It was the first time he had yielded, and he could not help being amused by the remembrance, in the train, of Elfrida's solemn warning about the danger of his growing typical and going into Parliament.

A middle-aged country gentleman with broad shoulders and a very red neck occupied the compartment with him, and handled the _Times_ as if the privilege of reading it were one of the few the democratic spirit of the age had left to his class.

Kendal scanned him with interest and admiration and pleasure.

It was an excellent thing that England's backbone should be composed of men like that, he thought and he half wished he were not so consciously undeserving of national vertebral honors himself--that Elfrida's warnings had a little more basis of probability.

Not that he wanted to drop his work, but a man owed something to his country, especially when he had what they called a stake in it--to establish a home perhaps, to marry, to have children growing up about him.