paul, "I thank you.

And now, perhaps, it would be wise to draw up that statement for the press, if you can spare the time." So Paul made a draft and Frank Ayres revised it, and it was sent upstairs to be typed.

When the typescript came down, Paul signed and dispatched it and gave the Chief Whip a duplicate.
"Well," said the latter, shaking hands, "the best of good luck!" Whereupon he went home feeling that though there would be the deuce to pay, Paul Savelli would find himself perfectly solvent; and meeting the somewhat dubious Leader of the Opposition later in the day he said: "Anyhow, this 'far too gentlemanly party' has got someone picturesque, at last, to touch the popular imagination." "A new young Disraeli ?" "Why not ?" The Leader made a faint gesture of philosophic doubt.

"The mould is broken," said he.
"We'll see," said Frank Ayres, confidently.
Meanwhile, Paul returned to his room and wrote a letter, three words of which he had put on paper--"My dear Princess"-- when the summons to meet the Chief Whip had come.

The unblotted ink had dried hard.