The Mischief Maker

She nodded slowly. He held out his hand, but she did not at once part with it.

"Algernon," she said quietly, "you know that I am not very scrupulous. We both of us want success--a certain sort of success--and we have both of us been content to pay the price. You have spent a good deal of money and you have succeeded very well indeed. Somehow or other, I feel to-day as though I were spending more than money."

He laughed a little uncomfortably.

"My dear Mabel!" he protested. "You are not going to back out, are you?"

"No," she replied, "I do not think that I shall back out. There is nothing in the whole world I want so much as to have you a Cabinet Minister. If there had been any other way--"

"But there is no other way," her husband interrupted. "So long as Julien Portel lives, I should never get my chance. He holds the post I want. Every one knows that he is clever. He has the ear of the Prime Minister and he hates me. My only chance is his retirement."