A People's Man Part 38

Only the Opposition are furious. They are trying to claim you as a natural member of the Radical Party. Shouldn't be surprised if they didn't approach you to-day sometime."

Maraton smiled.

"The people I am in the most disgrace with," he observed, "are my own little lot."

"That needn't worry you," Mr. Foley rejoined. "Our Labour Members are not a serious body. The forces they represent are all right, but they seem to have a perfectly devilish gift of selecting the wrong representatives. . . . You'll be in the House this afternoon?"

Certainly!

"I shall be rather curious to see what sort of a reception they give you," Mr. Foley continued. "You couldn't manage to walk in with me, I suppose? It would mean such a headline for the _Daily Oracle!_"

Elisabeth glanced up from her paper.

"I am afraid, uncle," she remarked, "that _Punch_ was right when it said that your sense of humour would always prevent your becoming a great politician."

"Let _Punch_ wait until I claim the t.i.tle," Mr. Foley retorted, smiling. "No man has ever consented to be Premier who was a great politician--in these days, at any rate. I doubt, even, whether our friend Maraton would be a successful Premier. I fancy that if ever he aspires so high, it will be to the Dictators.h.i.+p of the new republic."

Maraton sighed.

"Even the _Oracle_," he reminded them, "is convinced that I have no personal ambitions."

Mr. Foley took up his hat. He had been in high good humour throughout the interview. Already he was looking forward to meeting his colleagues.

"Well, we'll be off, Maraton," he said. "We had no right to come and disturb you at this time in the morning, only we were really anxious to book you for our quiet week in Scotland. Change your mind about it, there's a good fellow. I shall be your helpless prey up there. You could make of me what you would." Maraton shook his head very firmly.

"It is not possible," he answered. "Please do not think that I do not appreciate your hospitality--and your kindness, Lady Elisabeth."

She looked at him for a moment rather curiously. There was something of reproach in her eyes; something, too, which he failed to understand.

She did not speak at all.

"Miss Thurnbrein," Maraton begged, "will you see Mr. Foley and Lady Elisabeth out? It sounds cowardly, doesn't it," he added, "but I really don't think that I dare show myself."

Julia rose slowly to her feet and pa.s.sed towards the door, which Maraton was holding open. She lingered outside while Maraton shook hands with his two visitors, then would have hurried on in advance, but that Elisabeth stopped her.

"Do tell me," she asked, "you are the Miss Thurnbrein who has written so much upon woman labour, aren't you?"

"I have written one or two articles," Julia replied, looking straight ahead of her.

"I read one in the National Review," Elisabeth continued, "and another in one of the evening papers. I can't tell you, Miss Thurnbrein, how interested I was."

Julia turned and looked slowly at her questioner. Her cheeks seemed more pallid than usual, her eyes were full of smouldering fire.

"I didn't write to interest people," she said calmly. "I wrote to punish them, to let them know a little of what they were guilty."

"But surely," Elisabeth protested, "you make some excuse for those who have really no opportunity for finding out? There is a society now, I am told, for watching over the conditions of woman labour in the east end. Is that so really?"

"There is such a society," Julia admitted. "I am the secretary of it."

"You must let me join," Elisabeth begged. "Please do. Won't you come and see me one afternoon--any afternoon--and tell me all about it?

Indeed I am in earnest," she went on, a little puzzled at the other's unresponsiveness. "This isn't just a whim. I am really interested in these matters, but it is so hard to help, unless one is put in the right way."

"The time has pa.s.sed," Julia p.r.o.nounced, "when patronage is of any a.s.sistance to such societies as the one we were speaking of. Nothing is of any use now but hard, grim work. We don't want money. We don't need support of any kind whatever. We need work and brains."

"I am afraid," Elisabeth said, as she held out her hand, "that you think I am incapable of either."

Julia's lips were tightly compressed. She made no reply. Mr. Foley glanced back at her curiously as they stepped into the car.

"What a singularly forbidding young woman!" he remarked.

Elisabeth shrugged her shoulders. It is given to women to understand much! . . . The car glided off. As they neared the corner of the Square, they pa.s.sed a stout, foreign-looking man with an enormous head, a soft grey hat set far back, a quant.i.ty of fair hair, and the ingenuous, eager look of a child. He was hurrying towards the corner house and scarcely glanced in their direction. Mr. Foley, however, leaned forward with interest.

"Who is that strange-looking person?" Elisabeth asked.

Mr. Foley became impressive.

"One of the greatest writers and philosophers of the day," he replied.

"I expect he is on his way to see Maraton. That was Henry Selingman."

CHAPTER XXVIII

Selingman took little heed of the cordon around Maraton. He brushed them all to one side, and when at last confronted by the final barrier, in the shape of Julia, he only patted her gently upon the back.

"Ah, but my dear child," he exclaimed, "you do not understand! Listen.

I raise my voice, I shout--like this--'Maraton, it is I who am here--Selingman!' You see, he will come if he is within hearing. You know of me, you pale-faced child? You have heard of Selingman, is it not so?"

Before Julia could answer, the door of the study was opened.

"Come in," Maraton called out from an invisible place.

Selingman, with a little bow of triumph to Julia, pa.s.sed down the pa.s.sage and into the library. He threw his hat upon the sofa and held out both his hands to Maraton. Julia, who had followed him, sank into a chair before her typewriter.

"I have made you famous, my friend," he declared. "You may quote these words in after life as representing the full sublimity of my conceit, but it is true. Have you read my 'Appreciation' in the _Oracle?_"

"I have," Maraton admitted, smiling.

"The real thing," Selingman continued, "crisp and crackling with genius.

As they read it, the photographers took down their cameras, the editors whispered to their journalists to be off to Russell Square, the ladies began to pen their cards of invitation."

"That's all very well," Maraton remarked, a little grimly, "but where do I come in? I have no time for the journalists, I refuse to be photographed, and I am not likely to accept the invitations. It takes my two secretaries half their time to wade through my correspondence and to decide which of it is to be pitched into the waste-paper basket. I am not a dealer in quack remedies, or an actor. I don't want advertis.e.m.e.nt."

"Pooh, my friend!--pooh!" Selingman retorted, drawing out his worn leather case and thrusting one of the long black cigars into his mouth.

"Everything that is spontaneous in life is good for you--even advertis.e.m.e.nt. But listen to my news. It is great news, believe me. . . . A match, please."

Maraton struck a vesta and handed it to him. Selingman transferred the flame to a piece of paper from the waste-paper basket and puffed contentedly at his cigar.

"I light not cigars with a flavour like this, with a wax vesta," he explained. "Where was I? Oh, I know--the news! This morning I have received a message. Maxendorf has left for England." Maraton smiled.

"Is that all?" he said. "I could have told you that myself. The fact is announced in all the morning papers."