Part 28 (1/2)

”Thank you.” But now that he was there, after all his strategy, after saying good-by to Fallaray, driving all the way down the hill from Whitecross and up again into that side road, he didn't know how to begin, or where. This girl! G.o.d,-how disordering a quality of s.e.x! No wonder she had shattered poor old Fallaray.

”Shall we walk along the lane? It turns a little way up and you can see the cross cut in the hill.”

”Yes,” he said. ”But there are so many crosses, aren't there, and they're all cut on somebody's hill.” He saw that she looked at him sharply and was glad. Quick to take points, evidently. This interview would not be quite so difficult, after all.

”You came down from town to see Edmund?” She called him by his Christian name to show this man where he stood.

”On the most urgent business,” he said, ”I saw you sitting at the side of the fountain. It's a dear old place.”

She was not beautiful, and she was not sophisticated. That way of dragging in Fallaray's Christian name was childish in its navete. But all about her there was something so fresh and young, so sublimely unselfconscious, so disturbingly feminine, so appealing in its essence of womanhood that he had to pay her tribute and measure his words. He would hate to hurt this girl. De Breze-Madame de Breze-how was it that he hadn't heard of her before? She knew Chalfont. She was staying with Poppy Cheyne. Fallaray had met her somewhere. Odd that he had missed her in the crowd.

”I'll come to the point, if I may,” he said. ”And I must bore you a little with a disquisition on the state of affairs.”

”I'm interested in politics,” she said, with a forlorn attempt to keep a high head.

”Then perhaps you know what's happened, to a certain extent, although probably not as much as those of us who stand in the wings of the political stage and see the actors without their make-up,-not a pretty sight, sometimes.”

”Well?” But the cloud had returned and blotted out the evening star, and there was the shudder of distant thunder again.

”Well, the people are turning against the old gang, at last. The Prime Minister has only his favorites and parasites and newspapers left with him. The Unionists are scared stiff by the sudden uprising of the Anti-waste Party and Labor has been drained of its fighting funds. The Liberals have withered. There is one great cry for honest government, relief from crus.h.i.+ng taxation, a fair reward for hard work, and new leaders.h.i.+p that will make the future safe from new wars. We must have Fallaray. He's the only man. I came here this evening to fetch him. He refuses to come because of you. What are you going to do?”

As he drew up short and faced her, she looked like a deer surrounded by dogs. He was sorry, but this was no time for fooling. What stuff was this girl made of? Had she the gift of self-sacrifice as well as the magnetism of s.e.x? Or was she just a female, who would cling to what she had won, self before everything?

”I love him,” she said.

Well, it was good to know that, but was that an answer? ”Yes,” he said.

”Well?” He would like to have added ”But does he love you and can you keep him after pa.s.sion is dead,-a man like Fallaray, who, after all, is forty.” But he hadn't the courage or the desire to hurt.

”And because I love him he must go,” she said.

He leaned forward and seized her hand. He was surprised, delighted, and a little awed. She had gone as white as a lily. ”You will see to that?

You will use all your influence to give him back to us?” He could hardly believe his ears and his eyes.

”All my influence,” she said, standing very straight.

He bent down and touched her hand with his lips.

They were at the gate. They heard steps on the other side of the wall.

”Go,” she said, ”quickly.”

But before he went he bowed, as to a queen.

And then Lola heard the voice again, harshly. ”Go on, de Breze, go on.

Don't be weak. Stick to your guns. You have him in the palm of your hand.”

But she shook her head. ”But I'm not de Breze. I've only tried to be.