He had a book of hers which he had promised to return. It was a precious little ma.n.u.script book, containing records written out by herself of lives she had known among the poor. She prized it much, and had begged him to keep it safe and return it.
He took it out of his pocket, looked at it, and put it carefully back. In a few hours the little book should pa.s.s him into her presence. The impulse that possessed him barred for the moment all remorse, all regret.
Then he looked for paper and pen and began to write.
He sat for some time, absorbed in his task, doing his very best with it.
It was a letter to his const.i.tuents, and it seemed to him he must have been thinking of it in his sleep, so easily did the sentences run.
No doubt, ill-natured gossip of the Watton type would be humming and hissing round her name for the next few days. Well, let him write his letter as well as he could, and publish it as soon as possible! It took him about an hour and a half, and when he read it over it appeared to him the best piece of political statement he had yet achieved. Very likely it would make Fontenoy more savage still. But Fontenoy"s tone and att.i.tude in the House of Commons had been already decisive. The breech between them was complete.
He put the sheets down at last, groaning within himself. Fustian and emptiness! What would ever give him back his old self-confidence, the gay whole-heartedness with which he had entered Parliament? But the thing had to be done, and he had done it efficiently. Moreover, the brain-exercise had acted as a tonic; his tension of nerve had returned. He stood beside the window once more, looking out into a fast-awakening London with an absent and frowning eye. He was thinking out the next few hours.
A little after eight Letty was roused from a restless sleep by the sound of a closing door. She rang hastily, and Grier appeared.
"Who was that went out?"
"Sir George, my lady. He"s just dressed and left word that he had gone to take a packet to the "Pall Mall" office. He said it must be there early, and he would breakfast at his club."
Letty sat up in bed, and bade Grier draw the curtains, and be quick in bringing her what she wanted. The maid glanced inquisitively, first at her mistress"s haggard looks, then at the writing-table, as she pa.s.sed it on her way to draw the blinds. The table was littered with writing-materials; some torn sheets had been transferred to the waste-paper basket, and a sealed letter was lying, address downwards, on the blotting-book. Letty, however, did not encourage her to talk. Indeed, she found herself sent away, and her mistress dressed without her.
Half an hour later Letty in her hat and cape slipped out of her room. She looked over the banisters into the hall. No one was to be seen, and she ran downstairs to the hall-door, which closed softly behind her. Five minutes later a latch-key turned quietly in the lock, and Letty reappeared. She went rapidly up to her room, a pale, angry ghost, glancing from side to side.
"Is Lady Maxwell at home?"
The butler glanced doubtfully at the inquirer.
"Sir George Tressady, I believe, sir? I will go and ask, if you will kindly wait a moment. Her ladyship does not generally see visitors in the morning."
"Tell her, please, that I have brought a parcel to return to her."
The butler retired, and shortly appeared at the corner of the stairs beckoning to the visitor. George mounted.
They pa.s.sed through the outer drawing-room, and the servant drew aside the curtain of the inner room. Was it February again? The scent of hyacinth and narcissus seemed to be floating round him.
There was a hasty movement, and a tall figure came with a springing step to meet him.
"Sir George! How kind of you to come! I wish Maxwell were in. He would have enjoyed a chat with you so much. But Lord Ardagh sent him a note at breakfast-time, and he has just gone over to Downing Street. Hallin, move your puzzle a little, and make a way for Sir George to pa.s.s. Will you sit there?"
Hallin sprang up readily enough at the sight of his friend Sir George, put a fat hand into his, and then gave his puzzle-map of Europe a vigorous push to one side that drove Crete helplessly into the arms of the United Kingdom.
"Oh! what a muddle!" cried his mother, laughing, and standing to look at the disarray. "You must try, Hallin, and see if you can straighten it out--as Sir George straightened out father"s Bill for him last night."
She turned to him; but the softness of her eyes was curiously veiled. It struck George at once that she was not at her ease--that there had been embarra.s.sment in her very greeting of him.
They began to talk of the debate. She asked him minutely about the progress of the combination that had defeated Fontenoy. They discussed this or that man"s att.i.tude, or they compared the details of the division with those of the divisions which had gone before.
All through it seemed to Tressady that the person sitting in his chair and talking politics was a kind of automaton, with which the real George Tressady had very little to do. The automaton wore a grey summer suit, and seemed to be talking shrewdly enough, though with occasional lapses and languors. The real Tressady sat by, and noted what pa.s.sed. "_How pale she is! She is not really happy--or triumphant. How she avoids all personal talk--nothing to be said_, _or hardly, of my part in it--my effort. Ah! she praises my speech, but with no warmth--I see! she would rather not owe such a debt to me. Her mind is troubled--perhaps Maxwell?--or some vile talk?"_
Meanwhile, all that Marcella perceived was that the man beside her became gradually more restless and more silent. She sat near him, with Hallin at her feet, her beautiful head held a little stiffly, her eyes at once kind and reserved. Nothing could have been simpler than her cool grey dress, her quiet att.i.tude. Yet it seemed to him he had never felt her dignity so much--a moral dignity, infinitely subtle and exquisite, which breathed not only from her face and movements, but from the room about her--the room which held the pictures she loved, the books she read, the great pots of wild flowers or branching green it was her joy to set like jewels in its shady corners. He looked round it from time to time. It had for him the a.s.sociations and the scents of a shrine, and he would never see it again! His heart swelled within him. The strange double sense died away.
Presently, Hallin, having put his puzzle safely into its box, ran off to his lessons. His mother looked after him, wistfully. And he had no sooner shut the door than Tressady bent forward. "You see--I thought it out!"
"Yes indeed!" she said, "and to some purpose."
But her voice was uncertain, and veiled like her eyes. Something in her reluctance to meet him, to talk it over, both alarmed and stung him. What was wrong? Had she any grievance against him? Had he so played his part as to offend her in any way? He searched his memory anxiously, his self-control, that he had been so sure of, failing him fast.
"It was a strange finish to the session--wasn"t it?" he said, looking at her. "We didn"t think it would end so, when we first began to argue. What a queer game it all is! Well, my turn of it will have been exciting enough--though short. I can"t say, however, that I shall much regret putting down the cards. I ought never to have taken a hand."
She turned to him, in flushed dismay.
"You _are_ thinking of leaving Parliament? But why--_why_ should you?"
"Oh yes!--I am quite clear about that," he said deliberately. "It was not yesterday only. I am of no use in Parliament. And the only use it has been to me, is to show me--that--well!--that I have no party really, and no convictions. London has been a great mistake. I must get out of it--if only--lest my private life should drift on a rock and go to pieces. So far as I know it has brought me one joy only, one happiness only--to know you!"
He turned very pale. The hand that was lying on her lap suddenly shook.
She raised it hastily, took some flowers out of a jar of poppies and gra.s.s that was standing near, and nervously put them back again. Then she said gently, almost timidly:
"I owe a great deal to your friendship. My mind--please believe it--is full of thanks. I lay awake last night, thinking of all the thousands of people that speech of yours would save--all the lives that hang upon it."
"I never thought of them at all," he said abruptly. His heart seemed to be beating in his throat.
She shrank a little. Evidently her presence of mind failed her, and he took advantage.
"I never thought of them," he repeated, "or, at least, they weighed with me as nothing compared with another motive. As for the thing itself, by the time yesterday arrived I had given up my judgment to yours--I had simply come to think that what you wished was good. A force I no longer questioned drove me on to help you to your end. That was the whole secret of last night. The rest was only means to a goal."
But he paused. He saw that she was trembling--that the tears were in her eyes.
"I have been afraid," she said, trying hard for composure--"it has been weighing upon me all through these hours--that--I had been putting a claim--a claim of my own forward." It seemed hardly possible for her to find the words. "And I have been realising the issues for _you_, feeling bitterly that I had done a great wrong--if it were not a matter of conviction--in--in wringing so much from a friend. This morning everything,--the victory, the joy of seeing hard work bear fruit,--it has all been blurred to me."
He gazed at her a moment--fixing every feature, every line upon his memory.
"Don"t let it be," he said quietly, at last. "I have had my great moment.
It does not fall to many to feel as I felt for about an hour last night.
I had seen you in trouble and anxiety for many weeks. I was able to brush them away, to give you relief and joy,--at least, I thought I was"--he drew himself up with a half-impatient smile. "Sometimes I suspected that--that your kindness might be troubled about me; but I said to myself, "that will pa.s.s away, and the solid thing--the fact--will remain. She longed for this particular thing. She shall have it. And if the truth is as she supposes it,--why not?--there are good men and keen brains with her--what has been done will go on gladdening and satisfying her year by year. As for me, I shall have acknowledged, shall have repaid--""
He hesitated--paused--looked up.
A sudden terror seized her--her lips parted.
"Don"t--don"t say these things!" she said, imploring, lifting her hand.
It was like a child flinching from a punishment.
He smiled unsteadily, trying to master himself, to find a way through the tumult of feeling.
"Won"t you listen to me?" he said at last, "I sha"n"t ever trouble you again."