Part 47 (1/2)
”Why do you tell me this for the first time tonight?”
”Because fear's awake in me again to-night,” she answered simply. ”I have had another visitor today besides M. Poizat.”
”Who?”
”Howard Fall.”
Harry Rames's voice hardened.
”He came to complain of me, I suppose.”
”It wasn't complaint; it was regret. He thought it would be such a loss if you ceased to be interested in Parliament. He was afraid that Colonel Challoner's death had been a shock to you.”
Harry Rames looked curiously at his wife.
”And what did you say?”
”That I knew you well enough to be sure that wasn't the case. He said you had not spoken once since the debate on the Address and that the organization against the land bill was tumbling to pieces.”
Harry's face cleared.
”There's a very good reason for that. The government programme is overloaded and Devenish's bill won't come on this year after all. Our opposition shook their confidence in it besides. No, it won't come on.”
Cynthia moved swiftly forward to the fireplace.
”You know that?”
”Yes. Hamlin told me in confidence.”
”When, Harry?”
”A month ago at least. We can always whip up the opposition to Devenish's bill when it becomes once more a practical proposition.”
Perhaps after all the Government's change of plan was the simple explanation of the change in her husband. Cynthia sank down into a chair. Before now, she remembered, she had tortured herself with unnecessary fears.
”Oh, I am glad. I am glad,” she cried. All her heart was in her voice and tuned it to a note full and low and wonderfully sweet. Harry was moved by the music of it. There was a joy, a tenderness, which he had noticed more than once of late, but which had never rung so clear as it did to-night. He planted himself in front of her with a wry sort of smile upon his face.
”Cynthia.”
”Yes.”
”You want me to go on--just as I am going? You are satisfied? There have been times when you have wanted more----”
But Cynthia broke in upon him. She shut her eyes upon her ideals and her dreams. They were for the girl steeped to the lips in romance, not for the woman made real by love. Something had come between them.
Something secret. Something which threatened even such community of life as they had. She was in revolt against it.
”Yes, yes,” she cried pa.s.sionately. ”I do want you to go on. I want you to make a great career. I want my share in it, my pride in it. I shall be satisfied. I shall be thankful. Oh, my dear, are you blind?”
She rose abruptly and stood in front of him. ”What I want and all that I want is to keep you.” If she had never spoken the words, the eagerness of her voice and the prayer of her clasped hands would have uttered them for her. But she had spoken them deliberately. She knew very well the danger for a woman in telling a man who does not love her, that she loves him. But she accepted the danger. She was playing for a great stake that night, and great stakes are not to be won without great risks. She laid her reticence aside and made her appeal.
But it seemed that her appeal failed. Harry Rames stood watching her, at a loss for words, with a face which concealed carefully all his thoughts. Cynthia stooped and gathered up her gloves which had fallen to the floor.
”I shall go up now,” she said.
Yet she waited; and Harry still was silent. A moment of pa.s.sion had caught him unprepared with any words.