LOVE _versus_ POLITICS
Berenice was a little annoyed. It was the hour before dressing for dinner
which she always devoted to repose--the hour saved from the stress of the
day which had helped towards keeping her the young woman she certainly
was. Yet Borrowdean's message was too urgent to ignore. She suffered her
maid to wrap some sort of loose gown about her, and received him in her
own study.
"My dear Sir Leslie," she said, a little reproachfully, "was this really
necessary? You know that after half-past six I am practically a person
not existing--until dinner time!"
"I should not have ventured to intrude upon you," Borrowdean said,
quickly, "if the circumstances had not been altogether exceptional.
I know your habits too well. I have just come from Mannering."
"From Mannering--yes!"
"Duchess," Borrowdean said, "have you--forgive a blunt question--but have
you any influence over him?"
Berenice was silent for several moments.
"You ask me rather a hard question," she said. "A few months ago I think
that I should have said yes. To-day--I am not sure. What has happened?
Is anything wrong with him?"
"Nothing, except that he seems to have gone mad," Borrowdean said,
bitterly. "I went to him to-day to get him to fix the dates for his
meetings at Glasgow and Leeds. What do you think his answer was?"
"Don't tell me that he wants to back out!" Berenice exclaimed. "Don't
tell me that!"
"Almost as bad! He told me quite coolly that he was not prepared finally
to set out his views upon the question until he had completed a course of
personal investigation in some of the Northern centres of trade, to which
he had committed himself."
Berenice looked bewildered.
"But what on earth does he mean?" she exclaimed. "Surely he knows all
that there is to be known. His mastery of statistics is something
wonderful."
"What he means no man save himself can even surmise," Borrowdean
answered. "He told me that he had had information of a state of distress
in some of our Northern towns--Newcastle and Hull he mentioned, and some
of the Lancashire places--which had simply appalled him. He was
determined to verify it personally, and to commit himself to nothing
further until he had done so. And he even asked me if I could not find
him a pair until the end of the session, so that he could get away at
once. I was simply dumbfounded. A pair for Mannering!"
Berenice rose to her feet. She walked up and down the little room
restlessly.
"Sir Leslie," she said at last, "I am not sure whether I have what you
would call any influence over Mr. Mannering now or not. I might have had
but for you!"
"For me?" Borrowdean exclaimed.
"Yes. It was you who told me of--of--that woman," she said, haughtily,
but with the colour rising almost to her temples. "After that, of course
things were different between us. We are scarcely upon such terms at
present as would justify my interference."
Borrowdean dropped his eyeglass, and swung it deliberately by its black
ribbon. He looked steadily at Berenice, but his eyes seemed to travel
past her.
"My dear Duchess," he said, quietly, "the game of life is a great one to
play, and we who would keep our hands upon the board must of necessity
make sacrifices. It is your duty to disregard in this instance your
feelings towards Mannering. You must consider only his feelings towards
you. They are such, I believe, as to give you a hold over him. You must
make use of that hold for the sake of a great cause."
Berenice raised her eyebrows.
"Indeed! You seem to forget, Sir Leslie, that my share in this game, as
you call it, must always be a passive one. I have no office to gain, no
rewards to reap. Why should I commit myself to an unpleasant task for the
sake of you and your friends?"
"It is your party," he protested. "Your party as much as ours."
"Granted," she answered. "Yet who are the responsible members of it? You
know my opinion of Mannering as a politician. I would sooner follow him
blindfold than all the others with my eyes open. Whatever he may lack, he
is the most honest and right-seeing politician who ever entered the
House."
"He lacks but one thing," Borrowdean said, "the mechanical adjustment
of the born politician to party matters. There was never a time when
absolute unity and absolute force were so necessary. If he is going to
play the intelligent inquirer, if he falters for one moment in his
wholesale condemnation of this scheme, he loses the day for himself and
for us. The one thing which the political public never forgives is
the man who stops to think."
"What do you want me to do?" Berenice asked.
"To go to him and find out what he means, what influences have been at
work, what is underneath it all. Warn him of the danger of even appearing
doubtful, or for a moment lukewarm. The one person whom the public will
not have in politics is the trifler. Think how many there have been,
brilliant men, too, who have lost their places through a single false
step, a single year, a month of dilettantism. Remind him of them. The man
who moves in a great cause may move slowly, if you will, but he must move
all the time. Remind him, too, that he is risking the one great chance of
his life!"
"He is to be Premier, then?" she asked.
"Yes! There is no alternative!"
"Very well, then," she said, "I will go. I make no promises, mind. I will
listen to what he has to say. I will put our view of the situation before
him. But I make no promises. It is possible, even, that I shall come to
his point of view, whatever it may be."
Borrowdean smiled.
"I have no fear of that," he declared, "but at least it would be
something to know what this point of view is. You will find him in a
queer mood. That little fool of a niece of his has been getting in with
a fast set, and making the money fly. You have heard of her last escapade
at Bristow?"
Berenice nodded.
"Yes," she said. "I went there this morning directly I had your note.
I feel rather self-reproachful about Clara Mannering. I meant to have
looked after her more. She is rather an uninteresting young woman,
though, and I am afraid I have let her drift away."
"She will be all right with a little looking after," Borrowdean said.
"Forgive me, but it is getting late."
"I will go at once," she said.
* * * * *
Afterwards she wondered often at that strange, uncertain fluttering of
the heart, the rush and glow of feelings warmer than any which had lately
stirred her, which seemed in those first few minutes of their being
together, to make an altered woman of her. Mannering, as he entered the
room, pale and listless, was conscious at once of a foreign element in
it, something which stirred his somewhat slow-beating pulse, too, which
seemed to bring back to him a flood of delicious memories, the perfume of
his rose-gardens at evening, the soft night music of his wind-stirred
cedars. She had thrown aside her opera cloak. The delicate lines of her
bust seemed to have expanded with the unusual rise and fall of her bosom.
A faint rose-tint flush of streaming colour had stained the ivory
whiteness of her skin--her eyes as they sought his were soft, almost
liquid. They met so seldom alone--and she was alone now with him in the
room which was so characteristically his own, a room with many
indications of his constant presence, which one by one she had been
realizing with curiously quickened pulses during the few minutes of
waiting. On her way here, driving in an open victoria, through the soft
summer evening, she had seemed to be pursued everywhere by a new world of
sensuous suggestions. Of the many carriages which she had passed, hers
alone seemed to savour of loneliness. She was the only beautiful woman
who sat alone and companionless. In a momentary block she had seen a man
in a neighbouring hansom slip his hand, a strong, brown, well-looking
hand, under the apron, to hold for a moment the fingers of the woman who
sat by his side--Berenice had caught the answering smile, she had seen
him lean forward and whisper something which had brought a deeper flush
into her own cheeks and a look into her eyes, half amused, half tender.
These were rare moments with her, these moments of sentiment--perhaps for
that reason all the more dangerous. She forgot almost the cause of her
coming. She remembered only that she was alone with the one man whose
voice had the power to thrill her, whose touch would call up into life
the great hidden forces of her own passionate nature. The memory of all
other things passed away from her like a cloud gone from the face of the
sun. She leaned towards him. His face was full of wonder--wonder, and the
coming joy.
"Berenice!" he exclaimed.
She let herself drift down the surging tide of this suddenly awakened
passion. She held out her arms and pressed her lips on his as he caught
her.
* * * * *
Presently she pushed him gently away--held him there at arm's length.
"This is too absurd," she murmured, and drew him once more towards her
with a choking little laugh. "I came for something quite different!"
"What does it matter what you came for, so long as you stay," he
answered. "Say that you came to bring a glimpse of paradise to a lonely
man!"
She disengaged herself, and her long white fingers strayed mechanically
to her tumbled hair. The elegant precision of her toilette had given
place to a most distracting disarray. She felt her cheeks burning still,
and the lace at her bosom was all crushed.
"And I was on my way to a dinner party," she whispered, with humorously
uplifted eyebrows. "I must drive back home, and--and--"
"And what?" he demanded.
"And send an excuse," she declared, demurely. "I am not equal to a family
dinner party."
"And afterwards?"
She smiled.
"Would you like," she asked, "to take me out to dinner?"
"Would I like!"
"Go and change, and call for me in half an hour. We can go somewhere
where we are not likely to be seen," she said, softly. "I must cover
myself up in my cloak. Whatever will Perkins say? Please remember that
I have no hat."
He held her hands and looked into her eyes.
"Don't go for one moment," he pleaded. "I want to realize it. I want to
feel sure of you."
The gravity of his manner was for a moment reflected in her tone.
"I think," she said, "that you may feel sure. There are things which we
may have to say to one another--presently--but--"
He stooped and kissed her fingers.