Jane leaned back in her chair, drew off her gloves and looked around her
with an appreciative smile. She had somehow the subtle air of being
even more pleased with herself and her surroundings than she was willing
to admit. Every table in the restaurant was occupied. The waiters were
busy: there was an air of gaiety. A faint smell of cookery hung about
the place and its clients were undeniably a curious mixture of the
bourgeois and theatrical. Nevertheless, she was perfectly content and
smiled her greetings to the great Monsieur George, who himself brought
their menu.
"We want the best of your ordinary dishes," Tallente told him, "and
remember that we do not come here expecting Ritz specialities or a Savoy
_chef d'oeuvre_. We want those special _hors d'oeuvres_ which you know
all about, a sole grilled _a la maison_, a plainly roasted chicken with
an endive salad. The sweets are your affair. The savoury must be a
cheese soufflé. And for wine--"
He broke off and looked across the table. Jane smiled apologetically.
"You will never bring me out again," she declared. "I want some
champagne."
"I never felt more like it myself," he agreed. "The _Pommery_, George,
slightly iced, an aperitif now, and the dinner can take its course. We
will linger over the _hors d'oeuvres_ and we are in no hurry."
George departed and Tallente smiled across at his companion. It was a
wonderful moment, this. His steady success of the last few months, the
triumph of the afternoon had never brought him one of the thrills which
were in his pulses at that moment, not one iota of the pleasurable sense
of well-being which was warming his veins. The new menace which had
suddenly thrown its shadow across his path was forgotten. Governments
might come or go, a career be made or broken upon the wheel. He was
alone with Jane.
"Now tell me all the news at Woolhanger?" he asked.
"Woolhanger lies under a mantle of snow," she told him. "There is a
wind blowing there which seems to have come straight from the ice of the
North Pole and sounds like the devil playing bowls amongst the hills."
"The hunting?"
"All stopped, of course. A few nights ago, two stags came right up to
the house and quite a troop of the really wild ponies from over
Hawkbridge way. We've never had such a spell of cold in my memory. It
reminded one of the snowstorm in 'Lorna Doone.'--But after all, I told
you all about Woolhanger last night. I want your news."
"I seem to have settled down with the Democrats," he told her. "I do my
best to keep the party in line. The great trades unions are, of course,
our chief difficulty, but I think we are making progress even with them.
Some of the miners' representatives dined with me at the Trocadero the
other night. Good fellows they are, too. There is only one great
difficulty," he went on, "in the consolidation of my party, and that is
to get a little more breadth into the views of these men who represent
the leading industries. They are obsessed with the duties that they owe
to their own artificers and the labour connected with the particular
industry they represent. It is hard to make them see the importance of
any other subject. Yet we need these very men as lawmakers. I want
them to study production and the laws of production from a universal
point of view."
"I can quite understand," she acquiesced sympathetically, "that you have
a difficult class of men to deal with. Tell me what the evening papers
mean by their placards?"
"We had a small tactical success against the Government this afternoon,"
he explained. "It doesn't really amount to anything. We are not ready
for their resignation at the moment, any more than they are ready to
resign."
"You are an object of terror to all my people," she confided smilingly.
"They say that Horlock dare not go to the country and that you could
turn him out to-morrow if you cared to."
"So much for politics," he remarked drily.
"So much for politics," she assented. "And now about yourself?"
"A little finger of flame burning in an empty place," he sighed. "That
is how life seems to me when I take my hand off the plough."
She answered him lightly, but her face softened and her eyes shone with
sympathy.
"Aren't you by way of being just a little sentimental?"
"Perhaps," he admitted. "If I am, let me feel the luxury of it."
"One reads different things of you."
"For instance?"
"Town Topics says that you have become an interesting figure at many
social functions. You must meet attractive people there."
"I only wish that I could find them so," he answered. "London has been
almost feverishly gay lately and every one seems to have discovered a
vogue for entertaining politicians. There seems to be a sort of idea
that dangerous corners may be rubbed off us by a judicious application
of turtle soup and champagne."
"Cynic!" she scoffed pleasantly.
"Well, I don't know," he went on. "From any other point of view, some
of the entertainments to which I have been bidden appear utterly without
meaning. However, it is part of my programme to prove to the world that
we Democrats can open our arms wide enough to include every class in
life. Therefore, I go to many places I should otherwise avoid. I have
studied the attitude of the younger women whom I have approached, purely
impersonally and without the slightest hypersensitiveness. They have
all been perfectly pleasant, perfectly disposed for conversation or any
of the usual social amenities. But they know that I have in the
background a wife. To flirt with a married man of fifty isn't worth
while."
"It appears to me," she said, with a slight note of severity in her
tone, "that you have set your mind upon having a perfectly frivolous
time."
"Not at all," he objected. "I have simply been experimenting."
The service of dinner had now commenced, and with George in the
background, a haughty head waiter a few yards off, and a myrmidon
handing them their dishes with a beatific smile, the conversation
drifted naturally into generalities. When they resumed their more
intimate talk, Tallente felt himself inspired by an ever-increasing
admiration for his companion and her adaptability. During this brief
interval he had seen many admiring and some wondering glances directed
towards Jane and he realised that she was somehow a person entirely
apart from any of the others, more beautiful, more distinguished, more
desirable. Of the Lady Jane ruling at Woolhanger with a high hand,
there was no trace. She looked out upon the gay room with its
voluptuous air, its many couples and little parties carrées, with the
friendly and sympathetic interest of one who finds herself in agreeable
surroundings and whose only desire is to come into touch with them. Her
plain black gown, her simple hat with its single quill, the pearls which
were her sole adornment, all seemed part of her. She appeared wholly
unconscious of the admiration she excited. She who was sometimes
inclined, perhaps, to carry herself a little haughtily in her mother's
drawing-room, was here only anxious to share in the genial atmosphere of
friendliness which the general tone of her surroundings seemed to
demand.
"Well, what was the final result of your efforts towards companionship?"
she enquired, after they had praised the chicken enthusiastically and
the wave of service had momentarily ebbed kitchenwards.
"They have led me to only one conclusion," he answered swiftly.
"Which is?"
"That if you remain on Exmoor and I in Westminster, the affairs of this
country are not likely to prosper."
She laughed softly.
"As though I made any real' difference!"
Then she saw a transformed man. The firm mouth suddenly softened, the
keen bright eyes glowed. A light shone out of his worn face which few
had ever seen there.
"You make all the difference," he whispered. "You of your mercy can
save me from the rocks. I have discovered very late in life, too late,
many would say, that I cannot build the temples of life with hands and
brain alone. Even though the time be short and I have so little to
offer, I am your greedy suitor. I want help, I want sympathy, I want
love."
There was nothing whatever left now of Lady Jane of Woolhanger.
Segerson would probably not have recognised his autocratic mistress.
The most timid of her tenant farmers would have adopted a bold front
with her. She was simply a very beautiful woman, trembling a little,
unsteady, nervous and unsure of herself.
"Oh, I wish you hadn't said that!" she faltered.
"But I must say it," he insisted, with that alien note of tenderness
still throbbing in his tone. "You are not a dabbler in life. You have
never been afraid to stand on your feet, to look at it whole. There is
the solid, undeniable truth. It is a woman's glory to help men on to
the great places, and the strangest thing in all the world is that there
is only one woman for any one man, and for me--you are the only one
woman."
Around them conversation had grown louder, the blue cloud of tobacco
smoke more dense, the odour of cigarettes and coffee more pungent. Down
in the street a wandering musician was singing a little Neapolitan love
song. They heard snatches of it as the door downstairs was opened.
"You have known me for so short a time," she argued. "How can you
possibly be sure that I could give you what you want? And in any case,
how could I give anything except my eager wishes, my friendship--perhaps,
if you will, my affection? But would that bring you content?"
"No!" he answered unhesitatingly. "I want your love, I want you
yourself. You have played a woman's part in life. You haven't been
content to sit down and wait for what fate might bring you. You have
worked out your own destiny and you have shown that you have courage.
Don't disprove it."
She looked him in the eyes, very sweetly, but with the shadow of a great
disturbance in her face.
"I want to help you," she said. "Indeed, I feel more than you can
believe--more than I could have believed possible--the desire, the
longing to help. But what is there you can ask of me beyond my hand in
yours, beyond all the comradeship which a woman who has more in her
heart than she dare own, can give?"
Once more the door was opened below. The voice of the singer came
floating up. Then it was closed again and the little passionate cry
blotted out. His lips moved but he said nothing. It seemed suddenly,
from the light in his face, that he might have been echoing those words
which rang in her ears. She trembled and suddenly held her hand across
the table.
"Hold my fingers," she begged. "These others will think that we have
made a bet or a compact. What does it matter? I want to give you all
that I can. Will you be patient? Will you remember that you have found
your way along a very difficult path to a goal which no one yet has ever
reached? I could tell you more but may not that be enough? I want you
to have something to carry away with you, something not too cold,
something that burns a little with the beginnings of life and love, and,
if you will, perhaps hope. May that content you for a little while, for
you see, although I am not a girl, these things, and thoughts of these
things, are new to me?"
He drew a little breath. It seemed to him that there was no more
beautiful place on earth than this little smoke-hung corner of the
restaurant. The words which escaped from his lips were vibrant,
tremulous.
"I am your slave. I will wait. There is no one like you in the world."