put Dane out of her mind and to enjoy the scene for the expression that it was of a certain side of the male animal. She was amused at the extraordinary emphasis put on politics, on last moment cheerfulness, on forced sensations of every kind. Good fellowship roared itself hoarse at that dinner. Promises enough to bring millenniums to a dozen suffering worlds were scattered about with light-hearted prodigality. It was a gorgeous orgy of optimism. And she looked on at it as she had looked on at family Christmas dinners with a heart cold and a mind aloof. One hour of life with Dane, she thought, was worth a thousand such revels as this.
The meeting afterwards, however, did move her. Mr. Massey had never spoken better in his whole career. For twenty years the Opposition leader had led what was for years a forlorn hope, had fought with extraordinary courage and perseverance a dogged fight against the most powerful premier the country had ever had, and yet he could talk to that packed hall as if life had been for him an unchallenged success. And when the audience rose at him and began to throw up hats and sticks and break the chairs she found she was swirling with it. But the thing that stirred her most was his reference, when speaking of the local situation, to the brilliant work of the little News. And she found herself flushing furiously when heads were turned and nodded at her. She wondered if Dane were there somewhere listening amused and apart.
The meeting was not over till after eleven o’clock, and then there was the ceremony of seeing Mr. Massey and his party off in three motor cars for Te Koperu, where they were to cross the river and go on by cars to Auckland, riding all through the night. This over, Valerie had but one idea, to get to bed, to take aspirin, and to blot it all out, for she knew the next day and night would be
