"If you had quite forgotten the misery of it, I should be glad."
"I have quite forgotten."
"You are kinder than I deserve. But I was so startled to find my
career was less to you than a kiss that I was more churlish than I
need have been. I even wished that you might have a child, so that you
might be taken up with it instead of with me."
She blushed. "Yes, I dare say I showed my hand clumsily as soon as it
held all the aces."
"Ah, Amber, you were an angel and I was a beast. How gallantly you
swallowed your disappointment in your bargain, how loyally you worked
heart and soul that I might gain my one ideal--Power!"
"It was a labour of love," she said deprecatingly.
"My noble Amber. But did you think, selfishly engrossed though I have
been with the Fight for Power, that this love-labour of yours was lost
on me? No, 'terrible ambitious' as I was, I could still see I got the
blackberries and you little more than the scratches, and the less you
began to press your claim upon my heart, the more my heart was opening
out with an answering passion. I began to watch the play of your eyes,
the shimmer of light across your cheek, the roguish pout of your lips,
the lock that strayed across your temple--as it is straying now."
She pushed it back impatiently. "But what has all this to do with the
Cabinet Secret?"
"Patience, darling! How much nicer to listen to you than to the
Opposition."
"I shall be in the Opposition unless you get along faster."
"That is what I want--your face opposite me always, instead of
bald-headed babblers. Ah, if you knew how often, of late, it has
floated before me in the House, reducing historic wrangles to
the rocking of children's boats in stormy ponds, accentuating the
ponderous futility." He took her hand again, and a great joy filled
him as he felt its gentle responsive pressure.
"Ponderous, perhaps," she said, smiling faintly; "but not futile,
Walter."
"Futile, so far as I am concerned, dearest. Ah, you are right. Love
is the only reality--everything else a game played with counters. What
are our winnings? A few cheers drowned in the roar that greets
the winning jockey, a few leading articles, stale as yesterday's
newspaper."
"But the good to the masses--" she reminded him.
"Don't mock me with my own phrases, darling. The masses have done me
more good than I can ever do them. Next Monday, dear Amber Roan, we'll
try our honeymoon over again." And his lips sought hers.