Berenice found the following morning a note from Borrowdean, which caused her some perplexity.
"If you really care," he said, "to do Mannering a good turn, look his niece up now and then. I am afraid that young woman has rather lost her head since she came to London, and she is making friends who will do her no particular good."
"If you really care," he said, "to do Mannering a good turn, look his niece up now and then. I am afraid that young woman has rather lost her head since she came to London, and she is making friends who will do her no particular good."
Berenice ordered her carriage early, and drove round to Portland Crescent.
"My dear child," she exclaimed, as Clara came into the room, "what have you been doing with yourself? You look ghastly!"
Clara shrugged her shoulders, and looked at herself in a mirror.
"I do look chippy, don't I?" she remarked. "I've been spending the week-end down at Bristow."
"At Bristow?" Berenice repeated. Her voice spoke volumes. Clara looked up a little defiantly.
"Yes! We had an awful spree! I like it there immensely, only—"
Berenice looked up.
"I notice," she remarked, "that there is generally an 'only' about people who have spent week-ends at Bristow. They play cards there, don't they, until daylight? Some one once told me that they kept a professional croupier for roulette!"
"That horrid game!" Clara exclaimed. "Please don't mention it. I've scarcely slept a wink all night for thinking of it."
Berenice looked at her in surprise.
"Do you mean to say," she inquired, deliberately, "that they allowed you to play—and lose?"
"It wasn't their fault I lost," Clara answered. "Oh, what a fool I was. Bobby Bristow showed me a system. It seemed so easy. I didn't think I could possibly lose. It worked beautifully at first. I thought that I was going to pay all my bills, and have lots of money to spend. Then I doubled the stakes—I wanted to win a lot—and everything went wrong!"
"How much did you lose?" Berenice asked. Clara shivered.
"Don't ask me!" she cried. "Sir Leslie Borrowdean gave his own cheques for all my I.O.U.'s. He is coming to see me some time to-day. I don't know what I shall say to him."
"Do you mean to go on playing?" Berenice asked, quietly, "or is this experience enough for you?"
"I shall never sit at a roulette table again as long as I live," she declared. "I hate the very thought of it."
"Then you can just ask Sir Leslie the amount of the I.O.U.'s, and tell him that he shall have a cheque in the morning," Berenice said. "I will lend you the money."
Clara gave a little gasp.
"You are too kind," she exclaimed, "but I don't know when I shall be able to repay you. It is—nearly three hundred pounds!"
"So long as you keep your word," Berenice answered, "and do not play again, you need never let that trouble you. You shall have the cheque before two o'clock. No, please don't thank me. If you take my advice you won't spend another week-end at Bristow. It is not a fit house for young girls. How is your uncle?"
"I haven't seen him this morning," Clara answered. "Perkins told me that he came home after midnight with a man whom he seemed to have picked up in the street, and they were in the study talking till nearly five this morning."
Berenice rose.
"I came to see if you would care to drive down to Ranelagh with me this morning," she said, "but you are evidently fit for nothing except to go back to bed again. I won't forget the cheque, and remember me to your uncle. By the bye, where's that nice young man who used to be always with you down in the country?"
"You must mean Mr. Lindsay," Clara answered. "I have no idea. At Blakely, I suppose."
"If I were you," Berenice said, as she rose, "I should write to him to come up and look after you. You need it!"
She nodded pleasantly and took her leave. Clara threw herself into a chair and rang the bell.
"Perkins," she said, "I have had no sleep and no breakfast. What should you recommend?"
"An egg beaten up in milk, miss," the man suggested, "same as I've just taken Mr. Mannering."
"Is my uncle up?" Clara asked.
"Not yet, miss," the man answered; "He is just dressing."
Clara nodded.
"Very well. Please get me what you said, and if Sir Leslie Borrowdean calls I want to see him at once."
"Sir Leslie is in the study now, miss," the man answered. "I showed him in there because I thought he would want to see Mr. Mannering, but he asked for you."
"Will you say that I shall be there in three minutes," Clara said.
The three minutes became rather a long quarter of an hour, but Clara had used the time well. When she entered the library she had changed her dress, rearranged her hair, and by some means or another had lost her unnatural pallor. Sir Leslie greeted her a little gravely,
"Glad to see you looking so fit," he remarked. "They did us a bit too well down at Bristow, I thought. It's all very well for you children," he continued, with a smile, "but when a man gets to my time of life he misses a night's rest."
She smiled.
"You don't call yourself old, Sir Leslie!" she remarked.
"Well, I'm not young, although I like to think I am," he answered. "I'm afraid there's pretty nearly a generation between us, Miss Clara. By the bye, where's your uncle this morning?"
"Getting up," she answered. "He did not go to bed until after five, Perkins tells me. He brought some one home with him from Dorchester's reception, or some one he picked up afterwards, and they seem to have sat up talking all night."
Borrowdean was interested.
"You have no idea who it was, I suppose?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"None at all. Perkins had never seen him before. When do you poor creatures get your holiday, Sir Leslie?"
He smiled.
"The session will be over in about three weeks," he answered, "unless we defeat the Government before then. Your uncle has been hitting them very hard lately. I think before long we shall be in office."
"Politics," she said, "seems to be rather a greedy sort of business. You are always trying to turn the other side out, aren't you?"
"You must remember," he answered, "that politics is rather a one-sided sort of affair. The party which is in makes a very comfortable living out of it, and we who are out have to scrape along as best we can. Rather hard upon people like your uncle and myself, who are, comparatively speaking, poor men. That reminds me," he said, bringing out his pocket-book, "I thought that I had better bring you these little documents."
"Those horrid I.O.U.'s," she remarked.
"Yes," he answered. "I am sorry that you were so unlucky. I bought these from the bank, Miss Clara, as I thought you would not feel comfortable if you had to leave Bristow owing this money to strangers."
"It was very thoughtful of you," she murmured. He changed his seat and came over to her side on the sofa.
"Have you any idea how much they come to?" he asked, smoothing them out upon his knee.
"I am afraid to nearly three hundred pounds," she answered.
He shook his head gravely.
"I am sorry to say that they come to a good deal more than that," he said. "I hope you do not forget that I took the liberty of advising you more than once to stop. You had the most abominable luck."
"More than three hundred?" she gasped. "How much more?"
"They seem to add up to five hundred and eighty five pounds," he declared. "I must confess that I was surprised myself."
"There—I think there must be some mistake," Clara faltered.
He handed them to her.
"You had better look them through," he said. "They seem all right."
She took them in her hand, and looked at them helplessly. There was one there for fifty pounds which she tried in vain to remember—and how shaky her handwriting was. A sudden flood of recollection brought the colour into her cheeks. She remembered the long table, the men all smoking, the women most of them a little hard, a little too much in earnest—the soft click of the ball, the silent, sickening moments of suspense. Others had won or lost as much as she, but perhaps because she had been so much in earnest, her ill-luck had attracted some attention. She remembered Major Bristow's whispered offer, or rather suggestion, of help. Even now her cheeks burned at something in his tone or look.
"I suppose it's all right," she said, dolefully, "only it's a lot more than I thought. I shall have three hundred pounds in the morning, but I've no idea where to get the rest."
"You are sure about the three hundred?" Sir Leslie asked, quietly.
"Quite."
"Then I think that you had better let me lend you the rest, for the present," he suggested. "I am afraid your uncle would be rather annoyed to know that you had been gambling to such an extent. You may be able to think of some way of paying me back later on."
She looked up at him hesitatingly. There was nothing in his manner which suggested in the least what Major Bristow had almost pronounced. She drew a little breath of relief. He was so much older, and after all, he was her uncle's friend.
"Can you really spare it, Sir Leslie?" she asked. "I can't tell you how grateful I should be."
He looked down at her with a faint smile.
"I can spare it for the present," he answered. "Only if you see any chance of paying me back before long, do so."
"You will pardon my interference," said an ominously quiet voice from the doorway, "but may I inquire into the nature of this transaction between you and my niece, Sir Leslie? Perhaps you had better explain it, Clara!"
They both turned quickly round. Mannering was standing upon the threshold, the morning paper in his hand. Clara sank into a chair and covered her face with her hands. Sir Leslie shrugged his shoulders.
He was congratulating himself upon the discretion with which he had conducted the interview. He had for a few moments entertained other ideas.
"Perhaps you will allow me to explain—" he began.
"I should prefer to hear my niece," Mannering answered, coldly.
Clara looked up. She was pale and frightened, and she had hard work to choke down the sobs.
"Sir Leslie was down at Bristow, where I was staying—this last week-end," she explained. "I lost a good deal of money there at roulette. He very kindly took up my I.O.U.'s for me, and was offering when you came in to let it stand for a little time."
"What is the amount?" Mannering asked.
Clara did not answer. Her head sank again. Her uncle repeated his inquiry. There was no note of anger in his tone. He might have been speaking of an altogether indifferent matter.
"I am afraid I shall have to trouble you to tell me the exact amount," he said. "Perhaps, Borrowdean, you would be so good as to inform me, as my niece seems a little overcome."
"The amount of the I.O.U.'s for which I gave my cheque," Borrowdean said, "was five hundred and eighty-seven pounds. I have the papers here."
There was a dead silence for a moment or two. Clara looked up furtively, but she could learn nothing from her uncle's face. It was some time before he spoke. When at last he did, his voice was certainly a little lower and less distinct than usual.
"Did I understand you to say—five hundred and eighty-seven pounds?"
"That is the amount," Borrowdean admitted. "I trust that you do not consider my interference in any way officious, Mannering. I thought it best to settle the claims of perfect strangers against Miss Mannering."
"May I ask," Mannering continued, "in whose house my niece was permitted to lose this sum?"
"It was at the Bristows'," Clara answered.
"And under whose chaperonage were you?" Mannering asked.
"Lady Bristow's! She called for me here, and took me down last Friday."
"Are these people who are generally accounted respectable?" Mannering asked.
"I don't think that Bristow is much better or worse than half of our country houses," Borrowdean answered. "People who are at all in the swim must have excitement nowadays, you know. Bristow himself isn't very popular, but people go to the house."
Mannering made no further remark.
"If you will come into the study, Borrowdean," he said, "I will settle this matter with you."
Borrowdean hesitated.
"Your niece said something about having three hundred pounds," he remarked.
Mannering glanced towards her.
"I think," he said, "that that must be a mistake. My niece has no such sum at her command."
Clara rose to her feet.
"You may as well know everything," she said. "The Duchess of Lenchester came in and found me very unhappy this morning. I told her everything, and she offered to lend me the money. I told her then that it was only three hundred pounds. I thought that was all I owed."
"Have you made any other confidants?" Mannering asked.
"No!"
"You will return the Duchess's cheque," Mannering said. "Borrowdean, will you come this way?"
Berenice was a little annoyed. It was the hour before dressing for dinner which she always devoted to repose—the hour saved from the stress of the day which had helped towards keeping her the young woman she certainly was. Yet Borrowdean's message was too urgent to ignore. She suffered her maid to wrap some sort of loose gown about her, and received him in her own study.
"My dear Sir Leslie," she said, a little reproachfully, "was this really necessary? You know that after half-past six I am practically a person not existing—until dinner time!"
"I should not have ventured to intrude upon you," Borrowdean said, quickly, "if the circumstances had not been altogether exceptional. I know your habits too well. I have just come from Mannering."
"From Mannering—yes!"
"Duchess," Borrowdean said, "have you—forgive a blunt question—but have you any influence over him?"
Berenice was silent for several moments.
"You ask me rather a hard question," she said. "A few months ago I think that I should have said yes. To-day—I am not sure. What has happened? Is anything wrong with him?"
"Nothing, except that he seems to have gone mad," Borrowdean said, bitterly. "I went to him to-day to get him to fix the dates for his meetings at Glasgow and Leeds. What do you think his answer was?"
"Don't tell me that he wants to back out!" Berenice exclaimed. "Don't tell me that!"
"Almost as bad! He told me quite coolly that he was not prepared finally to set out his views upon the question until he had completed a course of personal investigation in some of the Northern centres of trade, to which he had committed himself."
Berenice looked bewildered.
"But what on earth does he mean?" she exclaimed. "Surely he knows all that there is to be known. His mastery of statistics is something wonderful."
"What he means no man save himself can even surmise," Borrowdean answered. "He told me that he had had information of a state of distress in some of our Northern towns—Newcastle and Hull he mentioned, and some of the Lancashire places—which had simply appalled him. He was determined to verify it personally, and to commit himself to nothing further until he had done so. And he even asked me if I could not find him a pair until the end of the session, so that he could get away at once. I was simply dumbfounded. A pair for Mannering!"
Berenice rose to her feet. She walked up and down the little room restlessly.
"Sir Leslie," she said at last, "I am not sure whether I have what you would call any influence over Mr. Mannering now or not. I might have had but for you!"
"For me?" Borrowdean exclaimed.
"Yes. It was you who told me of—of—that woman," she said, haughtily, but with the colour rising almost to her temples. "After that, of course things were different between us. We are scarcely upon such terms at present as would justify my interference."
Borrowdean dropped his eyeglass, and swung it deliberately by its black ribbon. He looked steadily at Berenice, but his eyes seemed to travel past her.
"My dear Duchess," he said, quietly, "the game of life is a great one to play, and we who would keep our hands upon the board must of necessity make sacrifices. It is your duty to disregard in this instance your feelings towards Mannering. You must consider only his feelings towards you. They are such, I believe, as to give you a hold over him. You must make use of that hold for the sake of a great cause."
Berenice raised her eyebrows.
"Indeed! You seem to forget, Sir Leslie, that my share in this game, as you call it, must always be a passive one. I have no office to gain, no rewards to reap. Why should I commit myself to an unpleasant task for the sake of you and your friends?"
"It is your party," he protested. "Your party as much as ours."
"Granted," she answered. "Yet who are the responsible members of it? You know my opinion of Mannering as a politician. I would sooner follow him blindfold than all the others with my eyes open. Whatever he may lack, he is the most honest and right-seeing politician who ever entered the House."
"He lacks but one thing," Borrowdean said, "the mechanical adjustment of the born politician to party matters. There was never a time when absolute unity and absolute force were so necessary. If he is going to play the intelligent inquirer, if he falters for one moment in his wholesale condemnation of this scheme, he loses the day for himself and for us. The one thing which the political public never forgives is the man who stops to think."
"What do you want me to do?" Berenice asked.
"To go to him and find out what he means, what influences have been at work, what is underneath it all. Warn him of the danger of even appearing doubtful, or for a moment lukewarm. The one person whom the public will not have in politics is the trifler. Think how many there have been, brilliant men, too, who have lost their places through a single false step, a single year, a month of dilettantism. Remind him of them. The man who moves in a great cause may move slowly, if you will, but he must move all the time. Remind him, too, that he is risking the one great chance of his life!"
"He is to be Premier, then?" she asked.
"Yes! There is no alternative!"
"Very well, then," she said, "I will go. I make no promises, mind. I will listen to what he has to say. I will put our view of the situation before him. But I make no promises. It is possible, even, that I shall come to his point of view, whatever it may be."
Borrowdean smiled.
"I have no fear of that," he declared, "but at least it would be something to know what this point of view is. You will find him in a queer mood. That little fool of a niece of his has been getting in with a fast set, and making the money fly. You have heard of her last escapade at Bristow?"
Berenice nodded.
"Yes," she said. "I went there this morning directly I had your note. I feel rather self-reproachful about Clara Mannering. I meant to have looked after her more. She is rather an uninteresting young woman, though, and I am afraid I have let her drift away."
"She will be all right with a little looking after," Borrowdean said. "Forgive me, but it is getting late."
"I will go at once," she said.
Afterwards she wondered often at that strange, uncertain fluttering of the heart, the rush and glow of feelings warmer than any which had lately stirred her, which seemed in those first few minutes of their being together, to make an altered woman of her. Mannering, as he entered the room, pale and listless, was conscious at once of a foreign element in it, something which stirred his somewhat slow-beating pulse, too, which seemed to bring back to him a flood of delicious memories, the perfume of his rose-gardens at evening, the soft night music of his wind-stirred cedars. She had thrown aside her opera cloak. The delicate lines of her bust seemed to have expanded with the unusual rise and fall of her bosom. A faint rose-tint flush of streaming colour had stained the ivory whiteness of her skin—her eyes as they sought his were soft, almost liquid. They met so seldom alone—and she was alone now with him in the room which was so characteristically his own, a room with many indications of his constant presence, which one by one she had been realizing with curiously quickened pulses during the few minutes of waiting. On her way here, driving in an open victoria, through the soft summer evening, she had seemed to be pursued everywhere by a new world of sensuous suggestions. Of the many carriages which she had passed, hers alone seemed to savour of loneliness. She was the only beautiful woman who sat alone and companionless. In a momentary block she had seen a man in a neighbouring hansom slip his hand, a strong, brown, well-looking hand, under the apron, to hold for a moment the fingers of the woman who sat by his side—Berenice had caught the answering smile, she had seen him lean forward and whisper something which had brought a deeper flush into her own cheeks and a look into her eyes, half amused, half tender. These were rare moments with her, these moments of sentiment—perhaps for that reason all the more dangerous. She forgot almost the cause of her coming. She remembered only that she was alone with the one man whose voice had the power to thrill her, whose touch would call up into life the great hidden forces of her own passionate nature. The memory of all other things passed away from her like a cloud gone from the face of the sun. She leaned towards him. His face was full of wonder—wonder, and the coming joy.
"Berenice!" he exclaimed.
She let herself drift down the surging tide of this suddenly awakened passion. She held out her arms and pressed her lips on his as he caught her.
Presently she pushed him gently away—held him there at arm's length.
"This is too absurd," she murmured, and drew him once more towards her with a choking little laugh. "I came for something quite different!"
"What does it matter what you came for, so long as you stay," he answered. "Say that you came to bring a glimpse of paradise to a lonely man!"
She disengaged herself, and her long white fingers strayed mechanically to her tumbled hair. The elegant precision of her toilette had given place to a most distracting disarray. She felt her cheeks burning still, and the lace at her bosom was all crushed.
"And I was on my way to a dinner party," she whispered, with humorously uplifted eyebrows. "I must drive back home, and—and—"
"And what?" he demanded.
"And send an excuse," she declared, demurely. "I am not equal to a family dinner party."
"And afterwards?"
She smiled.
"Would you like," she asked, "to take me out to dinner?"
"Would I like!"
"Go and change, and call for me in half an hour. We can go somewhere where we are not likely to be seen," she said, softly. "I must cover myself up in my cloak. Whatever will Perkins say? Please remember that I have no hat."
He held her hands and looked into her eyes.
"Don't go for one moment," he pleaded. "I want to realize it. I want to feel sure of you."
The gravity of his manner was for a moment reflected in her tone.
"I think," she said, "that you may feel sure. There are things which we may have to say to one another—presently—but—"
He stooped and kissed her fingers.
He was shown into her own little boudoir by a smiling maid-servant, who seemed already to treat him with an especial consideration. The wonder of this thing was still lying like a thrall upon him, and yet he knew that the joy of life was burning once more in his veins. He caught sight of himself in a mirror, and he was amazed. The careworn look had gone from his eyes, the sallowness from his complexion. His step was elastic, he felt the firm, quick beat of his heart, even his pulses seem to throb to a new and a wonderful tune. These moments whilst he waited for her were a joy to him. The atmosphere was fragrant with the perfume of her favourite roses, a book lay upon the little inlaid table face downwards as she had left it. There was a delicately engraved etching upon the wall, which he recognized as her work; the watercolours, all of a French school which he had often praised, were of her choosing. Perfect though the room was in colouring and detail, there was yet a habitable, almost a homely, air about it. Mannering moved about amidst her treasures like a man in a dream, only it was a dream of loneliness gone forever, of a grey life suddenly coloured and transformed. It was wonderful.
Then the soft swish of a skirt, and she came in. She had changed her gown. She wore white lace, with a string of pearls about her neck. He looked eagerly into her face, and a great relief took the place of that single instant of haunting fear. The change was still there. It was not the great lady who swept in, but the woman who has found an answer to the one question of life, a little tremulous still, a little less self-assured. She looked at him almost appealingly. A delicate tinge of colour lingered in her cheeks. He moved quickly forward to meet her.
"Dear!" she murmured.
He raised her hand to his lips. He was satisfied.
"You see what my new-born vanity has led to," she declared, smilingly. "I have had to keep you waiting whilst I changed my gown. I hope you like me in white."
"You are adorable," he declared.
She laughed.
"I wonder," she said, "would you mind dining here alone with me? It will be quite a scratch meal, but I thought that it would be cosier than a restaurant, and afterwards—we could come in here and talk."
"I should like it better than anything in the world," he declared, truthfully.
"You may take me in, then," she said. "I hope that you are as hungry as I am. No, not that way. I have ordered dinner to be served in the little room where I dine when I am alone."
To Mannering there seemed something almost unreal about the chaste perfection of the meal and its wonderful service. They dined at a small round table, so small that more than once their fingers touched upon the tablecloth. A single servant waited upon them, swiftly and perfectly. The butler appeared only with the wine, which he served, and quietly withdrew. Across the tangled mass of flowers, only a few feet away all the time, sat the woman who had suddenly made the world so beautiful to him. A murmur of conversation continually flowed between them, but he was never very sure what they were talking about. He wanted to sit still, to feast his eyes, all his senses, upon her, to strive to realize this new thing, that from henceforth she was his! And then suddenly she broke the spell. She leaned back in her chair and laughed softly.
"I have just remembered," she said, in response to his inquiring look, "why I came to call upon you this evening. What a long time ago it seems."
He smiled.
"And I never thought to ask you," he remarked.
"We must have no secrets now," she said, with a delightful smile. "Leslie Borrowdean came to see me this afternoon, and he was very anxious about you. He declared that you wanted to postpone your great meetings in the North until after you had made some independent investigations in some of the manufacturing centres. Poor Sir Leslie! You had frightened him so completely that he was scarcely coherent."
Mannering smiled a little gravely. It was like coming back to earth.
"Politics with Borrowdean are so much a matter of pounds, shillings and pence that the bare idea of his finding himself a day further away from office frightens him to death," he said. "We are all like the pawns, to be moved about the chessboard of his life."
Berenice smiled.
"He is certainly a very self-centred person," she remarked; "but do you know, I am really a little curious to know how you succeeded in frightening him so thoroughly."
"I had a fright myself," Mannering said. "I was made to feel for an hour or so like a Rip van Winkle with the cobwebs hanging about me—Rip van Winkle looking out upon a new world!"
"You a Rip van Winkle!" she laughed. "What was it that man who wrote in theNineteenth Centurycalled you last week? 'The most precise and far-seeing of our politicians.'"
"The men who write in reviews," he murmured, "sometimes display the most appalling ignorance. There was also some one in theSaturday Reviewwho alluded to me last week as a library politician. My friend quoted that against me. 'A man who essays to govern a people he knows nothing of.' It was one of the labour party who wrote it, I know, but it sticks."
"You are not losing confidence in yourself, surely?" she remarked, smiling.
"My views are unchanged, if that is what you mean," he answered. "I believe I know what is good for the people, and when I am sure of it I shall not be afraid to take up the gauntlet. But I must be quite sure."
"You puzzle me a little," she admitted. "Has any one written more convincingly than you? Arguments which are founded upon logic and statistics must yield truth, and you have set it down in black and white."
"On the other hand," he said, "my unlearned but eloquent friend dismissed all statistics, all the science of argument and deduction, with the wave of a not too scrupulously clean hand. 'Figures,' he said, 'are dead things. They are the playthings of the charlatan politician, who, by a sort of mental sleight of hand, can make them perform the most wonderful antics. If you desire the truth, seek it from live things. If you desire really to call yourself the champion of the people, come and see for yourself how they are faring. Figures will not feed them, nor statistics keep them from the great despair. Come and let me show you the sinews of the country, whether they are sound or rotten. You cannot see them through your library walls. It is only the echo of their voice which you hear so far off. If you would really be the people's man, come and learn something of the people from their own lips.' This is what my friend said to me."
"And who," she asked, "was this prophet who came to you and talked like this?"
"A retired bookmaker," he answered. "I will tell you of our meeting."
She listened gravely. After he had finished there was a short silence. The dessert was on the table, and they were alone. Berenice was looking thoughtful.
"Tell me," he begged, "exactly what that wrinkled forehead means?"
"I was wondering," she said, "whether Sir Leslie was right, when he said that you had too much conscience ever to be a great politician."
"It mirrors Borrowdean's outlook upon politics precisely," he remarked.
She smiled at him with a sudden radiance. She had risen to her feet, and with a quick, graceful movement leaned over him. This new womanliness which he had found so irresistible was alight once more in her face. Her eyes sought his fondly, she touched his lips with hers. The perfume of her clothes, the touch of her hair upon his cheek, were like a drug. He had no more words.
"You may have one peach and one glass of the Prince's Burgundy, and then you must come and look for me," she said. "We have wasted too much time talking of other things. You haven't even told me yet what I have a right to hear, you know. I want to be told that you care for me better than anything else in the world."
He caught her hands. There was a rare passion vibrating in his tone.
"You do not doubt it, Berenice?"
"Perhaps not," she answered, "but I want to be told. I am a middle-aged woman, you know, Lawrence, but I want to be made love to as though I were a silly girl! Isn't that foolish? But you must do it," she whispered, with her lips very close to his.
He drew her into his arms.
"I am not at all sure," he said, "that I have enough courage to make love to a Duchess!"
"Then you can remember only that I am a woman," she whispered, "very, very, very much a woman, and—I'm afraid—a woman shockingly in love!"
She disengaged herself suddenly, and was at the door before he could reach it. She looked back. Her cheeks were flushed. There was even a faint tinge of pink underneath the creamy white of her slender, stately neck.
"Don't dare," she said, "to be more than five minutes!"
Mannering poured himself out a glass of wine, and sat quite still with his head between his hands. He wanted to realize this thing if he could. The grinding of the great wheels fell no more upon his ears. He looked into a new world, so different from the old that he was almost afraid.
And in her room, Berenice waited for him impatiently.
There was a somewhat unusual alertness in Borrowdean's manner as he passed out from the little house in Sloane Gardens and summoned a passing hansom. He drove to the corner of Hyde Park, and dismissing the cab strolled along the broad walk.
The many acquaintances whom he passed and repassed he greeted with a certain amount of abstraction. All the time he kept his eyes upon the road. He was waiting to catch sight of some familiar liveries. When at last they came he contrived to stop the carriage and hastily threaded his way to the side of the barouche.
Berenice was looking radiantly beautiful. The exquisite simplicity of her white muslin gown and large hat of black feathers, the slight flush with which she received him, as though she carried about with her a secret which she expected every one to read, the extinction of that air of listlessness which had robbed her for some time of a certain share of her good looks—of all these things Borrowdean made quick note. His face grew graver as he accepted her not very enthusiastic invitation and occupied the back seat of the carriage. For the first time he admitted to himself the possibility of failure in his carefully laid plans. He recognized the fact, that there were forces at work against which he had no weapon ready. He had believed that Berenice was attracted by Mannering's personality and genius. He had never seriously considered the question of her feelings becoming more deeply involved. So many men had paid vain court to her. She had a wonderful reputation for inaccessibility. And yet he remembered her manner when he had paid his first unexpected visit to Blakely. It should have been a lesson to him. How far had the mischief gone, he wondered!
"So Mannering has gone North," he remarked, noticing that she avoided the subject.
She nodded. Her parasol drooped a little his way, and he wondered whether it was because she desired her face hidden.
"You saw him?"
"Yes," she answered. "He explained how he felt to me."
"And you could not dissuade him?"
"I did not try," she answered, simply. "Lawrence Mannering is not a man of ordinary disposition, you know. He had come to the conclusion that it was right for him to go, and opposition would only have made him the more determined. I cannot see that there is any harm likely to come of it."
"I am not so sure of that," Borrowdean answered, seriously. "Mannering isau fonda man of sentiment. There is no clearer thinker or speaker when his judgment is unbiassed, but on the other hand, the man's nature is sensitive and complex. He has a sort of maudlin self-consciousness which is as dangerous a thing as the nonconformist conscience. Heaven knows into whose hands he may fall up there."
"He is going incognito," she remarked.
"He is not the sort of man to escape notice," Borrowdean answered. "He will be discovered for certain. Of course, if it comes off all right, the whole thing will be a feather in his cap. But when I think how much we are dependent upon him, I don't like the risk."
"You are sure," she remarked, thoughtfully, "that you do not over-rate—"
"Mannering himself, perhaps," Borrowdean interrupted. "There is no man whose personal place cannot be filled. But one thing is very certain. Mannering is the only man who unites both sides of our scattered party, the only man under whom Fergusson and Johns would both serve. You know quite well the curse which has rested upon us. We have become a party of units, and our whole effectiveness is destroyed. We want welding into one entity. A single session, a single year of office, and the thing would be done. We who do the mechanical work would see that there was no breaking away again. But we must have that year, we must have Mannering. That is why I watch him like a child, and I must say that he has given me a good deal of anxiety lately."
"In what way?" she asked.
Borrowdean hesitated. He seemed uncertain how to answer.
"If I explain what I mean," he said, "you will understand that I do not speak to you as a woman and an acquaintance of Mannering's, but simply as one of ourselves. Mannering's private life is, of course, interesting to me only as an index to his political destiny, and my acquaintance with it arises solely from my political interest in him. There are things in connection with it which I feel that I shall never properly be able to understand."
She looked at him steadily. Her cheeks were a little whiter, but her tone was deliberate.
"I do not wish to hear anything about Mr. Mannering's private life," she said. "You will understand that I am not free or disposed to listen when I tell you that I am going to marry him."
This was perhaps the worst blow Borrowdean had ever experienced in the course of his whole life. The possibility of this was a danger which he had recognized might some time have to be reckoned with, but for the present he had felt safe enough. He was taken so completely aback that for a few moments his mind was a blank. He remained silent.
"You do not offer me the conventional wishes," she remarked, presently.
"They go—from me to you—as a matter of course," he answered. "To tell you the truth, I never thought of Mannering, for many reasons, as a marrying man."
"You will have to readjust your views of him," she said, quietly, "for I think that we shall be married very soon."
Borrowdean was a little white, and his teeth had come together. Whatever happened, he told himself, fiercely, this must never be. He felt his breast-pocket mechanically. Yes, the letter was there. Dare he risk it? She was a proud woman, she would be unforgiving if once she believed. But supposing she found him out? He temporized.
"Thank you for telling me," he said. "Do you mind putting me down here?"
"Why? You seemed in no hurry a few minutes ago."
"The world," he said, "was a different place then."
She looked at him searchingly.
"You had better tell me all about it," she remarked. "You have something on your mind, something which you are half disposed to tell me, a little more than half, I think. Go on."
He looked at her as one might look at the magician who has achieved the apparently impossible.
"You are wonderful," he said. "Yes, I will tell you my dilemma, if you like. I have just come from Sloane Gardens!"
Her face changed instantly. It was as though a mask had been dropped over it. Her eyes were fixed, her features expressionless.
"Well?" she said, simply.
He drew a letter from his pocket.
"You may as well see it yourself," he remarked. "For reasons which you may doubtless understand, I have always kept on good terms with Mrs. Phillimore, and she was to have dined with me and some other friends to-morrow night. Here is a note which I had from her yesterday. Will you read it?"
Berenice held it between her finger tips. There were only a few lines, and she read them at a glance.
Sloane Gardens,Tuesday.My dear Sir Leslie,I am so sorry, but I must scratch for to-morrow night. L. is going North on some mysterious expedition, and I am afraid that he will want me to go with him. In fact, he has already said so. Ask me again some time, won't you?Yours ever,Blanche Phillimore.
Sloane Gardens,Tuesday.
My dear Sir Leslie,
I am so sorry, but I must scratch for to-morrow night. L. is going North on some mysterious expedition, and I am afraid that he will want me to go with him. In fact, he has already said so. Ask me again some time, won't you?
Yours ever,Blanche Phillimore.
Yours ever,Blanche Phillimore.
Berenice folded up the letter and returned it.
"It is a little extraordinary," she remarked. "I am much obliged to you for showing me this. If you do not mind, we will talk of something else. Look, there is Clara Mannering alone under the trees. Go and talk to her."
Berenice touched the checkstring, and Borrowdean was forced to depart. She smiled upon him graciously enough, but she spoke not another word about Mannering. Borrowdean was obliged to leave her without knowing whether he had lost or gained the trick.
Clara Mannering received him not altogether graciously. As a matter of fact, she was looking for some one else. They strolled along, talking almost in monosyllables. Borrowdean found time to notice the change which even these few months in London had wrought in her. She was still graceful in her movements, but a smart dressmaker had contrived to make her a perfect reproduction of the recognized type of the moment. She had lost her delicate colouring. There was a certain hardness in her young face, a certain pallor and listlessness in her movements which Borrowdean did not fail to note. He tried to lead the conversation into more personal channels.
"We seem to have met very little during the last month," he said. "I have scarcely had an opportunity to ask you whether you find the life here as pleasant as you hoped, whether it has realized your expectations."
"Does anything ever do that?" she asked, a little flippantly. "It is different, of course. I do not think that I should be willing to go back to Blakely, at any rate."
"You have made a great many friends," he remarked. "I hear of you continually."
"A host of acquaintances," she remarked. "I do not think that I have materially increased the circle of my friends. I hear of you too, Sir Leslie, very often. It seems that people give you a good deal of credit for inducing my uncle to come back into politics."
"I certainly did my best to persuade him," Sir Leslie answered, smoothly. "If I had known how much anxiety he was going to cause us I might perhaps have been a little less keen."
"Anxiety!" she repeated.
"Yes! Do you know where he is now?"
"I have no idea," Clara answered. "All that I do know is that he has gone away for three weeks, and that I am going to stay with the Duchess till he comes back. It is very nice of her, and all that, of course, but I feel rather as though I were going into prison. The Duchess isn't exactly the modern sort of chaperon."
Borrowdean nodded sympathetically.
"And consider my anxiety," he remarked. "Your uncle has gone North to consider the true position of the labouring classes. Now Mr. Mannering is a brilliant politician and a sound thinker, but he is also a man of sentiment. They will drug him with it up there. He will probably come back with half a dozen new schemes, and we don't want them, you know. He ought to be speaking at Glasgow and Leeds this week. He simply ignores his responsibilities. He yields to a sudden whim and leaves usplantes la."
She seemed scarcely to have heard the conclusion of his sentence. Her attention was fixed upon a group of men who were talking near.
"Do you know—isn't that Major Bristow?" she asked Borrowdean, abruptly.
Borrowdean put up his glass.
"Looks like him," he admitted.
"I should be so much obliged," she said, "if you would tell him that I wish to see him. I have a message for his sister," she concluded, a little lamely.
Borrowdean did as he was asked. He noticed the slight impatience of the man as he delivered his message, and the flush with which she greeted him. Then, with a little shrug of the shoulders, he pursued his way.
She swept into the room, humming a light opera tune, bringing with her the usual flood of perfumes, suggestion of cosmetics, a vivid apparition of the artificial. Her skirts rustled aggressively, her voice was just one degree too loud. Mannering rose to his feet a little wearily.
She looked at him with raised eyebrows.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed. "What have you been doing with yourself, Lawrence? You look like a ghost!"
"I am quite well," he answered, calmly.
"Then you don't look it," she answered, bluntly. "Where have you been for the last few weeks?"
"Up in the North," he answered. "It was very hot, and I had a great deal to do. I suppose I am suffering, like the rest of us, from a little overwork."
She spread herself out in a chair opposite to him.
"Don't stand," she said; "you fidget me. I have something to say to you."
"So I gathered from your note," he remarked.
"You haven't hurried."
"I only got back to London last night," he answered. "I could scarcely come sooner, could I?"
"I suppose not," she admitted.
Then for a moment or two she was silent. She was watching him a little curiously.
"Is this true?" she asked, "this rumour?"
"Won't you be a little more explicit?" he begged.
"They say that you are going to marry the Duchess of Lenchester!"
"It is true," he answered.
She leaned forward. Her clasped hands rested upon her knee. She seemed to be examining the tip of her patent shoe. Suddenly she looked up at him.
"You ought to have come and told me yourself!" she said.
"I had no opportunity," he reminded her. "I left London the morning after—it happened—and I returned last night."
"Political business?" she asked.
"Entirely."
"Lawrence," she said, "I don't like it."
"Why not?" he asked. "Has mine been such a successful life, do you think, that you need grudge me a little happiness towards its close?"
"Bosh!" she answered. "You are only forty-six. You are a young man still."
"I had forgotten my years," he declared. "I only know that I am tired."
"You look it," she remarked. "I must say that there is very little of the triumphant suitor about you. You work too hard, Lawrence."
"If I do," he asked, with a note of fierceness in his tone, "whose fault is it? I was almost happy at Blakely. I had almost learned to forget. It was you who dragged me out again. You were not satisfied with half of my income; you were always in debt, always wanting more money. Then Borrowdean made use of you. He wanted me back into politics, you wanted more money for your follies and extravagances. Back I had to come into harness. Blanche, I've tried to do my duty to you, but there is a limit. I owed you a comfortable place in life, and I have tried to see that you have it. I have never refused anything you have asked me, I have never mentioned the sacrifices which I have been forced to make. But there is a limit. I draw it here. I will not suffer any interference between the Duchess of Lenchester and myself!"
Blanche Phillimore rose slowly to her feet. He was used to her fits of passion, but there was no sign of anything of the sort in her face. She was agitated, but in some new way. Her words were an attack, but her manner suggested rather an appeal. Her large, fine eyes, her one perfectly natural feature, were soft and luminous. They seemed somehow to transfigure her face. To him it seemed like the foolish, handsome woman of fifteen years ago who had suddenly come to life again.
"You owed me—a comfortable place in life, Lawrence! Thank—you. You have paid the debt very well. You owed me—a respectable guardianship; you paid that, too. Thank you again. Now tell me, do you owe me nothing else?"
"I owed you one debt," he said, gravely, "which neither I nor any other man who incurs it can ever discharge."
"I am glad you realize it," she answered. "But have you ever tried to discharge it? You have given me a home and money to throw away on any folly which could kill thought. What about the rest?"
"Blanche," he said, gravely, "the rest was impossible! You know that as well as I do."
"It is fifteen years ago, Lawrence," she said, "and all that time we have fenced with our words. Now I am going to speak a little more plainly. You robbed me of my husband. The fault may not have been wholly yours, but the fact remains. You struck him, and he died. I was left alone!"
Mannering's face was ashen. The whole horrible scene was rising up again before him. He covered his face with his hands. It was more distinct than ever. He saw the man's flushed face, heard his stream of abuse, felt the sting of his blow, the hot anger with which he had struck back. Then those few awful moments of suspense, the moment afterwards when they had looked at one another. He shivered! Why had she let loose this flood of memories? She was speaking to him again.
"I was left alone," she repeated, quietly, "and I have been alone ever since. You don't know much about women, Lawrence. You never did! Try and realize, though, what that must mean to a woman like myself, not strong, not clever, with very few resources—just a woman. I cared for my husband, I suppose, in an average sort of way. At any rate he loved me. Then—there was you. Oh, you never made love to me, of course. You were not the sort of man to make love to another man's wife. But you used to show that you liked to be with me, Lawrence. Your voice and your eyes and your whole manner used to tell me that. Then there came—that hideous day! I lost you both. What have I had since, Lawrence?"
"Very little, I am afraid, worth having."
"'Very little—worth having'!" She flung the words from her with passionate scorn. "I had your alms, your cold, hurried visits, when you seemed to shiver if our fingers touched. It would have seemed to you, I suppose, a terrible sin to have touched the lips of the woman whom you had helped to rob of her husband, to have spoken kindly to her, to have given her at least a little affection to warm her heart. Poor me! What a hell you made of my days, with your selfish model life, your panderings to conscience. I didn't want much, you know, Lawrence," she said, with a sudden choking in her voice. "I would never have robbed you of your peace of mind. All I wanted was kindness. And I think, Lawrence, that it was a debt, but you never paid it."
Mannering had a moment of self-revelation, a terrible, lurid moment. Every word that she had said was true.
"You have never spoken to me like this before," he reminded her, desperately. "I never knew that you cared."
"Don't lie!" she answered, calmly. "You turned your head away that you might not see. In your heart you knew very well. What else, do you think, made me, a very ordinary, nervous sort of woman, get you out of the house that day, tell my story, the story that shielded you, without faltering, put even the words into your own mouth? It was because I was fool enough to care! And oh, my God, how you have tortured me since! You would sit there, coldly censorious, and reason with me about my friends, my manner of life. I knew what you thought. You didn't hide it very well. Lawrence, I wonder I didn't kill you!"
"I wish that you had," he said, bitterly.
She nodded.
"Oh, I know how you are feeling just now," she said. "Truth strikes home, you know, and it hurts just a little, doesn't it? In a few days your admirable common sense will prevail. You will say to yourself: 'She was that sort of woman, she had that sort of disposition, she was bound to go to the dogs, anyway!' So you are going to marry the Duchess of Lenchester, Lawrence!"
He stood up.
"Blanche," he said, "that was all a mistake. I didn't understand. Let us forget that day altogether. Marry me now, and I will try to make up for these past years."
She stared at him blankly. The colour in her cheek was like a lurid patch under the pallor of her skin. She gave a little gasp, and her hand went to her side. Then she laughed hardly, almost offensively.
"What a man of sentiment," she declared. "After fifteen years, too, and only just engaged to another woman! No, thank you, my dear Lawrence. I've lived my life, such as it has been. I'm not so very old, but I look fifty, and I've vices enough to blacken an entire neighbourhood. Fancy, if people saw me, and heard that you might have married the Duchess of Lenchester. They'd hint at an asylum."
"Never mind about other people," he said. "Give me a chance, Blanche, to show that I'm not such an absolute brute."
"Rubbish," she interrupted. "Fifteen years ago I would have married you. In fact, I expected to. The reason why I found the courage to shield you from any unpleasantness that awful day was because I knew if trouble came and there was any scandal you would feel yourself obliged to marry me, and I wanted you to marry me—because you wanted to. What an idiot I was! Now, please go away, Lawrence. Marry the Duchess, if you like, but don't worry me with your re-awakened conscience. I'm going my own way for the rest of my few years, and the less I see of you the better I shall be pleased. You will forgive me—but I have an engagement—down the river! I really must hurry you off."
Her teeth were set close together, the sobs seemed tangled in her throat. It seemed to her that all the longing in her life was concentrated in that one passionate desire, that he should seize her in his arms now, hold her there—tell her that it had all been a mistake, that the ugly times were dreams, that after all he had cared—a little! The room swam round with her, but she pointed smilingly to the door, which her trim parlour-maid was holding open. And Mannering went.
Mannering left by the afternoon train for Hampshire, where he was to be the guest for a few days of the leader of his party. He arrived without sending word of his coming, to find the whole of the house party absent at a cricket match. The short respite was altogether welcome to him. He changed his clothes and wandered off into the gardens. Here an hour or so later Berenice's maid found him.
"Her Grace would like to see you, sir, if you would come to her sitting-room," the girl said, with a demure smile.
Mannering, with something of an inward groan, followed her. Berenice, very slim and stately in her simple white muslin gown, rose from the couch as he entered, and held out her hands.
"At last," she murmured. "You provoking man, to stay away so long. And what have you been doing with yourself?"
Her sentence concluded with a little note of dismay. Mannering was positively haggard in the clear afternoon light. There were lines underneath his eyes, and his face had a tense, drawn appearance. He did not kiss her, as she had more than half expected. He held her hands for a moment, and then sank down upon the couch by her side.
"It was not exactly easy work—up there," he said.
She noticed the repression.
"Tell me all about it," she begged.
His thoughts surged back to those three weeks of tragedy. His personal misery became for the moment a shadowy thing. The sorrows of one man, what were they to the breaking hearts of millions? He thought of the children, and he shuddered.
"It isn't so much to tell," he said. "I have been to a dozen or so of the largest towns in the North, and have taken the manufacturers one by one. I have taken their wage sheets and compared them with past years. The result was always the same. Less money distributed amongst more people. Afterwards we went amongst the people themselves—to see how they lived. It was like a chapter from the inferno—an epic of loathsome tragedy. I have seen the children, Berenice, and God help the next generation."
"You must not forget, Lawrence," she said, "that character is an essential factor in poverty. Poverty there must always be, because of the idle and shiftless."
"Individual poverty, yes," he answered. "Not wholesale poverty, not streets of it, towns of it. I don't talk about starving people, although I saw them too. Our vicious charitable system may keep their cry from our ears, but my sympathies go out to the man who ought to be earning two pounds a week, and who is earning fifteen shillings; the man who used to have his bit of garden, and smoke, and Sunday clothes, and a day or so's holiday now and then. He was a contented, decent, God-fearing citizen, the backbone of the whole nation, and he has been blotted away from the face of the earth. They work now passively, like dumb brutes, to resist starvation, and human character isn't strong enough for such a strain. The public houses thrive, and the pawnshops are full. But the children haven't enough to eat. They are growing up lank, white, prematurely aged, the spectres to dance us statesmen down into hell."
"You are overwrought, dear," she said, gently. "You have been in the hands of a man whose object it was to show you only one side of all this."
"I have sought for the truth," Mannering answered, "and I have seen it. I have learned more in three weeks than all the Commissions and statistics and Board-of-Trade figures have taught me in five years."
"And yet," she said, thoughtfully, "you hesitated about that last Navy vote. Don't you see that the imperialism which you are a little disposed to shrug your shoulders at is the most logical and complete cure for all this? We must extend and maintain our colonies, and people them with our surplus population."
He shook his head.
"That is not a policy which would ever appeal to me," he answered. "It is like an external operation to remove a malady which is of internal origin. Either our social laws or our political systems are at fault when our trade leaves us, and our labouring classes are unable to earn a fair wage. That is the position we are in to-day."
She rose to her feet, and walked restlessly up and down the room. Mannering had the look of a crushed man. She watched him critically. Writers in magazines and reviews had often made a study of his character. She remembered a brilliant contributor to a recent review, who had dwelt upon a certain lack of cohesion in his constitution, an inability to relegate sentiment to its proper place in dealing with the great workaday problems of the world. Conscientious, but never to be trusted, was the last anomalous but luminous criticism. Was this frame of mind of his a sign of it, she wondered? His place in politics was fixed and sure. What right had he, as a man of principle, with a great following, to run even the risk of being led away by false prophets? A certain hardness stole into her face as she watched him. She tried to steel herself against the sight of his suffering, and though she was not wholly successful, there was a distinct change in her tone and attitude towards him as she resumed her seat.
"Tell me," she asked, "what this means from a practical point of view? How will it effect your plans?"
"I must give up my public meetings," he answered, slowly. "I have written to Manningham to tell him that he must get some one else to lead the campaign."
Berenice was very pale. So many of these wonderful dreams of hers seemed vanishing into thin air.
"This is a terrible blow," she said. "It is the worst thing which has happened to us for years. Are you going over to the other side, Lawrence?"
He shook his head.
"I can't do that altogether," he said. "The position is simply this: I am still, so far as my judgment and research go, opposed to tariff reform. On the other hand, I dare not take any leading part in fighting any scheme which has the barest chance of bringing better times to the working classes. I simply stand apart for the moment on this question."
She laughed a little bitterly.
"There is no other question," she said. "You will never be allowed to remain neutral. You appear to me to be in a very singular position. You are divided between sentiment and conviction, and you prefer to yield to the former. Lawrence, do not be hasty! Think of all that depends upon your judgment in this matter. From the very first you have been the bitterest and most formidable opponent of this absurd scheme. If you turn round you will unsettle public opinion throughout the country. Remember, the power of the statesman is almost a sacred charge."
"I am remembering," he murmured, "those children. I am bound to think this matter out, Berenice. I am going to meet Graham and Mellors next week. I shall not rest until I have made some effort to put my hand upon the weak spot. Somewhere there is a rotten place. I want to reach it."
"Do you mean to give up your seat?" she asked.
"Not unless I am asked to," he answered. "I may need to work from there."
She sighed.
"I suppose your mind is quite made up," she said.
"Absolutely," he answered.
Her maid came in just then, and Mannering offered to withdraw. She made no effort to detain him, and he went at once in search of his host and hostess. He found every one assembled in the hall below. Lord Redford, Borrowdean, and the chief whip of his party were talking together in a corner, and from their significant look at his approach, he felt sure that he himself had been the subject of their conversation. The situation was more than a little awkward. Lord Redford stepped forward and welcomed him cordially.
"I'm afraid you've been knocking yourself up, Mannering," he said. "I've just been proposing to Culthorpe here that we bar politics completely for twenty-four hours. We'll leave the dinner table with the ladies, and you and I will play golf to-morrow. I've had Taylor down here, and I can assure you that my links are worth playing over now. Then on Thursday we'll have a conference."
"I was scarcely sure," Mannering said, with a slight smile, "whether I should be expected to stay until then. Sir Leslie has told you of my telegrams?"
"Yes, yes," Lord Redford said, quickly. "We've postponed the meetings for the present. We'll talk that all out later on. You've had some tea, I hope? No? Well, Eleanor, you are a nice hostess," he added, turning to his wife. "Give Mr. Mannering some tea at once, and feed him up with hot cakes. Come into the billiard-room afterwards, Mannering, will you? I've got a new table in the winter-garden, and we're going to have a pool before dinner."
Berenice came in and laid her hand upon her host's arm.
"You need not worry about Mr. Mannering," she declared. "He is going to have tea with me at that little table, and I am going to take him for a walk in the park afterwards."
"So long as you feed him well," Lord Redford declared, with a little laugh, "and turn up in good time for dinner, you may do what you like. If you take my advice, Berenice, you will join our league. We have pledged ourselves not to utter a word of shop for twenty-four hours."
"I submit willingly," Berenice answered. "Mr. Mannering and I will find something else to talk about."