Master of Men Part 6

"That," she said, "is only a temporary matter, a matter of weeks or months. After all, you must remember they are an isolated body of men in the House. Your place is with the only great party of progress. You are moving toward them day by day. Your joining them sooner or later is inevitable."

He smiled.

"Lord Sydenham has been very kind to me," he said, "but I fancy I should be a sort of ugly duckling among the Conservatives."

"You would be in office in less than twelve months," she declared. "Do let me tell Sydenham that he may talk to you about this."

He shook his head.

"I came into the House as a Labor member," he said, "and unless something unforeseen happens, a Labor member I must remain. Besides, I hate to think of myself as a party man. The rank and file remind me most unpleasantly of a flock of geese. They must follow their leaders blindly; their personal opinions go for nothing."

Her eyelids quivered--the merest flicker of a smile pa.s.sed across her face.

"But how nice not to be obliged to have personal opinions! Think what a delightfully restful state."

"It would not suit me," he declared bluntly.

She laughed, very softly and very musically.

There was a short silence. A breath of the west wind bent the lilac boughs toward them, a wave of delicate perfume floated in the air.

Strone half closed his eyes. Their thoughts went backward together.

"Tell me," she murmured, "how does this life compare to you with the old days at Bangdon Wood? You were a man of contemplation--you have become a man of action. Go on, my friend. There is a kingdom before you."

He turned a weary face upon her.

"These are the things," he said, "which I have told myself. But, Lady Malingcourt, life has another side, and to go through life without once glancing upon it----"

"Ah, is it worth while?" she interrupted. "What is greater than power?"

"It is a joy for heroes, but even heroes are sometimes men."

They were silent for a moment. From beyond the square came the tinkle of bells, the low roar of traffic surging westward. Near at hand was the rustling of the evening wind in the large-leafed lime trees, the faintly drawn-out music of a violin from one of the adjoining houses.

"Tell me," she asked suddenly--"about your wife. Does she like London?

Is she interested in your work?"

A curious restraint--almost a nervousness--fell upon them both.

"I do not think that she is," he answered. "London does not suit her very well. She is not quick at making acquaintances."

He did not allude to her again, nor did she. The vision of Milly rose up before him as he had seen her last. He sat looking out in the twilight with stern, set face. Lady Malingcourt watched him.

Perhaps they both saw in the soft darkness some faint picture of those wonderful things which might in time have come to pa.s.s between them.

For when Lady Malingcourt spoke again there was a sweetness in her voice which was strange to him.

She leaned forward eagerly. The cloud of weariness had pa.s.sed from her face. Her white, bejeweled fingers touched his coat sleeve.

"My friend," she said, "you are making a rare but a fatal mistake.

You undervalue yourself. Do not shake your head, for I know what I am talking about. Lord Sydenham has spoken to me; there have been others, too. There are many people who are watching you. You must not disappoint them."

He gazed into her intent face and sighed.

"Sometimes," he said, in a low tone, "I think that it is my fate to disappoint myself and all other people. Lady Malingcourt, can you tell me why it is that now when many of the things I have dreamed of are becoming realities, my desire for them seems sometimes honeycombed with weakness? Often lately I have wished myself back at my cottage; I have closed my eyes, and the old days of poverty, of freedom, have seemed wonderfully sweet. It is weakness," he went on, a sudden hoa.r.s.e pa.s.sion in his voice, "cursed weakness. I will stamp it down. I shall outgrow it. But it's there, and it's a live thing."

Afterward he liked to think of her as she had seemed that night. The weariness, the flippancy of her outlook upon life seemed for the moment to have fallen away like a mask. The woman shone out--flamed in her eyes, was manifest in her softened tone.

"It is the toll we all have to pay," she said. "We expect too much of life. The things which look so beautiful to us when we are hammering at the gates crumble into dust when we have pa.s.sed through into their midst, and seek to grasp them."

"Is there nothing in life," he said, "which is real--which remains?"

She did not answer him, her silence was surely purposeful. She sat with half-closed eyes, as though listening to the music of the breeze-shaken limes, and Strone felt his heart beating madly. The significance of his question and her silence were suddenly revealed to him. A mad desire possessed him to seize her hands, to force her to look at him. Instinct told him that the moment was propitious, that the great gulf between them was bridged over by a sudden emotional crisis, which might never occur again.

She raised her eyes to his, and he was amazed at their wonderful depth and color. The change came home to him, and his own pulses beat fiercely.

"Let us talk about Bangdon," she said. "Do you remember the first time I saw you? John brought you into dinner."

"If I had known," he remarked, smiling, "that there was a woman there, I should have run for my life."

"Yet I do not think that you were shy. What a surprise you were to me.

You wore the clothes of a mechanic, and you talked--as even John could never have talked. Do you know, I think that you are a very wonderful person. It is so short a time ago."

He turned toward her, and his face was suddenly haggard.

"It is a lifetime--a chaos of months and years. Let us talk of something else."

"No! Why?"

"Don't you understand?" he asked fiercely.

There was a short, tense silence. The diamond star upon her bosom rose and fell. Lady Malingcourt did not recognize herself in the least.

Only she knew that he at any rate had been swift to recognize the wonderful transfiguring change which that moment of self-revelation had wrought in her life. But for that she knew that his self-control would not have precipitated the crisis. A sort of glad recklessness possessed her. At least, she had found, if only for a moment, something which filled to the brim the great empty cup of life.

"You are so enigmatic," she murmured.

"You had better not tempt me to be otherwise," he answered.

The delight of it carried her away. Their eyes met, and the memory of that moment went with him through life--to be cherished jealously, even when death came.

"Why not?"

"Because I love you. Because you know it! You have filled my life. You have made everything else of no account. I love you!"

He had found her the victim of a mood, marvelously plastic, marvelously alluring. He drew nearer to her. Then from the street below came an interruption. A furiously driven hansom was pulled up, a man sprang out, glanced upward, and waved his hand. A curse trembled upon Strone's lips. Lady Malingcourt sat up and returned his greeting.

"So like Sydenham," she murmured. "However he may have loitered on the way, he always arrives in a desperate hurry."

Strone and Lord Sydenham came face to face in the hall--the latter recognized him with amazement.