Maraton led the way on to the roof of one of London's newer hotels.
"They won't give us dinner here," he explained. "London isn't civilised enough for that yet, or perhaps it's a matter of climate. But we can get all sorts of things to eat, and some wine, and sit and watch the lights come out. I was here the other night alone and I thought it the most restful spot in London."
He called a waiter and had a table drawn up to the palisaded edge of the roof. Then he slipped something into the man's hand, and there seemed to be no difficulty about serving them with anything they required.
"A salad, some sandwiches, a bottle of hock and plenty of strawberries. We shan't starve, at any rate," Maraton declared. "Lean back in your chairs, you children of the city, lean down and look at your mother. Look at her smoke-hung arms, stretched out as though to gather in the universe; and the lights upon her bosom—see how they come twinkling into existence."
Both of them followed his outstretched finger with their eyes, but Julia only shivered.
"I hate it," she muttered, "hate it all! London seems to me like a great, rapacious monster. Our bodies and souls are sacrificed over there. For what? I was in Piccadilly and the parks to-day. Is there any justice in the world, I wonder? It's just as though there were a kink in the great wheels and they weren't running true."
"Sometimes I think," Maraton declared, "that the matter would right itself automatically but for the interference of weak people. The laws of life are tampered with so often by people without understanding. They keep alive the unworthy. They try to make life easier for the unfit. They endow hospitals and build model dwellings. It's a sop to their consciences. It's like planting a flower on the grave of the man you have murdered."
"But these things help," Aaron protested.
"Help? They retard," Maraton insisted. "All charity is the most vicious form of self-indulgence. Can't you see that if the poor died in the street and the sick were left to crawl about the face of the earth, the whole business would right itself automatically. The unfit would die out. A stronger generation would arise, a generation stronger and better able to look after itself. But come, we have been serious long enough. You are tired with your day's work, Miss Julia, and Aaron, too. I've been in the committee room of the House of Commons half the day, and my head's addled with figures. Here comes our supper. Let us drop the more serious things of life. We'll try and put a little colour into your cheeks, young lady."
He served them both and filled their glasses with wine. Then, as he ate, he leaned back in his chair and watched them. For all her strange beauty, Julia, too, was one of the suffering children of the world. The lines of her figure, which should have been so subtle and fascinating, were sharpened by an unnatural thinness. Aaron's cheeks were almost like a consumptive's, his physique was puny. There was something in their expression common to both. Maraton was conscious of a wave of pity as he withdrew his eyes.
"Sometimes," he said, "I feel almost angry with you two. You carry on your shoulders the burden of other people's sufferings. It is well to feel and realise them, and the gift of sympathy is a beautiful thing, but our own individualism is also a sacred gift. It is not for us to weaken or destroy it by encouraging a superabundant sympathy for others. We each have our place in the world, whether we owe it to fate or our own efforts, and it is our duty to make the best of it. Our own happiness, indeed, is a present charge upon ourselves for the ultimate benefit of others. A happy person in the world does good always. You two have a leaning towards morbidness. If I had time, I would undertake your education. As it is, we will have another bottle of wine, and I shall take you to a music hall."
It was an evening that lived in Julia's mind with particular vividness for years to come, and yet one which she always found it difficult to piece together in her thoughts. They went to one of the less fashionable music halls, where the turns were frequent and there was no ballet. Aaron was very soon able to re-establish his temporarily lost capacity for enjoyment. Maraton, leaning back in his place with a cigar in his mouth, appreciated everything and applauded constantly. It was Julia who found the new atmosphere most difficult. She laughed often, it is true, but she had always a semi-subjective feeling, as though it were some other person who was really there, and she the instrument chosen to give physical indication of that other person's presence. Only once life seemed suddenly to thrill and burn in her veins, to shoot through her body with startling significance, and in that brief space of time, life itself was transformed for her. Maraton by chance found her hand, as they sat side by side, and held it for a moment in his. There was nothing secret about his action. The firm pressure of his fingers, even, seemed as though they might have been the kindly, encouraging touch of a sympathetic friend. But upon Julia his touch was magical. The rest of the evening faded into insignificance. She understood feelings which had come to her that afternoon in the park with absolute completeness for the first time. From that moment she took her place definitely amongst the women who walk through life but whose feet seldom touch the earth.
When the performance was over, Maraton called a taxicab.
"Aaron," he directed, "you must take your sister back to her lodgings. No, I insist," he added, as she protested. "No 'buses to-night. Go home and sleep well and think about yourself."
She shook her head.
"I will go home in a taxi," she agreed, "if you will do one thing for me. It won't take long. It has been in my mind ever since you said what you did about charity. I want us all to go down to the Embankment. It isn't late enough really, but I want you to come."
He sighed.
"You are incorrigible," he declared. "Never mind, we will go. How good the air is! We'll walk."
They turned along the Strand and descended the narrow street which led to the Embankment. Then they walked slowly as far as Blackfriars Bridge. They neither of them spoke a word. From time to time they glanced at the silent and motionless figures on the seats. For the most part, the loiterers there were either asleep or sitting with closed eyes. Here and there they caught a glance from some spectral face, a glance cold and listless. The fires of life were dead amongst these people. The animal desires alone remained; their faces were dumb.
They stood together at the corner of Blackfriars Bridge.
"Well," Maraton said, "I have done your bidding. I have been here before many times, and I have been here in the winter."
"Tell me," she asked, "there is a girl there on that third seat, crying. Am I doing wrong if I go to her and give her money for a night's lodging?"
"Without a doubt," he answered. "And yet, I expect you'll do it. Principles are splendid—in the abnegation. If we are to be illogical, let me be the breaker of my own laws."
He thrust some money into her hand and Julia disappeared. For some time she remained talking with the figure upon the seat. Aaron and Maraton leaned over the corner of the bridge and looked down the curving arc of lights towards the Houses of Parliament.
"I shall end there, you know, Aaron," Maraton sighed. "I am not looking forward to it. It's a queer sort of a hothouse for a man."
"I wonder," Aaron murmured thoughtfully. "I used to think of you travelling from one to the other of the great cities, and I used to think that when you had spoken to them, the people would see the truth and rise and take their own. I used to be very fond of the Old Testament once," he went on, his voice sinking a little lower. "Life was so simple in those days, and the words of a prophet seemed greater than any laws."
"And nowadays," Maraton continued, "life has become like a huge and complex piece of machinery. Humanity has given way to mechanics. Aaron, I don't believe I can help this people by any other way save by laws."
They both turned quickly around. Julia was standing by their side, and with her the girl.
"I told her," Julia explained, "that it was not my money I was offering, but the money of a gentleman who was the greatest friend the poor people of the world have ever known. She wanted to speak to you."
The girl drew her shawl a little closer around her shoulders. Her face bore upon it the terrible stamp of suffering, without its redeeming purification. Save for her abundant hair, her very sex would have been unrecognisable. She looked steadily at Maraton.
"You sent me money," she said.
"I did," he admitted.
"Are you one of those soft-hearted fools who go about doing this sort of thing?" she demanded.
"I am not," he replied. "I object to giving money away. I am sorry to see people suffering, but as a rule I think that it is their own fault if they come to the straits that you are in. I sent the money to please this young lady."
"Their own fault, eh?" she muttered.
"I qualify that," he added quickly. "Their own fault because they submit to a heritage of unjust laws. It is your own fault because you don't join together and smash the laws. You would fill the jails, perhaps, but you'd make it easier for those who came after."
She stood quite silent for a moment. When she spoke, the truculent note had departed from her tone.
"I came here," she said, "meaning to chuck this money in your face. I thought you were one of these canting hypocrites who salve their consciences by giving away what they don't want. My baby died this morning in the hospital, and they turned me out. If I keep your money, do you know what I shall do with it? Get drunk."
He nodded.
"Why not?"
She looked at him stolidly.
"When I've spent it, I shall go into the river. I'm not fit for anything else. I'm too weak to work, and for the rest, look at me. I'm as ugly as sin itself—just a few bones held together."
"Take the money and get drunk," Maraton advised. "You're quite right. There's no help for you. You've no spirit to help yourself. If you hang on to the crust of the world through charity, you only do the world harm. You're better out of it."
She gathered up the money and shivered a little.
"I'll drink yer health," she muttered, as she turned away.
Julia half started to follow her, but Maraton held her arm.
"Useless," he whispered. "She's one of the broken creatures of the world. Whilst you keep her alive, you spread corruption. She'll probably hang on to life until it gives her up."
He called a taxi.
"Now I am going to have my own way," he announced. "Aaron is going to take you home. I came here because you wished it, but it's very amateurish, you know, this sort of thing. It's on a par with district visiting and slumming, and all the rest of it. A disease in the body sometimes brings out scars. A doctor doesn't stare at the scars. He treats the body for the disease. Get these places out of your mind, Julia. They are only useful inasmuch as they remind us of the black truth."
He took her hands.
"Remember," he added, "that you've finished with the tailoring for a time. Aaron will want you to-morrow, or as soon as you can come. We've piles of work to do."
Her eyes shone at him.
"Work," she murmured, "but think of the difference! If it wasn't for what you've just said about individualism, I think that I should be feeling cruelly selfish."
"Rubbish!" he exclaimed. "You're secretary of the Women's Guild, aren't you? You can keep that up. I'll come and talk to your girls some day. Your work has been too narrow down there. There are some other women's industries I want you to enquire into. Till to-morrow!"
He strode vigorously away. The taxicab turned eastward over BlackfriarsBridge.
On the following morning, Maraton saw Elisabeth for the first time since his return from Manchester. As he rang the bell of Mr. Foley's residence in Downing Street, at a few minutes before the hour at which he had been bidden to luncheon, he found himself wondering with a leaven of resentment in his feelings why he had so persistently avoided the house during the last three weeks. All his consultations with Mr. Foley, and they had been many, had taken place at the House of Commons. He had refused endless invitations of a social character, and even when Mr. Foley had told him in plain words that his niece was anxious to see him, Maraton had postponed his call. This luncheon party, however, was inevitable. He was to meet a great lawyer who had a place in the Government, and two other Cabinet Ministers. No excuse would have served his purpose.
The man who took his hat and coat had evidently received special instructions.
"Mr. Foley is engaged with his secretary, sir," he said. "A messenger has just arrived from abroad. Will you come this way?"
He was taken to Elisabeth's little room. She was there waiting for him.Directly she rose, he knew why he had kept away.
"Are you not a little ashamed of yourself, Mr. Maraton?" she asked, as the door was closed behind the departing servant.
"On the contrary," he replied, "I am proud."
She laughed at him, naturally at first, but with a note of self-consciousness following swiftly, as she realised the significance of his words.
"How foolish! Really, I know it is only a subterfuge to avoid being scolded. Sit down, won't you? You will have to wait at least ten minutes for luncheon."
They looked at one another. He took up a volume of poems from the small table by his side and put it down again.
"Well?" she asked.
"You have conquered," he declared. "You see, I came down to earth."
"It isn't possible for me," she said simply, "to tell you how glad I am.Don't you yourself feel that you have done the right thing?"
"Since that night at Manchester," he told her, "I have scarcely stopped to think. Do you know that your strongest allies were Mr. Peter Dale and his men?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I disclaim my allies. If we arrived at the same conclusion, we did so by differing lines of thought. Let me tell you," she went on, "there were two things for which I have prayed. One was that you might start your fight exactly as you have done. The other that you might find no official place amongst the Labour Members. Of course, I can't pretend to the practical experience of a real politician, but my uncle talks to me a great deal, and to me the truth seemed so clear. It is the advanced Unionists who need you. They are really the party from whom progress must come, because it is the middle class which has to be attacked, and it is amongst the middle classes that Liberalism has its stronghold. If you once took your place among the Labour Members, you would be a Labour Member and nothing else. People wouldn't take what you said seriously."
"I am coming into the House, if at all, as an Independent Member," he announced.
She nodded.
"Mr. Foley is quite satisfied with that—in fact he thinks it's best. Do you know, he seems to have gained a new lease of life during the last few weeks. What do you think of his commission on your Manchester strike?"
"He kept his word," Maraton admitted. "I expected no less."
"I can tell you this," she went on, "because I know that he will tell you himself after luncheon. The masters met here this morning. They are simply furious with my uncle, but they have had to give in. The bill you drafted would have been rushed through Parliament without a moment's delay, if they had not. Mr. Foley showed them your draft. They have given in on every point."
"I am afraid I'm going to keep your uncle rather busy," Maraton remarked. "Very soon after this is settled, I have promised to speak at Sheffield."
"In a way it is terrible," she said, with a sigh, "and yet it is so much better than the things we feared. Tell me about yourself a little, won't you? How have you been spending your time? You have a large, gloomy house here, they tell me, shrouded with mystery. Have you any amusements or have you been working all the time?"
"Half my days have been spent with your uncle," he reminded her. "The other half at home, working. So many of my facts were rusty. As to my house, is it really mysterious, I wonder? It is large and gloomy, at the extreme corner of an unfashionable square. It suits me because I love space and quietness, and yet I like to be near the heart of things."
"But do you do nothing but work?" she asked. "Have you no hobbies?"
He shook his head.
"I seem to have had no time for games. I like walking, walking in the country or even walking in the cities and watching the people. Only the London streets are so sad. Then I am fond of reading. I'm afraid I should be rather a strange figure if I were to be suddenly projected into your world, Lady Elisabeth."
"But I like to feel that you are in my world," she said gently."Believe me, it isn't altogether made up of people who play games."
"I read the daily papers," he remarked. "Didn't I see something yesterday about Lady Elisabeth Landon having won the scratch prize at Ranelagh at a ladies' golf meeting?"
She laughed pleasantly.
"Oh! well," she protested, "you must make allowance for my bringing up. We begin to play games in this country as soon as we can crawl about the nursery. It all depends upon the value you set upon these things."
A servant knocked at the door and announced the service of luncheon.Elisabeth rose reluctantly to her feet.
"Now, I suppose, I must hand you over to the serious business of life," she sighed. "If you do have a minute to spare when you have finished with my uncle," she added in a lower tone, as they passed down the wide staircase side by side, "come up and see me before you go. I shall be in till four o'clock."
The familiarity of her words, half whispered in his ear, the delightful suggestion of some confidential understanding between them, were alike fascinating to him. In her plain white serge coat and skirt, and smart hat—she had just come in from walking in the park—she seemed to him to represent so perfectly the very best and most delightful type of womanhood. Her complexion was perfect, her skin fresh as a child's. She carried herself with the spring and grace of one who walks through life self-confidently, fortified always with the knowledge that she was a favourite with women as well as with men. He sat by her side at luncheon and he could not help admiring the delicate tact with which she prevented the conversation from ever remaining more than a few seconds in channels which might have made him feel something of an alien. There was another nephew of Mr. Foley's there, a famous polo player and sportsman; Lord Carton, whose eyes seldom left Elisabeth's face; Sir William Blend, the great lawyer; Mr. Horrill and Lord Armley. These, with Elisabeth's mother and herself, made up the party.
"I think I am going to bar politics," Lady Grenside said, as she took her place.
"Impossible!" Mr. Foley retorted, in high good humour. "This is a political luncheon. We have great and weighty matters to discuss. You women are permitted to be present, but we allot to you the hardest task of all—silence."
"A sheer impossibility, so far as mother is concerned," Elisabeth observed. "As for me, I call myself a practical politician. I intend to take part in the discussion."
Mr. Foley looked across the round table with twinkling eyes.
"We are going to talk about Universal Manhood Suffrage," he announced.
"Scandalous," Elisabeth declared, "before we have our votes!"
"Perhaps," Maraton suggested, "it was Universal Suffrage that Mr. Foley meant."
"Including children and aliens," Lady Grenside remarked. "I am sure the children at the school I went over yesterday could have ruled the nation admirably. They seemed to know positively everything."
"Mother, you are too frivolous," Elisabeth insisted. "If this tone oflevity is not dropped, I shall start another subject of conversation.Mr. Maraton, you, of course, are in favour of Universal ManhoodSuffrage?"
"I am not at all sure about it," he replied. "It gives the vote to a lot of people I'd sooner see deported."
"But you—you to talk like that!" she exclaimed.
He smiled.
"Votes should belong to those who have a stake in the country, not to the flotsam and jetsam," he continued solemnly.
"But you're a Tory!" she cried.
"Not a bit," he answered. "If I had my way, you would very soon see that one man wouldn't have so much more stake in the country than another. Then Universal Suffrage follows automatically—in fact that's the way I'd arrive at it."
"Don't ever let Mr. Maraton be Prime Minister!" Elisabeth begged."He's too iconoclastic."
"And just now I was a Tory," Maraton protested.
"It isn't my fault that you are a study in contraries," she laughed. "But then politicians are rather like that, aren't they? I think really that they should be like surgeons, specialise all the time."
"Come down to Ranelagh and play golf after luncheon," Lord Carton suggested abruptly from across the table. "I've got my little racing car outside and I'll take you down there like a rocket."
"Thanks," she answered, "I want particularly to stay in till four o'clock this afternoon. Besides, you can't play golf, you know."
"I don't think Elisabeth has improved," he remarked to her mother, turning deliberately away.
"And I am sure Jack's left his heart in Central America," Elisabeth declared. "He was always fond of dark-complexioned ladies. Mr. Maraton, have you been a great traveller?"
He shook his head.
"I have been in South America," he replied, "and I know most of the country between San Francisco and New York pretty well."
"And Europe?" she asked.
"I walked from Vienna to Paris when I was a boy," he told her. "It's years, though, since I was on the Continent."
Her cousin began to talk of his hunting experiences, and every one listened. As soon as the service of luncheon was concluded, Lady Grenside rose.
"I dare say we shall all meet again before you go," she said. "Coffee is being served to you in the library, Stephen. We won't say good-bye to anybody. Jack, don't forget that you are dining here to-night. You shall take in the blackest young lady I can pick out for you."
Elisabeth followed her mother. At the last moment, Maraton caught a little whisper which only just floated from her lips.
"Till four o'clock!"
The two younger men took their departure almost immediately. The others moved into the library. Mr. Foley plunged at once into the subject which was uppermost in their minds.
"Mr. Maraton," he began, "we want to talk about these strikes. Horrill here, and Blend, have an idea that you are working towards some definite result—that you have more in your mind than I have told them. It is only this morning," he went on in a lower tone, and glancing towards the closed door, "that I explained to them your Manchester speech. They know now that England has you to thank for the fact that we are not at this moment preparing for war."
Between three and four o'clock, half a dozen people, on different devices, tried to draw Elisabeth from her retirement. Her particular friend called to suggest a round of the picture galleries, tea at the club, and a motor ride to Ranelagh. Lord Carton repeated his invitation to a game of golf. Two people invited her out into the country on various pretexts. Her dressmaker rang up and begged for her presence without delay. To all of these importunities Elisabeth remained deaf. She sat in her room in an easy-chair drawn up to the open window, with a book in her hand at which she scarcely glanced. Her thoughts were with the five men downstairs. Every now and then she glanced at the clock. She heard the conference break up. She sat quite still, listening. Presently there was the sound of a firm tread upon the stairs. She closed her book and breathed a little sigh. A servant ushered in Maraton.
"You have not forgotten, then," she said softly. "Come and sit in my favourite chair and rest for a few moments. I am sure that you must be tired."
He sank down with an air of content. She sat upon the end of the sofa, close to him, her head resting upon her hands.
"Well," she asked, "have you converted Sir William?"
"Up to a certain extent, I believe," he answered, after a momentary hesitation. "I don't think that he trusts me. Lawyers have a habit of not trusting people, you know. On the other hand, I don't think he means to give any trouble. Of course, they don't like what they have to face. No one does. It isn't every one who has the sagacity of your uncle."
"I am glad," she said, "that you appreciate him. Tell me now what is going to happen?"
"Mr. Foley will have his own way," Maraton declared. "The Manchester strike will be over in a few days. The Sheffield strike will be dealt with in the same manner. People will talk about the great loss of trade, the shocking depreciation of profits, the lowered incomes of the people, and all that sort of thing. What will really happen will be that the investor and the manufacturer are going to pay, and Labour is going to get just about a tithe of its own in these two cases. The country will be none the poorer. The money will be still there, only its distribution will be saner."
"And the end of it?" she murmured. "What will the end of it be?"
"We can none of us tell that;" he answered gravely. "There are some, like Sir William, who insist that when Labour has once started, as it will have started after Sheffield, there will be no holding it. I can not answer for it. I only say that the course Mr. Foley has adopted is distinctly the best for the country. If an obstinate man had been in his place to-day, nothing could have saved you from civil war first and possibly from foreign conquest later."
"A month ago," she observed, "you seemed fully prepared for these things."
"I was," he admitted.
"But you are an Englishman, are you not?"
"I am English. I daresay that under other considerations I might even have called myself a patriotic Englishman. As it is, I have very little feeling of that sort. There has been too much self-glorification, and it's the wrong class of people who've revelled in it and enjoyed it. It's a fine thing to die for one's country. It's a shameful thing that that country should grind the life and brains and blood out of a hundred of her children, day by day."
A servant brought in tea, delightfully served. There were small yellow china cups, pale tea with a faint, aromatic odour, thick cream, strawberries and cakes.
"If only you would appreciate it," she declared, "you are really rather a privileged person. No one has tea with me here."
"I do appreciate it," he assured her, "perhaps more than you think."
There was a moment's silence. As he was taking his cup from her fingers, their eyes met, and she looked away again almost immediately.
"I wish," she said, "that you would tell me more about yourself—what you did in America, what your life has been? You are rather a mysterious person, aren't you?"
"In a sense, perhaps, I must seem so," he admitted. "You see, I was an orphan very early. There wasn't any one who cared how I grew up, and I wandered a good deal. The earlier part of my life I was over here—I was at Heidelberg University, bye the bye—and in Paris for two years studying art, of all things! Then something—I don't know what it was—called me to America, and I found it hard to come back. It's a big country, you know, Lady Elisabeth. It gets hold of you. If it hadn't driven me out, I doubt whether I should ever have left it."
"But what was it first inspired you with this—well, wouldn't you call it a passion—for championing the cause of the people?"
He shook his head.
"Born in me, I suppose. I have watched them, lived with them, and then I have been through the whole gamut of Socialistic literature. It is not worth reading, most of it. The essential facts are there to look at, half-a-dozen phrases, a single field of view. It's all very simple."
"Now I am going to ask you something else," she went on. "That first night when we talked together, you seemed so full of hope, so dauntless. Since then, is it my fancy—since you came back from Manchester—are you a little disappointed 'with life? Don't you know in your heart that you've done what's best?"
"I wish I did," he answered simply. "My common sense tells me that I have chosen well, and then sometimes, in the nights, or when I am alone, other thoughts come to me, and I feel almost as though I had been faithless, as though I had simply chosen the easier way. Look how pleasant it is all being made for me! I am no longer an outcast; I bask in the sun of your uncle's patronage; people ask me to dinner, seek my friendship, people whom I feel ought to hate me. I am not sure about it all."
"Listen," she said, "if you had indeed pulled down those pillars, don't you think that day by day and night by night you would have been haunted by the faces of those whom you had destroyed? Think of the children who would have died of starvation, the women who would have been torn from their husbands, the ruined homes, the sorrow and the misery all through the land. Yours would have been the hand which had dealt this blow. You would not have lived to have seen into the future. Would it have been enough for you to have believed that you had done it for the best—that that unborn generation of which you spoke would have unfitted? Oh, I do not think so! I believe that when you realise it, you must be glad."
"It is at any rate consoling to hear you say so," he remarked. "Yet, when you have made up your mind to play the martyr, it is a little hard," he added, helping himself to strawberries, "to be treated like a pampered being."
"In other words," she laughed, "you are discontented because you have been successful?"
"I suppose human nature never meant to let us rest satisfied."
"Don't you ever think of yourself," she asked, "what your own life is going to be? You've settled down now. You will be a Member of Parliament in a few weeks, a Cabinet Minister before long. I know what my uncle thinks of you. He believes in you. To tell you the truth, so do I."
"I am glad."
"I believe," she went on, "that you will do the work that you came here to do. There is no reason why you should not do it from the Cabinet. But there is the rest—your own life. Are you never going to amuse yourself, to take holiday, to draw some of the outside things into your scheme of being?"
He sat quite silent for a little time. He was inclined to struggle against the charm of her soft voice, the easy intimacy with which she treated him. In a sense he felt as though he were losing control of himself.
"I don't know," he said. "I think one ought to find one's work sufficient for a time. It is engrossing, isn't it? And that reminds me—I must go."
He rose almost abruptly to his feet. She was quick to appreciate his slight confusion of thought, his nervous self-impatience, and she smiled quietly. She was content to let him escape. She held out her hand, though, and his fingers seemed conscious of the firm, delicate warmth of her clasp.
"Come and talk to me again soon," she begged. "Come either as a politician or a friend, or however you like. It gives me so much pleasure to talk with you. Uncle will tell you that every one spoils me. Even Sir William comes and tells me about his troubles with the Irish Members. Will you come?"
He made a half promise. His departure was a little hasty—almost abrupt; he was conscious of a distinct turmoil of feeling. He hurried away, as though anxious to rid himself of the influence of the place. At the corner of the street he was about to hail a taxicab when a man gripped him by the arm. He turned quickly around. The face was somehow familiar to him—the grey, untidy beard, long hairy eyebrows, sunken eyes, the shabby clothes. It was David Ross.
"Can I speak a word with you, Mr. Maraton?"
Maraton nodded.
"Of course. I don't remember your name. You were at Manchester, weren't you, and at my house with the others?"
"Ross, my name is," the man answered. "I'd no call to be at Manchester, for I'm not one of the delegates. I'm not an M.P. but I've done a lot of speaking for them lately, and Peter Dale, he said if I paid my own expenses I could come along. I borrowed the money. I had to come. I had to hear you speak. I wanted to know your message."
"Were you satisfied with it?" Maraton enquired.
"I don't know," was the doubtful reply. "You ask me a question I can't answer myself. I thought so at the time, but since then I've spent many sleepless nights and many tired hours, asking myself that question. Now I am here to ask you one. Did you speak that night what you had in your mind when you left America?—what you thought of on the steamer coming over—what you meant to say when first you set foot in this country?"
Maraton was interested. He walked slowly along by the side of his companion.
"I did not," he admitted. "I came with other views.
"I knew it!" Ross exclaimed, almost fiercely. "I felt it, man. You came to preach redemption, even though the means were sharp and short and sudden, means of blood, means of death. Before you ever came here, I seemed to hear your voice crying across that great continent, crying even across the ocean. It was a terrible cry, but it seemed as though it must reach up into heaven and down into hell, for it was aflame with truth. It seemed to me that I could see the revolution upon us, the death that is like sleep, the looking down once more from some undiscovered place upon the new morning. You never uttered that cry over here."
Maraton glanced at his companion curiously.
"Mine was an immense responsibility," he said. "Granted that I had the power, do you think that I had the right to stir up a civil war here in the face of the help I was promised for our people?"
David Ross sighed.
"I don't know," he confessed. "I only know that many years ago, Peter Dale, when he was a young man, spoke as though the word of truth were burning in his heart. He was for a revolution. He would be content with nothing less. And Borden was like that, and Graveling, and others whom you don't know. And then the people gave them their mandate, knocked a bit of money together, and sent them to Parliament. There, somehow or other, they seemed to fall into the easier ways. They worked stolidly and honestly, no doubt, but something had gone, something we've all missed, something that by this time might have helped. When they told me—it was Aaron who came and told me—rode his bicycle like a madman, all the way from Soho. 'Maraton is come!' he shouted. Then it seemed to me that freedom was here; no more compromises, but battle—the naked sword, battle with the wrongs of generations to requite. Is the sword sheathed?"
Maraton passed his arm through his companion's.
"It is not sheathed," he declared, "nor while I have life will it be sheathed. If I have chosen the quieter methods, it is because for the present I have come to believe that they are the best. Six hundred thousand people in Lancashire are going to start life next Monday with an increase of between fifteen and twenty per cent to their weekly wage. Isn't that something to the good? And then, in a few weeks, every forge and furnace in Sheffield will be cold until the men's demands are granted there. And when that is over, we go for every industry, one by one, throughout the country. Before a year is past, I reckon that many millions will have passed from the pockets of the middle classes into the pockets of the labouring man. I am going to set that stream running faster and faster, and then I am going to begin all over again. With prosperity, the labouring classes will gain strength. You will have more time for thought, for education, for self-knowledge. And as they gain strength, once more we raise our hands. Do they seem slow to you, our methods, David Ross? Believe me, they did to me. Yet in my heart I know that I have chosen the right."
The man drew a little sigh. There may have been disappointment mingled with it, yet there was a certain amount of relief.
"I was afraid for you, Maraton," he said. "I thought of those others when they stumbled upon the easy ways, and I was afraid. With you it may be different. Hold on your way, then. It is not for me to criticise. But if you slacken, if your hand droops, then I shall come again."
He turned abruptly away and disappeared, walking with quick, shambling footsteps. Maraton looked after him thoughtfully for several moments, then he continued on his way homewards.
The last words had been spoken, the suspense of a few hours was at an end. Maraton was on his way back to London, a duly accredited Member of Parliament for the eastern division of Nottingham. From his place in the railway carriage he fancied that he could hear even now the roar of voices, feel the thrill of emotion with which he had waited for the result. An Independent Member, even when backed as Maraton had been backed, is never in a wholly safe position. On the whole, he had done well. He had increased the majority of four hundred to a majority of seven hundred. And this, too, in the face of unexpected difficulties. At the last minute a surprise had been sprung upon the constituency. A Labour candidate had entered the field. Maraton's telegram to Peter Dale had produced no reply. The man, if not officially recognised, was at least not officially discouraged. His intervention had been useless, however. Maraton had carried the working men with him. In a sense it was an election on the strangest issues which had ever been fought. Many of the most far-seeing journalists of the day predicted in this new alliance the redistribution of Parties which for some time had been inevitable. So far as Maraton was concerned, it was, without doubt, an unexpected phase in his career. He was Maraton, M.P., representative of a manufacturing town; elected, indeed, as an Independent, but with a weighty backing of the Unionist Party behind him. The next time he spoke, probably, if he did speak before his journey to Sheffield, would be in the House of Commons. Would he, like those others, feel the inertia of it, the slow decay of his ambitions, the fatal tendency towards compromise?
Arrived at St. Pancras, Maraton drove straight to his house in Russell Square and, letting himself in with his latch-key, made his way to the study. The lights were still burning there. Julia and Aaron were sitting opposite to one another at the end of the long table, a typewriter between them and a pile of papers by Aaron's side. Julia rose at once to her feet.
"You are in!" she cried. "We have been telephoning all the evening. We heard half an hour ago."
Maraton nodded.
"In by seven hundred. Not bad, I suppose, considering that I must have been rather a hard nut to crack. Has Peter Dale been here?"
Aaron shook his head.
"He hasn't been near the place."
Maraton's face hardened.
"You know that they sprang a Labour candidate upon me at the last moment? He did me no particular harm, but it was an infamous trick. I wired to Dale yesterday and had no reply."
"David Ross has been here," Aaron said. "We heard all about it from him. There is dissension in the camp. Dale was in favour of withdrawing their candidate, but Graveling wouldn't have it."
"He did me no harm, anyway," Maraton remarked. "The Labour vote was mine from the start."
"So it ought to have been," Aaron declared vigorously. "What could they do but vote for you, with Manchester staring them in the face?"
Maraton's expression lightened, a gleam of humour twinkled in his eyes.
"After all," he murmured, "it would have been almost Gilbertian if I had been returned to Parliament with the Labour vote against me! . . . Aaron, go and ring up Peter Dale. I want this matter cleared up. Ask him when we can meet."
Aaron left the room upon his errand. Maraton moved restlessly about the room for a moment or two. He mixed himself a drink at the sideboard, and lit a cigarette. Julia's eyes followed him all the time.
"So you are a Member of Parliament," she said at last.
"I hope you approve?" he queried.
Julia did not answer him at once. He looked across at her from the depth of the easy chair into which he had thrown himself. She was wearing a plain black dress, buttoned to her throat and unrelieved even by a linen collar or any touch of white. She was pale, and her eyes seemed all the more beautiful for the faint violet lines beneath them.
"Parliament has been the grave of so many men's careers," Maraton continued. "I am fully warned. Nothing of the sort is going to happen to me. I wouldn't have gone in now but for Foley. It's only fair. It helps him, and he's sticking to his pledges like a man."
"When do you go to Sheffield?" she asked.
"Next Wednesday. No postponements."
Julia nodded.
"Mr. Elgood has been here this afternoon," she said, "from Sheffield. He is the secretary of the Union, you know. He is coming again to-morrow morning. He wants to talk to you about the boys' age limit."
"Any letters of consequence?"
Julia pointed a little disdainfully to a pile upon the table.
"All invitations," she observed coldly. "Perhaps you had better look them through."
Maraton shook his head.
"They are no use to me," he declared, "unless they're political?"
He rose and stood by Julia's side, glancing idly through the heap of papers by the side of her machine.
"You seem to have found plenty to do, anyway," he remarked.
"There was a great deal," she assured him. "I think I have collected all the possible information you can need on the steel works of Sheffield."
"Haven't been overworking, I hope?"
She laughed at him softly. Her parted lips seemed somehow to lighten her face.
"This doesn't quite compare with nine hours a day over a sewing machine, with a hundred other girls packed into a small room," she reminded him. "No, I haven't been overworking. I almost wished, an hour ago, that I could find something more to do."
"Why didn't you go out?"
"To-morrow night is Guild night," she said. "I go out then to talk to my girls. Miss Stevens is coming from the Lyceum Club to lecture to us on Woman's Suffrage."
"Do you want a vote?" he asked.
"If it comes,"' she replied. "It isn't worth worrying about. I like my girls, though, to be taught to think."
There was a brief silence. Maraton was still examining the letters laid out for his inspection. Julia was standing by his side. As the last one slipped through his fingers, he turned quickly towards her, oppressed by some mysterious significance in her silence. Her eyes were luminous. She seemed to be trembling. She avoided his enquiring glance.
"Julia!" he exclaimed.
She lifted her head slowly, almost unwillingly. Though her lips were parted, she made no attempt at speech. Then the door was suddenly opened. Aaron entered in some excitement.
"Mr. Dale and some of the others are here now, sir," he announced. "I heard they were on their way when I telephoned. They would like to see you at once."
Maraton stood for a moment quite still, without replying. Aaron gazed across the table in some surprise.
"What shall I say to them?" he asked. "They are here now."
Maraton shrugged his shoulders.
"Let them come in," he directed.
The three men—Peter Dale, Abraham Weavel and Graveling filed into the room a little solemnly. Maraton shook hands with the two former, but Graveling, who kept his head turned away from Julia, affected not to notice Maraton's friendly overtures.
"So you managed it all right," Peter Dale remarked. "Pretty close fit, wasn't it?"
"Seven hundred," Maraton replied. "Not so bad, considering. You see, I was a complete stranger and I am not sure that I have learnt the knack yet of that sort of platform speaking."
"However that may be," Abraham Weavel declared, accepting a cigar from the box which Maraton had ordered, and standing with his hands underneath his coat-tails upon the hearthrug, "you've done the trick. You're an M.P., same as we are."
"You've no objection, I hope?" Maraton remarked lightly.
"That's as may be," Mr. Weavel observed sententiously. "We don't, so to speak, know exactly where we are just at this moment. There's all sorts of rumours going about, and we want them cleared up. Go on, Dale, ask him the first question. You're spokesman, you know."
Mr. Peter Dale threw away the match with which he had just lit his pipe, sampled the whiskey and water to which he had helped himself with a most liberal hand, and deliberately selected the most comfortable chair within reach. With his hands in his trousers pockets, the thumbs protruding, his pipe in the left-hand corner of his mouth, his eyebrows drawn close together, he looked steadfastly towards Maraton.
"The first question," he began stolidly, "is this. You owe your seat inParliament to the Unionists. What have you promised them in return?You haven't attempted to commit us to anything, I hope?"
"Certainly not," Maraton replied. "Such an idea never occurred to me. So far as I know," he went on, after a moment's hesitation, "Mr. Foley is not, at the moment, in need of your support. His majority is sufficient."
Peter Dale frowned ominously.
"That may or may not be," he remarked gruffly. "So long as you haven't taken it upon yourself to pledge us to anything, well, that disposes of question number one. The next is, where are you going to sit in the House?"
Maraton's eyebrows were slightly raised.
"Where am I going to sit?" he repeated. "Remember, if you please, that as a member I have never been inside your House of Commons. I am not acquainted with its procedure. Where, in your opinion, ought I to sit?"
"Your place is with us," Peter Dale declared. "I can't see that there's any doubt about that."
"And why?"
"You're a Labour man, aren't you?" Peter Dale asked. "You call yourself one, anyway.
"If I am a Labour man," Maraton said, "why did you put up a candidate to oppose me at Nottingham?"
Peter Dale smoked steadily for several moments.
"It was nowt to do with me," he announced. "The fellow sprung up all on his own, as it were. Graveling here may have known something of it, but so far as we are concerned he was not an authorised candidate."
Maraton shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"There was nothing," he objected, "to convey that idea to the electors. He made use of the Labour agent and the Labour committee rooms. My telegram to you remained unanswered. Under those circumstances, I really can scarcely see how you find it possible to disown him."
"In any case," Abraham Weavel intervened, with conciliation in his tone, "he didn't do himself a bit a' good nor you a bit of harm. Four hundred and thirty votes he polled out of eight thousand, and those were votes which otherwise would have gone to the Liberal. I should say myself that it did you good, if anything."
"You may be right," Maraton admitted. "At the same time, one thing is very clear. You did not offer me the slightest official support. It is true that I did not ask for it. I prefer, as I have told you all along, my independence. It will be my object to continue without direct association with any party. If I can find a place in the house allotted to Independent Members, I shall sit there. If not, I shall sit with the Unionists."
Peter Dale's face darkened. This was what they had feared.
"You mean that you're breaking away from us?" he exclaimed angrily. "There's no room in our little party for Independent Members, no sort of sense in a mere handful of us all pulling different ways."
"I never joined your party, Mr. Dale," Maraton reminded him. "I have never joined any man's party. I am for the people."
"And what about us?" Graveling demanded. "Aren't we for the people?Isn't that what we're in Parliament for? Isn't that why we are calledLabour Members?"
Maraton regarded the last speaker steadily.
"Mr. Graveling," he said, "since you have mooted the question, I will admit that I do not consider you, as a body of men, entirely devoted to the cause of the people. You are each devoted to your own constituency. It is your business to look after the few thousand voters who sent you into Parliament, and in your eagerness to serve and please them, I think that you sometimes forget the greater, the more universal truths. I may be wrong. That is how the matter seems to me."
"Then since you're so frank," Peter Dale declared, with undiminished wrath, "I'll just imitate your candour! I'll tell you how you seem to us. You seem like a man with a gift, whose head has been turned by Mr. Foley and his fine friends. You're full of great phrases, but there's nothing practical about them or you. You're on your way to an easy place for yourself in the world, and a seat in Foley's Cabinet."
"Have you any objection," Maraton asked, "to the people's cause being represented in the Cabinet?"
It was the last straw, this! Peter Dale's voice shook with passion.
"It's been a promise," he shouted, "for this many a year! A sop to the people it was, at the last election. There's one of us ought to be in the Cabinet—one of us, I say, not a carpetbagger!"
"We're the wrong type of man," Graveling broke in sarcastically."That's what he said. He was heard to say it to the Home Secretary.The wrong type of man he called us."
Maraton suddenly changed his attitude. He was momentarily conscious of Julia listening, from her place in the background, to every word with strained attention. After all, these men had doubtless done good work according to their capacity.
"My friends," he protested, "why do we bandy words like this? Perhaps it is my fault. I have had a long and tiring day, and I must confess that I to some extent resented a Labour man being set up against me, without a word of explanation. You mean well, all of you, I am sure, even if we can't quite see the same way. Don't let's quarrel. I am not used to Parties. I can't serve under any one. My vote's my own, and I don't like the political juggery of selling it here and there for a quid pro quo. We may sit on opposite benches, but I give you my word that there isn't anything in the world which brings me into political life or will keep me there, save the welfare of the people. Now shake hands, all of you. Let us have a drink together and part friends."
Peter Dale shook his head doggedly. He had risen to his feet—a man filled with slow burning but bitter anger.
"No, sir!" he declared. "Me and my mates have stood for the people for this many a year, and we've no fancy for a fine gentleman springing up like a Jack-in-the-box from somewhere else in the House, without any reference to us, and yet calling himself and advertising himself as the champion of our cause. Outside Parliament we can't stop you. The Trades' Union men think more of you, maybe, than they do of us. But inside you can plough your own furrow, and for my part, when you're on your legs, the smoking-room will be plenty good enough for me!"
"And for the rest of us!" Graveling agreed fiercely. "If you're so keen on being independent, you shall see what you can do on your own."
Dale was already on his way to the door, but Maraton checked him.
"Mr. Dale," he said, "you are an older man than I am, a man of much experience. I beg you to reflect. The feelings which prompt you towards this action are unworthy. If you attempt to send me to Coventry, you will simply bring ridicule upon a Party which should be the broadest-minded in the House."
Mr. Dale turned around. He had already crammed his black, wide-awake hat on to his head. Like all men whose outlook upon life is limited, the idea of ridicule was hateful to him.
"You mark my words, young man," he growled. "The one that makes a fool of himself is the one that's going to play the toady to a master who will send him to heel with a kick, every time he opens his mouth to bark! Go your own way. I'm only sorry you ever set foot in this country."
He passed out, followed by Weavel. Graveling only lingered upon the threshold. He was looking towards Julia.
"Miss Thurnbrein," he said, "can I have a word with you?"
"You cannot," she replied steadily.
He remained there, dogged, full of suppressed wrath. The sight of her taking her place before the typewriter seemed to madden him. Already she was the better for the change of work and surroundings, for the improved conditions of her daily life. There was the promise of colour in her cheeks. Her plain black gown was as simple as ever, but her hair was arranged with care, and she carried herself with a new distinction, born of her immense contentment. Her supercilious attitude attracted while it infuriated him.
"It's only a word I want," he persisted. "I have a right to some sort of civility, at any rate."
"You have no rights at all," she retorted. "I thought that we had finished with that the last time we spoke together."
"I want to know," he went on obstinately, "why you haven't been to work lately?"
"Because I have left Weinberg's," she told him curtly. "It is no business of yours, but if it will help to get rid of you—"
"Left Weinberg's," he repeated. "Got another job, eh?"
"I am Mr. Maraton's assistant secretary," she announced.
His face for a moment was almost distorted with anger.
"You're living here—under this roof?" he demanded.
"It is no concern of yours where or how I am living," she answered.
"That's a lie!" Graveling exclaimed furiously. "You're my girl. I've hung around after you for six years. I've known you since you were a child. I'll be d—d if I'll be thrown on one side now and see you become another man's mistress—especially his!"
He came a step further into the room. Maraton, who had been standing with his back to them, arranging some papers on his desk, turned slowly around. Graveling was advancing towards him with the air of a bully.
"Do you hear—you—Maraton?" he cried. "I've had enough of you! You can flout us all at our work, if you like, but you go a bit too far when you think to make a plaything of my girl. Do you hear that?"
"Perfectly," Maraton replied.
"And what have you got to say about it?"
Maraton shrugged his shoulders slightly.
"I don't know that I have anything particular to say about it. If it interests you to be told my opinion of you, you are welcome to hear it."
Graveling advanced a step nearer still. His fists were clenched, an ugly scowl had parted his lips. Julia came swiftly from her seat. Her eyes were filled with fury. She faced Graveling.
"Richard Graveling," she exclaimed, "I am ashamed to think that I ever let you call yourself my friend! If you do not leave the room and the house at once, I swear that I will never speak to you again as long as I live!"
He pushed her aside roughly.
"I'll talk to you presently," he declared. "It's him that my business is with now."
Maraton's eyes flashed a little dangerously.
"Keep your hands off that young lady," he ordered.
"You'd like her to protect you, would you?" Graveling taunted. "Listen here. I'm not the sort of man to have my girl taken away and made another man's plaything. Is she going to stop here? Answer me quickly."
"As long as she chooses," Maraton replied.
"Then take that!" Graveling shouted.
Maraton stepped lightly to one side. Graveling was overbalanced by his fierce blow into the empty air. The next moment he was lying on his back, and the room seemed to be spinning around him. Maraton was standing with his finger upon the bell. Julia was by his side, her eyes blazing. She spoke never a word, but as Graveling struggled back to his senses he could see the scorn upon her face.
Aaron and a man servant entered the room simultaneously. Maraton pointed to the figure upon the floor.
"Aaron," he said, "your friend Mr. Graveling has met with a slight accident. You had better take him outside and put him in a taxicab."
Graveling rose painfully to his feet. He was very pale, and there was blood upon his cheek. He leaned on Aaron's arm and he looked towards Maraton and Julia.
"Better apologise and shake hands," Maraton advised quietly.
Graveling seemed not to have heard him. He looked towards them both, and his fingers gripped Aaron's shoulder so that the young man winced with pain. Then without a single word he turned towards the door.
"Let him go!" Julia cried fiercely. "I am only thankful that you punished him. We do not want his apologies. I hope that I may never see him again!"
Graveling, who had reached the door, leaning heavily upon Aaron, turned around. His face, with the streak of blood upon his cheek, was ghastly. He left the room between Aaron and the servant. They heard his unsteady footsteps in the hall, a whistle, the departure of the cab. "Aaron has gone with him," Maraton remarked quietly. "Perhaps it is as well."
Her face suddenly relaxed and softened. The fury left her eyes; she sank back into the easy chair.
"I am ashamed," she moaned. "Oh, I am ashamed!"
The sound of traffic outside had died away. The silence became almost unnaturally prolonged. Only the echo of Julia's last words seemed, somehow or other, to remain, words which inspired Maraton with a curious and indefinable emotion, a pity which he could not altogether analyse. Twice he had turned softly as though to leave the room, and twice he had returned. He stood now upon the hearthrug, looking down at her, perplexed, himself in some degree agitated. She was not weeping, although every now and then her bosom rose and fell as though with some suppressed storm. It was simply a paroxysm of sensitiveness. She was afraid to look up, afraid to break a silence which to her was full of consolation. Maraton, a little ashamed of the scene in which he had been an unwilling participator, bitterly self-accusing, still found his thoughts diverted from his own humiliation as he watched the girl—a long, slim figure bent in one strangely graceful curve, her beautiful hair gleaming in the soft light, her face still half hidden by her strong, capable fingers—a figure exquisitely symbolic, full of pathos. Her elbows rested upon her knees; she was crouched a little forward. "Julia!" he ventured at last.
She looked up, without undue haste but without hesitation. She had obviously been waiting for speech from him. He saw then that his impression had been a true one. There were no traces of tears in her eyes, which sought his at once—sought his with a look which warned him suddenly of his danger. Her cheeks were burning; she was still shaking with some internal passion.
"After all," he said soothingly, "there are such people in the world.One can't ignore the fact of their existence. They don't really count."
Her eyes flashed.
"It is terrible that they should be allowed to live."
He smiled at her sympathetically. Speech seemed somehow to lessen the tension between them.
"My dear Julia," he declared, "I am suffering just as much as you. I have the feeling that I have descended to the level of a common brawler. Yet what was I to do? he needed the lesson very badly indeed."
"I only hope that it will last him all his life. I only hope that he will not come near either of us again."
"Very doubtful whether he will want to, I should think," Maraton remarked, leaning against the table. "You certainly didn't mince your words."
"If I could have thought of harsher ones, I would have used them," she asserted.
"What a waste of time it has been this evening!" He sighed, as hisfingers turned over the pile of letters by his side. "What with Mr.Peter Dale and his little deputation, and this idiotic person Graveling,I have scarcely done a thing since I got home."
"There's nothing that you need do until to-morrow," she told him softly.
There was another brief pause. She was sitting up now—leaning back in her chair, indeed—trembling no longer, although the colour still flamed in her cheeks. Her eyes, which seldom left his face, were strangely, almost liquidly soft. Maraton moved restlessly in his place. Perhaps he had been unwise not to have stolen out of the room during the first few moments. Julia, as he very well knew, was no ordinary person, and he felt a sense of growing uneasiness. The tension of silence became ominous and he spoke simply to dissipate it.
"I hope I really didn't hurt the fellow."
"If you had killed him," she replied, "he deserved it!"
"He was an insulting beast, of course," Maraton continued. "After all, though, one mustn't bring oneself down to the level of these creatures. He saw with his eyes, and what is seen from that point of view isn't of any account. Perhaps it isn't his fault that he hasn't learnt to govern himself. If I were you, Julia, I wouldn't bother about it any more, really."
"It wasn't altogether what he said," she whispered. "It wasn't altogether that."
He looked at her enquiringly.
"You mean?"
She shook her head.
"Tell me?" he begged.
Once more he saw that little quiver pass through her frame. Her lips were parted and closed again. Maraton was puzzled, but did his best to follow her line of thought.
"The only way to treat such a person," he continued, "is to treat him as a lunatic. That is what he really is. I scarcely heard what he said; already I have forgotten every word."
"But I can't! I never can!"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"My dear Julia," he protested, "I appeal to your common sense!"
She looked at him almost angrily. Her foot beat upon the floor.
"What has common sense to do with it!" she exclaimed. "Of course, it was a foolish thing to say. He didn't even believe it—I am sure of that. It was simply mad, insensate jealousy; a vicious attempt to make me suffer. That isn't where he hurt. It was because—shall I tell you?"
A sudden instinct warned him. He held out his hand.
"It will only distress you. No, I don't want to hear."
The momentary silence seemed endowed with peculiar qualities. They heard the little clock ticking upon the mantelpiece, the tinkle of a hansom bell outside, the muffled sound of motor horns in the distance. Very slowly her head drooped back once more to the shelter of her hands.