Still, _nothing_ was certain. All that had happened might melt away into nothingness with the greatest ease if--well! if the right steps were not taken. He was no novice, any more than she; he must have had scores of "affairs" by now, with that manner of his. Such men were always capable of second thoughts, of tardy retreats--and especially if there were the smallest thought of persecution, of pursuit.
She believed--she was nearly certain--he would have a reaction to-morrow, perhaps because his mother had caught them together. Next morning he would be just a little bored by the thought of it--a little bored by having to begin again where he had left off. Without great tact and skill the whole edifice might tumble together like a house of cards. Had she the courage to make difficulties--to put a water-ditch across his path?
It was close on midnight when Letty at last raised her little chin from the hands that held it and rang the bell that communicated with her maid"s room, but cautiously, so as not to disturb the rest of the sleeping house.
"If Grier _is_ asleep, she must wake up, that"s all!"
Two or three minutes afterwards a dishevelled maid startled out of her first slumber appeared, to ask whether her mistress was ill.
"No, Grier, but I wanted to tell you that I have changed my mind about staying here till Sat.u.r.day. I am going to-morrow morning by the 9.30 train. You can order a fly first thing, and bring me my breakfast early."
The maid, groaning at the thought of the boxes that would have to be packed in this inconceivable hurry, ventured to protest.
"Never mind, you can get the housemaid to help you," said Miss Sewell, decidedly. "I don"t mind what you give her. Now go to bed, Grier. I"m sorry I woke you up; you look as tired as an owl."
Then she stood still, looking at herself--hands clasped lightly before her--in the long gla.s.s.
""Letty went by the nine o"clock train,"" she said aloud, smiling, and mocking her own white reflection. ""Dear me! How sudden! how extraordinary! Yes, but that"s like her. H"m--" Then he must write to me, for I shall write _him_ a civil little note asking for that book I lent him. Oh! I _hope_ Aunt Watton and his mother will bore him to death!"
She broke out into a merry laugh; then, sweeping her ma.s.s of pretty hair to one side, she began rapidly to coil it up for the night, her fingers working as fast as her thoughts, which were busy with one ingenious plan after another for her next meeting with George Tressady.
CHAPTER III
During this same s.p.a.ce of time, which for Miss Sewell"s maid ended so disagreeably, George Tressady was engaged in a curious conversation.
He had excused himself from smoking, on the ground of fatigue, immediately after his parting from Letty. But he had only nominally gone to bed. He too found it difficult to tear himself from thinking and the fire, and had not begun to undress when he heard a knock at his door. On his reply, Lord Fontenoy entered.
"May I come in, Tressady?"
"By all means."
George, however, stared at his invader in some astonishment. His relations with Fontenoy were not personally intimate.
"Well, I"m glad to find you still up, for I had a few words on my mind to say to you before I go off to-morrow. Can you spare me ten minutes?"
"Certainly; do sit down. Only--well, I"m afraid I"m pretty well done. If it"s anything important, I can"t promise to take it in."
Lord Fontenoy for a moment made no reply. He stood by the fire, looking at the cigarette he still held, in silence. George watched him with repressed annoyance.
"It"s been a very hot fight, this," said Fontenoy at last, slowly, "and you"ve won it well. All our band have prospered in the matter of elections. But this contest of yours has been, I think, the most conspicuous that any of us have fought. Your speeches have made a mark--one can see that from the way in which the Press has begun to take them, political beginner though you are. In the House you will be, I think, our best speaker--of course with time and experience. As for me, if you give me a fortnight to prepare in, I can make out something.
Otherwise I am no use. _You_ will take a good debating place from the beginning. Well, it is only what I expected."
The speaker stopped. George, fidgeting in his chair, said nothing; and presently Fontenoy resumed:
"I trust you will not think what I am going to say an intrusion, but--you remember my letters to you in India?"
George nodded.
"They put the case strongly, I think," Fontenoy went on, "but, in my opinion, not strongly enough. This wretched Government is in power by the help of a tyranny--a tyranny of Labour. They call themselves Conservatives--they are really State Socialists, and the mere catspaws of the revolutionary Socialists. You and I are in Parliament to break down that tyranny, if we can. This year and next will be all-important. If we can hold Maxwell and his friends in check for a time--if we can put some backbone into the party of freedom--if we can rally and call up the forces we have in the country, the thing will be done. We shall have established the counterpoise--we shall very likely turn the next election, and liberty--or what still remains of it!--will be saved for a generation. But to succeed, the effort, the sacrifice, from each one of us, will have to be _enormous_."
Fontenoy paused, and looked at his companion. George was lying back in an armchair with his eyes shut. Why on earth--so he was thinking--should Fontenoy have chosen this particular hour and this particular night to _debiter_ these very stale things, that he had already served up in innumerable speeches and almost every letter that George had received from him?
"I don"t suppose it will be child"s-play," he said, stifling a yawn--"hope I shall feel keener after a night"s rest!" He looked up with a smile.
Fontenoy dropped his cigarette into the fender and stood silent a moment, his hands clasped behind his back.
"Look here, Tressady!" he said at last, turning to his companion; "you remember how affairs stood with me when you left England? I didn"t know much of you, but I believe, like many of my juniors, you knew a great deal about me?"
George made the sign of a.s.sent expected of him.
"I knew something about you, certainly," he said, smiling; "it was not difficult."
Fontenoy smiled too, though without geniality. Geniality had become impossible to a man always overworked and on edge.
"I was a fool," he said quickly--"an open and notorious fool. But I enjoyed my life. I don"t suppose anyone ever enjoyed life more. Every day of my former existence gave the lie to the good people who tell you that to be happy you must be virtuous. I was idle, extravagant, and vicious, and I was one of the happiest of men. As to my racing and my horses, they were a constant delight to me. I can"t think now of those mornings on the Heath--the gallops of my colts--the change and excitement of it all, without longing for it to come back again. Yet I have never owned a horse, or seen a race, or made a bet, for the last three years. I never go into society, except for political purposes; and I scarcely ever touch wine. In fact, I have thrown overboard everything that once gave _me_ pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt so completely that I have, perhaps, some right to press upon the party that follows me my conviction that unless each and all of us give up private ease and comfort as I have done--unless we are contented, as the Parnellites were, to be bores in the House and nuisances to ourselves--to peg away in season and out of season--to give up everything for the cause, we may just as well not go into the fight at all--for we shall do nothing with it."
George clasped his hands round his knee, and stared stubbornly into the fire. Sermonising was all very well, but Fontenoy did too much of it; n.o.body need suppose that he would have done what he had done, unless, on the whole, it had given him more pleasure to do it than not to do it.
"Well," he said, looking up at last with a laugh, "I wonder what you _mean_--really. Do you mean, for instance, that I oughtn"t to get myself married?"
His offhand manner covered a good deal of irritation. He made a shrewd guess at the idea in Fontenoy"s mind, and meant to show that he would not be dictated to.
Fontenoy also laughed, with as little geniality as before. Then he applied himself to a deliberate answer.
"_This_ is what I mean. If you, just elected--at the beginning of this critical session--were to give your best mind to anything else in the world than the fight before us, I should regard you as, for the time, at any rate, lost to us--as, so far, betraying us."
The colour rushed into George"s cheeks.
"Upon my word!" he said, springing up--"upon my word, you are a taskmaster!"
Fontenoy hastened to reply, in a different tone, "I only want to keep the machine in order."
George paced up and down for a few moments without speaking. Presently he paused.
"Look here, Fontenoy! I cannot look at the matter as you do, and we may as well understand each other. To me, this election of mine is, after all, an ordinary affair. I take it, and what is to come after it, just as other men do. I have accepted your party and your programme, and I mean to stick to them. I see that the political situation is difficult and exciting, and I don"t intend to shirk. But I am no more going to slay my private life and interests at the altar of politics than my father did when he was in Parliament. If the revolution is coming, it will come in spite of you and me. And, moreover--if you will let me say so--I am convinced that your modes of procedure are not even profitable to the cause in the long run. No man can work as you do, without rest and without distraction. You will break down, and then, where will the "cause" be?"
Lord Fontenoy surveyed the speaker with a curious, calculating look. It was as though, with as much rapidity as his mind was capable of, he balanced a number of pros and cons against each other, and finally decided to let the matter drop, perhaps not without some regret for having raised it.
"Ah! well," he said, "I have no doubt that what I have said appears to you mere meddlesomeness. If so, you will change your view, and you will forgive me. I must trust the compulsion of the situation. You will realise it, as I have done, when you get well into the fight. There is something in this Labour tyranny which rouses all a man"s pa.s.sions, bad and good. If it does not rouse yours, I have been much mistaken in my estimate of you. As for me, don"t waste your concern. There are few stronger men than I. You forget, too--"
There was a pause. Of late years, since his transformation in fact, Lord Fontenoy"s stiff reserve about himself had been rarely broken through. At this moment, however, George, looking up, saw that his companion was in some way moved by a kind of sombre and personal emotion.
"You forget," the speaker resumed, "that I learnt nothing either at school or college, and that a man who wants to lead a party must, some time or other, pay for that precious privilege. When you left England, the only financial statement I could understand was a betting-book. I knew no history except what one gets from living among people who have been making it, and even that I was too lazy to profit by. I couldn"t understand the simplest economical argument, and I _hated_ trouble of all kinds. Nothing but the toil of a galley-slave could have enabled me to do what I have done. You would be astonished sometimes if you could look in upon me at night and see what I am doing--what I am obliged to do to keep up the most elementary appearances."
George was touched. The tone of the speaker had pa.s.sed suddenly into one of plain dignity, in spite of, perhaps because of, the half-bitter humility that mingled with it.