She did not speak.
"In the first place," he said, laughing, "as to my speech, do you suppose that I believe in that Bill which I described just now?"
"I don"t know," she said indignantly, once more playing with the stones on the wall. "It sounded like it."
"That is my gift--my little _carillon_, as Renan would say. But do you imagine I want you or any one else to tell me that we shan"t get such a Bill for generations? Of course we shan"t!"
"Then why do you make farcical speeches, bamboozling your friends and misleading the House of Commons?"
He saw the old storm-signs with glee--the lightning in the eye, the rose on the cheek. She was never so beautiful as when she was angry.
"Because, my dear lady--_we must generate our force_. Steam must be got up--I am engaged in doing it. We shan"t get a compulsory eight hours"
day for all trades--but in the course of the agitation for that precious illusion, and by the help of a great deal of beating of tom-toms, and gathering of clans, we shall get a great many other things by the way that we _do_ want. Hearten your friends, and frighten your enemies--there is no other way of scoring in politics--and the particular score doesn"t matter. Now don"t look at me as if you would like to impeach me!--or I shall turn the tables. _I_ am still fighting for my illusions in my own way--_you_, it seems, have given up yours!"
But for once he had underrated her sense of humour. She broke into a low merry laugh which a little disconcerted him.
"You mock me?" he said quickly--"think me insincere, unscrupulous?--Well, I dare say! But you have no right to mock me. Last year, again and again, you promised me guerdon. Now it has come to paying--and I claim!"
His low distinct voice in her ear had a magnetising effect upon her. She slowly turned her face to him, overcome by--yet fighting against--memory. If she had seen in him the smallest sign of reference to that scene she hated to think of, he would have probably lost this hold upon her on the spot. But his tact was perfect. She saw nothing but a look of dignity and friendship, which brought upon her with a rush all those tragic things they had shared and fought through, purifying things of pity and fear, which had so often seemed to her the atonement for, the washing away of that old baseness.
He saw her face tremble a little. Then she said proudly--
"I promised to be grateful. So I am."
"No, no!" he said, still in the same low tone. "You promised me a friend. Where is she?"
She made no answer. Her hands were hanging loosely over the water, and her eyes were fixed on the haze opposite, whence emerged the blocks of the great hospital and the twinkling points of innumerable lamps. But his gaze compelled her at last, and she turned back to him. He saw an expression half hostile, half moved, and pressed on before she could speak.
"Why do you bury yourself in that nursing life?" he said drily. "It is not the life for you; it does not fit you in the least."
"You test your friends!" she cried, her cheek flaming again at the provocative change of voice. "What possible right have you to that remark?"
"I know you, and I know the causes you want to serve. You can"t serve them where you are. Nursing is not for you; you are wanted among your own cla.s.s--among your equals--among the people who are changing and shaping England. It is absurd. You are masquerading."
She gave him a little sarcastic nod.
"Thank you. I am doing a little honest work for the first time in my life."
He laughed. It was impossible to tell whether he was serious or posing.
"You are just what you were in one respect--terribly in the right! Be a little humble to-night for a change. Come, condescend to the cla.s.ses! Do you see Mr. Lane calling us?"
And, in fact, Mr. Lane, with his arm in the air, was eagerly beckoning to them from the distance.
"Do you know Lady Selina Farrell?" he asked her, as they walked quickly back to the dispersing crowd.
"No; who is she?"
Wharton laughed.
"Providence should contrive to let Lady Selina overhear that question once a week--in your tone! Well, she is a personage--Lord Alresford"s daughter--unmarried, rich, has a _salon_, or thinks she has--manipulates a great many people"s fortunes and lives, or thinks she does, which, after all, is what matters--to Lady Selina. She wants to know you, badly. Do you think you can be kind to her? There she is--you will let me introduce you? She dines with us."
In another moment Marcella had been introduced to a tall, fair lady in a very fashionable black and pink bonnet, who held out a gracious hand.
"I have heard so much of you!" said Lady Selina, as they walked along the pa.s.sage to the dining-room together. "It must be so wonderful, your nursing!"
Marcella laughed rather restively.
"No, I don"t think it is," she said; "there are so many of us."
"Oh, but the things you do--Mr. Wharton told me--so interesting!"
Marcella said nothing, and as to her looks the pa.s.sage was dark. Lady Selina thought her a very handsome but very _gauche_ young woman. Still, _gauche_ or no, she had thrown over Aldous Raeburn and thirty thousand a year; an act which, as Lady Selina admitted, put you out of the common run.
"Do you know most of the people dining?" she enquired in her blandest voice. "But no doubt you do. You are a great friend of Mr. Wharton"s, I think?"
"He stayed at our house last year," said Marcella, abruptly. "No, I don"t know anybody."
"Then shall I tell you? It makes it more interesting, doesn"t it? It ought to be a pleasant little party."
And the great lady lightly ran over the names. It seemed to Marcella that most of them were very "smart" or very important. Some of the smart names were vaguely known to her from Miss Raeburn"s talk of last year; and, besides, there were a couple of Tory Cabinet ministers and two or three prominent members. It was all rather surprising.
At dinner she found herself between one of the Cabinet ministers and the young and good-looking private secretary of the other. Both men were agreeable, and very willing, besides, to take trouble with this unknown beauty. The minister, who knew the Raeburns very well, was discussing with himself all the time whether this was indeed the Miss Boyce of that story. His suspicion and curiosity were at any rate sufficiently strong to make him give himself much pains to draw her out.
Her own conversation, however, was much distracted by the attention she could not help giving to her host and his surroundings. Wharton had Lady Selina on his right, and the young and distinguished wife of Marcella"s minister on his left. At the other end of the table sat Mrs. Lane, doing her duty spasmodically to Lord Alresford, who still, in a blind old age, gave himself all the airs of the current statesman and possible premier.
But the talk, on the whole, was general--a gay and careless give-and-take of parliamentary, social, and racing gossip, the ball flying from one accustomed hand to another.
And Marcella could not get over the astonishment of Wharton"s part in it. She shut her eyes sometimes for an instant and tried to see him as her girl"s fancy had seen him at Mellor--the solitary, eccentric figure pursued by the hatreds of a renounced Patricianate--bringing the enmity of his own order as a pledge and offering to the Plebs he asked to lead.
Where even was the speaker of an hour ago? Chat of Ascot and of Newmarket; discussion with Lady Selina or with his left-hand neighbour of country-house "sets," with a patter of names which sounded in her scornful ear like a paragraph from the _World_; above all, a general air of easy comradeship, which no one at this table, at any rate, seemed inclined to dispute, with every exclusiveness and every amus.e.m.e.nt of the "idle rich," whereof--in the popular idea--he was held to be one of the very particular foes!--
No doubt, as the dinner moved on, this first impression changed somewhat. She began to distinguish notes that had at first been lost upon her. She caught the mocking, ambiguous tone under which she herself had so often fumed; she watched the occasional recoil of the women about him, as though they had been playing with some soft-pawed animal, and had been suddenly startled by the gleam of its claws. These things puzzled, partly propitiated her. But on the whole she was restless and hostile. How was it possible--from such personal temporising--such a frittering of the forces and sympathies--to win the single-mindedness and the power without which no great career is built? She wanted to talk with him--reproach him!
"Well--I must go--worse luck," said Wharton at last, laying down his napkin and rising. "Lane, will you take charge? I will join you outside later."
"If he ever finds us!" said her neighbour to Marcella. "I never saw the place so crowded. It is odd how people enjoy these scrambling meals in these very ugly rooms."
Marcella, smiling, looked down with him over the bare coffee-tavern place, in which their party occupied a sort of high table across the end, while two other small gatherings were accommodated in the s.p.a.ce below.
"Are there any other rooms than this?" she asked idly.
"One more," said a young man across the table, who had been introduced to her in the dusk outside, and had not yet succeeded in getting her to look at him, as he desired. "But there is another big party there to-night--Raeburn--you know," he went on innocently, addressing the minister; "he has got the Winterbournes and the Macdonalds--quite a gathering--rather an unusual thing for him."
The minister glanced quickly at his companion. But she had turned to answer a question from Lady Selina, and thenceforward, till the party rose, she gave him little opportunity of observing her.
As the outward-moving stream of guests was once more in the corridor leading to the terrace, Marcella hurriedly made her way to Mrs. Lane.
"I think," she said--"I am afraid--we ought to be going--my friend and I. Perhaps Mr. Lane--perhaps he would just show us the way out; we can easily find a cab."
There was an imploring, urgent look in her face which struck Mrs. Lane.