For a time, Dilling was entertained by the visits he received from
ladies of varying ages and mixed intentions. He found their vapoury
subterfuges or engaging candour equally amusing. But presently, this
type of diversion, so eagerly welcomed by many of his confrères, began
to pall, and he developed amazing ingenuity in the avoidance of such
callers.
He had grown suspicious of “deserving cases,” and “ancient grievances”;
he found himself totally unsympathetic towards the erection of monuments
commemorating the questionable valour of somebody’s obscure progenitors;
he could sit absolutely unmoved and listen to schemes which were being
projected “at considerable personal inconvenience,” in order that he
might attain immortality. The measures he was asked to father in the
House ranged from the segregation of the feeble-minded to prohibition of
philandering.
“He’s a cold fish,” complained more than one lady, after failing to
elicit the smallest response, either to her project or her personal
charms.
It was true that Dilling’s emotional reactions were slight, but it was
equally true that had they been vehement, he would have forced himself
to a course of conduct commensurate with what he conceived to be the
demands of national welfare. He never could accept the idea that the
Government Service was an institution in which hundreds of persons—like
Mr. Deane—might find a comfortable escape from the storm and stress of
a fruitful life, and render in return but a tithe of the work that even
their small abilities could fairly perform. He never could sympathise
with the attitude of those who looked upon the public funds as private
means, and he opposed, in so far as he was able, every effort to tap the
Dominion Treasury for individual gain.
There were times when he thought with discouragement about these things;
times when he was oppressed with the basic insincerity of public life.
It was so vastly different from what he had imagined! He felt himself
eternally struggling against the malefic urge of partisanship—and
partisanship was not always, he found, an expression of high principle.
And he saw also that, as his success gathered head, petty
jealousies—and great—sprang up on every hand. The very persons who
assisted in his rise would be the first, he knew, to herald his
downfall. He used to think that because a man was prominent, he
possessed universal good-will, but now he knew that the exact reverse
obtains.
“I am the most unpopular man in the House,” he said to Azalea, one
evening. “On the floor, they cheer and applaud me, but in private or
social life, I am shunned.”
Another woman would have contradicted him. Such a course did not occur
to Azalea.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
He considered a moment.
“I’m not sure. It seems to me that the popular Members don’t _do_
anything. They’re too busy being popular . . . too busy being agreeable
to a herd of tireless parasites.”
“Which is quite out of your line, is it not?”
“Well, why _should_ I snivel and crawl?” he defended. “One respects a
man or one doesn’t. Popularity is, after all, only an expression of mob
psychology; as you know, it is unstable—having either the vaguest of
excuses, or palpable insincerity behind it.”
“You mean the insincerity of the person who is popular?”
“Of course! What man feels genuine friendliness towards enough people to
make him ‘popular’?”
Azalea shook her head in the characteristic way that implied her
resentment against accepting the inevitable.
“But don’t you feel that a certain amount of studied affability is—let
us say—necessary to the attainment of success in public affairs?”
“No! I believe with Lincoln that the conduct of a statesman—and that is
my high ambition, if it be God’s will that I attain to it—should be
moulded upon three principles; ‘malice towards none, charity for all,
firmness on the right’. These principles are not compatible with the
flatteries and lightly-regarded mendacities of a popular idol. A
statesman ought to be less of a man and more of an ethical inspiration.
It’s not an easy ideal to live up to,” he concluded, “but at least it’s
a clean one, and I think the only one that history justifies.”
“Yes,” repeated Azalea, as though careful that her voice should not
betray her true opinion, “it’s a very clean one.”
Recalling that conversation, Dilling found himself musing rather
pleasantly about Azalea. What a curious little creature she was! What a
stimulating companion! He could not, for the life of him, visualise her
features, but he could bring to mind many an illuminating twist of her
thoughts. Times without number, he realised, he had invoked her
extraordinary intuitive powers and transmuted them in the crucible of
his logic, into what Sullivan was pleased to designate as invincibility
in debate.
“She’s more than half responsible,” he told himself. “I couldn’t have
achieved my present position by any process of reasoning alone.”
He looked over his crowded desk with a sensation of helplessness. How
could any man, single-handed, clear that accumulation away? He wondered
if other Members allowed their business to get into such a distressing
tangle, and if they had better luck than he when a stenographer came in
for a few hours, to reduce the congestion?
“It’s this eternal speech-making,” he reflected. “That’s what takes so
much of my time. I wish . . .”
He left his chair and began to pace about the room, surrendering to an
access of restlessness that was quite foreign to him. Azalea Deane . . .
there was the solution! Why not? Why should she not come to him as a
permanent assistant . . . a sort of private secretary?
“She could relieve me of a myriad minor duties,” he thought. “Foreign
press . . . correspondence . . . research work . . . She’s amazingly
accurate . . .” He smiled as he caught himself suppressing the familiar
corollary, “for a woman!”
Yes, that was the solution! He would ask Azalea Deane to work with him.
“We’ll get on famously together,” he thought. “She’s so quick to catch
the drift of my intention. She really understands me.”
He sat down again, amused at the recollection of an original view
expressed by Azalea in answer to Marjorie, who complained of Ottawa’s
persistent misunderstanding.
“There’s no cause for distress in being misunderstood,” she had said.
“It’s the opposite condition that we should dread! Imagine one’s
stupidity, covetousness and smallness of spirit being laid bare!
Unthinkable, isn’t it? You mustn’t forget, my dear Marjorie, that being
misunderstood works both ways, and through imperfect understanding we
are frequently credited with motives and qualities that are quite as
flattering as we could wish. Heaven forfend that I should ever be
thoroughly understood!”
Dilling applauded her and reminded his wife that if men were compelled
to write their thoughts and wear them as phylacteries on their
foreheads, few, indeed, would carry themselves bravely in public.
“And why should they do that, dear?” Marjorie enquired, her pansy eyes
clouded with perplexity.
“He is only trying to be clever,” explained Azalea. “He is subtly
suggesting that if the very best of us proclaimed our thoughts upon our
foreheads, there would be jolly few who didn’t pull their hats low above
their brows.”
Azalea did not wear her thoughts upon her forehead, Dilling reflected,
and he smiled at his conceit in thinking that if she did, they would
probably be written in a language that was difficult to read! It
suddenly occurred to him that he knew very little of what was passing in
Azalea’s mind. His endeavour had been directed to an opposite
course—assisting her to understand what was in his thoughts.
“She’s a curious creature,” he repeated, “a problem. But she has rare
intelligence and imagination. I need her . . . She is necessary for the
advancement of my work. I can’t concentrate in this hopeless muddle
. . .”
The idea excited him more than he realised. In planning a schedule for
their day’s routine, he did not recognise his keen desire for a closer
intimacy with the girl’s mind, the assurance of her esteem, the stimulus
of knowing that she expected him to conquer unconquerable things. He
began to wear down her arguments, to win her from possible
disinclination. She must agree! She must come!
He pictured a scene with her tiresome old father, when he should ask not
for her hand but for her brain. How insensately stubborn the old
antiquarian would be! How damnably unreasonable!
He consulted his book of appointments . . . not a minute Wednesday . . .
nor Thursday . . . Ah! Mrs. Pratt’s dinner party . . . Good! He would
ask her then . . .
A thin smile touched his features as he said to himself,
“If I can move the Opposition in the House, surely I can override the
objections of Grenville Deane!”
* * * * *
Mr. Deane would have swelled with pride had he known that his daughter
was engaging the attention of more than one Parliamentary Member that
day. In a room above that occupied by Raymond Dilling, the thoughts of
three other gentlemen bent themselves fleetingly upon her.
* * * * *
“The fellow’s not only clever,” grumbled Turner, “but he’s too damned
careful. We’ll have some trouble in pinning anything on him.”
Sullivan sipped his whisky reflectively. “The trouble is that he never
meets the right sort of people.”
“God knows they go out enough,” protested Howarth. “According to the
Personals which I’ve read conscientiously for several weeks past, they
go pretty much everywhere.”
“Because he’s become the vogue, in a manner of speaking,” said Sullivan.
“But that won’t do us any good. It won’t last long enough. Socially,
they are failures and always will be . . . Mark my words, the time will
come when they will be asked only because their political position
requires recognition, not for their personal charm. Church-workers and
unambitious obscurities will be their particular friends . . . her
particular friends, perhaps I should say. He won’t have any.”
“Still, he’ll meet some interesting women,” objected Turner.
“I grant it, but not deliberately interesting,” returned Sullivan, with
a wink. “In other words, he won’t stumble into a trap. He’ll have to be
led into it.”
“Why won’t he stumble?” Howarth asked. “Other men do.”
“His temperament is a safeguard, for one thing. He is not sufficiently
attracted by women to go exploring, and only those who wander into
unfamiliar places get caught in traps.”
Howarth remarked that his wife had reported a warm friendship between
the Dillings and the Deane girl.
“Yes,” said Sullivan, “I’ve been watching that. Mrs. D. tells me that he
admires the girl intensely.”
“Humph!” commented Turner.
“I’ve never met the lady,” said Howarth, “but judging from her looks I
should think that a man’s intensity of feeling for her could not be much
more than a mild passion of the imagination.”
Sullivan laughed. “That’s not bad for you, Billy. I’ll go even further
and opine that Dilling’s intensity of feeling for anyone will be like
the passion of a fried sole! However, the Deane girl won’t do.”
“What about de Latour’s daughter?” suggested Howarth. “She looks clever,
and might help, ‘for the sake of the Party,’ as our estimable Lady Denby
says.”
“Good God, Billy,” groaned Sullivan. “We don’t want anyone who _looks_
clever! Don’t you know me better than that?”
“Well, the sweet young thing should be easy to find,” said Turner.
“No good, either. In the first place, it’s hard to find one with any
sense, and in the second, he gets that type as a daily diet.”
“Those Carmichael girls seem to be consistent winners,” suggested
Turner, once more. “Some brains, and good looks . . .”
“Too young,” said the old campaigner. “Undependable! Kids are apt to
lose their heads and weaken, when it comes to using the scalping knife.
First thing we know, they’d give the whole show away. No,” he went on,
reflectively, “what we want is a regular stunner, who’ll stick right at
the game until she has his scalp at her belt . . . a woman of the world,
you know, chock full of horse sense and able to handle men with as
little difficulty as an expert trainer handles cats.”
There was a short silence.
“I can’t think of anybody,” Turner’s tone was sodden with
discouragement.
“Nor I,” said Howarth. “Haven’t you got anybody up your sleeve,
Sullivan?”
The Hon. Member for Morroway modestly admitted that there was a lady of
his acquaintance who combined all these alluring vices.
“Either of you ever heard of Mrs. Barrington?” he enquired.
Turner thumped his approval. Howarth took his satisfaction more
cautiously.
“I’ve seen the dame. Kind of flashy, eh?”
“Tastes differ,” replied his friend.
“Just moved here lately, hasn’t she?”
Sullivan nodded.
“Hangs round the House a good deal, trying to put something over for her
husband, I’ve heard.”
“You’re remarkably well informed, Billy,” mocked the older man.
“Did you ever know her before?” asked the unabashed Howarth.
Sullivan confessed to a previous acquaintance. “Her mother’s first
husband was my sister’s brother-in-law. So, you see, she’s a sort of
relation.”
“Not too close to be interesting,” observed Turner, who had his private
opinion about Sullivan’s relations. “Has she been sounded? Do you think
she’ll take on the job?”
The Member for Morroway was hopeful, “provided,” he said, “she is not
absorbed in any other emotional adventure. They are chronic.”
“Is that the only provision?” Howarth wanted to know.
“Well—er—as you, yourself, remarked, she seems to be determined to get
Barrington a nice, cushioned berth in which he will be well protected
against the rigours of enervating toil. I understand that she fancies
the Chairmanship of the Improvement Commission.”
William Howarth, M.P., expressed relief, and the opinion that this was
“pie”.
“We’ll just put little Augustus Pratt on the job,” he said. “How soon
could we see the lady?”
Sullivan didn’t doubt that she was somewhere in the House at the moment.
“You trot along and find her, then,” urged the other. “Bring her up here
and let’s hold a friendly little conference. The sooner we get her
started on this escapade, the sooner our young friend will lose his
head!”