 Book 3 CHAPTER XII. But what right have Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters as women in love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to Lady Selena. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything, improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast on catastrophe and threatening to drag the rest with them. He had never been so hard-pressed for money in his life. In the first place his gambling debts heck mounted up prodigiously of late. His friends were tolerant and easygoing, but the more tolerant they were, the more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time had been monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some of them, to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon, were already urgent. Then as to the Clarion, it became every week a heavier burden. The expenses of it were enormous, the returns totally inadequate, advertisements were falling off steadily, and whether the working cost were cut down or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It was becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be met. So that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely as soon as he had crossed the Clarion threshold. Bitterness had become the portion of the staff and even the office boys walked in gloom. Yet at the same time, withdrawing from the business was almost as difficult as carrying it on. There were rumors in the air which had already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton indeed saw no prospect whatever of selling except at a ruinous loss. Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only precipitated a number of his financial obligations, it would have been politically a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical moment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the Clarion had never been so important politically, never so much read by the persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future depended as it was at this moment. The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far a stroke of business for Wharton as a Labour member. It was now the seventh week of the strike and Wharton's leaders, Craven's letters from the seat of war and the Clarion strike fund, which articles and letters had called into existence were as vigorous as ever. The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters. In the first the metal workers concerned both men and women had stood out for the hold wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea of arbitration. At the end of three or four weeks, however, when grave suffering had declared itself among an already half starving population, the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board of conciliation. This board, including the workmen's delegates, overawed by the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by the masters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory for the employers. The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionate indignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds. Meetings were held everywhere. The men's delegates at the board were thrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travelling incessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the Clarion on the award which stated the men's case with extreme ability, was immediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous leader and was received among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude and enthusiasm. Since then all negotiations had been broken off. The Clarion had gone steadily against the masters, against the award, against further arbitration. The theory of the living wage of which more recent days have heard so much was preached in other terms, but with equal vigor, and the columns of the Clarion bore witness day by day in the long lists of subscriptions to the strike fund, to the effects of its eloquence on the hearts and pockets of Englishmen. Meanwhile there were strange rumours abroad. It was said that the trade was really on the eve of a complete and striking revolution in its whole conditions. Could this labour war be only cleared out of the way? The smaller employers had been for long on the verge of ruin, and the larger men, so report had it, were scheming a syndicate on the American plan to embrace the whole industry, cut down the costs of production and regulate the output. But for this large capital would be wanted. Could capital be got? The state of things in the trade according to the employers had been deplorable for years. A large part of the market had been definitely forfeited, so they declared for good to Germany and Belgium. It would take years before even a powerful syndicate could work itself into a thoroughly sound condition. Let the men accept the award of the conciliation board. Let there be some stable and reasonable prospect of peace between masters and men, say for a couple of years, and a certain group of bankers would come forward, and all would be well. The men under the syndicate, when in time, get more than their old wage, but the award first, otherwise the plan dropped, and the industry must go its own way to perdition. Will you walk into my palla? said Wharton Scornfully, to the young conservative member, who with a purpose, was explaining these things to him in the library of the House of Commons. The mirror's trap. And of course, the men will see it so. Who is to guarantee them even the carrying through, much less the success of your precious syndicate? And in return, for your misty millennium two years hence, the men are to join at once in putting the employers in a stronger position than ever. Thank you. The rent of ability in the present state of things is no doubt large. But in this particular case the Clarion will go on doing its best. I promise you, to nibble some of it away. The conservative member rose in indignation. I should be sorry to have as many starving people on my conscience as you'll have before long, he said, as he took up his papers. At that moment Denny's rotund and square-headed figure passed along the corridor, to which the library door stood open. Well, if I thrive upon it as well as Denny does, I shall do. Returned Wharton, with his usual caustic good humor as his companion departed. And it delighted him to think, as he walked home that Denny, who had again of late made himself particularly obnoxious in the House of Commons, on two or three occasions to the owner of the Clarion, had probably instigated the quasi-Overtures he had just rejected, and must be by now aware of their result. Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him. Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted, with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks incessant labour. Yet personally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic, and disliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner more than ever. As to the strike, however, they came to a complete understanding. The Clarion, or rather the Clarion Fund, which was doing better and better, held the key of the whole situation. If that fund could be maintained, the men could hold out. In view of the possible formation of the syndicate, Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintaining the redoubled importance of securing the men's terms before the syndicate was launched. Wharton promised him with glee that he should be supported to the bitter end, if, that is to say, a proviso he did not discuss with Craven, the Clarion itself could be kept going. In August a large sum, obtained two years before, on the security of new plant, would fall due. The time for repayment had already been extended, and Wharton had ascertained that no further extension was possible. Well, bankruptcy would be a peckant interlude in his various social and political enterprises. How was it to be avoided? He had by now plenty of rich friends in the city or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided likely to be useful to him in the present moment, for the amount of money that he required was large, larger indeed than he cared to verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer almost nil. As to friends in the city, indeed, the only excursion of a business kind that he had made into those regions since his election was now adding seriously to his anxieties, might very well turn out unless the matter were skillfully managed to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon. In the early days of his parliamentary life, when again mostly, for the Clarion's sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had become director of what promised to be an important company, through the interest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance who had taken a liking to the young member. The company had been largely boomed, and there had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares. Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed both point and finish to some of the early prospectus. Then after six months he had withdrawn from the board under apprehensions that had been gradually realized with alarming accuracy. Things indeed had been going very wrong indeed. There were a number of small investors, and the annual meeting of the company, to be held now in some ten days, promised a storm. Wharton discovered, partly to his own amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during his directorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at all likely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the past were really sifted. The ill luck of it was truly stupendous, for on the whole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become a member, having all through jealous eye to his political success. As to the political situation, nothing could be at once more promising or more anxious. An important meeting of the whole labour group had been fixed for August 10, by which time it was expected that a great measure concerning labour would be returned from the House of Lords with highly disputable amendments. The last six weeks of the session would be in many ways more critical for labour than its earlier months had been, and it would be proposed by Bennet at the meeting on the 10th to appoint a general chairman for the party in view of a campaign which would fill the remainder of the session and strenuously occupy the recess. The Bennet would propose the name of the member, for West Brookshire, was perfectly well known to Wharton and his friends, that the nomination would meet with the warmest hostility from Wilkins, and a small group of followers was also accurately forecast. To this day, Wharton looked forward as to the crises of his parliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must now be calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat or finesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon the issue. What was, however, most remarkable in the man and the situation at the moment, was that through all these gathering necessities he was by no means continuously anxious or troubled in his mind. During these days of July he gave himself indeed, whenever he could, to a fatalist oblivion of the annoyances of life, coupled with a passionate pursuit of all those interests where his chances were still good and the omens still with him, especially during the intervals of ambition, intrigue, journalism, and unsuccessful attempts to raise money, had he meditated the beauty of Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her. As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying him elsewhere. At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position was reflected even in what to himself, at any rate, he was boldly beginning to call his passion for her. It had come to his knowledge that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation in clearing the mellower estate. He had made skillful use of a railway lately opened on the edge of his property, had sold building land in the neighbourhood of a small country town on the line within a convenient distance of London, had consolidated and improved several of his farms, and relet them at higher rents, was in fact according to Wharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived, quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals and invalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live, and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhaps brilliant, but it was something, it affected the outlook. Although, however, this consideration counted, it was to do him justice, Marcella the creature herself, that he desired. But for her presence in his life he would probably have gone heiress hunting with the least possible delay, as it was his growing determination to win her, together with his advocacy of the damesly workers, amply sufficed, during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selena, to maintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest of life. Yes, to master and breathe the passion into Marcella Boyce might safely be reckoned on, he thought to hurry a man's blood, and after it had gone so far between them, after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, her temper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him. Was he to see her tamely recovered by Aldous Rayburn, by the man whose advancing parliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievance and dislike? No. Not without a dash, a throw for it. For a while, after Lady Selena's confidences, jealous annoyance together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost into the pining lover. For he could not see Marcella, she came no more to Mrs. Lane, and the house in James Street was not open to him. He perfectly understood that the Winterborns did not want to know him. At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous liking for Wharton, let him know, on the strength of a chance meeting with Lady Ermond Trude, that the Winterborns would be at the Masterton party on the twenty-sixth. They had persuaded Miss Boyce to stay for it, and she would go back to her work the Monday after. Wharton carelessly replied that he did not know whether he would be able to put in an appearance at the Masterton's. He might be going out of town. Mrs. Lane looked at him and said, Oh, really? With a little laugh. Lady Masterton was the wife of the Colonial Secretary, and her grand mansion in Grovener Square was the principal rival to Al Resford House in the Hospitalities of the party. Her reception on July twenty-fifth was to be the last considerable event of a protracted but now dying season. Marcella detained in James Street, day after day, against her will by the weakness of the injured arm, and the counsel of her doctor, had at last extracted permission to go back to work on the twenty-seventh, and to please Betty MacDonald she had promised to go with the Winterborns to the Masterton party on the Saturday. Betty's devotion, shyly as she had opened her proud heart to it, had begun to mean a good deal to her. There was ball-minute for many a wounded feeling, and besides, there was the constant half-eaker, half- painful interest of watching Betty's free and childish ways, with all-duous rayburn, and of speculating upon what would ultimately come out of them. So when Betty first demanded to know what she was going to wear, and then pouted over the dress shown her, Marcella submitted humbly to being, freshened up at the hands of Lady Irma Trude's maid, bought what Betty told her, and stood still while Betty, who had a genius for such things, chattered and draped and suggested, I wouldn't make you fashionable for the world, cried Betty with a mouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon, the wile over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her. What was it worth said to me the other day? Second part, Mamuzelle, opaz, grande chosee, presque pas de corsage, et par due to too muches. No, that kind of thing wouldn't suit you, but distinguished you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out. In the end, Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented from hugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her own handiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloakroom into the Masterton's crowded hall, Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflections of herself as they passed up the lavishly bemeared staircase. The chatter about dress in which she had been living for some days had amused and distracted her, for there were great feminine potentialities in her, though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she wore a thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been want to waver between a kind of proud neglect which implied the secret consciousness of beauty, and an occasional passionate desire to look well, so that she played her part tonight very fairly. Pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf's tongue, and held herself up as she was told that Betty's handiwork might look its best, but inwardly the girl's mood was very tired and flat. She was pining for her work, even for Minta-Herd's peevish look, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence. In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Mastroton's rooms were very full. Marcella found acquaintances, many of the people whom she had met at Mrs. Lane's, the two cabinet ministers of the House of Commons dinner, Mr. Lane himself, all were glad or eager to recall themselves to her as she stood by Lady Winterborne, or made her way half-absently through the press. She talked without shyness, she had never been shy, and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she had been as a schoolgirl. But without heart, her black eye wandering meanwhile, as though in quest there was a gay sprinkling of uniforms in the crowd, for the speaker was holding a levée, and as it grew late his guests began to set towards Lady Mastroton. Betty, who had been turning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whom she declared were either bold or 70, was a little propitiated by the customs, otherwise she pronounced the party very tall. "'Well, upon my word,' she cried suddenly in a tone that made Marcella turn upon her. The child was looking very red and very upright, was using her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Levin was humbly holding out his hand to her. "'I don't like being startled,' said Betty, pettishly. "'Yes, you did, startled me. You did, you did. And then you begin to contradict before I've said a word. I'm sure you've been contradicting all the way upstairs. And why don't you say how do you do to Miss Boyce?' Frank, looking very happy but very nervous, paid his respects rather bashfully to Marcella. She laughed to see how Betty's presence subdued him, and then gave himself up wholly to Betty's tender mercies. Marcella observed them with an eager interest she could not wholly explain to herself. It was clear that all the thought of anything or anybody else had vanished for Frank Levin at the sight of Betty. Marcella guessed, indeed knew, that they had not met for some little time, and she was touched by the agitation and happiness on the boy's handsome face. But Betty, what was the secret of her kitnish teasing ways? Or was there any secret? She held her little head very high and chattered very fast, but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella, nor so far as Marcella could judge to Aldous Rayburn. New elements of character came out in it. It was self-confident, willful, imperious. Frank was never allowed to have an opinion, was laughed at before his words were out of his mouth, was generally heckled, played with, and shaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. In the case of most girls, such a manner would have meant encouragement, but as it was Betty no one could be sure. The little thing was a great puzzle to Marcella, who had found unexpected reserves in her. She might talk of her love affairs to Aldous Rayburn. She had done nothing of the sort with her new friend, and in such matters Marcella herself was far more reserved than most modern women. Betty! cried Lady Winterbourne. I am going on into the next room. Then in a lower tone she said helplessly to Marcella, do make her come on. Marcella perceived that her old friend was in a fidget. Stooping her tall head she said with a smile. But look how she is amusing herself. My dear, that's just it! If you only knew how her mother, tiresome woman, has talked to me, and the young man is behaved so beautifully till now, has given neither hermatrude nor me any trouble. Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered, then suddenly was seized with a sickest taste for the whole scene, for Betty's love affairs, for her own interest in them, for her own self and personality above all, her great black eyes gazed straight before them, unseeing over the crowd, the diamonds, the lights, her whole being gave itself to the quick, blind wrestle, with some vague over-mastering pain, some despair of life and joy to which she could give no name. She was roused by Betty's voice, Mr. Rayburn, will you tell me who people are? Mr. Levin's no more use than my fan. Just imagine I asked him who that lady in the tiara is, and he vows he doesn't know. Why, it just seems that when you go to Oxford you leave the wits you had before, behind, and then, of course, Betty affected a delicate hesitation. There's the difficulty of being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones. But there, look, I'm in despair, she's vanished and I shall never know. One moment, said Rayburn, smiling, and I will take you in pursuit. She has only gone into the tea-room. His hand touched Marcella's. Just a little better, he said, with a sudden change of look, in answer to Lady Winterbourne's question. The account tonight is certainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have been off some days ago, and next week I am thankful to say they will be home. Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still and silent? Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again, join in, talk, show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. After tonight, thank heaven, she need hardly see him again. He asked after herself as usual. Then just as he was turning away with Betty, he came back to her unexpectedly. I should like to tell you about Helen, he said gently. His sister writes to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to be able to keep him away for another fortnight. They are at Heswick. For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, a common interest. Here, if nowhere else, then the pleasure was lost in the smart of her own strange lack of self- government as she made a rather stupid and awkward reply. Rayburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash of involuntary expression, which she did not notice, for she had turned away, which no one saw, except Betty. Then the child followed him to the tea-room, a little pale and pensive. Marcella looked after them. In the midst of the uproar about her, the babble of talk fighting against the Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in the tea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes were tracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd. The man in his black court suit stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girl beside him, or turning every now and then, to greet an acquaintance with the manner, cordial and pleasant, yet never quite gay, even when he smiled, that she Marcella had begun to notice of late as a new thing. The girl lifting her small face to him, the gold of her hair showing against his velvet sleeve. But the inward sense was busy with the number of other impressions, past and as it now seemed incredible. The little scene when Aldous had given her the pearls returned so long ago. Why, she could see the fire blazing in the stone parlor, feel his arm about her. The drive home after the garsly meeting, that poignant moment in his sitting-room the night of the ball, his face, his anxious, tender face as she came down the wide stairs of the court towards him on that terrible evening when she pleaded with him and his grandfather in vain. Had these things, incidents, relations, been ever a real part of the living world? Impossible! Why there he was, not ten yards from her, and yet more irrevocably separate from her than if the Sahara stretched between them. The note of cold distance in his courteous manner put her further from him than the nearest stranger. Marcella felt a sudden terror rush through her as she blindly followed Lady Winterbourne. Her limbs trembled under her. She took advantage of a conversation between her companion and the master of the house to sink down for a moment on a satis where she felt out of sight and notice. What was this intolerable sense of loss and folly, this smarting emptiness, this rage within herself and her life? She only knew that whereas the touch, the eye of Aldous Rayburn, had neither compelled nor thrilled her so long as she possessed his whole heart and life, now that she had no right to either look or caress, now that he had ceased even to regard her as a friend, and was already perhaps making up that loyal and serious mind of his to ask from another woman the happiness she had denied him, now, when it was absurdly too late, she could. Could what? Passionate, willful creature that she was, with that breath of something wild and incalculable surging through the inmost places of a soul, she went through a moment of suffering as she sat pale and erect in her corner, brushed against by silks and satins, chattered across by this person in that, such as seemed to bruise all the remaining joy and ease out of life. But only a moment. Flesh and blood rebelled. She sprang up from her seat, told itself that she was mad or ill, caught sight of Mr. Lane coming towards them, and did her best by smile and greeting to attract him to her. You look very white, my dear Miss Boyce," said that cheerful and fatherly person. Is it that tie some arms still? Now don't please go and be a heroine any more. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. Meanwhile in the tea-room Betty was daintily sipping her claret cup while Aldous stood by her. No, said Betty, calmly looking straight at the lady in the tiara who was standing by the buffet. She's not beautiful, and I've torn my dress running after her. There's only one beautiful person here tonight. Aldous found her a seat and took one himself beside her in a corner out of the press, but he did not answer her remark. Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous? said Betty, persisting, but with a little flutter of the pulse. You mean Miss Boyce? he said quietly as he turned to her. Of course! cried Betty with a sparkle in her charming eyes. What is it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that she will just have lived twice as much as the rest of us by the time she comes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous? There was an instant silence on his part, then he said in a constrained voice looking away from his companion. I don't mind it, but I'm not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk of her. It would be a shame of you to pretend anything, said Betty fervently. After all, I've told you I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned out all my rubbish bag of a heart. Well, nearly all. She checked herself with a sudden flush. And you've been as kind to me as any big brother could be. But you dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous, you keep yourself to yourself. I don't think it's fair. Aldous laughed. My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a good listener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or—he hesitated—the things that have mattered most to me, because in the first place it doesn't come easy to me, and in the next I can't, you see, discuss my own concerns without discussing other peoples. Oh, good gracious! said Betty. What you must have been thinking about me. I declare I'll never tell you anything again. And while beating her tiny foot upon the ground she sat Scarlett looking down at it. Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Betty a most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the court in the Easter recess and during the Italian journey. Her total lack of reserve, or what appeared so, had been first in amazement to him, and then a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend of him, difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever, a woman must be at the cost of most the advances. But after the first evening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallest amour. Though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions, there was a tie of cousinship between them and a considerable difference of age. Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose and that great friends she and Aldous Rayburn should be. And in a sense, great friends they were. This was still propitiating her when Lady Winterbourne came into the tea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and not very happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be in animated talk with a young journalist whom Rayburn knew and did not look their way. Just one thing, said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly in Aldous's ear. It was all a mistake, wasn't it? Now I know her. I feel sure it was. You don't—you don't really think badly of her. Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards the buffet. When she saw a change in the eyes, a tightening of the lip, a something keen and hostile in the whole face, perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long. He said hastily, as though the words escaped him. Shall we get out of this very uncomfortable corner? Betty looked where he had looked and saw a young man greeting Marcella with a manner so emphatic and intimate that the journalist had instantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile of fair curls above a very white and rounded forehead. Who is that talking to Miss Boyce? she asked of Aldous. I have seen him, but I can't remember the name. That is Mr. Wharton, remember, for one of our divisions, said Aldous as he rose from his chair. Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As she too rose, she said resentfully to Aldous, Well, you have snubbed me. As usual he could not find the effect of a clever thing to say. I did not mean to, he replied simply, but Betty glancing at him saw something in his face which gripped her heart, a lump rose in her throat. Do let us go and find Amon Trude, she said. But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman on his way to the buffet with a cup to set down touched him on the arm. Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish, good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most important solicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons. May I have a word with you presently? Would Mr. Pearson in a pleasant undertone? I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurred to me that I might meet you tonight. Excuse my interrupting you. He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away. Wharton had a momentary qualm, then it struck him that Mr. Pearson's manner was decidedly friendly. In a moment, he said, we might find a corner, I think, in that further room. He made a motion of the head towards a little bourgeois which lay beyond the tea-room. Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on. Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Levin. At the approach of the member for West Berkshire, Lady Winterbourne and her daughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet. A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment, he said. Then he dropped his voice a little. But I have been looking forward to this evening, this chance for days. Shall I find you here again in five minutes? Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said, that would depend on the time, and Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair. Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye. Anyone would think he was Prime Minister already, and ever meant him yet anywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave as though he had the world on his shoulders? Your real swells always seem to have nothing to do. Do you know so many busy people? Marcella asked him sweetly. Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce. Said the boy, sulkily thrusting his hands into his pockets. I am going to work like blazes this winter, if only my duns were let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she ripping to-night? Betty, and pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he stared at the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined by Oldish Rayburn and Betty, standing side by side. What do you want me to say? said Marcella with a little cold laugh. I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please, put my cup down. At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her, Mr. Pearson behind him smiling and gently twirling the seals of his watch chain. She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the manner in which, with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne party, he approached her. There is such a charming little room in there, he said, stooping his head to her. And so cool after this heat. Won't you try it? The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way. She followed. Her dress almost brushed Oldish Rayburn as she passed. He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found a seat for her by an open window where they were almost hidden from view by a stand of flowers. As he sat down again by her she saw that a decisive moment had come and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! What to do? Her heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness. He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her a passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her under the Chilton beaches, so he vowed he had felt in her the supreme, incomparable attraction which binds a man to a woman, and one only. His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment which he had regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise his voice dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers. I lived for months on the memory of that one instant. But he had respected her suffering, her struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone away into silence. He had put a force upon himself which had alone enabled him to get through his parliamentary work. Then with his first sight of her in that little homely room and dress, so changed, but so lovely, everything, admiration, passion had revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of perplexities. He was not his own master. He was the servant of a cause, in which, however foolishly, a mocking habit might have led him at times to belittle his own enthousiasms and hers. His life and honour were engaged, and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered, and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of a number of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed with her. Worries practical and financial, connected with the clarion, with the experiments he had been carrying out on his estate and with other troublesome matters, he had felt a thousand times that his fortunes, political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to ask any woman to share them. Then again he had seen her, and his resolution, his scruple had melted in his breast. Well, there were still troubles in front, but he was no longer cowed by them. In spite of them he dared now to throw himself at her feet, to ask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring her beauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To her a man might show his effort and his toil. From her he might claim a sympathy. It would be vain to ask of any smaller woman. Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him, only his eyes, more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had ever known them beseeched her. His hand sought hers. She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation. Mistress neither of reason nor of feeling. She felt his spell as she had always done. The woman in her thrilled, at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. The heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be dead in so. The past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and warm life. Yet what tremors of conscience, what radical distrust of herself and him, and the first articulate words she found to say to him were very much what she had said to Aldous so long ago, only filled with a bitterer and more realised content. After all, what do we know of each other? You don't know me, not as I am, and I feel doubts. He said smiling. Do you imagine that that seems anything but natural to me? I can have none but you. After all, we are not quite boy and girl, you and I. We have lived, both of us. But ask yourself, has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all. Their eyes meant again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his. Yet throughout he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the figures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convinced and moved himself abundantly. Yet as he saw her yielding, he was filled with the strangest mixture of passion and a sort of disillusion, almost contempt. If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of the abandonment of love, have explored his own emotion more perfectly. Still, the situation was poignant enough, in one sense complete. Was Rayburn still there, in that next room? My answer, he said to her pressing her hand as they sat in the shelter of the flowers, for he was aware of the practical facts, the hour, the place, if she was not. She roused herself, I can't. She said, making a movement to rise which has strong grass, however, prevented. I can't answer you tonight, Mr. Wharton. I should have much to think over, so much. It might all look quite different to me. You must give me time. Tomorrow, he said quietly, No, she said impetuously, not tomorrow. I go back to my work, and I must have quiet and time. In a fortnight, not before, I will write. Oh, impossible! He said with a little frown. And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful arms. She shrank from it, feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear, but before she could disengage herself, he had pressed his lips on the arm nearest to him. I gave you no leave. She said passionately under her breath as he let her go. He meant her flashing look with tender humbleness. Massella! The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered. Yet a chill had passed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic. Not tomorrow. She repeated steadily, though dreading lest she should burst into tears. And not till I see clearly. Till I can. She caught her breath. Now I am going back to Lady Winterborne. For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front of his open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramble sways in her eyes. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning. The sun rose above the empty street, and the light misted, in wrapping the great city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at last to fall into a restless sleep. The speculation of those quick pulsed hours was in the end about equally divided between Massella and the phrases and turns of his interview with Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in him by that interview, heightened by the sight of Rayburn, that had driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions into his declaration to Massella. But he had no sooner reached his room than at first with iron will he put the thought of Massella, of the scene which had just passed away from him. His pulses were still quivering, no matter. It was the brain he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work. Mr. Pearson? Well, Mr. Pearson had offered him a bribe. There could be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for an instant, nor had he any illusions as to his own behavior. Even now he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man. Let him realize, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady Masterton's party in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon him and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and eau de vie before the knife falls. Never had things looked so desperate. Never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted. Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks. His entailed property would pass into the hands of a receiver, and whatever recovery might be ultimately possible by the end of August he would be, for the moment, socially and politically undone. There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce. Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her, and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate claim upon her which, during the past six weeks, had alternately attracted and repelled her. Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted. Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the window frame, close to the spot where a quarter of an hour later Marcella had sat among the flowers, the dapper figure, the long, fair moustache, the hand playing with the eyeglass. I have been asked, uh, uh, what a conceited manner the fellow had, to get some conversation with you, Mr. Walton, on the subject of the damesly strike. You give me leave. Whereupon in less than ten minutes the speaker had executed an important commission, and in offering Wharton a bribe of the most bare-faced kind had also found time for supplying him with a number of the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it. The Masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power of the Clarion and its owner. No doubt it would not be possible for the paper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely. There were perhaps already signs of slackening. Still, it had been maintained for a considerable time, and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of the widespread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probably hold out. In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought it best to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before him information which might possibly modify his action. They had authorized Mr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the way of reorganization of the trade, including the probable advantages which the work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in the future. Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme. Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, a little pale and frowning, looking intently at the speaker. Then Mr. Pearson paused and cleared his throat. Well, that was the scheme. His principals believed that, when both it and the employer's determination to transfer their business to the continent rather than to be beaten by the men were made fully known to the owner of the Clarion, it must affect his point of view. Mr. Pearson was empowered to give him any details he might desire. Meanwhile, so confident were they in the reasonableness of the case that they even suggested that the owner of the Clarion himself should take part in the new syndicate. On condition of his future cooperation, it being understood that the masters took their stand irrevocably on the award. The men at present responsible for the formation of the syndicate proposed to allot Mr. Wharton ten founders shares in the new undertaking. Wharton sitting alone, recalling these things, was conscious again of that start in every limb, that sudden rush of blood to the face as though a lash had struck him. For in a few seconds his mind took in the situation. Only the day before, a city acquaintance had said to him, If you and your confounded paper were out of the way, and this thing could be placed properly on the market, there would be a boom in it at once. I am told that in twenty-four hours the founders shares would be worth two thousand pounds apiece. There was a pause of silence. Then Wharton, through a queer dark look at the solicitor, and was conscious that his pulse was thumping. There can be no question, I think, Mr. Pearson, between you and me, as to the nature of such a proposal as that. My dear sir, Mr. Pearson had interrupted hastily. Let me, above all, ask you to take time, time enough at any rate, to turn the matter well over in your mind. The interests of a great many people besides yourself are concerned. Don't give me an answer tonight. It is the last thing I desire. I have thrown out my suggestion. Consider it. Tomorrow is Sunday. If you are disposed to carry it further, come and see me on Monday morning. That's all. I will be at your service any hour, and I can then give you a much more complete outline of the intentions of the company. Now I really must go and look for Mrs. Pearson's carriage. Wharton followed the great man half-mechanically across the little room, his mind in a whirl of mingled rage and desire. Then suddenly he stopped his companion. Has George Denney anything to do with this proposal, Mr. Pearson? Mr. Pearson paused with a little air of vague cogitation. George Denney? Mr. George Denney, the member of Westrop? I've had no dealings, whatever, with that gentleman in the matter. Wharton let him pass. Then as he himself entered the tea-room he perceived the bending form of Alda Sbrabern, chatting to Lady Winterbourne on his right, and that tall whiteness closed in front, waiting for him. His brain cleared in a flash. He was perfectly conscious that a bribe had just been offered him of the most daring and cynical kind, and that he had received the offer in the tamest way. An insult had been put upon him which had forever revealed the estimate held of him by certain shrewd people. Forever degraded him in his own eyes. Nevertheless he was also conscious that the thing was done. The bribe would be accepted, the risk taken, so far as his money matters were concerned. He was once more a free man. The mind had adjusted itself, reached its decision in a few minutes, and the first effect of the mingled excitement and self-contempt which the decision brought with it had been to drive him into the scene with Marcella. Instinctively he asked of passion, to deliver him quickly from the smart of new and very disagreeable experience. Well, why should he not take these men's offer? He was as much convinced as they that this whole matter of the strike had of late come to a deadlock, so long as the public would give the workers passionately certain of the justice of their own cause and filled with new ambitions after more decent living would hold out. On the other hand, he perfectly understood that the masters had also in many ways a strong case, that they had been very hard hit by the strike and that many of them would rather close their works or transfer them bodily to the continent than give way. Some of the facts Pearson had found time to mention had been certainly new in striking. At the same time he never disguised from himself for an instant, that but for perspective twenty thousand pounds, the facts concerned would not have affected him in the least. Till tonight it had been to his interest to back the strike and to harass the employers. Now things were changed and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his own intelligence as his thought rapidly sketched the curve the clarion would have to take and the arguments by which he would commend it. As to his shares, they would be convertible of course into immediate cash. Some man of straw would be forthcoming to buy what he would possess in the name of another man of straw. It was not supposed, he took for granted, by the men who had dared to tempt him that he would risk his whole political reputation and career for anything less than a bird in the hand. Well, what were the chances of secrecy? Naturally, they stood to lose less by disclosure, a good deal than he did, and any one of the principal employers was his personal enemy. He would be likely enough for the present to keep his name out of the affair, but no man of the world could suppose that the transaction would pass without his knowledge. Wharton's own hasty question to Mr. Pearson on the subject seemed to himself now in cold blood a remarkably foolish one. He walked up and down thinking this point out. It was the bitter pill of the whole affair. In the end, with the sudden recklessness of youth and resource, he resolved to dare it. There would not be much risk. Men of business do not, as a rule, blaze in their own dirty work, and public opinion would be important to the new syndicate. Some risk, of course, there would be. Well, his risks, as they stood, were pretty considerable. He chose the lesser. Not without something of a struggle. Some keen personal smart. He had done a good many mean and questionable things in his time, but never anything gross as this. The thought of what his relation to a certain group of men, to Denny especially, would be in the future stunk sharply. But it is the part of the man of action to put both scruple and fear behind him on occasion. His career was in question. Craven? Well, Craven would be a difficulty. He would telegraph to him first thing in the morning before the office is closed and see him on Monday. For Marcella's sake the man must be managed, somehow. And Marcella? How should she ever know? Ever suspect? She already disliked the violence with which the paper had supported the strike. He would find no difficulty whatever in justifying all that she or the public would see to her. Then insensibly he let his thoughts glide into thinking of the money. Presently he drew a sheet of paper towards him and covered it with calculations as to his liabilities. By George how well it worked out. By the time he threw it aside and walked to the window for air he already felt himself a bona fide supporter of the syndicate. The promoter and the public interest of a just and well considered scheme. Finally with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed the inner man, he flung down his cigarette and turned to write an artlet letter to Marcella while the morning sun stole into the dusty room. Difficult? Of course. Both now and in the future it would take him half his time yet and he could ill afford it. To bring her bound and captive? He recognized in her the southern element so strangely mated with the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties of the struggles he foresaw enchanted him. And she would be mastered. In this heightened state of nerve his man's resolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of her resistance. Nor should she cheat him with long delays his income would be his own again and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showmen of her beauty. A thought of Lady Salina crossed his mind producing amusement and compassion, indulgent amusement such as the young man is apt to feel towards the Spencer of 35 who pays him attention. A certain sense of rehabilitation too which at the moment was particularly welcome. For no doubt he might have married her and her fortune had he so chosen. As it was why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity on her? There were plenty going and she must have abundance of money. Old Alrasford too was fast doddering off the stage and then where would she be? Without Alrasford house or bus bridge or those various other pedestals which had hitherto held her aloft. Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed Craven directing him to come up at once for consultation. The rest of the day the owner of the Clarion spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party of ladies including a young Duchess who was pretty, literary and socialistic. At night he went down to the Clarion office and produced a leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which to the practice died contained one paragraph but one only wherein the dawn of a new policy might have been discerned. Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave him considerable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain could not be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day and were not likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contract for a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the sale of an old master. His influence must be sold now at the right moment or not at all. At the same time it was very awkward in one short fortnight the meeting of the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question would give great offense to many of the labour members. It would have to be very carefully managed, very carefully thought out. By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office after the first involuntary smile concealed by the fair mustaches and instantly dismissed with which the imminent lawyer greeted the announcement of his visitors name. The two augurs carried through their affairs with perfect decorum. Warton realised indeed that he was being firmly handled. Mr. Pearson gave the clearing in a week in which to accomplish its retreat and drop its strike fund and the fund was to be checked as soon as possible. A little later when Warton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first visible smile. My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I can give you no better assurance than you can extract yourself from the circumstances. As to writing, well, I should advise you very strongly against anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that in any delicate negotiation the less that is written the better. Towards the end Warton turned upon his companion sharply and asked, how did you discover that I wanted money? Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly. Most of the things in this world Mr. Warton that one wants to know can be found out. Now I have no wish to hurry you, not in the least, but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly. Don't you think we might settle our business? Warton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with the necessities which had given this man to whom he had taken an instantaneous dislike, the power of dealing thus summarily with the member for West Berkshire. However, there was no help for it. He submitted. In twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's inn carrying documents in the breast pocket of his coat which, when brought under his banker's notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of some eight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase money for his shares would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contract had been carried out. He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the Clarion office where he had a midday appointment with Lewis Craven. On the first side of the tall narrow-shouldered form and anxious face, waiting for him in his private room, Warton felt a movement of ill-humour. Craven had the morning's Clarion in his hand. This cannot mean, he said, when they had exchanged a brief salutation, that the paper is backing out. He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Warton's leader. His delicate features quivering with an excitement he could ill repress. Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing, said Warton, closing the door. That's what I wired to you for. He offered Craven a cigarette which was refused. Took one himself and the two men sat confronting each other with a writing table between them. Warton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers in his coat pocket and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise, he showed no trace of mental disturbance and Craven himself, jaded and sleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion's boyish good looks, the tumbling curls that Warton straightened now and then, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger would have taken Craven for the older man. In reality, it was the other way. The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argument and entity, though, when the completeness of the retreat resolved upon, had been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce that he could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenes of starvation and endurance which, to his mind, had all the character of martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects, the power to live more humanly and the free rite of combination, to both of which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help them without an instance hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saw everything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's passion. To be fair to an employer was not in his power, to spend his last breath where it called for, in the attempt to secure the working man against his capitalist oppressors would have seemed to him the merest matter of course. And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far more evident. In his talk with Wharton he, for a long time, avoided, as before, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment. He pointed out, what indeed Wharton well knew, that the next two or three weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in its history, that if the work people could only be carried through them, they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believing that the employers could ultimately be coerced. He offered proof of yielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks were fully alive, too, and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to the syndicate, he saw no objection to it, provided the workers' claims were first admitted, otherwise it would only prove a more powerful engine of oppression. Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He would have liked simply to play the proprietor and the master, to say, this is my decision, those are my terms, take my work, or leave it. But Craven was Miss Boyce's friend. He was also a venturist. Chafing under both facts, Wharton found that he must state his case, and he did state it with usual ability. He laid great stress on information from a private source which I cannot disregard, to the effect that if the resistance went on the trade would be broken up, that several of the largest employers were on the point of making arrangements for Italian factories. I know, he said finally, that but for the Clarion the strike would drop. While I've come to the conclusion that the responsibility is too heavy, I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There is the case in a nutshell. We differ, I can't help that. The responsibility is mine. Craven rose with a quick nervous movement. The Prophet spoke at last. You understand, he said, laying a thin hand on the table, that the condition of the workers in this trade is infamous. What the award and your action together plunged them back into a state of things which is a shame at a cost to England. Wharton made no answer. He too had risen, and was putting away some papers in a drawer. A trimmer ran through Craven's tall frame, and for an instant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul play crossed his mind. He casted out, that he might deal calmly with his own position. Of course, you perceive. He said as he took up his hat, that I can no longer, on these terms, remain the Clarion's correspondent. Somebody else must be found to do this business. I regret your decision immensely, said Wharton, with perfect suavity. But of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you will not leave us all together. I can give you plenty of work that will suit you. Here, for instance, he pointed to a pile of blue books from the Labour Commission lying on the table, or a number of reports that went analysing and putting before the public, you could do them in town at Eulisea. Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offer in Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife, of the tiny new household just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts, of the woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child. Thank you. He said in a husky voice, I will consider it, I will write. Wharton nodded to him pleasantly and went on. The owner of the Clarion drew a long breath. Now, I think on the whole, it would serve my purpose best to sit down and write to her. After that, it would be well that my account should come first. A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a further spell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in a curious, restless state. The mortgage on the Clarion had been arranged for. His gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters were successfully entrained. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning had passed into misgiving and depression. Vague pre-sentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House of Commons or elsewhere, and it was not until he found himself on his legs at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the government, Bill, and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton. And Harry Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power. A letter from Marcella, written before she had received either of his, reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting, a touching letter, yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted him. Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It might be. I believe it would be best for us both, but if you will not, if I must give my answer, then as I said, I must have time. It is only quite recently that I have realised the enormity of what I did last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life, or another's, a second time. Not to be sure, is for me torment. Why, perfect simplicity of feeling, which would scorn the very notion of questioning itself, seems to be beyond me. I do not know. That it is so fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness, but I must follow my nature. So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your cause, your life-work attracts me strongly. I should not any longer accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a friend in everything except opinion. All that would matter to me now would be to feel that your heart was wholly in your work, in your public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might differ from. But there, for we must be frank with each other, is just my difficulty. Why do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk their language, you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems, you accept their standards. Oh! To the really consecrated heart and thought I could give my life so easily, so slavishly even, there is no one weaker than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon, and a strength pure at the core, that I can respect and follow. Here, in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the best of whom life is very real and simple, and often, of course, very sad. And I am another being in it, from what I was at Lady Winterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no, you must please wait till the inner voice speaks, so that I can hear it plainly. For your sake, at least as much as for mine. If you persisted in coming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all. Strangest is the modern woman, but warden to himself, not without sharp peak, as he pondered the letter, in the course of his drive home from the meeting. I talk to her of passion, and she asks me in return why I do things inconsistent with my political opinions, puts me through a moral catechism in fact. What is the meaning of it all, can found it. Her state of mind and mine, her state of mind and mine, is the good old Asamande perishing out of the world. Let some stendhal come and tell us why. But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inward pleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all the intervals of these rapid days. Life, while they lasted, was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath and endurance. The clarion made its retreat in Morton's finest style, and the fact rang through laboringly England. The strike leaders came up from the Midlands. Morton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in the house privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile, the conservative papers talked the unusual employer's political economy, and the liberal papers, whose support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were glad to get, and went in strongly for the award. Through it all, Morton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the clarion, teamed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked by long statements of hard fact. The details of foreign competition and the rest, the plans of the masters, freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson, with Bennett and his colleagues in the house he took a bold line, admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside parliament and out of it at a particularly critical moment, and implied, though he did not say, that some men were still capable of doing independent things to their own hurt. Meanwhile, he pushed a number of other matters to the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made at least two important speeches in the provinces. In the course of these days, on the bill before the House of Lords, he asked questions in parliament on the subject of the wages paid to government employees, and he opened an attack on the report of a certain commission, which had been rousing the particular indignation of a large mass of South London working men. At the end of ten days, the strike was over. The workers, sullen and enraged, had submitted and the plans of the syndicate were in all the papers. Morton, looking round him, realized to his own amazement that his political position had rather gained than suffered. The general impression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a man strong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk of unpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and, resentful as some of the Labour members were, Morton did not believe that what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the tenth at all. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high, adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and careless tone that served him well. Meanwhile, there were of course clever people behind the scenes who looked on and laughed, but they held their tongues, and Morton, who had carefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiation with Pearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable indeed when he passed the portly Denny in the house or in the street. Denny had a way of looking at the member for Westbrookshire out of the corner of a small slit like eye. He did it more than usual during these days, and Morton had only to say to himself that for all things there is a price which the gods exact. There was also subdued and preoccupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in the general fullness of the public mind. A few caustic North country-isms on the subject of the Clarion and its master did indeed escape him now and then, and were reported from the mouth to mouth, but on the whole he lay very low. Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Morton seemed to himself throughout the whole period to be a fighter, straining every muscle, his back to the wall, and his hand against every man. There at the end of the fortnight stood the three goalposts that must be passed in victory or defeat. The meeting that would, for the present, decide his parliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and the confounded annual meeting of the People's Banking Company with all its threatened annoyances. He became, indeed, more and more occupied with his latter business as the days went on, but he could see no way of evading it. He would have to fight it. Luckily now he had the money. The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for the committee of the Labour Party. Morton was not present at it, and in spite of ample warnings he gave way to certain lively movements of disgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of the evening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figured amply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all the dates. The sums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the first dealings with the shares on the stock exchange were freely mentioned, and the shareholders, as a body, had shown themselves most uncomfortably violent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers, disclaiming all responsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, and courting full inquiry, a letter which is usual both convinced and affected himself. Then he went restless and fuming down to the house. Bennett passed him in the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Morton seized upon him, carried him into the library and talked to him, till Bennett, who in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgements in certain departments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhat cheered accountants. They came out into the lobby together, Morton holding his head very high. I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday," he said aloud as they parted. Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile. There was in this little man, with his considerable brain in his poet's heart, something of the imperishable child. Like a wholesome child he did not easily think evil. His temper, towards all men, even the owners of wayleaves and mining royalties, was optimist. He had the most naive admiration for Morton's ability and for the academic attainments he himself secretly pined for, and to the young complex personality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountable liking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, was real. Morton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett had been of the younger man's explanations. So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting, championing, explaining, while Morton, related with parliamentary business, vivid, unabashed and resourceful, let it be known to all whom it concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answer to all charges and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness of those poor devils of shareholders. The hours passed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Morton in a series of conferences and intrigues, either at the house or at his club. When he drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged, the train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the party certain. Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable, but the vehemence and wranker shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer in the pursuit of his anti-Worton campaign had to some extent defeated themselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a formidable weapon. Morton would have felt perfectly easy on this subject, but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins' part during the last forty-eight hours. Whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each other in the house, marked by a sort of new and insolent good humor that puzzled him. But there is a vibrato of defeat. Yes, he thought, Wilkins was disposed of. From his present point of ease, debts paid, banker propitiated, income assured, it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight before. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it must have been accepted. After all, his luck had held. Once get through this odious company business as to which, with a pleasing consciousness of turning the tables, he had perimeterally instructed Mr. Pearson himself, and the bark of his fortunes was assured. Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from him. His hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. These stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought, a world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule small inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shaken tonight by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had been unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half-moved to offer them something in return. Do as you are done by. That was an ethic he understood, and in moments of feeling he was as ready to apply it to Great Zeus himself as to his friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful thing. But why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague, philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his mind. The pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him. The Christian never. He could still read this Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling to think of. Marcella. Ah, Marcella. He gave himself to the thought of her with a new and delightful tenderness, which had in it elements of compunction. After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers he had instantly written to her every public man. He had said to her, finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her, is liable, at some period of his career, to charges of this sort. They are at once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask, I know, that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your thoughts, till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your face. The time is long. To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had run sadly and coldly. No doubt Lewis Craven had something to do with it. It would have alarmed him, could he simply have found the time to think about it. Yet she was ready to see him on the eleventh, and his confidence in his own powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had told her and Lady Masterton's. Well, what passion ever yet but had it subterfuges. One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish. Wild falcon that she was. Then pleasure and brave living, and she also should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those great illusions he had founded of late so hard to feign with her. And they, too, would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion, affairs, life explored and exploited, and at last, Que le monde m'aito à l'ève plaitant mes cholliques, mais notre l'aide à elle est encore plus démol, je n'en tiens pas fait. He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same temper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then, with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleep himself into the new day. End of Section 40, Book 3, Chapter 14, Recording by Tara Mendoza, Phoenix, Arizona, May 2011.