"I didn"t say so."
"But I understand that you uphold Bolshevism?"
"I don"t uphold funk. But," said Ralph, "there"s rather more in it than that. It"s being engineered. It"s a deliberate, dishonest, and malicious attempt to discredit Labour."
"Absurd," said Mr. Waddington. "You show that you are ignorant of the very principles of the League."
If he recognized Ralph"s youth, it was only to despise it as crude and uninformed.
"It is--the--National--League--of Liberty."
"Well, that"s about all the liberty there is in it--liberty to suppress liberty."
"You may not know that I"m starting a branch of the League in Wyck."
"I"m sorry, sir. I did not know. f.a.n.n.y, why did you lay that trap for me?"
"Because I wanted your real opinion."
"Before you set up an opinion, you had better come to my meeting on the twenty-first. Then perhaps you"ll learn something about it."
f.a.n.n.y changed the subject to Sir John Corbett"s laziness.
"A man," said Mr. Waddington, "without any seriousness, any sense of responsibility."
After coffee Mr. Waddington removed f.a.n.n.y to the library to consult with him about the formation of his Committee, leaving Barbara and Ralph Bevan alone. f.a.n.n.y waved her hand to them from the doorway, signalling her blessing on their unrestrained communion.
"It"s deplorable," said Ralph, "to see a woman of f.a.n.n.y"s intelligence mixing herself up with a rotten scheme like that."
"Poor darling, she only does it to keep him quiet."
"Oh, yes, I admit there"s every excuse for her."
They looked at each other and smiled. A smile of delicious and secret understanding.
"Isn"t he wonderful?" she said.
"I thought you"d like him.... I say, you know, I _must_ come to his meeting. He"ll be more wonderful than ever there. Can"t you see him?"
"I can. It"s almost _too_ much--to think that I should be allowed to know him, to live in the same house with him, to have him turning himself on by the hour together. What have I done to deserve it?"
"I see," he said, "you _have_ got it."
"Got what?"
"The taste for him. The genuine pa.s.sion. I had it when I was here. I couldn"t have stood it if I hadn"t."
"I know. You must have had it. You"ve got it now."
"And I don"t suppose I"ve seen him anything like at his best. You"ll get more out of him than I did."
"Oh, do you think I shall?"
"Yes. He may rise to greater heights."
"You mean he may go to greater lengths?"
"Perhaps. I don"t know. You"d have, of course, to stop his lengths, which would he a pity. I think of him mostly in heights. There"s no reason why you shouldn"t let him soar.... But I mustn"t discuss him.
I"ve just eaten his dinner."
"No, we mustn"t," Barbara agreed. "That"s the worst of dinners."
"I say, though, can"t we meet somewhere?"
"Where we _can?_"
"Yes. Where we can let ourselves rip? Couldn"t we go for more walks together?"
"I"m afraid there won"t be time."
"There"ll be loads of time. When he"s off in his car "rounding up the county.""
"When he"s "off," I"m "on" as Mrs. Waddington"s companion."
"f.a.n.n.y won"t mind. She"ll let you do anything you like. At any rate, she"ll let _me_ do anything _I_ like."
"Will you ask her?"
"Of course I shall."
So they settled it.
3
When Barbara said to herself that Mr. Waddington would spoil her evening with Ralph Bevan, she had judged by the change that had come over the house since the return of its master. You felt it first in the depressed faces of the servants, of Partridge and Annie Trinder. A thoughtful gloom had settled even on Kimber. Worse than all, f.a.n.n.y Waddington had left off humming. Barbara missed that spontaneous expression of her happiness.
She thought: "What is it he does to them?" And yet it was clear that he didn"t do anything. They were simply crushed by the sheer ma.s.s and weight of his egoism. He imposed on them somehow his incredible consciousness of himself. He left an atmosphere of uneasiness. You felt it when he wasn"t there; even when f.a.n.n.y had settled down in the drawing-room with "Tono-Bungay" you felt her fear that at any minute the door would open and Horatio would come in.
But Barbara wasn"t depressed. She enjoyed the perpetual spectacle he made. She enjoyed his very indifference to Ralph, his refusal to see that he could command attention, his conviction of his own superior fascination. She knew now what Ralph meant when he said it would be unkind to spoil him for her. He was to burst on her without preparation or description. She was to discover him first of all herself. First of all. But she could see the time coming when her chief joy would be their making him out, bit by bit, together. She even discerned a merry devil in f.a.n.n.y that amused itself at Horatio"s expense; that was aware of Barbara"s amus.e.m.e.nt and condoned it. There were ultimate decencies that prevented any open communion with f.a.n.n.y. But beyond that refusal to smile at Horatio after eating his dinner, she could see no decencies restraining Ralph. She could count on him when her private delight became intolerable and must be shared.
But there were obstacles to their intercourse. Mr. Waddington couldn"t very well start on what he called his "campaign" until he was armed with his prospectus, and Pyecraft took more than a week to print it. And while she sat idle, thinking of her salary, the fiend of conscience prompted Barbara to ask him for work. Wasn"t there his book?
"My book? My Cotswold book?" He pretended he had forgotten all about it.
He waved it away. "The book is only a recreation, an amus.e.m.e.nt. Plenty of time for that when I"ve got my League going. Still, I shall be glad when I can settle down to it, again.".... He was considering it now with reminiscent affection.... "If it would amuse you to look at it--"
He began a fussy search in his bureau.
"Ah, here we are!"