"Ah you're so political!"
"Of course I am; it's the only decent thing to be. But I can only help
you if you'll help yourself. I can do a good deal, but I can't do
everything. If you'll work I'll work with you; but if you're going into
it with your hands in your pockets I'll have nothing to do with you."
Nick instantly changed the position of these members and sank into a
seat with his elbows on his knees. "You're very clever, but you must
really take a little trouble. Things don't drop into people's mouths."
"I'll try--I'll try. I've a great incentive," he admitted.
"Of course you have."
"My mother, my poor mother." Julia breathed some vague sound and he went
on: "And of course always my father, dear good man. My mother's even
more political than you."
"I daresay she is, and quite right!" said Mrs. Dallow.
"And she can't tell me a bit more than you can what she thinks, what she
believes, what she wants."
"Pardon me, I can tell you perfectly. There's one thing I always
immensely want--to keep out a Tory."
"I see. That's a great philosophy."
"It will do very well. And I desire the good of the country. I'm not
ashamed of that."
"And can you give me an idea of what it is--the good of the country?"
"I know perfectly what it isn't. It isn't what the Tories want to do."
"What do they want to do?"
"Oh it would take me long to tell you. All sorts of trash."
"It would take you long, and it would take them longer! All they want
to do is to prevent _us_ from doing. On our side we want to prevent them
from preventing us. That's about as clearly as we all see it. So on both
sides it's a beautiful, lucid, inspiring programme."
"I don't believe in you," Mrs. Dallow replied to this, leaning back on
her sofa.
"I hope not, Julia, indeed!" He paused a moment, still with his face
toward her and his elbows on his knees; then he pursued: "You're a very
accomplished woman and a very zealous one; but you haven't an idea, you
know--not to call an idea. What you mainly want is to be at the head of
a political salon; to start one, to keep it up, to make it a success."
"Much you know me!" Julia protested; but he could see, through the
dimness, that her face spoke differently.
"You'll have it in time, but I won't come to it," Nick went on.
"You can't come less than you do."
"When I say you'll have it I mean you've already got it. That's why I
don't come."
"I don't think you know what you mean," said Mrs. Dallow. "I've an idea
that's as good as any of yours, any of those you've treated me to this
evening, it seems to me--the simple idea that one ought to do something
or other for one's country."
"'Something or other' certainly covers all the ground. There's one thing
one can always do for one's country, which is not to be afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
Nick Dormer waited a little, as if his idea amused him, but he presently
said, "I'll tell you another time. It's very well to talk so glibly of
standing," he added; "but it isn't absolutely foreign to the question
that I haven't got the cash."
"What did you do before?" she asked.
"The first time my father paid."
"And the other time?"
"Oh Mr. Carteret."
"Your expenses won't be at all large; on the contrary," said Julia.
"They shan't be; I shall look out sharp for that. I shall have the great
Hutchby."
"Of course; but you know I want you to do it well." She paused an
instant and then: "Of course you can send the bill to me."
"Thanks awfully; you're tremendously kind. I shouldn't think of that."
Nick Dormer got up as he spoke, and walked to the window again, his
companion's eyes resting on him while he stood with his back to her. "I
shall manage it somehow," he wound up.
"Mr. Carteret will be delighted," said Julia.
"I daresay, but I hate taking people's money."
"That's nonsense--when it's for the country. Isn't it for _them_?"
"When they get it back!" Nick replied, turning round and looking for his
hat. "It's startlingly late; you must be tired." Mrs. Dallow made no
response to this, and he pursued his quest, successful only when he
reached a duskier corner of the room, to which the hat had been
relegated by his cousin's maid. "Mr. Carteret will expect so much if he
pays. And so would you."
"Yes, I'm bound to say I should! I should expect a great
deal--everything." And Mrs. Dallow emphasised this assertion by the way
she rose erect. "If you're riding for a fall, if you're only going in to
miss it, you had better stay out."
"How can I miss it with _you_?" the young man smiled. She uttered a
word, impatiently but indistinguishably, and he continued: "And even if
I do it will have been immense fun."
"It is immense fun," said Julia. "But the best fun is to win. If you
don't----!"
"If I don't?" he repeated as she dropped.
"I'll never speak to you again."
"How much you expect even when you don't pay!"
Mrs. Dallow's rejoinder was a justification of this remark, expressing
as it did the fact that should they receive on the morrow information on
which she believed herself entitled to count, information tending to
show how hard the Conservatives meant to fight, she should look to him
to be in the field as early as herself. Sunday was a lost day; she
should leave Paris on Monday.
"Oh they'll fight it hard; they'll put up Kingsbury," said Nick,
smoothing his hat. "They'll all come down--all that can get away. And
Kingsbury has a very handsome wife."
"She's not so handsome as your cousin," Julia smiled.
"Oh dear, no--a cousin sooner than a wife any day!" Nick laughed as soon
as he had said this, as if the speech had an awkward side; but the
reparation perhaps scarcely mended it, the exaggerated mock-meekness
with which he added: "I'll do any blessed thing you tell me."
"Come here to-morrow then--as early as ten." She turned round, moving to
the door with him; but before they reached it she brought out: "Pray
isn't a gentleman to do anything, to be anything?"
"To be anything----?"
"If he doesn't aspire to serve the State."
"Aspire to make his political fortune, do you mean? Oh bless me, yes,
there are other things."
"What other things that can compare with that?"
"Well, I for instance, I'm very fond of the arts."
"Of the arts?" she echoed.
"Did you never hear of them? I'm awfully fond of painting."
At this Julia stopped short, and her fine grey eyes had for a moment the
air of being set further forward in her head. "Don't be odious!
Good-night," she said, turning away and leaving him to go.