“And for you, my friend,” said Lady Phayre. “Win, and there’s Parliament for you with a triumphant majority.”
He looked at her for a moment open-mouthed. She saw a new intelligence dawn in his glance.
“Do you mean to tell me you never thought of that?” she asked quickly.
“No,” he said simply; “it had not struck me.” Lady Phayre turned her face from him, and buttoned her glove. There are some feelings which rush into a woman’s eyes that it is not advisable to show to the man who evokes them. When she had slipped the last button she looked up at him smilingly.
“I think you’re the only man in England who could have said that. When do you commence operations?”
“The day after to-morrow. There will be a big open-air demonstration. Then I’ll settle down to regular work--visiting, picketing, speechifying, overhauling the books, agitating for help from cognate trades. I shall have my hands full.”
He prepared to take his departure, seeing that she was going out.
“You can walk part of the way with me, if you like,” she said graciously.
It was an undreamed-of honour. Save his mother and his wife, he did not remember to have walked in the street with any woman. He strode by her side proud and happy. Their way lay through Hyde Park. The October leaves shimmered like golden scales in the afternoon sun, shedding a glory around him. The few passers-by seemed non-existent. The great stretch of lawn rolled on either side towards the just visible white house-tops. In front, the chequered path of the burnished avenue. From time to time his companion raised her delicate face to him. A slanting beam caught the light of her eyes and the gold tints of her hair under her dainty toque. A strange, unknown feeling stole upon his heart.
A great silence and splendour had fallen over life.
It was Lady Phayre who broke the silence at last. Her voice was sweetly silvery.
“If I came to Ecclesby, could I be of any use to you?”
“You would only have to look as you look now,” he answered, “and there is nothing you couldn’t help me to do.”
Lady Phayre began, stopped abruptly as a little tremor shook her shoulders delicately, then recovering herself, broke into a laugh.
“I shall look ever so much more businesslike, I assure you. I’ll go and make friends with the wives. It will be useful against canvassing time. I am an old campaigner in electioneering, you know. But I have never taken an active part in a strike. It will be a new thing for the political woman to do. I am always seeking after something new. I must have been an Athenian in past ages--an Athenian of the Athenians--and my soul got so impregnated that it has never been able to free itself. I wonder if they would let me make a speech, Mr. Goddard?”
