A People's Man Part 14

He looked at her, a little startled. What instinct, he wondered, had led her to place her finger upon the one poison spot in his thoughts?

"I can see," he remarked, "that I have found my way into a dangerous neighbourhood."

She changed her position a little, so as to face him. Her blue eyes were lit with laughter, her lips mocked him. Usually reserved, she seemed at that moment to be inspired with an instinct which was something almost more than coquetry. She leaned a little towards him.

The aloofness of her carriage and manner had suddenly disappeared. He was conscious of the perfection of her white muslin gown, of the shape of her neck, the delicate lines and grace of her slim young body.

"You shall be chained here," she repeated. "My uncle has a new theory of individualism. He thinks that if no one tried to improve anybody, the world would be so much more livable a place. Shall we sit at his feet?"

He shook his head.

"I am not brave," he said, "but I am at least discreet."

"Do you think that you are?" she asked him quietly. "Do you think that you are discreet in the sense of being wise? Are you sure that you are using your gifts for the best purpose, for yourself--and other people?"

"No one can be sure," he replied. "I only follow my star."

"Then are you sure that it is your star?"

"No one can ever mistake that," he declared. "Sometimes one may lose one's way, and one may even falter if the path is rugged. But the star remains."

She sighed. Her eyes seemed to have wandered away. He felt that it was a trick to avoid looking at him for the moment.

"I do not want you to go to Manchester on Monday in your present mood,"

she said. "I hate to think of you up there, the stormy petrel, the apostle of unrest and sedition. If I were a Roman woman, I think that I would poison you to-night at dinner-time."

"Quite an idea," he remarked. "I am not at all sure that our having become too civilised for crime is a healthy sign of the times."

"I do wish," she persisted, "that you would try and see things a little more humanly. My uncle is full of enthusiasms about you. You have had some conversation already, haven't you?"

"We talked for an hour after luncheon," Maraton admitted. "Your uncle's is a very sane point of view. I know just how he regards me--a sort of dangerous enthusiast, a firebrand with the knack of commanding attention. The worst of it is that when I am with him, he almost makes me feel like that myself."

She laughed.

"All men of genius," she declared, "must be impressionable. We ought to set ourselves to discover your weak point."

He smiled at her with upraised eyebrows. There were times when he seemed to her like a boy.

"Haven't you discovered it?"

She made a little face and swung her parasol around. When she spoke again, she was very grave.

"Mr. Maraton," she begged, "please will you promise that before you go away, you will talk to me again for a few minutes?"

"It is a promise easily made!" he replied.

"But I mean seriously."

"I will talk to you at any time, anyhow you wish," he promised.

She rose to her feet then.

"For the present you have promised to play tennis," she reminded him.

"Please go and change your things."

"I must have a yellow rosebud for my b.u.t.ton-hole," he begged.

She arranged it herself in his coat. He laughed as she swept aside a wisp of her hair which brushed his cheek.

"What a picture for the photographic Press of America!" he exclaimed.

"The anarchist of Chicago and the Prime Minister's niece!"

"What is an anarchist?" she asked him abruptly. He opened the little iron gate which led out of the garden.

"A sower of fire and destruction," he answered, "a highly unpleasant person to meet when he's in earnest."

She looked into his face for a moment with a wistfulness which was almost pa.s.sionate.

"Please tell me at once, that you aren't--"

He pointed back to the garden.

"We have come out of the land of confessions. On this side of the gate I am your uncle's guest, and I mustn't be teased with questions."

"Before you go," she threatened, "I shall take you back into the rose-garden."

From their wicker chairs drawn under a great cedar tree, Mr. Foley and Lord Armley, perhaps the most distinguished of his colleagues, watched the slow approach of the two from the flower gardens. Lord Armley, who had only arrived during the last half hour, was recovering from a fit of astonishment. He had just been told of his fellow guest.

"Granted, even, that the man is as dangerous as you say," he remarked, "it is certainly creating a new precedent for you to bring him into the bosom of your family. Is it conversion, bribery, or poison that you have in your thoughts?"

"Influence, if possible," Mr. Foley answered. "Somehow or other, I have always detected in his writing a vein of common sense."

"What the d.i.c.kens is common sense!" Lord Armley growled.

"Shall I say a sense of the fitness of things?" the Prime Minister replied,--"a sense of proportion, perhaps? Notwithstanding his extraordinary speeches in America, I believe that to some extent Maraton possesses it. Anyhow, it seemed to me to be worth trying. One couldn't face the idea of letting him go up north just now without making an effort."

"Things are really serious there," Lord Armley muttered.

"Worse than any of us know," Mr. Foley agreed. "If you hadn't been coming here, I should have sent for you last night. The French Amba.s.sador was with me for an hour after dinner."

"No fresh trouble?"

"It was a general conversation, but his visit had its purpose--a very definite and threatening purpose, too. I do not blame France. We are under great obligations to her already. Half her fleet is there to watch over our possessions. She naturally must be sure of her quid pro quo. Everywhere, all over the Continent, the idea seems to be spreading that we are going to be plunged into what really amounts to a civil war.

The coming of Maraton has strengthened the people's belief. A country without the sinews of movement, a country in which the working cla.s.ses laid down their tools, a country whose forges had flickered out and whose railroad tracks were deserted, would simply be the helpless prey of any country who cared to pay off old scores."

Lord Armley was looking curiously at the approaching couple.

"Never saw a man," he said, half to himself, "who looked the part so little. Fellow must be well-bred, Foley."

Mr. Foley nodded.