She meditated a little longer before the fire, then she switched on the electric light, rang for the curtains to be drawn, and re-read Daniel Goddard’s article until it was time to dress for dinner.
It was not a new experience for Lady Phayre. She was familiar with platforms, and the sight of the pale, moving mass of human faces in front. She had listened to the speeches of many demagogues to the proletariat, and had found them singularly lacking in originality. Accordingly, it was with the air of an old campaigner that she settled herself down by the side of Aloysius Gleam, and surveyed the decorous occupants of the platform, and the noisy but enthusiastic audience of working men and women in the body of the hall.
Proceedings had already commenced when they entered. The chairman was concluding his introductory speech. The courteous applause that followed his remarks suddenly grew into the thunder that comes from the heart. Goddard was standing before the table, his massive dark face lit with pleasure at his welcome. He began to speak. His voice, rich and sonorous, rang out through the last dying cheers, and compelled willing attention. After a few moments he held the audience in his grasp.
Lady Phayre bent forward and looked with interested curiosity at the speaker, whom she saw mostly in profile, at intervals full-face, when he flashed round to the side benches. Her quick perception appreciated the mastery he had obtained over his hearers, their instant responsiveness to his touch. She herself was gradually drawn under the spell, felt herself but a chord of the instrument that responded to every shade of invective, irony, and promise. She was not unconscious of a certain unfamiliar sensuousness in this surrender of her individuality. Perhaps feminine instincts that had long lain dormant were awakened. The sense of power in the man set working deep-hidden springs of sensation. A strain of the barbaric lingers even in so super-refined a product as Lady Phayre. When Goddard had finished speaking, she leaned back in her chair with a kind of sigh.
“That’s the genuine article, isn’t it?” said Gleam, turning to her smilingly.
She nodded, rested her glance thoughtfully upon him for a moment. He seemed so small, precise, uninspiring compared with the huge-limbed man with the leonine face and rolling voice who had just been swaying her.