Volume Ii Part 16 (1/2)

”Yes--” said Marcella, simply. Then, after a pause, she added, ”It will be all the harder after this time in the North. Everything will have come too late.”

There was a silence; then Betty said, not without sheepishness, ”Frank's all right.”

Marcella smiled. She knew that little Betty had been much troubled by Frank's tempers of late, and had been haunted by some quite serious qualms about his loyalty to Maxwell and the Bill. Marcella had never shared them. Frank Leven had not grit enough to make a scandal and desert a chief. But Betty's ambition had forced the boy into a life that was not his; had divided him from the streams and fields, from the country gentleman's duties and pleasures, that were his natural sphere. In this hot town game of politics, this contest of brains and ambitions, he was out of place--was, in fact, wasting both time and capacity. Betty would have to give way, or the comedy of a lovers' quarrel might grow to something ill-matched with the young grace and mirth of such a pair of handsome children.

Marcella meant to tell her friend all this in due time. Now she could only wait in silence, listening for every sound, Betty's soft fingers clasping her own, the wind as it blew from the bridge cooling her hot brow.

”Here they are!” said Betty.

They turned to the open doorway of the House. A rush of feet and voices approached, and the various groups on the Terrace hurried to meet it.

”Just saved! By George, what a squeak!” said a man's voice in the distance; and at the same moment Maxwell touched his wife on the shoulder.

”A majority of ten! n.o.body knew how it had gone till the last moment.”

She put up her face to him, leaning against him.

”I suppose it means we can't pull through?” He bent to her.

”I should think so. Darling, don't take it to heart so much!”

In the darkness he felt the touch of her lips on his hand. Then she turned, with a white cheek and smiling mouth, to meet the greetings and rueful congratulations of the friends that were crowding about them.

The Terrace was soon a moving ma.s.s of people, eagerly discussing the details of the division. The lamps, blown a little by the wind, threw uncertain lights on faces and figures, as they pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed between the ma.s.s of building on the one hand and the wavering darkness of the river on the other. To Marcella, as she stood talking to person after person--talking she hardly knew what--the whole scene was a dim bewilderment, whence emerged from time to time faces or movements of special significance.

Now it was Dowson, the Home Secretary, advancing to greet her, with his grey shaven face, eyelids somewhat drooped, and the cool, ambiguous look of one not quite certain of his reception. He had been for long a close ally of Maxwell's. Marcella had thought him a true friend. But certainly, in his conduct of the Bill of late there had been a good deal to suggest the att.i.tude of a man determined to secure himself a retreat, and uncertain how far to risk his personal fortunes on a doubtful issue. So that she found herself talking to him with a new formality, in the tone of those who have been friends, yet begin to foresee the time when they may be antagonists.

Or, again, it was Fontenoy--Fontenoy's great head and overhanging brows, thrown suddenly into light against the windy dusk. He was walking with a young viscount whose curls, clothes, and shoulders were alike unapproachable by the ordinary man. This youth could not forbear an exultant twitching of the lip as he pa.s.sed the Maxwells. Fontenoy ceremoniously took off his hat. Marcella had a momentary impression of the pa.s.sionate, bull-like force of the man, before he disappeared into the crowd. His eye had wavered as it met hers. Out of courtesy to the woman he had tried not to _look_ his triumph.

And now it was quite another face--thin, delicately marked, a noticeable chin, an outstretched hand.

She was astonished by her own feeling of pleasure.

”Tell me,” she said quickly, as she moved eagerly forward--”tell me! is it about what you expected?”

They turned towards the river. George Tressady hung over the wall beside her.

”Yes. I thought it might be anything from eight to twenty.”

”I suppose Lord Fontenoy now thinks the end quite certain.”

”He may. But the end is not certain!”

”But what can prevent it! The despairing thing for us is, that if the country had been roused earlier, everything might have been different.

But now the House--”

”Has got out of hand? It may be; but I find a great many people affected by Lord Maxwell's speeches in the North, and his reception there.

To-day's result was inevitable, but, if I'm not mistaken, we shall now see a number of new combinations.”

The sensitive face became in a moment all intelligence. She played the politician, and cross-examined him. He hesitated. What he was doing was already a treachery. But he only hesitated to give way. They lingered by the wall together, discussing possibilities and persons; and when Maxwell at last turned from his own conversations to suggest to his wife that it was time to go home, she came forward with a mien of animation that surprised him. He greeted Tressady with friendliness, and then, as though a thought had struck him, suddenly drew the young man aside.