"Tea, Panton!" said Lady Winterbourne, without turning her head, and in

the tone of Lady Macbeth. But the magnificent butler took no notice.

"Lady Selina Farrell!" he announced in a firm voice.

Lady Winterbourne gave a nervous start; then, with the air of a person

cut out of wood, made a slight advance, and held out a limp hand to her

visitor.

"Won't you sit down?" she said.

Anybody who did not know her would have supposed that she had never seen

Lady Selina before. In reality she and the Alresfords were cousins. But

she did not like Lady Selina, and never took any pains to conceal it--a

fact which did not in the smallest degree interfere with the younger

lady's performance of her family duties.

Lady Selina found a seat with easy aplomb, put up her bejewelled fingers

to draw off her veil, and smilingly prepared herself for tea. She

enquired of Betty how she was enjoying herself, and of Lady Ermyntrude

how her husband and baby in the country were getting on without her. The

tone of this last question made the person addressed flush and draw

herself up. It was put as banter, but certainly conveyed that Lady

Ermyntrude was neglecting her family for the sake of dissipations. Betty

meanwhile curled herself up in a corner of the sofa, letting one pretty

foot swing over the other, and watching the new-comer with a malicious

eye, which instantly and gleefully perceived that Lady Selina thought

her attitude ungraceful.

Marcella, of course, was greeted and condoled with--Lady Selina,

however, had seen her since the tragedy--and then Lady Winterbourne,

after every item of her family news, and every symptom of her own and

her husband's health had been rigorously enquired into, began to attempt

some feeble questions of her own--how, for instance, was Lord

Alresford's gout?

Lady Selina replied that he was well, but much depressed by the

political situation. No doubt Ministers had done their best, but he

thought two or three foolish mistakes had been made during the session.

Certain blunders ought at all hazards to have been avoided. He feared

that the party and the country might have to pay dearly for them. But

_he_ had done his best.

Lady Winterbourne, whose eldest son was a junior whip, had been the

recipient, since the advent of the new Cabinet, of so much rejoicing

over the final exclusion of "that vain old idiot, Alresford," from any

further chances of muddling a public department, that Lady Selina's talk

made her at once nervous and irritable. She was afraid of being

indiscreet; yet she longed to put her visitor down. In her odd

disjointed way, too, she took a real interest in politics. Her craving

idealist nature--mated with a cheery sportsman husband who laughed at

her, yet had made her happy--was always trying to reconcile the ends of

eternal justice with the measures of the Tory party. It was a task of

Sisyphus; but she would not let it alone.

"I do not agree with you," she said with cold shyness in answer to Lady

Selina's concluding laments--"I am told--our people say--we are doing

very well--except that the session is likely to be dreadfully long."

Lady Selina raised both her eyebrows and her shoulders.

"_Dear_ Lady Winterbourne! you really mean it?" she said with the

indulgent incredulity one shows to the simple-minded--"But just think!

The session will go on, every one says, till _quite_ the end of

September. Isn't that enough of itself to make a party discontented?

_All_ our big measures are in dreadful arrears. And my father believes

so _much_ of the friction might have been avoided. He is all in favour

of doing more for Labour. He thinks these Labour men might have been

easily propitiated without anything revolutionary. It's no good

supposing that these poor starving people will wait for ever!"

"Oh!" said Lady Winterbourne, and sat staring at her visitor. To those

who knew its author well, the monosyllable could not have been more

expressive. Lady Winterbourne's sense of humour had no voice, but

inwardly it was busy with Lord Alresford as the "friend of the poor."

_Alresford_!--the narrowest and niggardliest tyrant alive, so far as his

own servants and estate were concerned. And as to Lady Selina, it was

well known to the Winterbourne cousinship that she could never get a

maid to stay with her six months.

"What did _you_ think of Mr. Wharton's speech the other night?" said

Lady Selina, bending suavely across the tea-table to Marcella.

"It was very interesting," said Marcella, stiffly--perfectly conscious

that the name had pricked the attention of everybody in the room, and

angry with her cheeks for reddening.

"Wasn't it?" said Lady Selina, heartily. "You can't _do_ those things,

of course! But you should show every sympathy to the clever enthusiastic

young men--the men like that--shouldn't you? That's what my father says.

He says we've got to win them. We've got somehow to make them feel us

their friends--or we shall _all_ go to ruin! They have the voting

power--and we are the party of education, of refinement. If we can only

lead that kind of man to see the essential justice of our cause--and at

the same time give them our help--in reason--show them we want to be

their friends--wouldn't it be best? I don't know whether I put it

rightly--you know so much about these things! But we can't undo '67--can

we? We must get round it somehow--mustn't we? And my father thinks

Ministers so unwise! But perhaps"--and Lady Selina drew herself back

with a more gracious smile than ever--"I ought not to be saying these

things to you--of course I know you _used_ to think us Conservatives

very bad people--but Mr. Wharton tells me, perhaps you don't think

_quite_ so hardly of us as you used?"

Lady Selina's head in its Paris bonnet fell to one side in a gentle

interrogative sort of way.

Something roused in Marcella.

"Our cause?" she repeated, while the dark eye dilated--"I wonder what

you mean?"

"Well, I mean--" said Lady Selina, seeking for the harmless word, in

the face of this unknown explosive-looking girl--"I mean, of course, the

cause of the educated--of the people who have made the country."

"I think," said Marcella, quietly, "you mean the cause of the rich,

don't you?"

"Marcella!" cried Lady Winterbourne, catching at the tone rather than

words--"I thought you didn't feel like that any more--not about the

distance between the poor and the rich--and our tyranny--and its being

hopeless--and the poor always hating us--I thought you changed."

And forgetting Lady Selina, remembering only the old talks at Mellor,

Lady Winterbourne bent forward and laid an appealing hand on Marcella's

arm.

Marcella turned to her with an odd look.

"If you only knew," she said, "how much more possible it is to think

well of the rich, when you are living amongst the poor!"

"Ah! you must be at a distance from us to do us justice?" enquired Lady

Selina, settling her bracelets with a sarcastic lip.

"_I_ must," said Marcella, looking, however, not at her, but at Lady

Winterbourne. "But then, you see,"--she caressed her friend's hand with

a smile--"it is so easy to throw some people into opposition!"

"Dreadfully easy!" sighed Lady Winterbourne.

The flush mounted again in the girl's cheek. She hesitated, then felt

driven to explanations.

"You see--oddly enough"--she pointed away for an instant to the

north-east through the open window--"it's when I'm over there--among the

people who have nothing--that it does me good to remember that there

are persons who live in James Street, Buckingham Gate!"

"My dear! I don't understand," said Lady Winterbourne, studying her with

her most perplexed and tragic air.

"Well, isn't it simple?" said Marcella, still holding her hand and

looking up at her. "It comes, I suppose, of going about all day in those

streets and houses, among people who live in one room--with not a bit of

prettiness anywhere--and no place to be alone in, or to rest in. I come

home and _gloat_ over all the beautiful dresses and houses and gardens I

can think of!"

"But don't you _hate_ the people that have them?" said Betty, again on

her stool, chin in hand.

"No! it doesn't seem to matter to me then what kind of people they are.

And I don't so much want to take from them and give to the others. I

only want to be sure that the beauty, and the leisure, and the freshness

are _some_where--not lost out of the world."

"How strange!--in a life like yours--that one should think so much of

the _ugliness_ of being poor--more than of suffering or pain," said

Betty, musing.

"Well--in some moods--you do--_I_ do!" said Marcella; "and it is in

those moods that I feel least resentful of wealth. If I say to myself

that the people who have all the beauty and the leisure are often

selfish and cruel--after all they die out of their houses and their

parks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of its

shell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain.

And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had the

best chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals at

the end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have a

function--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile.

"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as her

eyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehow

into playing devil's advocate.

"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the people

who make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feel

as if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merely

of being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoy

them! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a

cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!"

"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered,

"when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must

_die_ without any--"

"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair;

"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking it

can be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybody

could have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, that

is to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if one

could beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up,

till everybody had 200 _l._ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle all

day long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways in

which it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--one

begins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in any

mechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!"

Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl's

nascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy,

but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the three

with smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most careful

attention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longer

on the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at the

beginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he were

standing at the back of the room, in the opening of the conservatory,

unnoticed by any of the group in the bow window.

"Don't you think," said Lady Selina, airily, her white fingers still

busy with her bonnet, "that it would be a very good thing to send all

the Radicals--the well-to-do Radicals I mean--to live among the poor? It

seems to teach people such extremely useful things!"

Marcella straightened herself as though some one had touched her

impertinently. She looked round quickly.

"I wonder what you suppose it teaches?"

"Well," said Lady Selina, a little taken aback and hesitating; "well! I

suppose it teaches a person to be content--and not to cry for the moon!"

"You _think_," said Marcella, slowly, "that to live among the poor can

teach any one--any one that's _human_--to be _content_!"

Her manner had the unconscious intensity of emphasis, the dramatic force

that came to her from another blood than ours. Another woman could

hardly have fallen into such a tone without affectation--without pose.

At this moment certainly Betty, who was watching her, acquitted her of

either, and warmly thought her a magnificent creature.

Lady Selina's feeling simply was that she had been roughly addressed by

her social inferior. She drew herself up.

"As I understand you," she said stiffly, "you yourself confessed that to

live with poverty had led you to think more reasonably of wealth."

Suddenly a movement of Lady Ermyntrude's made the speaker turn her head.

She saw the pair at the end of the room, looked astonished, then smiled.

"Why, Mr. Raeburn! where have you been hiding yourself during this great

discussion? Most consoling, wasn't it--on the whole--to us West End

people?"

She threw back a keen glance at Marcella. Lady Ermyntrude and Raeburn

came forward.

"I made him be quiet," said Ermyntrude, not looking, however, quite at

her ease; "it would have been a shame to interrupt."

"I think so, indeed!" said Lady Selina, with emphasis. "Good-bye, dear

Lady Winterbourne; good-bye, Miss Boyce! You have comforted me very

much! Of _course_ one is sorry for the poor; but it is a great thing to

hear from anybody who knows as much about it as _you_ do, that--after

all--it is no crime--to possess a little!"

She stood smiling, looking from the girl to the man--then, escorted by

Raeburn in his very stiffest manner, she swept out of the room.

When Aldous came back, with a somewhat slow and hesitating step, he

approached Marcella, who was standing silent by the window, and asked

after the lame arm. He was sorry, he said, to see that it was still in

its sling. His tone was a little abrupt. Only Lady Winterbourne saw the

quick nervousness of the eyes,

"Oh! thank you," said Marcella, coldly, "I shall get back to work next

week."

She stooped and took up her book.

"I must please go and write some letters," she said, in answer to Lady

Winterbourne's flurried look.

And she walked away. Betty and Lady Ermyntrude also went to take off

their things.

"Aldous!" said Lady Winterbourne, holding out her hand to him.

He took it, glanced unwillingly at her wistful, agitated face, pressed

the hand, and let it go.

"Isn't it sad," said his old friend, unable to help herself, "to see her

battling like this with life--with thought--all alone? Isn't it sad,

Aldous?"

"Yes," he said. Then, after a pause, "Why _doesn't_ she go home? My

patience gives out when I think of Mrs. Boyce."

"Oh! it isn't Mrs. Boyce's fault," said Lady Winterbourne, hopelessly.

"And I don't know why one should be sorry for her particularly--why one

should want her to change her life again. She does it splendidly. Only

I never, _never_ feel that she is a bit happy in it."

It was Hallin's cry over again.

He said nothing for a moment; then he forced a smile.

"Well! neither you nor I can help it, can we?" he said. The grey eyes

looked at her steadily--bitterly. Lady Winterbourne, with the sensation

of one who, looking for softness, has lit on granite, changed the

subject.

Meanwhile, Marcella upstairs was walking restlessly up and down. She

could hardly keep herself from rushing off--back to Brown's Buildings at

once. _He_ in the room while she was saying those things! Lady Selina's

words burnt in her ears. Her morbid, irritable sense was all one

vibration of pride and revolt. Apology--appeal--under the neatest comedy

guise! Of course!--now that Lord-Maxwell was dying, and the ill-used

suitor was so much the nearer to his earldom. A foolish girl had

repented her of her folly--was anxious to make those concerned

understand--what more simple?

Her nerves were strained and out of gear. Tears came in a proud,

passionate gush; and she must needs allow herself the relief of them.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Lady Selina had gone home full of new and uncomfortable

feelings. She could not get Marcella Boyce out of her head--neither as

she had just seen her, under the wing of "that foolish woman, Madeleine

Winterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with Harry

Wharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any way

eclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strange

and ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay

resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never

in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ face

with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had

seen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terrace

together--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonald

had put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet.

There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night.

Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the

_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to Lady

Selina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozing

peacefully in a deep arm-chair.

Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, which

worked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenial

to it, run over some possibilities of the future.

She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickened

breath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to her

formidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids was

very ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who always

attended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness

_might_ turn to rheumatic fever.

"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs.

Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and make

arrangements. You understand?"

The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she had

been crying.

"If your ladyship would but let her stay," she said timidly, "we'd all

take our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'll

remember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened to

death of going to the hospital."

"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can have

all the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might die

even--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her about

her wages, and to look out for somebody else at once."

The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out the

shining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, the

various powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina's

toilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cry

of a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend: "O

Marie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay--I'll do everything the

doctor tells me--I'll make _haste_ and get well--I'll give no trouble.

And it's all along of the work--and the damp up in these rooms--the

doctor said so."

An hour later Lady Selina was in the stately drawing-room of Alresford

House, receiving her guests. She was out of sorts and temper, and though

Wharton arrived in due time, and she had the prospect to enliven her

during dinner--when he was of necessity parted from her by people of

higher rank--of a _tête-à-tête_ with him before the evening was over,

the dinner went heavily. The Duke on her right hand, and the Dean on her

left, were equally distasteful to her. Neither food nor wine had savour;

and once, when in an interval of talk she caught sight of her father's

face and form at the further end, growing more vacant and decrepit week

by week, she was seized with a sudden angry pang of revolt and

repulsion. Her father wearied and disgusted her. Life was often triste

and dull in the great house. Yet, when the old man should have found his

grave, she would be a much smaller person than she was now, and the days

would be so much the more tedious.

Wharton, too, showed less than his usual animation. She said to herself

at dinner that he had the face of a man in want of sleep. His young

brilliant look was somewhat tarnished, and there was worry in the

restless eye. And, indeed, she knew that things had not been going so

favourably for him in the House of late--that the stubborn opposition

of the little group of men led by Wilkins was still hindering that

concentration of the party and definition of his own foremost place in

it which had looked so close and probable a few weeks before. She

supposed he had been exhausting himself, too, over that shocking Midland

strike. The _Clarion_ had been throwing itself into the battle of the

men with a monstrous violence, for which she had several times

reproached him.

When all the guests had gone but Wharton, and Lord Alresford, duly

placed for the sake of propriety in his accustomed chair, was safely

asleep, Lady Selina asked what was the matter.

"Oh, the usual thing!" he said, as he leant against the mantelpiece

beside her. "The world's a poor place, and my doll's stuffed with

sawdust. Did you ever know any doll that wasn't?"

She looked up at him a moment without speaking.

"Which means," she said, "that you can't get your way in the House?"

"No," said Wharton, meditatively, looking down at his boots. "No--not

yet."

"You think you will get it some day?"

He raised his eyes.

"Oh yes!" he said; "oh dear, yes!--some day."

She laughed.

"You had better come over to us."

"Well, there is always that to think of, isn't there? You can't deny you

want all the new blood you can get!"

"If you only understood your moment and your chance," she said quickly,

"you would make the opportunity and do it at once."

He looked at her aggressively.

"How easy it comes to you Tories to rat!" he said.

"Thank you! it only means that we are the party of common sense. Well, I

have been talking to your Miss Boyce."

He started.

"Where?"

"At Lady Winterbourne's. Aldous Raeburn was there. Your beautiful

Socialist was very interesting--and rather surprising. She talked of the

advantages of wealth; said she had been converted--by living among the

poor--had changed her mind, in fact, on many things. We were all much

edified--including Mr. Raeburn. How long do you suppose that business

will remain 'off'? To my mind I never saw a young woman more eager to

undo a mistake." Then she added slowly, "The accounts of Lord Maxwell

get more and more unsatisfactory."

Wharton stared at her with sparkling eyes. "How little you know her!" he

said, not without a tone of contempt.

"Oh! very well," said Lady Selina, with the slightest shrug of her white

shoulders.

He turned to the mantelpiece and began to play with some ornaments upon

it.

"Tell me what she said," he enquired presently.

Lady Selina gave her own account of the conversation. Wharton recovered

himself.

"Dear me!" he said, when she stopped. "Yes--well--we may see another

act. Who knows? Well, good-night, Lady Selina."

She gave him her hand with her usual aristocrat's passivity, and he

went. But it was late indeed that night before she ceased to speculate

on what the real effect of her words had been upon him.

As for Wharton, on his walk home he thought of Marcella Boyce and of

Raeburn with a certain fever of jealous vanity which was coming, he told

himself, dangerously near to passion. He did not believe Lady Selina,

but nevertheless he felt that her news might drive him into rash steps

he could ill afford, and had indeed been doing his best to avoid.

Meanwhile it was clear to him that the mistress of Alresford House had

taken an envious dislike to Marcella. How plain she had looked to-night

in spite of her gorgeous dress! and how intolerable Lord Alresford grew!

CHAPTER XII.

But what right had Wharton to be thinking of such irrelevant matters as

women and love-making at all? He had spoken of public worries to Lady

Selina. In reality his public prospects in themselves were, if anything,

improved. It was his private affairs that were rushing fast on

catastrophe, and threatening to drag the rest with them.

He had never been so hard pressed for money in his life. In the first

place his gambling debts had mounted up prodigiously of late. His

friends were tolerant and easy-going. But the more tolerant they were

the more he was bound to frequent them. And his luck for some time had

been monotonously bad. Before long these debts must be paid, and some of

them--to a figure he shrank from dwelling upon--were already urgent.

Then as to the _Clarion_, it became every week a heavier burden. The

expenses of it were enormous; the returns totally inadequate.

Advertisements were falling off steadily; and whether the working cost

were cut down, or whether a new and good man like Louis Craven, whose

letters from the strike district were being now universally read, were

put on, the result financially seemed to be precisely the same. It was

becoming even a desperate question how the weekly expenses were to be

met; so that Wharton's usual good temper now deserted him entirely as

soon as he had crossed the _Clarion_ threshold; bitterness had become

the portion of the staff, and even the office boys walked in gloom.

Yet, at the same time, withdrawing from the business, was almost as

difficult as carrying it on. There were rumours in the air which had,

already seriously damaged the paper as a saleable concern. Wharton,

indeed, saw no prospect whatever of selling except at ruinous loss.

Meanwhile, to bring the paper to an abrupt end would have not only

precipitated a number of his financial obligations; it would have been

politically, a dangerous confession of failure made at a very critical

moment. For what made the whole thing the more annoying was that the

_Clarion_ had never been so important politically, never so much read by

the persons on whom Wharton's parliamentary future depended, as it was

at this moment. The advocacy of the Damesley strike had been so far a

stroke of business for Wharton as a Labour Member.

It was now the seventh week of the strike, and Wharton's "leaders,"

Craven's letters from the seat of war, and the _Clarion_ strike fund,

which articles and letters had called into existence, were as vigorous

as ever. The struggle itself had fallen into two chapters. In the first

the metal-workers concerned, both men and women, had stood out for the

old wages unconditionally and had stoutly rejected all idea of

arbitration. At the end of three or four weeks, however, when grave

suffering had declared itself among an already half-starved population,

the workers had consented to take part in the appointment of a board of

conciliation. This board, including the workmen's delegates, overawed

by the facts of foreign competition as they were disclosed by the

masters, recommended terms which would have amounted to a victory for

the employers.

The award was no sooner known in the district than the passionate

indignation of the great majority of the workers knew no bounds.

Meetings were held everywhere; the men's delegates at the board were

thrown over, and Craven, who with his new wife was travelling

incessantly over the whole strike area, wrote a letter to the _Clarion_

on the award which stated the men's case with extreme ability, was

immediately backed up by Wharton in a tremendous "leader," and was

received among the strikers with tears almost of gratitude and

enthusiasm.

Since then all negotiations had been broken off. The _Clarion_ had gone

steadily against the masters, against the award, against further

arbitration. The theory of the "living wage," of which more recent days

have heard so much, was preached in other terms, but with equal vigour;

and the columns of the _Clarion_ bore witness day by day in the long

lists of subscriptions to the strike fund, to the effects of its

eloquence on the hearts and pockets of Englishmen.

Meanwhile there were strange rumours abroad. It was said that the trade

was really on the eve of a complete and striking revolution in its whole

conditions--could this labour war be only cleared out of the way. The

smaller employers had been for long on the verge of ruin; and the larger

men, so report had it, were scheming a syndicate on the American plan

to embrace the whole industry, cut down the costs of production, and

regulate the output.

But for this large capital would be wanted. Could capital be got? The

state of things in the trade, according to the employers, had been

deplorable for years; a large part of the market had been definitely

forfeited, so they declared, for good, to Germany and Belgium. It would

take years before even a powerful syndicate could work itself into a

thoroughly sound condition. Let the men accept the award of the

conciliation board; let there be some stable and reasonable prospect of

peace between masters and men, say, for a couple of years; and a certain

group of bankers would come forward; and all would be well. The men

under the syndicate would in time get more than their old wage. _But the

award first_; otherwise the plan dropped, and the industry must go its

own way to perdition.

"'Will you walk into my parlour?'" said Wharton, scornfully, to the

young Conservative member who, with a purpose, was explaining these

things to him in the library of the House of Commons, "the merest trap!

and, of course, the men will see it so. Who is to guarantee them even

the carrying through, much less the success, of your precious syndicate?

And, in return for your misty millennium two years hence, the men are to

join at once in putting the employers in a stronger position than ever?

Thank you! The 'rent of ability' in the present state of things is, no

doubt, large. But in this particular case the _Clarion_ will go on doing

its best--I promise you--to nibble some of it away!"

The Conservative member rose in indignation.

"I should be sorry to have as many starving people on my conscience as

you'll have before long!" he said as he took up his papers.

At that moment Denny's rotund and square-headed figure passed along the

corridor, to which the library door stood open.

"Well, if I thrive upon it as well as Denny does, I shall do!" returned

Wharton, with his usual caustic good-humour, as his companion departed.

And it delighted him to think as he walked home that Denny, who had

again of late made himself particularly obnoxious in the House of

Commons, on two or three occasions, to the owner of the _Clarion_, had

probably instigated the quasi-overtures he had just rejected, and must

be by now aware of their result.

Then he sent for Craven to come and confer with him.

Craven accordingly came up from the Midlands, pale, thin, and exhausted,

with the exertions and emotions of seven weeks' incessant labour. Yet

personally Wharton found him, as before, dry and unsympathetic; and

disliked him, and his cool, ambiguous manner, more than ever. As to the

strike, however, they came to a complete understanding. The _Clarion_,

or rather the _Clarion_ fund, which was doing better and better, held

the key of the whole situation. If that fund could be maintained, the

men could hold out. In view of the possible formation of the syndicate,

Craven denounced the award with more fierceness than ever, maintaining

the redoubled importance of securing the men's terms before the

syndicate was launched. Wharton promised him with glee that he should be

supported to the bitter end.

_If_, that is to say--a proviso he did not discuss with Craven--the

_Clarion_ itself could be kept going. In August a large sum, obtained

two years before on the security of new "plant," would fall due. The

time for repayment had already been extended; and Wharton had

ascertained that no further extension was possible.

Well! bankruptcy would be a piquant interlude in his various social and

political enterprises! How was it to be avoided? He had by now plenty of

rich friends in the City or elsewhere, but none, as he finally decided,

likely to be useful to him at the present moment. For the amount of

money that he required was large--larger, indeed, than he cared to

verify with any strictness, and the security that he could offer, almost

nil.

As to friends in the City, indeed, the only excursion of a business kind

that he had made into those regions since his election was now adding

seriously to his anxieties--might very well turn out, unless the matter

were skilfully managed, to be one of the blackest spots on his horizon.

In the early days of his parliamentary life, when, again, mostly for the

_Clarion's_ sake, money happened to be much wanted, he had become

director of what promised to be an important company, through the

interest and good nature of a new and rich acquaintance, who had taken a

liking to the young member. The company had been largely "boomed," and

there had been some very profitable dealing in the original shares.

Wharton had made two or three thousand pounds, and contributed both

point and finish to some of the early prospectuses.

Then, after six months, he had withdrawn from the Board, under

apprehensions that had been gradually realised with alarming accuracy.

Things, indeed, had been going very wrong indeed; there were a number of

small investors; and the annual meeting of the company, to be held now

in some ten days, promised a storm. Wharton discovered, partly to his

own amazement, for he was a man who quickly forgot, that during his

directorate he had devised or sanctioned matters that were not at all

likely to commend themselves to the shareholders, supposing the past

were really sifted. The ill-luck of it was truly stupendous; for on the

whole he had kept himself financially very clean since he had become a

member; having all through a jealous eye to his political success.

* * * * *

As to the political situation, nothing could be at once more promising

or more anxious!

An important meeting of the whole Labour group had been fixed for August

10, by which time it was expected that a great measure concerning Labour

would be returned from the House of Lords with highly disputable

amendments. The last six weeks of the session would be in many ways more

critical for Labour than its earlier months had been; and it would be

proposed by Bennett, at the meeting on the 10th, to appoint a general

chairman of the party, in view of a campaign which would fill the

remainder of the session and strenuously occupy the recess.

That Bennett would propose the name of the member for West Brookshire

was perfectly well known to Wharton and his friends. That the nomination

would meet with the warmest hostility from Wilkins and a small group of

followers was also accurately forecast.

To this day, then, Wharton looked forward as to the crisis of his

parliamentary fortunes. All his chances, financial or social, must now

be calculated with reference to it. Every power, whether of combat or

finesse, that he commanded must be brought to bear upon the issue.

What was, however, most remarkable in the man and the situation at the

moment was that, through all these gathering necessities, he was by no

means continuously anxious or troubled in his mind. During these days of

July he gave himself, indeed, whenever he could, to a fatalist oblivion

of the annoyances of life, coupled with a passionate pursuit of all

those interests where his chances were still good and the omens still

with him.

Especially--during the intervals of ambition, intrigue, journalism, and

unsuccessful attempts to raise money--had he meditated the beauty of

Marcella Boyce and the chances and difficulties of his relation to her.

As he saw her less, he thought of her more, instinctively looking to her

for the pleasure and distraction that life was temporarily denying him

elsewhere.

At the same time, curiously enough, the stress of his financial position

was reflected even in what, to himself, at any rate, he was boldly

beginning to call his "passion" for her. It had come to his knowledge

that Mr. Boyce had during the past year succeeded beyond all expectation

in clearing the Mellor estate. He had made skilful use of a railway

lately opened on the edge of his property; had sold building land in

the neighbourhood of a small country town on the line, within a

convenient distance of London; had consolidated and improved several of

his farms and relet them at higher rents; was, in fact, according to

Wharton's local informant, in a fair way to be some day, if he lived,

quite as prosperous as his grandfather, in spite of old scandals and

invalidism. Wharton knew, or thought he knew, that he would not live,

and that Marcella would be his heiress. The prospect was not perhaps

brilliant, but it was something; it affected the outlook.

Although, however, this consideration counted, it was, to do him

justice, _Marcella_, the creature herself, that he desired. But for her

presence in his life he would probably have gone heiress-hunting with

the least possible delay. As it was, his growing determination to win

her, together with his advocacy of the Damesley workers--amply sufficed,

during the days that followed his evening talk with Lady Selina, to

maintain his own illusions about himself and so to keep up the zest of

life.

Yes!--to master and breathe passion into Marcella Boyce, might safely be

reckoned on, he thought, to hurry a man's blood. And after it had gone

so far between them--after he had satisfied himself that her fancy, her

temper, her heart, were all more or less occupied with him--was he to

see her tamely recovered by Aldous Raeburn--by the man whose advancing

parliamentary position was now adding fresh offence to the old grievance

and dislike? No! not without a dash--a throw for it!

For a while, after Lady Selina's confidences, jealous annoyance,

together with a certain reckless state of nerves, turned him almost into

the pining lover. For he could not see Marcella. She came no more to

Mrs. Lane; and the house in James Street was not open to him. He

perfectly understood that the Winterbournes did not want to know him.

At last Mrs. Lane, a shrewd little woman with a half contemptuous liking

for Wharton, let him know--on the strength of a chance meeting with Lady

Ermyntrude--that the Winterbournes would be at the Masterton party on

the 26th. They had persuaded Miss Boyce to stay for it, and she would go

back to her work the Monday after. Wharton carelessly replied that he

did not know whether he would be able to put in an appearance at the

Mastertons'. He might be going out of town.

Mrs. Lane looked at him and said, "Oh, really!" with a little laugh.

* * * * *

Lady Masterton was the wife of the Colonial Secretary, and her grand

mansion in Grosvenor Square was the principal rival to Alresford House

in the hospitalities of the party. Her reception on July 25 was to be

the last considerable event of a protracted but now dying season.

Marcella, detained in James Street day after day against her will by the

weakness of the injured arm and the counsels of her doctor, had at last

extracted permission to go back to work on the 27th; and to please Betty

Macdonald she had promised to go with the Winterbournes to the Masterton

party on the Saturday. Betty's devotion, shyly as she had opened her

proud heart to it, had begun to mean a good deal to her. There was balm

in it for many a wounded feeling; and, besides, there was the constant,

half eager, half painful interest of watching Betty's free and childish

ways with Aldous Raeburn, and of speculating upon what would ultimately

come out of them.

So, when Betty first demanded to know what she was going to wear, and

then pouted over the dress shown her, Marcella submitted humbly to being

"freshened up" at the hands of Lady Ermyntrude's maid, bought what Betty

told her, and stood still while Betty, who had a genius for such things,

chattered, and draped, and suggested.

"I wouldn't make you fashionable for the world!" cried Betty, with a

mouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon the

while over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her. "What

was it Worth said to me the other day?--Ce qu'on porte, Mademoiselle? O

pas grand'chose!--presque pas de corsage, et pas du tout de

manches!'--No, that kind of thing wouldn't suit you. But _distinguished_

you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out!"

In the end Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented from

hugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her own

handiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloak-room into the

Mastertons' crowded hall. Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflections

of herself as they passed up the lavishly bemirrored staircase. The

chatter about dress in which she had been living for some days had

amused and distracted her; for there were great feminine potentialities

in her; though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she wore

a thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been wont to waver between a

kind of proud neglect, which implied the secret consciousness of beauty,

and an occasional passionate desire to look well. So that she played her

part to-night very fairly; pinched Betty's arm to silence the elf's

tongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty's handiwork

might look its best. But inwardly the girl's mood was very tired and

flat. She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd's peevish

look, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence.

In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Masterton's rooms were

very full. Marcella found acquaintances. Many of the people whom she had

met at Mrs. Lane's, the two Cabinet Ministers of the House of Commons

dinner, Mr. Lane himself--all were glad or eager to recall themselves to

her as she stood by Lady Winterbourne, or made her way half absently

through the press. She talked, without shyness--she had never been shy,

and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she had

been as a schoolgirl--but without heart; her black eye wandering

meanwhile, as though in quest. There was a gay sprinkling of uniforms in

the crowd, for the Speaker was holding a _levée_, and as it grew late

his guests began to set towards Lady Masterton. Betty, who had been

turning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whom

she declared were either bald or seventy, was a little propitiated by

the uniforms; otherwise, she pronounced the party very dull.

"Well, upon my word!" she cried suddenly, in a tone that made Marcella

turn upon her. The child was looking very red and very upright--was

using her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Leven was humbly holding

out his hand to her.

"I don't like being startled," said Betty, pettishly. "Yes, you _did_

startle me--you did--you did! And then you begin to contradict before

I've said a word! I'm sure you've been contradicting all the way

upstairs--and why don't you say 'How do you do?' to Miss Boyce?"

Frank, looking very happy, but very nervous, paid his respects rather

bashfully to Marcella--she laughed to see how Betty's presence subdued

him--and then gave himself up wholly to Betty's tender mercies.

Marcella observed them with an eager interest she could not wholly

explain to herself. It was clear that all thought of anything or anybody

else had vanished for Frank Leven at the sight of Betty. Marcella

guessed, indeed knew, that they had not met for some little time; and

she was touched by the agitation and happiness on the boy's handsome

face. But Betty? what was the secret of her kittenish, teasing ways--or

was there any secret? She held her little head very high and chattered

very fast--but it was not the same chatter that she gave to Marcella,

nor, so far as Marcella could judge, to Aldous Raeburn. New elements of

character came out in it. It was self-confident, wilful, imperious.

Frank was never allowed to have an opinion; was laughed at before his

words were out of his mouth; was generally heckled, played with, and

shaken in a way which seemed alternately to enrage and enchant him. In

the case of most girls, such a manner would have meant encouragement;

but, as it was Betty, no one could be sure. The little thing was a great

puzzle to Marcella, who had found unexpected reserves in her. She might

talk of her love affairs to Aldous Raeburn; she had done nothing of the

sort with her new friend. And in such matters Marcella herself was far

more reserved than most modern women.

"Betty!" cried Lady Winterbourne, "I am going on into the next room."

Then in a lower tone she said helplessly to Marcella:

"Do make her come on!"

Marcella perceived that her old friend was in a fidget. Stooping her

tall head, she said with a smile:

"But look how she is amusing herself!"

"My dear!--that's just it! If you only knew how her mother--tiresome

woman--has talked to me! And the young man has behaved so beautifully

till now--has given neither Ermyntrude nor me any trouble."

Was that why Betty was leading him such a life? Marcella wondered,--then

suddenly--was seized with a sick distaste for the whole scene--for

Betty's love affairs--for her own interest in them--for her own self and

personality above all. Her great black eyes gazed straight before them,

unseeing, over the crowd, the diamonds, the lights; her whole being

gave itself to a quick, blind wrestle with some vague overmastering

pain, some despair of life and joy to which she could give no name.

She was roused by Betty's voice:

"Mr. Raeburn! will _you_ tell me who people are? Mr. Leven's no more use

than my fan. Just imagine--I asked him who that lady in the tiara

is--and he vows he doesn't know! Why, it just seems that when you go to

Oxford, you leave the wits you had before, behind! And then--of

course"--Betty affected a delicate hesitation--"there's the difficulty

of being quite sure that you'll ever get any new ones!--But

there--look!--I'm in despair!--she's vanished--and I shall _never_

know!"

"One moment!" said Raeburn, smiling, "and I will take you in pursuit.

She has only gone into the tea-room."

His hand touched Marcella's.

"Just a _little_ better," he said, with a sudden change of look, in

answer to Lady Winterbourne's question. "The account to-night is

certainly brighter. They begged me not to come, or I should have been

off some days ago. And next week, I am thankful to say, they will be

home."

Why should she be standing there, so inhumanly still and

silent?--Marcella asked herself. Why not take courage again--join

in--talk--show sympathy? But the words died on her lips. After

to-night--thank heaven!--she need hardly see him again.

He asked after herself as usual. Then, just as he was turning away with

Betty, he came back to her, unexpectedly.

"I should like to tell you about Hallin," he said gently. "His sister

writes to me that she is happier about him, and that she hopes to be

able to keep him away another fortnight. They are at Keswick."

For an instant there was pleasure in the implication of common ground, a

common interest--here if no-where else. Then the pleasure was lost in

the smart of her own strange lack of self-government as she made a

rather stupid and awkward reply.

Raeburn's eyes rested on her for a moment. There was in them a flash of

involuntary expression, which she did not notice--for she had turned

away--which no one saw--except Betty. Then the child followed him to the

tea-room, a little pale and pensive.

Marcella looked after them.

In the midst of the uproar about her, the babel of talk fighting against

the Hungarian band, which was playing its wildest and loudest in the

tea-room, she was overcome by a sudden rush of memory. Her eyes were

tracing the passage of those two figures through the crowd; the man in

his black court suit, stooping his refined and grizzled head to the girl

beside him, or turning every now and then to greet an acquaintance, with

the manner--cordial and pleasant, yet never quite gay even when he

smiled--that she, Marcella, had begun to notice of late as a new thing;

the girl lifting her small face to him, the gold of her hair showing

against his velvet sleeve. But the inward sense was busy with a number

of other impressions, past, and, as it now seemed, incredible.

The little scene when Aldous had given her the pearls, returned so long

ago--why! she could see the fire blazing in the Stone Parlour, feel his

arm about her!--the drive home after the Gairsley meeting--that poignant

moment in his sitting-room the night of the ball--his face, his anxious,

tender face, as she came down the wide stairs of the Court towards him

on that terrible evening when she pleaded with him and his grandfather

in vain:--had these things, incidents, relations, been ever a real part

of the living world? Impossible! Why, there he was--not ten yards from

her--and yet more irrevocably separate from her than if the Sahara

stretched between them. The note of cold distance in his courteous

manner put her further from him than the merest stranger.

Marcella felt a sudden terror rush through her as she blindly followed

Lady Winterbourne; her limbs trembled under her; she took advantage of a

conversation between her companion and the master of the house to sink

down for a moment on a settee, where she felt out of sight and notice.

What was this intolerable sense of loss and folly, this smarting

emptiness, this rage with herself and her life? She only knew that

whereas the touch, the eye of Aldous Raeburn had neither compelled nor

thrilled her, so long as she possessed his whole heart and

life--_now_--that she had no right to either look or caress; now that he

had ceased even to regard her as a friend, and was already perhaps

making up that loyal and serious mind of his to ask from another woman

the happiness she had denied him; now, when it was absurdly too late,

she could--

Could what? Passionate, wilful creature that she was!--with that breath

of something wild and incalculable surging through the inmost places of

the soul, she went through a moment of suffering as she sat pale and

erect in her corner--brushed against by silks and satins, chattered

across by this person and that--such as seemed to bruise all the

remaining joy and ease out of life.

But only a moment! Flesh and blood rebelled. She sprang up from her

seat; told herself that she was mad or ill; caught sight of Mr. Lane

coming towards them, and did her best by smile and greeting to attract

him to her.

"You look very white, my dear Miss Boyce," said that cheerful and

fatherly person. "Is it that tiresome arm still? Now, don't please go

and be a heroine any more!"

CHAPTER XIII.

Meanwhile, in the tea-room, Betty was daintily sipping her claret-cup,

while Aldous stood by her.

"No," said Betty, calmly, looking straight at the lady in the tiara who

was standing by the buffet, "she's not beautiful, and I've torn my dress

running after her. There's only one beautiful person here to-night!"

Aldous found her a seat, and took one himself beside her, in a corner

out of the press. But he did not answer her remark.

"Don't you think so, Mr. Aldous?" said Betty, persisting, but with a

little flutter of the pulse.

"You mean Miss Boyce?" he said quietly, as he turned to her.

"Of course!" cried Betty, with a sparkle in her charming eyes; "what

_is_ it in her face? It excites me to be near her. One feels that she

will just have lived _twice_ as much as the rest of us by the time she

comes to the end. You don't mind my talking of her, Mr. Aldous?"

There was an instant's silence on his part. Then he said in a

constrained voice, looking away from his companion, "I don't _mind_ it,

but I am not going to pretend to you that I find it easy to talk of

her."

"It would be a shame of you to pretend anything," said Betty, fervently,

"after all I've told you! I confessed all my scrapes to you, turned out

all my rubbish bag of a heart--well, nearly all"--she checked herself

with a sudden flush--"And you've been as kind to me as any big brother

could be. But you're dreadfully lofty, Mr. Aldous! You keep yourself to

yourself. I don't think it's fair!"

Aldous laughed.

"My dear Miss Betty, haven't you found out by now that I am a good

listener and a bad talker? I don't talk of myself or"--he

hesitated--"the things that have mattered most to me--because, in the

first place, it doesn't come easy to me--and, in the next, I can't, you

see, discuss my own concerns without discussing other people's."

"Oh, good gracious!" said Betty, "what you must have been thinking about

me! I declare I'll never tell you anything again!"--and, beating her

tiny foot upon the ground, she sat, scarlet, looking down at it.

Aldous made all the smiling excuses he could muster. He had found Betty

a most beguiling and attaching little companion, both at the Court in

the Easter recess, and during the Italian journey. Her total lack of

reserve, or what appeared so, had been first an amazement to him, and

then a positive pleasure and entertainment. To make a friend of

him--difficult and scrupulous as he was, and now more than ever--a woman

must be at the cost of most of the advances. But, after the first

evening with him, Betty had made them in profusion, without the smallest

demur, though perfectly well aware of her mother's ambitions. There was

a tie of cousinship between them, and a considerable difference of age.

Betty had decided at once that a mother was a dear old goose, and that

great friends she and Aldous Raeburn should be--and, in a sense, great

friends they were.

Aldous was still propitiating her, when Lady Winterbourne came into the

tea-room, followed by Marcella. The elder lady threw a hurried and not

very happy glance at the pair in the corner. Marcella appeared to be in

animated talk with a young journalist whom Raeburn knew, and did not

look their way.

"Just _one_ thing!" said Betty, bending forward and speaking eagerly in

Aldous's ear. "It was all a mistake--wasn't it? Now I know her I feel

sure it was. You don't--you don't--really think badly of her?"

Aldous heard her unwillingly. He was looking away from her towards the

buffet, when she saw a change in the eyes--a tightening of the lip--a

something keen and hostile in the whole face.

"Perhaps Miss Boyce will be less of a riddle to all of us before long!"

he said hastily, as though the words escaped him. "Shall we get out of

this very uncomfortable corner?"

Betty looked where he had looked, and saw a young man greeting Marcella

with a manner so emphatic and intimate, that the journalist had

instantly moved out of his way. The young man had a noticeable pile of

fair curls above a very white and rounded forehead.

"Who is that talking to Miss Boyce?" she asked of Aldous; "I have seen

him, but I can't remember the name."

"That is Mr. Wharton, the member for one of our divisions," said

Aldous, as he rose from his chair.

Betty gave a little start, and her brow puckered into a frown. As she

too rose, she said resentfully to Aldous:

"Well, you _have_ snubbed me!"

As usual, he could not find the effective or clever thing to say.

"I did not mean to," he replied simply; but Betty, glancing at him, saw

something in his face which gripped her heart. A lump rose in her

throat.

"Do let's go and find Ermyntrude!" she said.

* * * * *

But Wharton had barely begun his talk with Marcella when a gentleman, on

his way to the buffet with a cup to set down, touched him on the arm.

Wharton turned in some astonishment and annoyance. He saw a youngish,

good-looking man, well known to him as already one of the most important

solicitors in London, largely trusted by many rich or eminent persons.

"May I have a word with you presently?" said Mr. Pearson, in a pleasant

undertone. "I have something of interest to say to you, and it occurred

to me that I might meet you to-night. Excuse my interrupting you."

He glanced with admiration at Marcella, who had turned away.

Wharton had a momentary qualm. Then it struck him that Mr. Pearson's

manner was decidedly friendly.

"In a moment," he said. "We might find a corner, I think, in that

further room."

He made a motion of the head towards a little boudoir which lay beyond

the tea-room.

Mr. Pearson nodded and passed on.

Wharton returned to Marcella, who had fallen back on Frank Leven. At the

approach of the member for West Brookshire, Lady Winterbourne and her

daughter had moved severely away to the further end of the buffet.

"A tiresome man wants me on business for a moment," he said; then he

dropped his voice a little; "but I have been looking forward to this

evening, this chance, for days--shall I find you here again in five

minutes?"

Marcella, who had flushed brightly, said that would depend on the time

and Lady Winterbourne. He hurried away with a little gesture of despair.

Frank followed him with a sarcastic eye.

"Any one would think he was prime minister already! I never met him yet

anywhere that he hadn't some business on hand. Why does he behave as

though he had the world on his shoulders? Your _real_ swells always seem

to have nothing to do."

"Do you know so many busy people?" Marcella asked him sweetly.

"Oh, you shan't put me down, Miss Boyce!" said the boy, sulkily

thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I am going to work like blazes

this winter, if only my dons will let a fellow alone. I say, isn't she

_ripping_ to-night--Betty?"

And, pulling his moustache in helpless jealousy and annoyance, he stared

at the Winterbourne group across the room, which had been now joined by

Aldous Raeburn and Betty, standing side by side.

"What do you want me to say?" said Marcella, with a little cold laugh.

"I shall make you worse if I praise her. Please put my cup down."

At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearson

behind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain.

She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the

manner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne

party--he approached her.

"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping his

head to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?"

The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; she

followed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed.

He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found

a seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden from

view by a stand of flowers.

As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come,

and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Her

heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then

gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness.

He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as

she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her

a passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her

under the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme,

incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only.

His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings

which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power

to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he had

regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voice

dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on the

memory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, her

struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone

away into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had alone

enabled him to get through his parliamentary work.

Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room and

dress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--had

revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often

puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of

perplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause,

in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at times

to be-little his own enthusiasms and hers--his life and honour were

engaged; and this cause and his part in it had been for long hampered,

and all his clearness of vision and judgment dimmed by the pressure of a

number of difficulties and worries he could not have discussed with

her--worries practical and financial, connected with the _Clarion_, with

the experiments he had been carrying out on his estate, and with other

troublesome matters. He had felt a thousand times that his fortunes,

political or private, were too doubtful and perilous to allow him to ask

any woman to share them.--Then, again, he had seen her--and his

resolution, his scruple, had melted in his breast!

Well! there were still troubles in front! But he was no longer cowed by

them. In spite of them, he dared now to throw himself at her feet, to

ask her to come and share a life of combat and of labour, to bring her

beauty and her mind to the joint conduct of a great enterprise. To _her_

a man might show his effort and his toil,--from _her_ he might claim a

sympathy it would be vain to ask of any smaller woman.

Then suddenly he broke down. Speech seemed to fail him. Only his

eyes--more intense and piercing under their straight brows than she had

ever known them--beseeched her--his hand sought hers.

She meanwhile sat in a trance of agitation, mistress neither of reason

nor of feeling. She felt his spell, as she had always done. The woman in

her thrilled at last to the mere name and neighbourhood of love. The

heart in her cried out that pain and loss could only be deadened so--the

past could only be silenced by filling the present with movement and

warm life.

Yet what tremors of conscience--what radical distrust of herself and

him! And the first articulate words she found to say to him were very

much what she had said to Aldous so long ago--only filled with a

bitterer and more realised content.

"After all, what do we know of each other! You don't know me--not as I

am. And I feel--"

"Doubts?" he said, smiling. "Do you imagine that that seems anything but

natural to me? _I_ can have none; but _you_--After all, we are not quite

boy and girl, you and I; we have lived, both of us! But ask

yourself--has not destiny brought us together? Think of it all!"

Their eyes met again. Hers sank under the penetration, the flame of his.

Yet, throughout, he was conscious of the doorway to his right, of the

figures incessantly moving across it. His own eloquence had convinced

and moved himself abundantly. Yet, as he saw her yielding, he was filled

with the strangest mixture of passion--and a sort of disillusion--almost

contempt! If she had turned from him with the dignity worthy of that

head and brow, it flashed across him that he could have tasted more of

the _abandonment_ of love--have explored his own emotion more perfectly.

Still, the situation was poignant enough--in one sense complete. Was

Raeburn still there--in that next room?

"My answer?" he said to her, pressing her hand as they sat in the

shelter of the flowers. For _he_ was aware of the practical facts--the

hour, the place--if she was not.

She roused herself.

"I can't," she said, making a movement to rise, which his strong grasp,

however, prevented. "I _can't_ answer you to-night, Mr. Wharton. I

should have much to think over--so much! It might all look quite

different to me. You must give me time."

"To-morrow?" he said quietly.

"No!" she said impetuously, "not to-morrow; I go back to my work, and I

must have quiet and time. In a fortnight--not before. I will write."

"Oh, impossible!" he said, with a little frown.

And still holding her, he drew her towards him. His gaze ran over the

face, the warm whiteness under the lace of the dress, the beautiful

arms. She shrank from it--feeling a sudden movement of dislike and fear;

but before she could disengage herself he had pressed his lips on the

arm nearest to him.

"I gave you no leave!" she said passionately, under her breath, as he

let her go.

He met her flashing look with tender humbleness.

"_Marcella_!"

The word was just breathed into the air. She wavered--yet a chill had

passed over her. She could not recover the moment of magic.

"_Not_ to-morrow," she repeated steadily, though dreading lest she

should burst into tears, "and not till I see clearly--till I can--" She

caught her breath. "Now I am going back to Lady Winterbourne."

CHAPTER XIV.

For some hours after he reached his own room, Wharton sat in front of

his open window, sunk in the swift rushing of thought, as a bramble

sways in a river. The July night first paled, then flushed into morning;

the sun rose above the empty street and the light mists enwrapping the

great city, before he threw himself on his bed, exhausted enough at last

to fall into a restless sleep.

The speculation of those quick-pulsed hours was in the end about equally

divided between Marcella and the phrases and turns of his interview with

Mr. Pearson. It was the sudden leap of troubled excitement stirred in

him by that interview--heightened by the sight of Raeburn--that had

driven him past recall by the most natural of transitions, into his

declaration to Marcella.

But he had no sooner reached his room than, at first with iron will, he

put the thought of Marcella, of the scene which had just passed, away

from him. His pulses were still quivering. No matter! It was the brain

he had need of. He set it coolly and keenly to work.

Mr. Pearson? Well!--Mr. Pearson had offered him a _bribe_; there could

be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for

an instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even now

he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man.

Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady

Masterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon

him, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and

_eau de vie_ before the knife falls. Never had things looked so

desperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted.

Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property

would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be

ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment,

socially and politically undone.

There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce.

Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her;

and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate

claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately

attracted and repelled her.

Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted.

Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the

window-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later,

Marcella had sat among the flowers--the dapper figure, the long, fair

moustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass.

"I have been asked--er--er--" What a conceited manner the fellow

had!--"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject of

the Damesley strike. You give me leave?"

Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed an

important commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the most

bare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number of

the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it.

The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power of

the _Clarion_ and its owner. No doubt, it would not be possible for the

paper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely; there were perhaps

already signs of slackening. Still it had been maintained for a

considerable time; and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of the

wide-spread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probably

hold out.

In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought it

best to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before him

information which might possibly modify his action. They had authorised

Mr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the way

of re-organisation of the trade, including the probable advantages which

the work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in the

future.

Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme.

Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, a

little pale and frowning--looking intently at the speaker.

Then Mr. Pearson paused and cleared his throat.

Well!--that was the scheme. His principals believed that, when both it

and the employers' determination to transfer their business to the

Continent rather than be beaten by the men were made fully known to the

owner of the _Clarion_, it must affect his point of view. Mr. Pearson

was empowered to give him any details he might desire. Meanwhile--so

confident were they in the reasonableness of the case that they even

suggested that the owner of the _Clarion_ himself should take part in

the new Syndicate. On condition of his future co-operation--it being

understood that the masters took their stand irrevocably on the

award--the men at present responsible for the formation of the Syndicate

proposed to allot Mr. Wharton ten Founder's Shares in the new

undertaking.

Wharton, sitting alone, recalling these things, was conscious again of

that start in every limb, that sudden rush of blood to the face, as

though a lash had struck him.

For in a few seconds his mind took in the situation. Only the day

before, a city acquaintance had said to him, "If you and your confounded

paper were out of the way, and this thing could be placed properly on

the market, there would be a boom in it at once. I am told that in

twenty-four hours the Founder's Shares would be worth 2,000 _l._

apiece!"

There was a pause of silence. Then Wharton threw a queer dark look at

the solicitor, and was conscious that his pulse was thumping.

"There can be no question I think, Mr. Pearson--between you and me--as

to the nature of such a proposal as that!"

"My dear sir," Mr. Pearson had interrupted hastily, "let me, above all,

ask you to take _time_--time enough, at any rate, to turn the matter

well over in your mind. The interests of a great many people, besides

yourself, are concerned. Don't give me an answer to-night; it is the

last thing I desire. I have thrown out my suggestion. Consider it.

To-morrow is Sunday. If you are disposed to carry it further, come and

see me Monday morning--that's all. I will be at your service at any

hour, and I can then give you a much more complete outline of the

intentions of the Company. Now I really must go and look for Mrs.

Pearson's carriage."

Wharton followed the great man half mechanically across the little room,

his mind in a whirl of mingled rage and desire. Then suddenly he stopped

his companion:

"Has George Denny anything to do with this proposal, Mr. Pearson?"

Mr. Pearson paused, with a little air of vague cogitation.

"George Denny? Mr. George Denny, the member for Westropp? I have had no

dealings whatever with that gentleman in the matter."

Wharton let him pass.

Then as he himself entered the tea-room, he perceived the bending form

of Aldous Raeburn chatting to Lady Winterbourne on his right, and that

tall whiteness close in front, waiting for him.

His brain cleared in a flash. He was perfectly conscious that a bribe

had just been offered him, of the most daring and cynical kind, and that

he had received the offer in the tamest way. An insult had been put upon

him which had for ever revealed the estimate held of him by certain

shrewd people, for ever degraded him in his own eyes.

Nevertheless, he was also conscious that the thing was done. The bribe

would be accepted, the risk taken. So far as his money-matters were

concerned he was once more a free man. The mind had adjusted itself,

reached its decision in a few minutes.

And the first effect of the mingled excitement and self-contempt which

the decision brought with it had been to drive him into the scene with

Marcella. Instinctively he asked of passion to deliver him quickly from

the smart of a new and very disagreeable experience.

* * * * *

Well! why should he not take these men's offer?

He was as much convinced as they that this whole matter of the strike

had of late come to a deadlock. So long as the public would give, the

workers, passionately certain of the justice of their own cause, and

filled with new ambitions after more decent living, would hold out. On

the other hand, he perfectly understood that the masters had also in

many ways a strong case, that they had been very hard hit by the strike,

and that many of them would rather close their works or transfer them

bodily to the Continent than give way. Some of the facts Pearson had

found time to mention had been certainly new and striking.

At the same time he never disguised from himself for an instant that but

for a prospective 20,000 _l._ the facts concerned would not have

affected him in the least. Till to-night it had been to his interest to

back the strike, and to harass the employers. Now things were changed;

and he took a curious satisfaction in the quick movements of his own

intelligence, as his thought rapidly sketched the "curve" the _Clarion_

would have to take, and the arguments by which he would commend it.

As to his shares, they would be convertible of course into immediate

cash. Some man of straw would be forthcoming to buy what he would

possess in the name of another man of straw. It was not supposed--he

took for granted--by the men who had dared to tempt him, that he would

risk his whole political reputation and career for anything less than a

bird in the hand.

Well! what were the chances of secrecy?

Naturally _they_ stood to lose less by disclosure, a good deal, than he

did. And Denny, one of the principal employers, was his personal enemy.

He would be likely enough for the present to keep his name out of the

affair. But no man of the world could suppose that the transaction would

pass without his knowledge. Wharton's own hasty question to Mr. Pearson

on the subject seemed to himself now, in cold blood, a remarkably

foolish one.

He walked up and down thinking this point out. It was the bitter pill of

the whole affair.

In the end, with a sudden recklessness of youth and resource, he

resolved to dare it. There would _not_ be much risk. Men of business do

not as a rule blazon their own dirty work, and public opinion would be

important to the new Syndicate.

_Some_ risk, of course, there would be. Well! his risks, as they stood,

were pretty considerable. He chose the lesser--not without something of

a struggle, some keen personal smart. He had done a good many mean and

questionable things in his time, but never anything as gross as this.

The thought of what his relation to a certain group of men--to Denny

especially--would be in the future, stung sharply. But it is the part

of the man of action to put both scruple and fear behind him on

occasion. His career was in question.

Craven? Well, Craven would be a difficulty. He would telegraph to him

first thing in the morning before the offices closed, and see him on

Monday. For Marcella's sake the man must be managed--somehow.

And--Marcella! How should she ever know, ever suspect! She already

disliked the violence with which the paper had supported the strike. He

would find no difficulty whatever in justifying all that she or the

public would see, to her.

Then insensibly he let his thoughts glide into thinking of the money.

Presently he drew a sheet of paper towards him and covered it with

calculations as to his liabilities. By George! how well it worked out!

By the time he threw it aside, and walked to the window for air, he

already felt himself a _bonâ-fide_ supporter of the Syndicate--the

promoter in the public interest of a just and well-considered scheme.

Finally, with a little joyous energetic movement which betrayed the

inner man, he flung down his cigarette, and turned to write an ardent

letter to Marcella, while the morning sun stole into the dusty room.

Difficult? of course! Both now and in the future. It would take him half

his time yet--and he could ill afford it--to bring her bound and

captive. He recognised in her the southern element, so strangely mated

with the moral English temper. Yet he smiled over it. The subtleties of

the struggle he foresaw enchanted him.

And she would be mastered! In this heightened state of nerve his man's

resolution only rose the more fiercely to the challenge of her

resistance.

Nor should she cheat him with long delays. His income would be his own

again, and life decently easy. He already felt himself the vain showman

of her beauty.

A thought of Lady Selina crossed his mind, producing amusement and

compassion--indulgent amusement, such as the young man is apt to feel

towards the spinster of thirty-five who pays him attention. A certain

sense of re-habilitation, too, which at the moment was particularly

welcome. For, no doubt, he might have married her and her fortune had he

so chosen. As it was, why didn't she find some needy boy to take pity on

her? There were plenty going, and she must have abundance of money. Old

Alresford, too, was fast doddering off the stage, and then where would

she be--without Alresford House, or Busbridge, or those various other

pedestals which had hitherto held her aloft?

* * * * *

Early on Sunday morning Wharton telegraphed to Craven, directing him to

"come up at once for consultation." The rest of the day the owner of the

_Clarion_ spent pleasantly on the river with Mrs. Lane and a party of

ladies, including a young Duchess, who was pretty, literary, and

socialistic. At night he went down to the _Clarion_ office, and produced

a leader on the position of affairs at Damesley which, to the practised

eye, contained one paragraph--but one only--wherein the dawn of a new

policy might have been discerned.

Naturally the juxtaposition of events at the moment gave him

considerable anxiety. He knew very well that the Damesley bargain could

not be kept waiting. The masters were losing heavily every day, and were

not likely to let him postpone the execution of his part of the contract

for a fortnight or so to suit his own convenience. It was like the sale

of an "old master." His influence must be sold now--at the ripe

moment--or not at all.

At the same time it was very awkward. In one short fortnight the meeting

of the party would be upon him. Surrender on the Damesley question would

give great offence to many of the Labour members. It would have to be

very carefully managed--very carefully thought out.

By eleven o'clock on Monday he was in Mr. Pearson's office. After the

first involuntary smile, concealed by the fair moustaches, and instantly

dismissed, with which the eminent lawyer greeted the announcement of his

visitor's name, the two augurs carried through their affairs with

perfect decorum. Wharton realised, indeed, that he was being firmly

handled. Mr. Pearson gave the _Clarion_ a week in which to accomplish

its retreat and drop its strike fund. And the fund was to be "checked"

as soon as possible.

A little later, when Wharton abruptly demanded a guarantee of secrecy,

Mr. Pearson allowed himself his first--visible--smile.

"My dear sir, are such things generally made public property? I can

give you no better assurance than you can extract yourself from the

circumstances. As to writing--well!--I should advise you very strongly

against anything of the sort. A long experience has convinced me that in

any delicate negotiation the less that is _written_ the better."

Towards the end Wharton turned upon his companion sharply, and asked:

"How did you discover that I wanted money?"

Mr. Pearson lifted his eyebrows pleasantly.

"Most of the things in this world, Mr. Wharton, that one wants to know,

can be found out. Now--I have no wish to hurry you--not in the least,

but I may perhaps mention that I have an important appointment directly.

Don't you think--we might settle our business?"

Wharton was half-humorously conscious of an inward leap of fury with the

necessities which had given this man--to whom he had taken an

instantaneous dislike--the power of dealing thus summarily with the

member for West Brookshire. However, there was no help for it; he

submitted, and twenty minutes afterwards he left Lincoln's Inn carrying

documents in the breast-pocket of his coat which, when brought under his

bankers' notice, would be worth to him an immediate advance of some

eight thousand pounds. The remainder of the purchase-money for his

"shares" would be paid over to him as soon as his part of the contract

had been carried out.

He did not, however, go to his bank, but straight to the _Clarion_

office, where he had a mid-day appointment with Louis Craven.

At first sight of the tall, narrow-shouldered form and anxious face

waiting for him in his private room, Wharton felt a movement of

ill-humour.

Craven had the morning's _Clarion_ in his hand.

"This _cannot_ mean"--he said, when they had exchanged a brief

salutation--"that the paper is backing out?"

He pointed to the suspicious paragraph in Wharton's leader, his delicate

features quivering with an excitement he could ill repress.

"Well, let us sit down and discuss the thing," said Wharton, closing the

door, "that's what I wired to you for."

He offered Craven a cigarette, which was refused, took one himself, and

the two men sat confronting each other with a writing-table between

them. Wharton was disagreeably conscious at times of the stiff papers in

his coat-pocket, and was perhaps a little paler than usual. Otherwise he

showed no trace of mental disturbance; and Craven, himself jaded and

sleepless, was struck with a momentary perception of his companion's

boyish good looks--the tumbling curls, that Wharton straightened now and

then, the charming blue eyes, the athlete's frame. Any stranger would

have taken Craven for the older man; in reality it was the other way.

The conversation lasted nearly an hour. Craven exhausted both argument

and entreaty, though when the completeness of the retreat resolved upon

had been disclosed to him, the feeling roused in him was so fierce that

he could barely maintain his composure. He had been living among scenes

of starvation and endurance, which, to his mind, had all the character

of martyrdom. These men and women were struggling for two objects--the

power to live more humanly, and the free right of combination--to both

of which, if need were, he would have given his own life to help them

without an instant's hesitation. Behind his blinking manner he saw

everything with the idealist's intensity, the reformer's passion. To be

fair to an employer was not in his power. To spend his last breath, were

it called for, in the attempt to succour the working-man against his

capitalist oppressors, would have seemed to him the merest matter of

course.

And his mental acuteness was quite equal to his enthusiasm, and far more

evident. In his talk with Wharton, he for a long time avoided, as

before, out of a certain inner disdain, the smallest touch of sentiment.

He pointed out--what, indeed, Wharton well knew--that the next two or

three weeks of the strike would be the most critical period in its

history; that, if the work-people could only be carried through them,

they were almost sure of victory. He gave his own reasons for believing

that the employers could ultimately be coerced, he offered proof of

yielding among them, proof also that the better men in their ranks were

fully alive to and ashamed of the condition of the workers. As to the

Syndicate, he saw no objection to it, _provided_ the workers' claims

were first admitted. Otherwise it would only prove a more powerful

engine of oppression.

Wharton's arguments may perhaps be left to the imagination. He would

have liked simply to play the proprietor and the master--to say, "This

is my decision, those are my terms--take my work or leave it." But

Craven was Miss Boyce's friend; he was also a Venturist. Chafing under

both facts, Wharton found that he must state his case.

And he did state it with his usual ability. He laid great stress on

"information from a private source which I cannot disregard," to the

effect that, if the resistance went on, the trade would be broken up;

that several of the largest employers were on the point of making

arrangements for Italian factories.

"I know," he said finally, "that but for the _Clarion_ the strike would

drop. Well! I have come to the conclusion that the responsibility is too

heavy. I shall be doing the men themselves more harm than good. There is

the case in a nutshell. We differ--I can't help that. The responsibility

is mine."

Craven rose with a quick, nervous movement. The prophet spoke at last.

"You understand," he said, laying a thin hand on the table, "that the

condition of the workers in this trade is _infamous_!--that the award

and your action together plunge them back into a state of things which

is a _shame_ and a _curse_ to England!"

Wharton made no answer. He, too, had risen, and was putting away some

papers in a drawer. A tremor ran through Craven's tall frame; and for an

instant, as his eye rested on his companion, the idea of foul play

crossed his mind. He cast it out, that he might deal calmly with his own

position.

"Of course, you perceive," he said, as he took up his hat, "that I can

no longer on these terms remain the _Clarion's_ correspondent. Somebody

else must be found to do this business."

"I regret your decision, immensely," said Wharton, with perfect

suavity, "but of course I understand it. I trust, however, that you will

not leave us altogether. I can give you plenty of work that will suit

you. Here, for instance"--he pointed to a pile of Blue Books from the

Labour Commission lying on the table--"are a number of reports that want

analysing and putting before the public. You could do them in town at

your leisure."

Craven struggled with himself. His first instinct was to fling the offer

in Wharton's face. Then he thought of his wife; of the tiny new

household just started with such small, happy, self-denying shifts; of

the woman's inevitable lot, of the hope of a child.

"Thank you," he said, in a husky voice. "I will consider, I will write."

Wharton nodded to him pleasantly, and he went.

The owner of the _Clarion_ drew a long breath.

"Now I think on the whole it would serve my purpose best to sit down and

write to _her_--after that. It would be well that _my_ account should

come first."

A few hours later, after an interview with his bankers and a further

spell of letter-writing, Wharton descended the steps of his club in a

curious restless state. The mortgage on the _Clarion_ had been arranged

for, his gambling debts settled, and all his other money matters were

successfully in train. Nevertheless, the exhilaration of the morning had

passed into misgiving and depression.

Vague presentiments hung about him all day, whether in the House of

Commons or elsewhere, and it was not till he found himself on his legs

at a crowded meeting at Rotherhithe, violently attacking the Government

Bill and the House of Lords, that he recovered that easy confidence in

the general favourableness of the universe to Harry Wharton, and Harry

Wharton's plans, which lent him so much of his power.

A letter from Marcella--written before she had received either of

his--reached him at the House just before he started for his meeting. A

touching letter!--yet with a certain resolution in it which disconcerted

him.

"Forget, if you will, everything that you said to me last night. It

might be--I believe it would be--best for us both. But if you will

not--if I must give my answer, then, as I said, I must have time. It is

only quite recently that I have _realised_ the enormity of what I did

last year. I must run no risks of so wrenching my own life--or

another's--a second time. Not to be _sure_ is for me torment. Why

perfect simplicity of feeling--which would scorn the very notion of

questioning itself--seems to be beyond me, I do not know. That it is so

fills me with a sort of shame and bitterness. But I must follow my

nature.

"So let me think it out. I believe you know, for one thing, that your

'cause,' your life-work, attracts me strongly. I should not any longer

accept all you say, as I did last year. But mere opinion matters

infinitely less to me than it did. I can imagine now agreeing with a

friend 'in everything except opinion.' All that would matter to me now

would be to feel that _your_ heart was wholly in your work, in your

public acts, so that I might still admire and love all that I might

differ from. But there--for we must be frank with each other--is just my

difficulty. _Why_ do you do so many contradictory things? Why do you

talk of the poor, of labour, of self-denial, and live whenever you can

with the idle rich people, who hate all three in their hearts? You talk

their language; you scorn what they scorn, or so it seems; you accept

their standards. Oh!--to the really 'consecrate' in heart and thought I

could give my life so easily, so slavishly even! There is no one weaker

than I in the world. I must have strength to lean upon--and a strength,

pure at the core, that I can respect and follow.

"Here in this nursing life of mine, I go in and out among people to the

best of whom life is very real and simple--and often, of course, very

sad. And I am another being in it from what I was at Lady

Winterbourne's. Everything looks differently to me. No, no! you must

please wait till the inner voice speaks so that I can hear it

plainly--for your sake at least as much as for mine. If you persisted in

coming to see me now, I should have to put an end to it all."

"Strange is the modern woman!" thought Wharton to himself, not without

sharp pique, as he pondered that letter in the course of his drive home

from the meeting. "I talk to her of passion, and she asks me in return

why I do things inconsistent with my political opinions! puts me through

a moral catechism, in fact! What is the meaning of it all--confound it!

--her state of mind and mine? Is the good old _ars amandi_ perishing out

of the world? Let some Stendhal come and tell us why!"

But he sat up to answer her, and could not get free from an inward

pleading or wrestle with her, which haunted him through all the

intervals of these rapid days.

Life while they lasted was indeed a gymnast's contest of breath and

endurance. The _Clarion_ made its retreat in Wharton's finest style, and

the fact rang through labouring England. The strike-leaders came up from

the Midlands; Wharton had to see them. He was hotly attacked in the

House privately, and even publicly by certain of his colleagues. Bennett

showed concern and annoyance. Meanwhile the Conservative papers talked

the usual employers' political economy; and the Liberal papers, whose

support of the strike had been throughout perfunctory, and of no

particular use to themselves or to other people, took a lead they were

glad to get, and went in strongly for the award.

Through it all Wharton showed extraordinary skill. The columns of the

_Clarion_ teemed with sympathetic appeals to the strikers, flanked by

long statements of "hard fact"--the details of foreign competition and

the rest, the plans of the masters--freely supplied him by Mr. Pearson.

With Bennett and his colleagues in the House he took a bold line;

admitted that he had endangered his popularity both inside Parliament

and out of it at a particularly critical moment; and implied, though he

did not say, that some men were still capable of doing independent

things to their own hurt. Meanwhile he pushed a number of other matters

to the front, both in the paper and in his own daily doings. He made at

least two important speeches in the provinces, in the course of these

days, on the Bill before the House of Lords; he asked questions in

Parliament on the subject of the wages paid to Government employés; and

he opened an attack on the report of a certain Conservative Commission

which had been rousing the particular indignation of a large mass of

South London working men.

At the end of ten days the strike was over; the workers, sullen and

enraged, had submitted, and the plans of the Syndicate were in all the

papers. Wharton, looking round him, realised to his own amazement that

his political position had rather gained than suffered. The general

impression produced by his action had been on the whole that of a man

strong enough to take a line of his own, even at the risk of

unpopularity. There was a new tone of respect among his opponents, and,

resentful as some of the Labour members were, Wharton did not believe

that what he had done would ultimately damage his chances on the 10th at

all. He had vindicated his importance, and he held his head high,

adopting towards his chances of the leadership a strong and careless

tone that served him well.

Meanwhile there were, of course, clever people behind the scenes who

looked on and laughed. But they held their tongues, and Wharton, who had

carefully avoided the mention of names during the negotiations with

Pearson, did his best to forget them. He felt uncomfortable, indeed,

when he passed the portly Denny in the House or in the street. Denny had

a way of looking at the member for West Brookshire out of the corner of

a small, slit-like eye. He did it more than usual during these days,

and Wharton had only to say to himself that for all things there is a

price--which the gods exact.

Wilkins, since the first disclosure of the _Clarion_ change of policy,

had been astonishingly quiet. Wharton had made certain of violent attack

from him. On the contrary, Wilkins wore now in the House a subdued and

pre-occupied air that escaped notice even with his own party in the

general fulness of the public mind. A few caustic north-countryisms on

the subject of the _Clarion_ and its master did indeed escape him now

and then, and were reported from mouth to mouth; but on the whole he lay

very low.

Still, whether in elation or anxiety, Wharton seemed to himself

throughout the whole period to be a _fighter_, straining every muscle,

his back to the wall and his hand against every man. There at the end of

the fortnight stood the three goal-posts that must be passed, in victory

or defeat; the meeting that would for the present decide his

parliamentary prospects, his interview with Marcella, and--the

confounded annual meeting of the "People's Banking Company," with all

its threatened annoyances.

He became, indeed, more and more occupied with this latter business as

the days went on. But he could see no way of evading it. He would have

to fight it; luckily, now, he had the money.

The annual meeting took place two days before that fixed for the

committee of the Labour party. Wharton was not present at it, and in

spite of ample warning he gave way to certain lively movements of

disgust and depression when at his club he first got hold of the

evening papers containing the reports. His name, of course, figured

amply in the denunciations heaped upon the directors of all dates; the

sums which he with others were supposed to have made out of the first

dealings with the shares on the Stock Exchange were freely mentioned;

and the shareholders as a body had shown themselves most uncomfortably

violent. He at once wrote off a letter to the papers disclaiming all

responsibility for the worst irregularities which had occurred, and

courting full enquiry--a letter which, as usual, both convinced and

affected himself.

Then he went, restless and fuming, down to the House. Bennett passed him

in the lobby with an uneasy and averted eye. Whereupon Wharton seized

upon him, carried him into the Library, and talked to him, till Bennett,

who, in spite of his extraordinary shrewdness and judgment in certain

departments, was a babe in matters of company finance, wore a somewhat

cheered countenance.

They came out into the lobby together, Wharton holding his head very

high.

"I shall deal with the whole thing in my speech on Thursday!" he said

aloud, as they parted.

Bennett gave him a friendly nod and smile.

There was in this little man, with his considerable brain and his poet's

heart, something of the "imperishable child." Like a wholesome child, he

did not easily "think evil"; his temper towards all men--even the owners

of "way-leaves" and mining royalties--was optimist. He had the most

naïve admiration for Wharton's ability, and for the academic

attainments he himself secretly pined for; and to the young complex

personality itself he had taken from the beginning an unaccountable

liking. The bond between the two, though incongruous and recent, was

real; Wharton was as glad of Bennett's farewell kindness as Bennett had

been of the younger man's explanations.

So that during that day and the next, Bennett went about contradicting,

championing, explaining; while Wharton, laden with parliamentary

business, vivid, unabashed, and resourceful, let it be known to all whom

it concerned that in his solicitor's opinion he had a triumphant answer

to all charges; and that meanwhile no one could wonder at the soreness

of those poor devils of shareholders.

The hours passed on. Wednesday was mainly spent by Wharton in a series

of conferences and intrigues either at the House or at his club; when he

drove home exhausted at night he believed that all was arranged--the

train irrevocably laid, and his nomination to the chairmanship of the

party certain.

Wilkins and six or seven others would probably prove irreconcilable; but

the vehemence and rancour shown by the great Nehemiah during the summer

in the pursuit of his anti-Wharton campaign had to some extent defeated

themselves. A personal grudge in the hands of a man of his type is not a

formidable weapon. Wharton would have felt perfectly easy on the subject

but for some odd bits of manner on Wilkins's part during the last

forty-eight hours--whenever, in fact, the two men had run across each

other in the House--marked by a sort of new and insolent good humour,

that puzzled him. But there is a bravado of defeat. Yes!--he thought

Wilkins was disposed of.

From his present point of ease--debts paid, banker propitiated, income

assured--it amazed him to look back on his condition of a fortnight

before. Had the Prince of Darkness himself offered such a bargain it

must have been accepted. After all his luck had held! Once get through

this odious company business--as to which, with a pleasing

consciousness of turning the tables, he had peremptorily instructed Mr.

Pearson himself--and the barque of his fortunes was assured.

Then, with a quick turn of the mind, he threw the burden of affairs from

him. His very hopefulness and satisfaction had softened his mood. There

stole upon him the murmurs and voices of another world of thought--a

world well known to his versatility by report, though he had as a rule

small inclination to dwell therein. But he was touched and shaken

to-night by his own achievement. The heavenly powers had been

unexpectedly kind to him, and he was half moved to offer them something

in return.

"Do as you are done by"--that was an ethic he understood. And in moments

of feeling he was as ready to apply it to great Zeus himself as to his

friends or enemies in the House of Commons. He had done this doubtful

thing--but why should it ever be necessary for him to do another? Vague

philosophic yearnings after virtue, moderation, patriotism, crossed his

mind. The Pagan ideal sometimes smote and fired him, the Christian

never. He could still read his Plato and his Cicero, whereas gulfs of

unfathomable distaste rolled between him and the New Testament. Perhaps

the author of all authors for whom he had most relish was Montaigne. He

would have taken him down to-night had there been nothing more kindling

to think of.

_Marcella_!--ah! Marcella! He gave himself to the thought of her with a

new and delightful tenderness which had in it elements of compunction.

After those disagreeable paragraphs in the evening papers, he had

instantly written to her. "Every public man"--he had said to her,

finding instinctively the note of dignity that would appeal to her--"is

liable at some period of his career to charges of this sort. They are at

once exaggerated and blackened, because he is a public man. To you I owe

perfect frankness, and you shall have it. Meanwhile I do not ask--I

know--that you will be just to me, and put the matter out of your

thoughts till I can discuss it with you. Two days more till I see your

face! The time is long!"

To this there had been no answer. Her last letter indeed had rung sadly

and coldly. No doubt Louis Craven had something to do with it. It would

have alarmed him could he simply have found the time to think about it.

Yet she was ready to see him on the 11th; and his confidence in his own

powers of managing fate was tougher than ever. What pleasant lies he had

told her at Lady Masterton's! Well! What passion ever yet but had its

subterfuges? One more wrestle, and he would have tamed her to his wish,

wild falcon that she was. Then--pleasure and brave living! And she also

should have her way. She should breathe into him the language of those

great illusions he had found it of late so hard to feign with her; and

they two would walk and rule a yielding world together. Action, passion,

affairs--life explored and exploited--and at last--"_que la mort me

treuve plantant mes choulx--mais nonchalant d'elle!--et encore plus de

mon jardin imparfaict_!"

He declaimed the words of the great Frenchman with something of the same

temper in which the devout man would have made an act of faith. Then,

with a long breath and a curious emotion, he went to try and sleep

himself into the new day.

CHAPTER XV.

The following afternoon about six o'clock Marcella came in from her

second round. After a very busy week, work happened to be slack; and she

had been attending one or two cases in and near Brown's Buildings rather

because they were near than because they seriously wanted her. She

looked to see whether there was any letter or telegram from the office

which would have obliged her to go out again. Nothing was to be seen;

and she put down her bag and cloak, childishly glad of the extra hour of

rest.

She was, indeed, pale and worn. The moral struggle which had filled the

past fortnight from end to end had deepened all the grooves and strained

the forces of life; and the path, though glimmering, was not wholly

plain.

A letter lay unfinished in her drawer--if she sent it that night, there

would be little necessity or inducement for Wharton to climb those

stairs on the morrow. Yet, if he held her to it, she must see him.

As the sunset and the dusk crept on she still sat silent and alone, sunk

in a depression which showed itself in every line of the drooping form.

She was degraded in her own eyes. The nature of the impulses which had

led her to give Wharton the hold upon her she had given him had become

plain to her. What lay between them, and the worst impulses that poison

the lives of women, but differences of degree, of expression? After

those wild hours of sensuous revolt, a kind of moral terror was upon

her.

What had worked in her? What was at the root of this vehemence of moral

reaction, this haunting fear of losing for ever the _best_ in

life--self-respect, the comradeship of the good, communion with things

noble and unstained--which had conquered at last the mere _woman_, the

weakness of vanity and of sex? She hardly knew. Only there was in her a

sort of vague thankfulness _for her daily work_. It did not seem to be

possible to see one's own life solely under the aspects of selfish

desire while hands and mind were busy with the piteous realities of

sickness and of death. From every act of service--from every contact

with the patience and simplicity of the poor--_something_ had spoken to

her, that divine ineffable something for ever "set in the world," like

beauty, like charm, for the winning of men to itself. "Follow truth!" it

said to her in faint mysterious breathings--"the truth of your own

heart. The sorrow to which it will lead you is the only _joy_ that

remains to you."

Suddenly she looked round her little room with a rush of tenderness. The

windows were open to the evening and the shouts of children playing in

the courtyard came floating up. A bowl of Mellor roses scented the air;

the tray for her simple meal stood ready, and beside it a volume of "The

Divine Comedy," one of her mother's very rare gifts to her, in her

motherless youth--for of late she had turned thirstily to poetry. There

was a great peace and plainness about it all; and, besides, touches of

beauty--tokens of the soul. Her work spoke in it; called to her;

promised comfort and ennobling. She thought with yearning, too, of her

parents; of the autumn holiday she was soon to spend with them. Her

heart went out--sorely--to all the primal claims upon it.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, clear as was the inner resolution, the immediate future

filled her with dread. Her ignorance of herself--her excitable

folly--had given Wharton rights which her conscience admitted. He would

not let her go without a struggle, and she must face it.

As to the incidents which had happened during the fortnight--Louis

Craven's return, and the scandal of the "People's Banking Company"--they

had troubled and distressed her; but it would not be true to say that

they had had any part in shaping her slow determination. Louis Craven

was sore and bitter. She was very sorry for him; and his reports of the

Damesley strikers made her miserable. But she took Wharton's "leaders"

in the _Clarion_ for another equally competent opinion on the same

subject; and told herself that she was no judge. As for the Company

scandal, she had instantly and proudly responded to the appeal of his

letter, and put the matter out of her thoughts, till at least he should

give his own account. So much at any rate she owed to the man who had

stood by her through the Hurd trial. Marcella Boyce would not readily

believe in his dishonour! She did not in fact believe it. In spite of

later misgivings, the impression of his personality, as she had first

conceived it, in the early days at Mellor, was still too strong.

No--rather--she had constantly recollected throughout the day what was

going on in Parliament. These were for him testing and critical hours,

and she felt a wistful sympathy. Let him only rise to his part--take up

his great task.

* * * * *