Maraton laughed softly as they passed out into the Palace yard.

"Try Julia," he suggested.



CHAPTER XXX

Selingman had the air of one who has achieved a personal triumph as, with his arm in Maraton's, he led him towards the man whom they had come to visit.

"Behold!" he exclaimed. "It is a triumph, this! It is a thing to be remembered! I have brought you two together!"

Maraton's first impressions of Maxendorf were curiously mixed. He saw before him a tall, lanky figure of a man, dressed in sombre black, a man of dark complexion, with beardless face and tanned skin plentifully freckled. His hair and eyes were coal black. He held out his hand to Maraton, but the smile with which he had welcomed Selingman had passed from his lips.

"You are not the Maraton I expected some day to meet," he said, a little bluntly, "and yet I am glad to know you."

Selingman shrugged his shoulders.

"Max—my friend Max, do not be peevish," he begged. "I tell you that he is the Maraton of whom we have spoken together. I have heard him. I have been to Sheffield and listened. Don't be prejudiced, Max. Wait."

Maxendorf motioned them to seats and stood with his finger upon the bell.

"Yes," Selingman assented, "we will drink with you. You breathe of the Rhine, my friend. I see myself sitting with you in your terraced garden, drinking Moselle wine out of cut glasses. So it shall be. We will fall into the atmosphere. What a palace you live in, Max! Is it because you are an ambassador that they must house you so splendidly?"

Maxendorf glanced around him. He was in one of the best suites in the hotel, but he had the air of one who was only then, for the first time, made aware of the fact.

"These things are done for me," he said carelessly. "It seems I have come before I was expected. The Embassy is scarcely ready for occupation."

He ordered wine from the waiter and exchanged personal reminiscences with Selingman until it was brought. Selingman grunted with satisfaction.

"Two bottles," he remarked. "Come, I like that. A less thoughtful man would have ordered one first and the other afterwards. The period of waiting for the second bottle would have destroyed the appetite. Quite an artist, my friend Max. And the wine—well, we shall see."

He raised the glass to his lips with the air of a connoisseur.

"It will do," he decided, setting it down empty and lighting one of his black cigars. "Now let us talk. Or shall I, for a change, be silent and let you talk? To-day my tongue has been busy. Maraton is a silent man, and he has a silent secretary with great eyes behind which lurk fancies and dreams the poor little thing has never been encouraged to speak of. A silent man—Maraton. Rather like you, Max. Which of you will talk the more, I wonder? I shall be dumb."

"It will be I who will talk," Maxendorf asserted. "I, because I have a mission, things to explain to our friend here, if he will but listen."

"Listen—of course he will listen!" Selingman interrupted. "You two—what was it the Oracle called you both—the world's deliverers. Put your heads together and decide how you are going to do it. The people over here, Max, are rotting in their kennels. Sink-holes they live in. Live! What a word!"

"If you indeed have something to say to me," Maraton proposed, "let us each remember who we are. There is no need for preambles. I know you to be a people's man. We have all watched your rise. We have all marvelled at it."

"A Socialist statesman in the stiffest-necked country of Europe," Selingman muttered. "Marvelled at it, indeed!"

"I am where I am," Maxendorf declared, "because the world is governed by laws, and in the main they are laws of justice and right. The people of my country fifty years ago were as deep in the mire as the people of your country to-day. Their liberation has already dawned. That is why I stand where I do. Your people, alas! are still dwellers in the caves. The moment for you has not yet arrived. When I heard that Maraton had come to England, I changed all my plans. I said to myself—' I will go to Maraton and I will show him how he may lead his people to the light.' And then I heard other things."

"Continue," Maraton said simply.

Maxendorf rose to his feet. He came a little nearer to Maraton. He stood looking down at him with folded arms—a lank, gaunt figure, the angular lines of his body and limbs accentuated by his black clothes and black tie.

"It came upon me like a thunderbolt," Maxendorf proceeded. "I heard unexpectedly that Maraton had entered Parliament, had placed his hand in the hand of a Minister—not even the leader of the people's Party. You do not read the Press of my country, perhaps. You did not hear across the seas the groan which came from the hearts of my children. I said to myself—'The Maraton whom we knew of exists no longer, yet I will go and see.'"

Maraton moved in his chair a little uneasily. He felt suddenly as though he were a prisoner at the bar, and this man his judge.

"You do not understand the circumstances which I found existing on my arrival here," Maraton explained. "You do not understand the promises which I have received from Mr. Foley, and which he is already carrying into effect. You read of the Lancashire strike?"

Maxendorf nodded his long head slowly but said nothing.

"The settlement of that," Maraton continued, "was arranged before I spoke to the people. It is the same with Sheffield. For the first time, the Parliament of this country has passed a measure compelling the manufacturers to recognise and treat with the demands of the people. Trade Unionism has been lifted to an entirely different level. There are three Bills now being drafted—people's Bills. Revolutionary measures they would have been called, a thousand years ago. Every industry in the country will have its day. In the next ten years Capital will have earned many millions less, and those many millions will have gone to the labouring classes."

"Is it you who speak," Maxendorf asked grimly, "or is this another man—a sophist living in the shadow of Maraton's fame? Is there anything of the truth, anything of the great compelling truth in this piecemeal legislation? Is it in this way that the freedom of a country can be gained? One gathered that the Maraton who sent his message across the seas had different plans."

"I had," Maraton admitted, "but the time came when I was forced to ask myself whether they were not rather the plans of the dreamer and the theorist, when I was forced to ask myself whether I was justified in destroying this generation for the sake of those to come. Life, after all, is a marvellous gift. You and I may believe in immortality, but who can be sure? It is easy enough to play chess, but when the pawns are human lives, who would not hesitate?"

Maxendorf sighed.

"I cannot talk with you, Maraton," he said. "You will not speak with me honestly. You came, you landed on these shores with an inspired idea—something magnificent, something worthy. You have substituted for it the time-worn methods of all the reformers since the days of Adam, who have parted with their principles and dabbled in sentimental altruism. Piecemeal legislation—what can it do?"

"It can build," Maraton declared. "It can build, generation by generation. It can produce a saner race, and as the light comes, so the truth will flow in upon the minds of all."

"An illusion!" Selingman interrupted, with a sudden fierceness in his tone. "Once, Maraton, you looked at life sanely enough. Are you sure that to-day you have not put on the poisoned spectacles? Don't you know the end of these spasmodic reforms? You pass, your influence passes, your mantle is buried in your grave, and the country slips back, and the people suffer, and the great wheel grinds them into bone and powder just as surely a century hence as a century ago. Man, you don't start right. If you would restore a ruined and neglected garden, you must first destroy, make a bonfire of the weeds prepare your soil. Then, in the springtime, fresh flowers will blossom, the trees will give leaf, the birds who have deserted a ruined and fruitless waste will return and sing once more the song of life. But there must be destruction, Maraton. You yourself preached it once, preached fire and the sword. Something has gone from you since those days. Compromise—the spirit of compromise you call it. How one hates the sound of it! Bah! Man, you are on a lower level, when you talk the smug talk of to-day. I am disappointed in you. Maxendorf is disappointed in you. You are riding down the easy way on to the sandbanks of failure."

"Your garden," Maraton rejoined, with an answering note of passion in his tone, "would never have blossomed again if you had driven the plough across it, ripped up its fruit trees, torn up its neglected plants by ruthless force. You must plant fresh seed and grow new trees. Then there's another nation, another world. What about your responsibilities to the present one? Isn't it great to save what is, rather than to destroy for the sake of those who have neither toiled nor suffered? I thought as you once. The philosopher thinks like that in his study. Stand before those people, look into their white, labour-worn faces, feel with them, sorrow with them for a little time, and I tell you that your hand will falter before it drives the plough. You will raise your eyes to heaven and pray that you may see some way of bringing help to them—to them who live—the help for which they crave. Haven't they a right to their lives? Who gives us a mandate to sweep them away for the sake of the unborn?"

"You have become a sentimentalist, Maraton," Maxendorf declared grimly. "The soft places in your heart have led you to forget for a moment the inexorable laws. Let us pass from these generalities. Let us speak of things such as you had at first intended. I know what was in your heart. You meant to pass from Birmingham to Glasgow, to preach the holy war of Labour, a giant crusade. You meant to close the mills, to stop the wheels, to blank the forges and rake out the furnaces of the country. You meant to place your finger upon its arteries and stop their beating. You meant to turn the people loose upon their oppressors. Though they must perish in their thousands, yet you meant to show them the naked truth, to show them of what they are being deprived, to show them the irresistible laws of justice, so that for very shame they must drop their tools and stand for their rights. Why didn't you do it?"

"I have told you," Maraton answered.

"Yes, you have told us," Maxendorf continued. "Supposing there were still a way by which even this present generation could reap the benefit? Are you great enough, Maraton, to listen to me, I wonder? That is what I ask myself since you have become a Party politician, a friend of Ministers, since you have joined in the puppet dance of the world. See to what I have brought my people. In ten years' time I tell you that nearly every industry in my country will be conducted upon a profit-sharing basis."

"You have brought them to this," Maraton reminded him swiftly, "by peaceful methods."

"For me there were no other needed," Maxendorf urged. "For you the case is different. If you are one of those who love to strut about and boast of your nationality, if you are one of those in whom lingers the smallest particle of the falsest sentiment which the age of romance has ever handed down to us—what they call patriotism—then my words will be wasted. But here is the message which I have brought to you and to your people. This is the dream of my life which he, Selingman, alone has known of—the fusion of our races."

"Magnificent!" Selingman cried, springing to his feet. "The dream of a god! Listen to it, Maraton. My brain has realised it. I, too, have seen it. Your country is bound in the everlasting shackles. Generations must pass before you can even weaken the hold of your bourgeoisie upon the soul and spirit of your land. You are tied hard and fast, and withal you are on the downward grade. The work which you do to-day, the next generation will undo. Give up this foolish legislation. Listen to Maxendorf. He will show you the way."

"When you speak of fusion," Maraton asked, "you mean conquest?"

"There is no such word," Maxendorf insisted. "The hearts of our people are close together. Put aside all these artificial ententes and alliances. There are no two people whose ideals and whose aims and whose destiny are so close together as your country's and mine. It is for that very reason that these periods of distrust and suspicion continually occur, suspicions which impoverish two countries with the millions we spend on senseless schemes of defence. Away with them all. Stop the pendulum of your country. Declare your coal strike, your railway strike, your ironfounders' strike. Let the revolution come. I tell you then that we shall appear not as invaders, but as friends and liberators. Your industries shall start again on a new basis, the basis which you and I know of, the basis which gives to the toilers their just and legitimate share of what they produce. Your trade shall flourish just as it flourished before, but away to dust and powder with your streets of pig-sties, the rat-holes into which your weary labourers creep after their hours of senseless slavery. You and I, Maraton, know how industries should be conducted. You and I know the just share which Capital should claim. You and I together will make the laws. Oh, what does it matter whether you are English or Icelanders, Fins or Turks! Humanity is so much greater than nationality. Your men shall work side by side with mine, and what each produces, each shall have. What is being done for my country shall surely be done for yours. Can't you see, Maraton—can't you see, my prophet who gropes in the darkness, that I am showing you the only way?"

Maraton rose to his feet. He came and stood by Maxendorf's side.

"Maxendorf," he said, "you may be speaking to me from your heart. Yes, I will admit that you are speaking to me from your heart. But you ask me to take an awful risk. You stand first in your country to-day, but in your country there are other powerful influences at work. So much of what you say is true. If I believed, Maxendorf—if I believed that this fusion, as you call it, of our people could come about in the way you suggest, if I believed that the building up of our prosperity could start again on the real and rational basis of many of your institutions, if I believed this, Maxendorf, no false sentiment would stand in my way. I would risk the eternal shame of the historians. So far as I could do it, I would give you this country. But there is always the doubt, the awful doubt. You have a ruler whose ideas are not your ideas. You have a people behind you who are strange to me. I have not travelled in your country, I know little of it. What if your people should assume the guise of conquerors, should garrison our towns with foreign soldiers, demand a huge indemnity, and then, withdrawing, leave us to our fate? You have no guarantees to offer me, Maxendorf."

"None but my word," Maxendorf confessed quietly.

"You bargain like a politician!" Selingman cried. "Man, can't you see the glory of it?"

"I can see the glory," Maraton answered, turning around, "but I can see also the ineffaceable ignominy of it. Is your country great enough, Maxendorf, to follow where your finger points? I do not know."

"Yet you, too," Maxendorf persisted, "must sometimes have looked into futurity. You must have seen the slow decay of national pride, the nations of the world growing closer and closer together. Can't you bear to strike a blow for the great things? You and I see so well the utter barbarism of warfare, the hideous waste of our mighty armaments, draining the money like blood from our countries, and all for senselessness, all just to keep alive that strange spirit which belongs to the days of romance, and the days of romance only. It's a workaday world now, Maraton. We draw nearer to the last bend in the world's history. Oh, this is the truth! I have seen it for so long. It's my religion, Maraton. The time may not have come to preach it broadcast, but it's there in my heart."

Selingman struck the table with the palm of his hand.

"Enough!" he said. "The words have been spoken. To-morrow or the next day we meet again. Go to your study, Maraton, and think. Lock the door. Turn out the Julia I shall some day rob you of. Hold your head, look into the future. Think! Think! No more words now. They do no good. Come. I stay with Maxendorf. I go with you to the lift."

Maxendorf held out his hand.

"Selingman is, as usual, right," he confessed. "We are speaking in a great language, Maraton. It is enough for to-night, perhaps. Come back to me when you will within the next forty-eight hours."

They left him there, a curious figure, straight and motionless, standing upon the threshold of his room. Selingman gripped Maraton by the arm as he hurried him along the corridor.

"You've doubts, Maraton," he muttered. "Doubts! Curse them! They are not worthy. You should see the truth. You're big enough. You will see it to-morrow. Get out of the fog. Maxendorf is the most profound thinker of these days. He is over here with that scheme of his deep in his heart. It's become a passion with him. We have talked of it by the hour, spoken of you, prayed for some prophet on your side with eyes to see the truth. Into the lift with you, man. Look for me to-morrow. Farewell!"



CHAPTER XXXI

Maraton was more than ever conscious, as he climbed the stairs of the house in Downing Street an hour or so later, of a certain fragility of appearance in Mr. Foley, markedly apparent during these last few weeks. He was standing talking to Lord Armley, who was one of the late arrivals, as Maraton entered, talking in a low tone and with an obviously serious manner. At the sound of Maraton's name, however, he turned swiftly around. His face seemed to lighten. He held out his hand with an air almost of relief.

"So you have come!" he exclaimed. "I am glad."

Maraton shook hands and would have passed on, but Mr. Foley detained him.

"Armley and I were talking about this after noon's decision," he continued. "There will be no secret about it to-morrow. It has been decided to carry out our autumn manoeuvred as usual in South em waters."

Maraton nodded.

"I am afraid that is one of the things the significance of which fails to reach me," he remarked. "You were against it, were you not?"

Mr. Foley groaned softly.

"My friend," he said, "there is only one fault with the Members of my Government, only one fault with this country. We are all foolishly and blindly sanguine. We are optimistic by persuasion and self-persuasion. We like the comfortable creed. I suppose that the bogey of war has strutted with us for so long that we have grown used to it."

Maraton looked at his companion thoughtfully.

"Do you seriously believe, Mr. Foley," he asked in an undertone, "in the possibility, in the imminent possibility of war?"

Mr. Foley half-closed his eyes and sighed.

"Oh, my dear Maraton," he murmured, "it isn't a question of belief! It's like asking me whether I believe I can see from here into my own drawing-room. The figures in there are real enough, aren't they? So is the cloud I can see gathering all the time over our heads. It is a question only of the propitious moment—of that there is no manner of doubt."

"You speak of affairs," Maraton admitted, "of which I know nothing. I do not even understand the balance of power. I always thought, though, that every great nation, our own included, paid a certain amount of insurance in the shape of huge contributions towards a navy and army; that we paid such insurance as was necessary and were rewarded with adequate results."

Mr. Foley forgot his depression for an instant, and smiled.

"What a theorist you are! It all depends upon the amount of insurance you take up, whether the risk is covered. We've under-insured for many years, thanks to that little kink in our disposition. We got a nasty knock in South Africa and we had to pay our own loss. It did us good for a year or two. Now the pendulum has just reached the other extreme. We've swung back once more into our silly dream. Oh, Maraton, it's true enough that we have great problems to face sociologically! Don't think that I underrate them. You know I don't. But every time I sit and talk to you, I have always at the back of my mind that other fear. . . . Have you seen Maxendorf to-night?"

"I have just left him," Maraton replied.

"An interesting interview?"

"Very!"

Mr. Foley gripped his arm.

"My friend," he said,—"you see, I am beginning to call you that—you have talked to-night with one of the most wonderful and the most dangerous enemies of our country. You won't think me drivelling, will you, or presuming, if I beg you to remember that fact, and that you are, notwithstanding your foreign birth, one of us? You are an Englishman, a member of the English House of Parliament."

"I do not forget that," Maraton declared gravely.

"Go and find Lady Elisabeth," Mr. Foley directed. "She was a little hurt at the idea that you were not coming. I have a few more words to say to Armley."

Maraton passed on into the rooms, which were only half filled. Some fancy possessed him to pause for a moment in the spot where he had stood alone for some time on his first visit to this house, and as he lingered there, Lady Elisabeth came into the room, leaning on the arm of a great lawyer. She saw him almost at once—her eyes, indeed, seemed to glance instinctively towards the spot where he was standing. Maraton felt the change in her expression. With a whisper she left her escort and came immediately in his direction. He watched her, step by step. Was it his fancy or had she lost some of the haughtiness of carriage which he had noticed that night not many months ago; the slight coldness which in those first moments had half attracted and half repelled him? Perhaps it was because he was now admitted within the circle of her friends. She came to him, at any rate, quickly, almost eagerly, and the smile about her lips as she took his hand was one of real and natural pleasure.

"How good of you!" she murmured. "I scarcely hoped that you would come. You have been with Maxendorf?"

He nodded.

"Is it a confession?" he asked. "It was Mr. Foley's first question to me."

"It is because we hate and distrust the man," she replied. "You aren't a politician, you see, Mr. Maraton. You don't quite appreciate some of the forces which are making an old man of my uncle to-day, which make life almost intolerable for many of us when we think seriously," she went on simply.

"Aren't you exaggerating that sentiment just a little?" he suggested.

"Not a particle," she assured him. "However, you came here to be entertained, didn't you? I won't croak to you any more. I think I have done my duty for this evening. Let us find a corner and talk like ordinary human beings. Are you going in to supper?"

"I hadn't thought of it," he admitted.

"I dined at seven o'clock," she told him. "We seem to have provided supper for hundreds of people, and I am sure not half of them are coming."

They passed through two of the rooms into a long, low apartment which led into the winter gardens. At one end refreshments were being served, and the rest of the space was taken up with little tables. Elisabeth led him to one placed just inside the winter garden. A footman filled their glasses with champagne.

"Now we are going to be normal human beings," she declared. "How much I wish that you really were a normal human being!"

"In what respect am I different?"

"You know quite well," she answered. "I should like you to be what you seem to be—just a capable, clever, rising politician, with a place in the Cabinet before you, working for your country, sincere, free from all these strange notions."

"Working for my country," he repeated. "That is just the difficult part of the whole situation, nowadays. I know that I am rather a trouble to your uncle. Sometimes I fear that I may become even a greater trouble. It is so hard to adopt the attitude which you suggest when one feels the intolerable situation which exists in that country."

"But we are on the highroad now to great reforms," she reminded him. "Another decade of years, and the people whom you worship will surely be lifting their heads."

He smiled as she looked across at him with a puzzled air.

"It is strange," she remarked, "that you, too, have the appearance of a man dissatisfied with himself. I wonder why? Surely you must feel that everything has gone your way since you came to England?"

"I am not sure how I feel about it," he replied. "Think! I came with different ideas. I came with a religion which admitted no compromises, and I have accepted a compromise."

"A wise and a sane one," she declared, almost passionately. "And to-night—tell me, am I not right?—to-night there have been those who have sought to upset it in your mind."

"You are clairvoyant."

"Not I, but it is so easy to see! It is the dream of Maxendorf's life to bring England to the verge of a revolution by paralysing her industries. Better for him, that, than any violent scheme of conquest. If he can stop the engine that drives the wheels of the country, they can come over in tourist steamers and tell us how to govern it better."

"And if they did," he asked quickly, "isn't it possible that their rule over the people might be better than the rule of this stubborn generation?"

She drew herself up. Her eyes flashed with anger.

"Haven't you a single gleam of patriotism?" she demanded.

He sighed.

"I think that I have," he replied, "and yet, it lies at the back of my thoughts, at the back of my heart. It is more like an artistic inspiration, one of those things that lie among the pleasant impulses of life. Right in the foreground I see the great groaning cycle of humanity being flung from the everlasting wheels into the bottomless abyss. I cannot take my eyes from the people, you see."

She sat almost rigid for some brief space of time. A servant was arranging plates in front of them, their glasses were refilled, the music of a waltz stole in through the open door. Around them many other people were sitting. An atmosphere of gaiety began gradually to develop. Maraton watched his companion closely. Her eyes were full of trouble, her sensitive mouth quivering a little. There was a straight line across her forehead. Her fair hair was arranged in great coils, without a single ornament. She wore no jewels at all save a single string of pearls around her slim white neck. Maraton, as the moments passed, was conscious of a curious weakening, a return of that same thrill which the sound of her voice that first day—half imperious, half gracious—had incited in him. He waved his hand towards the crowd of those who supped around them.

"Let us forget," he begged. "I, too, feel that I have more in my mind to-night than my brain can cope with. Let us rest for a little time."

Her face lightened.

"We will," she assented gladly. "Only, do remember what my constant prayer about you is. Things, you know, in some respects must go on as they are, and the country needs its strongest sons. Mr. Foley would like to bring you even closer to him. I know he is simply aching with impatience to have you in the Cabinet. Don't do anything rash, Mr. Maraton. Don't do anything which would make it impossible. There are many beautiful theories in life which would be simply hateful failures if one tried to bring them into practice. Try to remember that experience goes for something. And now—finished! Tell me about Sheffield? I read Selingman's marvellous article. One could almost see the whole scene there. How I should love to hear you speak! Not in Parliament—I don't mean that. I almost realise how impossible you find that."

"It is only a matter of earnestness," he replied, "and a certain aptitude for forming phrases quickly. No one can feel deeply about anything and not find themselves more or less eloquent when they come to talk about it. By the bye, have you ever met Selingman?"

She shook her head.

"My uncle knew him. He tells me that he asked him here to-night. I wish that he had come. And yet, I am not sure. Some of his writings I have hated. He, too, is a theorist, isn't he? I wonder—"

She paused, and looked expectant.

"I often wonder," she went on, "is there nothing else in your life at all except this passionate altruism? In your younger life, for instance, weren't there ever any sports or occupations that you cared for?"

"Yes," he admitted slowly, "for some years I did a good many of the usual things."

"And now the desire for them has all gone," she asked, "haven't you any personal hopes or dreams in connection with life? Isn't there anything you look forward to or desire for yourself?"

"I seem to have so little time. And yet, one has dreams—one always must have dreams, you know."

"Tell me about yours?" she insisted.

He sat up abruptly. Her fingers fell upon his arm.

"We will go and sit under my rose tree," she suggested.

They moved back into the winter garden until they came to a seat at its furthest extremity. A fountain was playing a few yards away, and clusters of great pink roses were drooping down from some trellis-work before them.

"Here, at least," she continued, as she leaned back, "we will not be tempted to talk seriously. Tell me about yourself? Do you never look forward into the future? Have you no personal ambitions or hopes?"

He looked steadily ahead of him.

"I am only a very ordinary man," he replied. "Like every one else, sometimes I look up to the clouds."

"Tell me what you see there?" she begged.

He was silent. The sound of voices now came to them like a distant murmur, a background to the slow falling of the water into the fountain basin.

"Lady Elisabeth," he said, "it is not always possible to tell even one's own self what the thoughts mean which come into one's brain."

"You will not even try to tell me, then?"

"I must not," he answered.

She sat with her hands folded in front of her, her head drooped a little. Maraton felt himself suddenly at war with a whole multitude of emotions. Was it possible that this thing had come to him, that a woman could take the great place in his life, a woman not of his kind, one who could not even share the passion which was to have absorbed every impulse of his existence to the end? She was of a different world. Perhaps it had all been a mistake. Perhaps it would have been better for him to have stayed outside, to have never crossed the little borderland which led into the land of compromises. And all the time, while his brain was at work, something stronger, more wonderful, was throbbing in his heart. He moved restlessly in his place. Her ungloved hand lay within a few inches of him. He suddenly caught it.

"Lady Elisabeth," he whispered, "I feel like a traitor. I feel myself moved to say things to you under false pretences. I ought not to have come here."

"What do you mean?" she demanded. "You can't mean—"

Their eyes met. He read the truth unerringly. "No, not that," he answered. "There is no one. What I feel is, at any rate, consecrate. But I have no right. I am not sure, even at this moment, whether it is not in my heart to take a step which you would look upon as the blackest ingratitude. My life, Lady Elisabeth, holds issues in it far apart, and it is vowed, dedicate."

"You are going to break away?" she asked quietly.

"I may," he admitted. "That is the truth. That is why I hesitated about coming here to-night. And yet, I wanted to come. I wasn't sure why. I know now—it was to see you."

"Oh, don't be rash!" she begged. "Don't! I may talk to you now really from my heart, mayn't I?" she went on, looking steadfastly into his face. "Don't imagine that that great gulf exists. It doesn't. If you break away, it will be a mistake. You want to feel your feet upon the clouds. You don't know how much safer you will be if you keep them upon the earth. You may bring incalculable suffering and misery upon the very people whom you wish to benefit. You think that I am a woman, perhaps, and I know little. Yes, but sometimes we who are outside see much, and it is dangerous, you know, to act upon theories. I haven't spoken a single selfish word, have I? I haven't tried to tell you how much I should hate to lose you."

He rose to his feet.

"I am going away," he said hoarsely. "I must fight this thing out alone. But—"

He looked around. The words seemed to fail him. Their little corner of the winter garden was still uninvaded.

"But, Lady Elisabeth," he continued, "you know the thing which makes it harder for me than ever. You know very well that if I decide to do what must make me a stranger in this household, I shall do it at a personal sacrifice which I never dreamed could exist."

She swayed a little towards him. Her face was suddenly changed, alluring; her eyes pleaded with him.

"You mustn't go away," she whispered. "If you go now, you must come back—do you bear?—you must come back!"



CHAPTER XXXII

It was the eve of the reopening of Parliament. Maraton, who had been absent from London—no one knew where—during the last six weeks, had suddenly reappeared. Once more he had invited the committee of the Labour Party to meet at his house. His invitation was accepted, but it was obvious that this time their attitude towards the man who welcomed them was one of declared and pronounced hostility. Graveling was there, with sullen, evil face. He made no attempt to shake hands with Maraton, and he sat at the table provided for them with folded arms and dour, uncompromising aspect. Dale came late and he, too, greeted Maraton with bluff unfriendliness. Borden's attitude was non-committal. Weavel shook hands, but his frown and manner were portentous. Culvain, the diplomat of the party, was quiet and reserved. David Ross alone had never lost his attitude of unwavering fidelity. He sat at Maraton's left hand, his head a little drooped, his eyes almost hidden beneath his shaggy grey eyebrows, his lower lip protuberant. He had, somehow, the air of a guarding dog, ready to spring into bitter words if his master were touched.

"Gentlemen," Maraton began, when at last they were all assembled, "I have asked you, the committee who were appointed to meet me on my arrival England, to meet me once more here on the eve of the reopening of Parliament."

There was a grim silence. No one spoke. Their general attitude was one of suspicious waiting.

"You all know," Maraton went on, "with what ideas I first came to England. I found, however, that circumstances here were in many respects different from anything I had imagined. You all know that I modified my plans. I decided to adopt a middle course."

"A seat in Parliament," Graveling muttered, "and a place at the Prime Minister's dinner table."

"For some reason or other," Maraton continued, unruffled, "my coming into Parliament seemed obnoxious to Mr. Dale and most of you. I decided in favour of that course, however, because the offer made me by Mr. Foley was one which, in the interests of the people, I could not refuse. Mr. Foley has done his best to keep to the terms of his compact with me. Perhaps I ought to say that he has kept to it. The successful termination of the Lancashire strike is due entirely to his efforts. The prolongation of the Sheffield strike is in no way his fault. The blind stupidity of the masters was too much even for him. The position has developed very much as I feared it might. You cannot make employers see reason by Act of Parliament. Mr. Foley kept his word. He has been on the side of the men throughout this struggle. He has used every atom of influence he possesses to compel the employers to give in. Temporarily he has failed—only temporarily, mind, for a Bill will be introduced into Parliament during this session which will very much alter the position of the employers. But this partial failure has convinced me of one thing. This is too law-abiding a country for compromises. For the last six weeks I have been travelling on the Continent. I have realised how splendidly Labour has emancipated itself there compared to its slow progress in this country. From town to town in northern Europe I passed, and found the great industries of the various districts in the hands of a composite body of men, embracing the boy learning the simplest machine and the financier in the office, every man there working like a single part of one huge machine, each for the profit of the whole. A genuine scheme of profit-sharing is there being successfully carried out. It is owing to this visit, and the convictions which have come to me from the same, that I have called you together to-day."

"You invited us," Peter Dale remarked deliberately, "and here we are. As to what good's likely to come of our meeting, that's another matter. There's no denying the fact that we've not been able to work together up till now, and whether we shall in the future is by no means clear."

"I am sorry to hear you say so, Mr. Dale," Maraton declared. "I only hope that before you go you will have changed your mind."

"Not in the least likely, that I can see," Peter Dale retorted. "For my part, I can't reckon up what you want with us. You've gone into the House on your own and you've chosen to sit in a place by yourself. You've tried your best to manage things according to your own way of thinking, without us. Now, all of a sudden, you invite us here. I wonder whether this has anything to do with it."

With some deliberation, Peter Dale produced from his pocket a letter, which he smoothed out upon the table before him. He had the air of a man who prepares a bombshell. Maraton stretched out his hand toward it.

"Is that for me?" he asked.

Peter Dale kept his fingers upon it.

"Its contents concern you," he announced. "I'll read it, if you'll be so good as to listen. Came as a bit of a shock to us, I must confess."

"Anonymous?" Maraton murmured.

"If its contents are untrue," Peter Dale said, "you will be able to contradict them. With your kind permission, then. Listen, everybody:

"'Dear Sir:

"'The following facts concerning a recent addition to the ranks of your Party should, I think, be of some interest to you.

"'The proper name of Mr. Maraton is Mr. Maraton Lawes.

"'Mr. Maraton Lawes and a younger brother were once the possessors of the world-famous Lawes Oil Springs, and are now the principal shareholders in the Lawes Oil Company.

"'The person in question is a millionaire.

"'A Socialist millionaire who conceals the fact of his wealth and keeps his purse closed, is a person, I think, open to criticism.

"'A sketch of Mr. Maraton Lawes' career will shortly appear in an evening paper.'"

Maraton listened without change of countenance. All eyes were turned upon him.

"Well?" he enquired nonchalantly.

"Is this true?" Peter Dale demanded.

Maraton inclined his head.

"The writer," he said, "a man named Beldeman, I am sure has been singularly moderate in his statements. I have been expecting the article to appear for some time."

They were all of them apparently afflicted with a curious combination of emotions. They were angry, and yet—with the exception of Graveling—there was beneath their anger some evidence of that curious respect for wealth prevalent amongst their order. They looked at Maraton with a new interest.

"A millionaire!" Peter Dale exclaimed impressively. "You admit it! You—a Socialist—a people's man, as you've called yourself! And never a word to one of us! Never a copper of your money to the Party! I repeat it—not one copper have we seen!"

The man's cheeks were flushed with anger, his brows lowered. Something of his indignation was reflected in the faces of all of them—momentarily a queer sort of cupidity seemed to have stolen into their expressions. Maraton shrugged his shoulders slightly.

"Why should I subscribe to your Party funds?" he asked calmly. "Some of you do good work, no doubt, and yet there is no such destroyer of good work as money. Work, individual effort, unselfish enthusiasm, are the torches which should light on your cause. Money would only serve the purpose of a slow poison amongst you."

"Prattle!" Abraham Weavel muttered.

"Rot!" Peter Dale agreed. "Just another question, Mr. Maraton: Why have you kept this secret from us?"

"I will make a statement," Maraton replied coolly. "Perhaps it will save needless questions. My money is derived from oil springs. I prospected for them myself, and I have had to fight for them. It was in wilder days than you know of here. I have a younger brother, or rather a half-brother, whom I was sorry to see over here the other day, who is my partner. My average profits are twenty-eight thousand pounds a year. Ten thousand pounds goes to the support of a children's home in New York; the remainder is distributed in other directions amongst institutions for the rescue of children. Five thousand a year I keep for myself."

"Five thousand a year!" Peter Dale gasped indignantly. "Did you hear that?" he added, turning to the others.

"Four hundred a year and a hundred and fifty from subscriptions, and that's every penny I have to bring up seven children upon," Weavel declared with disgust.

"And mine's less than that, and the subscriptions falling off," Borden grunted.

"What sort of a Socialist is a man with five thousand a year who keeps his pockets tightly buttoned up, I should like to know?" Graveling exclaimed angrily.

Maraton smiled.

"You have common sense, I am sure, all of you," he said. "In fact, no one could possibly accuse you of being dreamers. Every effort of my life will be devoted towards the promulgation of my beliefs, absolutely without regard to my pecuniary position. I admit that the possession of wealth is contrary to the principles of life which I should like to see established. Still, until conditions alter, it would be even more contrary to my principles to distribute my money in charity which I abominate, or to weaken good causes by unwholesome and unearned contributions to them. Shall we now proceed to the subject of our discussion?"

"What is it, anyway?" Peter Dale demanded gruffly. "Do you find that after being so plaguey independent you need our help after all? Is that what it is?"

"I want no one's help," Maraton replied quietly. "I only want to give you this earliest notice because, in your way, you do represent the people—that it is my intention to revert to my first ideas. I have arranged a tour in the potteries next week. I go straight on to Newcastle, and from there to Glasgow. I intend to preach a universal strike. I intend, if I can, to bring the shipbuilders, the coalminers, the dockers, the railroad men, out on strike, while the Sheffield trouble is as yet unsolved. Whatever may come of it, I intend that the Government of this country shall realise how much their prosperity is dependent upon the people's will."

There was a little murmur. Peter Dale, who had filled his pipe, was puffing away steadily.

"Look here," he said slowly, "Newcastle's my job."

"Is it?" Maraton replied. "There are a million and a quarter of miners to be considered. You may be the representative of a few of them. I am not sure that in this matter you represent their wishes, if you are for peace. I am going to see."

"As for the potteries," Mr. Borden declared, "a strike there's overdue, and that's certain, but if all the others are going to strike at the same time, why, what's the good of it? The Unions can't stand it."

"We have tried striking piecemeal," Maraton pointed out. "It doesn't seem to me that it's a success. What is called the Government here can deal with one strike at a time. They've soldiers enough, and law enough, for that. They haven't for a universal strike."

Peter Dale struck the table with his clenched fist. His expression was grim and his tone truculent.

"What I say is this," he pronounced. "I'm dead against any interference from outsiders. If I think a strike's good for my people, well, I'll blow the whistle. If you're for Newcastle next week, Mr. Maraton, so am I. If you're for preaching a strike, well, I'm for preaching against it."

"Hear, hear!" Graveling exclaimed. "I'm with you."

Maraton smiled a little bitterly.

"As you will, Mr. Dale," he replied. "But remember, you'll have to seek another constituency next time you want to come into Parliament. Do be reasonable," he went on. "Do you suppose the people will listen to you preaching peace and contentment? They'll whip you out of the town."

"It's the carpet-bagger that will have to go first!" Dale declared vigorously. "There's no two ways about that."

Maraton sighed.

"Sometimes," he said, looking around at them, "I feel that it must be my fault that there has never been any sympathy between us. Sometimes I am sure that it is yours. Don't you ever look a little way beyond the actual wants of your own constituents? Don't you ever peer over the edge and realise that the real cause of the people is no local matter? It is a great blow for their freedom, this which I mean to strike. I'd like to have had you all with me. It's a huge responsibility for one."

"It's revolution," Culvain muttered. "You may call that a responsibility, indeed. Who's going to feed the people? Who's going to keep them from pillaging and rioting?"

"No one," Maraton replied quietly. "A revolution is inevitable. Perhaps after that we may have to face the coming of a foreign enemy. And yet, even with this contingency in view, I want you to ask yourselves: What have the people to lose? Those who will suffer by anything that could possibly happen, will be the wealthy. From those who have not, nothing can be taken. What I prophesy is that in the next phase of our history, a new era will dawn. Our industries will be re-established upon different lines. The loss entailed by the revolution, by the dislocating of all our industries, will fall upon the people who are able and who deserve to pay for it."

There was a moment's grim silence. Then David Ross suddenly lifted his head.

"It's a great blow!" he cried. "It's the hand of the Lord falling upon the land, long overdue—too long overdue. The man's right! This people have had a century to set their house in order. The warning has been in their ears long enough. The thunder has muttered so long, it's time the storm should break. Let ruin come, I say!"

"You can talk any silly nonsense you like, David Ross," Dale declared angrily, "but what I say is that we are listening to the most dangerous stuff any man ever spouted. What's to become of us, I'd like to know, with a revolution in the country?"

"You would probably lose your jobs," Maraton answered calmly. "What does it matter? There are others to follow you. The first whom the people will turn upon will be those who have pulled down the pillars. Our names will be hated by every one of them. What does it matter? It is for their good."

Peter Dale doubled up his fist and once more he smote the table before him.

"I am dead against you, Maraton," he announced. "Put that in your pipe and smoke it. If you go to Newcastle, I go there to fight you. If you go to any of the places in this country represented by us, our Member will be there to fight. We are in Parliament to do our best for the people we represent, bit by bit as we can. We are not there to plunge the country into a revolution and run the risk of a foreign invasion. There isn't one of us Englishmen here who'll agree with you or side with you for one moment."

"Hear, hear!" they all echoed.

"Not one," Graveling interposed, "and for my part, I go further. I say that the man who stands there and talks about the risk of a foreign invasion like that, is no Englishman. I call him a traitor, and if the thing comes he speaks of, may he be hung from the nearest lamp-post! That's all I've got to say."

Maraton opened his lips and closed them again. He looked slowly down that wall of blank, unsympathetic faces and he merely shrugged his shoulders. Words were wasted upon them.

"Very well, gentlemen," he said, "let it be war. Perhaps we'd better let this be the end of our deliberations."

Graveling rose slowly to his feet. His face was filled with evil things. He pointed to Maraton.

"There's a word more to be spoken!" he exclaimed. "There's more behind this scheme of Maraton's than he's willing to have us understand! It looks to me and it sounds to me like a piece of dirty, underhand business. I'll ask you a question, Maraton. Were you at the Ritz Hotel one night about two months ago, with the ambassador of a foreign a country?"

"I was," Maraton admitted coolly.

Graveling looked around with a little cry of triumph.

"It's a plot, this; nothing more nor less than a plot!" he declared vigorously. "What sort of an Englishman does he call himself, I wonder? It's the foreigners that are at the bottom of the lot of it! They want our trade, they'd be glad of our country. They've bribed this man Maraton to get it without the trouble of fighting for it, even!"

Maraton moved towards the door. Holding it open, he turned and faced them.

"Before I came," he said, "I hoped that you might be men. I find you just the usual sort of pigmies. You call yourselves people's men! You haven't mastered the elementary truths of your religion. What's England, or France, or any other country in the world, by the side of humanity? Be off! I'll go my own way. Go yours, and take your little tinsel of jingoism with you. Whenever you want to fight me, I shall be ready."

"And fight you we shall," Peter Dale thundered, "mark you that! There's limits, even to us. The Government of this country mayn't be all it should be, but, after all, it's our English Government, and there is a point at which every man has to support it. The law is the law, and so you may find out, my friend!"

They filed out. Maraton closed the door after them. He was alone. He threw open the window to get rid of the odour of tobacco smoke which still hung about. The echo of their raucous voices seemed still in the air. These were the men who should have been his friends and associates! These were the men to whom he had the right to look for sympathy! They treated him like a dangerous lunatic. Their own small interests, their own small careers were threatened, and they were up in arms without a moment's hesitation. Not one of them had made the slightest attempt to see the whole truth. The word "revolution" had terrified them. The approach of a crisis had driven their thoughts into one narrow focus: what would it mean for them?

He resumed his seat. The empty chairs pushed back seemed, somehow or other, allegorical. He was alone. The man for whose friendship he had indeed felt some desire, the man who had opened his hands and heart to him—Stephen Foley—would know him henceforth no more. He drew his thoughts resolutely away from that side of his life, closed his ears to the music which beat there, crushed down the fancies which sprang up so easily if ever he relaxed his hold upon his will. He was lonely; for the first time in his life, perhaps, intensely lonely. In all the country there was scarcely a human being who would not soon look upon him as a madman. What did one live for, after all? Just to continue the dull, hopeless struggle—to fight without hope of reward, to fight with oneself as well as with the world?

The door was opened softly. Julia came in. Perhaps she guessed from his attitude something of his trouble, for she moved at once to his side.

"They have gone?" she asked.

"They have gone," he admitted.

She sighed.

"I shall not ask you anything," she said, "because I know. Pigs of men—pigs with their noses to the ground! How can they lift their heads! You could not make them understand!"

"I scarcely tried," he confessed. "They have found out, for one thing, that I am wealthy, a fact that does not concern them in the least, and they accused me of it as though it were a crime. It was all so hopeless. You cannot make men understand who have not the capacity for understanding. You cannot make the blind see. They even reminded me that they were Englishmen. They talked the usual rubbish about conquest and foreign enemies and patriotism."

"Clods!" she muttered. "But you?"

She sat down beside him, her eyes full of light. She laid her hands boldly upon his.

"You will not let yourself be discouraged?" she I pleaded. "Remember that even if you are alone in the world, you are right. You fight without hope of reward, without hope of appreciation. You will be the enemy of every one, and yet you know in your heart that you have the truth. You know it, and I know it, and Aaron knows it, and David Ross believes it. There are millions of others, if you could only find them, who understand, too—men too great to come out from their studies and talk claptrap to the mob. There are other people in the world who understand, who will sympathise. What does it matter that you cannot hear their spoken voices? And we—well, you know about us."

Her voice was almost a caress, the loneliness in his heart was so intense.

"Oh, you know about us!" she continued. "I—oh, I am your slave! And Aaron! We believe, we understand. There isn't anything in this world," she went on, with a little sob, "there isn't anything I wouldn't gladly do to help you! If only one could help!"

He returned very gently the pressure of her burning fingers. She drew his eyes towards hers, and he was startled to see in those few minutes how beautiful she was. There was inspiration in her splendidly modelled face—the high forehead, the eyes brilliantly clear, kindled now with the light of enthusiasm and all the softer burning of her exquisite sympathy. Her lips—full and red they seemed—were slightly parted. She was breathing quickly, like one who has run a race.

"Oh, dear master," she whispered—"let me call you that—don't, even for a moment, be faint-hearted!"

The door was suddenly thrown open. Selingman entered, an enormous bunch of roses in his hand, a green hat on the back of his head.

"Faint-hearted?" he exclaimed. "What a word! Who is faint-hearted? Julia, I have brought you flowers. You would have to kiss rue for them if he were not here. Don't glower at me. Every one kisses me. Great ladies would if I asked them to. That's the best of being a genius. Lord, what a wreck he looks! What's wrong with you, man? I know! I met them at the corner of the street. There was the rat-faced fellow with the red tie, and the miner—Labour Members, they call themselves. I would like to see them with a spade! Have you been trying to get at their brains, Maraton? What's that to make a man like you depressed? Did you think they had any? Did you think you could draw a single spark of fire out of dull pap like that? Bah!"

Julia was moving quietly about the room, putting the flowers in water. Aaron had slipped in and was seated before his desk. Selingman, his broad face set suddenly into hard lines, plumped himself into the chair which Peter Dale had occupied.

"Man alive, lift your head—lift your head to the skies!" he ordered. "You're the biggest man in this country. Will you treat the prick of a pin like a mortal wound? What did you expect from them? Lord Almighty! . . . I've packed my bag. I'm ready for the road. Two hundred and fifty pounds a time from the Daily Oracle for thumbnail sketches of the Human Firebrand! Lord, what is any one depressed for in this country! It's chock-full of humour. If I lived here long, I should be fat."

He looked downward at his figure with complacency. Julia laughed softly.

"Aren't you fat now?" she asked.

"Immense," he confessed, "but it's nothing to what I could be. It agrees with me," he went on. "You see, I have learnt the art of being satisfied with myself. I know what I am. I am content. That is where you, my friend Maraton, need to grow a little older. Oh, you are great enough, great enough if you only knew it! Even Maxendorf admits that, and he told me frankly he's disappointed in you. Don't sit there like a dumb figure any longer. We are all coming with you, aren't we? I have brought my car over from Belgium. It is a caravan. It will hold us all—Aaron, too. Let us start; let us get out of this accursed city. Where is the first move?"

"We can't leave tonight," Maraton said. "I am addressing a meeting of the representatives of the Amalgamated Railway Workers—that is, if Peter Dale doesn't manage to stop it. He'll do his best."

"He won't succeed," Aaron declared eagerly. "I saw Ernshaw two hours ago. They're on to Peter Dale and his move. Do you know why Peter Dale was late here this afternoon? He'd been to Downing Street. I heard. Foley's lost you, but he's holding on to the Labour Party. He's pitting the Labour Party against you in the country." Selingman laughed heartily.

"He's got it!" he exclaimed. "That's the scheme. I am all for a fight, spoiling for it. Fighting and eating are the grandest things in the world! What time is the meeting?"

"Seven o'clock," Maraton replied.

"Two hours we will give you," Selingman continued. "Nine o'clock, a little restaurant I know in the West End, the four of us before we start. We will do ourselves well."

"Before I leave London," Maraton said, "I must see Maxendorf once more."

Selingman stroked his face thoughtfully.

"Your risk," he remarked. "Don't you let these chaps think you are mixed up with Maxendorf."

"I must see Maxendorf," Maraton insisted. "When I leave London to-night, the die is cast. I have cut myself adrift from everything in life. I shall make enemies with every class of society. There must be one word more pass between Maxendorf and me before I hold up the torch."

"He's got it," Selingman declared. "The trick is on him already. Maxendorf he shall see. I will arrange a meeting somewhere—not at the hotel. Miss Julia, write down this address. This is where we all meet at nine. Half-past six now. I will take you round to your meeting, Maraton. Do you want any papers?"

"I want no papers," Maraton answered. "I speak to these men to-night as I shall speak to them in the north. I take no papers from London with me, no figures, nothing. It is just the things I see I want to tell them."

Selingman nodded.

"You shall speak immortal words," he declared. "And I—I am the one man in the world to transcribe them, to write in the background, to give them colour and point. What giants we are, Maraton—you with your stream of words, and I with my pen! Miss Julia," he added, "remember that you are to be our inspiration as well as my secretary. Put on your prettiest clothes to-night. It is our last holiday."

She looked at him coldly.

"I do not wear pretty clothes," she said.

"Little fool!" he exclaimed. "Just because you've the big things beating in your brain, you'd like to close your eyes to the fact that your sex is the most wonderful thing on God's earth. That's the worst of a woman. If ever she begins to think seriously, she does her hair in a lump, changes silk for cotton, forgets her corsets, and leaves off ribbons. Silly, silly child!" he went on, shaking his forefinger at her. "I tell you women have done their greatest work in the world when their brains have been covered with a pretty hat. . . . There she goes, he growled," as she left the room. "Thinks I'm a flippant old windbag, I know. And I'm not. Why don't you fall in love with her, Maraton? It would be the making of you. Even a prophet needs relaxation. She is yours, body and soul. One can tell it with every sentence she speaks. And she is for the cause," he concluded with a graver note in his tone. "She has found the fire somewhere. There were women like her who held Robespierre's hand."

Maraton glanced up. Selingman was leaning forward and his eyes were fixed steadily upon his friend.

"I was afraid, just a little afraid," he said slowly, "of the other woman. I am glad she didn't count enough. Women are the very devil sometimes when they come between us and the right thing!"



CHAPTER XXXIII

Selingman came into the restaurant with a huge rose in his buttonhole and another bunch of flowers—carnations this time—in his hands. He made his way to the little round table where Julia and Aaron were seated.

"For you, Miss Julia," he declared, depositing them by her side. "Pin them in the front of your frock. Drink wine to-night. Be gay. Let us see pink, also, in your cheeks. It is a great evening, this. Maraton is here?"

"Not yet," Julia answered, smiling.

Selingman sat down between them. He gave a lengthy order to a waiter; then he turned abruptly to Julia.

"He will keep to it, you think? This time you believe that he has made up his mind?"

"I do," she asserted vigorously.

"What is he made of, that man?" Selingman continued, sipping the Vermouth which he had just ordered. "He makes love to you, eh? Ach! never mind your brother. For a man like Maraton, what does it matter? You are of the right stuff. You would be proud."

She looked steadily out of the restaurant.

"I have been a worker," she said, "in a clothing factory since I was old enough to stand up, and what little time I have had to spare, I have spent in study, in trying to fit myself for the fight against those things that you and I and all of us know of. There has been no opportunity," she went on, more slowly, "I have not allowed myself—"

"Ah, but it comes—it must come!" Selingman interrupted. "You have the instinct—I am sure of that. Use your power a little. It will be for his good. Every man who neglects his passions, weakens. You have the gifts, Julia. I tell you that—I, Selingman, who know much about woman and more about love and life. You've felt it, too, yourself sometimes in the quiet hours. Haven't you lain in your bed with your eyes wide open, and seen the ceiling roll away and the skies lean down, and felt the thoughts come stealing into your brain, till all of a sudden you found that your pulses were beating fast, and your heart was trembling, and there was a sort of faint music in your blood and in your ears? Ah, well, one knows! Suffer yourself to think of these hours when he is with you sometimes. Don't make an ice maiden of yourself. You've done good work. I know all about you. You could do more splendid work still if you could weave that little spell which you and I know of."

"It is too late," she sighed, "too late now, he has become used to me. I am a machine—nothing more, to him. He does not even realise that I am a woman."

"What do you expect?" Aaron asked harshly. "Why should a man, with great things in his brain, waste a moment in thinking of women?"

Selingman's under-lip shot out, a queer little way he had of showing his contempt.

"Little man," he told Aaron, "you are a fanatic. You do not understand. It is a quarter past nine and I am hungry. . . . Ah!"

Maraton came in just then. He had the air of a man who has been through a crisis, but his eyes were bright as though with triumph. Selingman stood up and filled a glass with wine.

"The first rivet has been driven home," he cried. "I see it."

"It has indeed," Maraton answered. "For good or for evil, the railway strike is decided upon. There is civil war waging now, I can tell you," he added, as he sat down. "Graveling was there with a message. The whole of the Labour Party is against the strike. The leaders of the men are hot for it, and the men themselves. There wasn't a single one of them who hesitated. Ernshaw, who represents the Union, told me that there wasn't one of them who wouldn't get the sack if he dared to waver. They know what the Government did in Lancashire and they know what they tried to do at Sheffield. With the railway companies they'll have even more influence."

"Let us dine," Selingman insisted, welcoming the approach of the waiters. "You see me, a man of forty-five, robust, the picture of health. How do I do it? In this manner. When I dine, all cares go to the winds. When I dine, I forget the hard places, I let my brain free of its burden. I talk nonsense I love best with a pretty woman. To-night we will talk with Miss Julia. You see, I have brought her more flowers. She does not wear them, but they lie by her plate."

"I have never worn an ornament in my life," Julia told him, "and I don't think that any one has ever given me flowers."

Selingman groaned.

"Oh, what pitiful words!" he exclaimed. "If there is one thing sadder in life than the slavery of the people, it is to find a woman who has forgotten her sex. Almost you inspire me, young lady, with the desire to take you by the hand and offer you my escort into the gentler ways. If I were sure of success, not even my fair friends on the other side of the Channel could keep me from your feet. Maraton, look away from the walls. There's nothing beyond—just a world full of fancies. There's some Sole Otero on your plate which is worth tasting, and there's champagne in your glass. What matter if there are troubles outside? That's good—there is music."

He beckoned to the chef d'orchestre, engaged him for a few moments in conversation, poured him out a glass of wine, and slipped something into his hand. Then he recommenced his dinner with a chuckle of satisfaction.

"The little man can play," he declared. "He has it in his fingers. We shall hear now the waltzes that I love. Ah, Miss Julia, why is this not Paris! Why can I not get up and put my arm around your waist and whisper in your ear as we float round and round in a waltz? Stupid questions! I am too short to dance with you, for one thing, and much too fat, But one loves to imagine. Listen."

Maraton had already set down his knife and fork. The strains of the waltz had come to him with a queer note of familiarity, a familiarity which at first he found elusive. Then, as the movement progressed, he remembered. Once more he was sitting in that distant corner of the winter garden, hearing every now and then the faint sound of the orchestra from the ballroom. It was the same waltz; alas, the same music was warming his blood! And it was too late now. He had passed into the other world. In his pocket lay the letter which he had received that evening from Mr. Foley—a few dignified lines of bitter disappointment. He was an outcast, one who might even soon be regarded as the wrecker of his own country. And still the music grew and faded and grew again.

It was late before they had finished dinner, and Maraton took Selingman to one side.

"Remember," he insisted, "it is a bargain. Before I go north I must see Maxendorf."

Selingman nodded.

"It is arranged," he said. "We both agreed that it was better for you not to go to the hotel. Wait."

He glanced at his watch and nodded.

"Stay with your brother, little one," he directed, turning to Julia. "We shall be away only a few moments. Come."

"Where are we going?" Maraton enquired, as they passed through the restaurant and ascended the stairs.

Selingman placed his finger by the side of his nose.

"A plan of mine," he whispered. "Maxendorf is here, in a private room."

Selingman hurried his companion into a small private dining-room. Maxendorf was sitting there alone, smoking a cigarette over the remnants of an unpretentious feast. He welcomed them without a smile; his aspect, indeed, as he waved his hand towards a chair, was almost forbidding.

"What do you want with me, Maraton?" he asked. "They tell me—Selingman tells me—there was a word you had to say before you press the levers. Say it, then, and remember that hereafter, the less communication between you and me the better."

Maraton ignored the chair. He stood a little way inside the room. Through the partially opened window came the ceaseless roar of traffic from the busy street below.

"Maxendorf," he began, "there isn't much to be said. You know—Selingman has told you—what my decision is. It took me some time to make up my mind—only because I doubted one thing, and one thing alone, in the world. That one thing, Maxendorf, was your good faith."

Maxendorf lifted his eyes swiftly.

"You doubted me," he repeated.

"You're a people's man, I know," Maraton went one, "but here and there one finds queer traits in your character. They say that you are also a patriot and a schemer."

"They say truly," Maxendorf admitted, "yet these things are by the way. They occupy a little cell of life—no more. It is for the people I live and breathe."

"For the people of the world," Maraton persisted slowly—"for humanity? Is there any difference in your mind, Maxendorf, between the people of one country and the people of another?"

Maxendorf never faltered. His long narrow face was turned steadily towards Maraton. His eyebrows were drawn together. He spoke slowly and with great distinctness.

"I am for humanity," he declared. "Many of the people of my country I have already freed. It is for the sufferers in other lands that I toil in these days. If I am a patriot, it is because it is part of my political outfit, and a political outfit is necessary to the man who labours as I have laboured."

"So be it, then," Maraton decided. "I accept your words. Within a month from this time, the revolution will be here. This land will be laid waste, the terror will be brewed. I fear nothing, Maxendorf, but as one man to another I have come to tell you, before I start north, that if in your heart there is a single grain of deceit, if ever it shall be made clear to me that I have been made the cat's-paw of what you have called patriotism, if the people of this country have left a breath of life in my body, I shall dedicate it to a purpose at which you can guess."

"It is to threaten me that you have come?" Maxendorf asked quietly.

"Don't put it like that," Maraton replied. "These are just the words which you yourself cannot fail to understand. Neither you nor I hold life so dearly that the thought of losing it need make us quaver. I am here only to say this one word—to tell you that the heavens have never opened more surely to let out the lightning, than will your death be a charge upon me if you should vary even a hair's-breadth from our contract. If Maxendorf, the people's man, hides himself for only a moment in the shadow of Maxendorf the politician, he shall die!"

Maxendorf held out his hand.

"Death," he said scornfully, "is not the greatest ill with which you could threaten me, but let it be so. Humanity shall be our motto—no other."

"You spar at one another," Selingman declared, "like a couple of sophists. You are both men of the truth, you are both on your way to the light. I give you my benediction. I watch over you—I, Selingman. I am the witness of the joining of your hands. Unlock the gates without fear, Maraton. Maxendorf will do his work."

CHAPTER XXXIV

About seven miles from London, Selingman gave the signal for the car to pull up. They drew in by the side of the road and they all stood up in their places. Before them, the red glow which hung over the city was almost lurid; strange volumes of smoke were rising to the sky.

"Rioters," Selingman muttered.

Julia looked around with a little shiver. There were no trains running, and a great many of the shops were closed. Some of the people lounging about in the streets had the air of holiday makers. Little bands of men were marching arm in arm, shouting. Occasionally one of them picked up a stone and threw it through a shop window. They had not seen a policeman for miles.

"It is the beginning of the end," Maraton said slowly. "The only pity is that one must see it at all."

Julia pointed down the road.

"What is that?" she asked.

A long, grey-looking line was slowly unwinding itself into the level road. It came into sight like a serpent. It reached as far as the eye could see. From somewhere behind, they heard the sound of music.

"Soldiers," Maraton replied—"marching, too."

They moved the car over to the other side of the road. Presently a mounted officer galloped on ahead and rode up to them.

"Your name and address, please?"

Maraton hesitated.

"Why do you ask for it?" he demanded.

"I am sorry to inform you that your car must be surrendered at once," was the reply. "I hope we shall not inconvenience you very much but those are the general orders. Every motor car is to be commandeered. Sorry for the lady. Give me your name and address, please, at once, the cost price of your car, and how long it has been in your possession?"

Selingman gasped.

"Is the country at war?" he asked. "We have come from South Wales to-day. We heard nothing en route."

"There are no newspapers being issued," the officer told them. "The telegraph is abandoned to the Government, and also the telephone. Even we have no idea what is happening. We are trying to run a few trains through to the north but we have had a couple of hundred men killed already. They are to start again the other side of Romford. In the meantime, I am sorry, but I am bound to take possession of your car at once."

"My name is Selingman."

The officer looked at him curiously.

"Are you Henry Selingman," he enquired—"I mean the fellow who has been writing about Maraton?"

Selingman nodded.

"Then I am afraid I can't say I do feel so sorry to inconvenience you," the officer continued grimly. "Alight at once, if you please—all of you."

"But how are we to get into London?" Selingman protested.

"Walk," the officer replied promptly. "Be thankful if you reach there at all; and keep to the main streets, especially if the lady is going with you.

"Are there no police left?" Maraton demanded.

"We drafted most of them away to the riot centres. Then the train service ceased, too, and they haven't been able to come back. Now we have had an alarm from somewhere—I don't know where and we've got orders to push troops towards the east coast. If you'll take my advice, Mr. Selingman," the officer concluded, "you'll keep your name to yourself for a little time. People who've been associated in any way with Maraton are not too popular just now around here."

Some more officers had ridden up. Two were already in the car. Soon it vanished in a cloud of dust on its way back. Julia, Selingman, Aaron and Maraton were left in the road, along which the soldiers were still marching. They started out to walk. Now and then a motor-car rattled by, full of soldiers, but for the most part the streets were almost empty. No one spoke to them or attempted to molest them in any way. As they drew nearer London, however, the streets became more and more crowded. Men in the middle of the road were addressing little knots of listeners. There was a complete row of shops, the plate-glass windows of which had been knocked in and the contents raided. They pushed steadily onwards. Here and there, little groups of loiterers assumed a threatening aspect. They came across the dead body of a man lying upon the pavement. No one seemed to mind. Very few of the passers-by even glanced at him. Selingman shivered.

"Ghastly!" he muttered. "This reminds me of the first days of the French troubles. How quiet the people keep! They are tired of robbing for money. It is food they want. A sandwich just now would be a dangerous possession."

They reached Algate. There were still no trains running, and nearly all the houses were tightly shuttered.

"Six weeks!" Maraton murmured to himself as he looked around. "Could any one believe that this might happen in six weeks!"

"Why not?" Selingman demanded. "You stop the arteries of life when you stop all communication from centre to centre. It's the most merciful way, after all. Everything will be over the sooner."

They passed down Threadneedle Street, a wilderness with boards nailed up in front of the great bank windows. A little further on there was the usual crowd of people, but they were all hanging about, uncertain what to do. There was no Stock Exchange business being transacted, simply because there were no buyers. At the Mansion House they found a few 'buses running, and managed to board one which was going westwards. It set them down in New Oxford Street, not far from Russell Square. Here there were denser crowds than ever. The entrance to the square itself was almost blocked.

"What's going on here?" Maraton asked a loiterer.

They heard a loud, hoarse yell, repeated several times. The man pointed with his finger.

"They are round. Maraton's house," he answered. "They have broken in all his windows. He's not there or they'd have had him out and flayed him alive."

A brief silence ensued. There seemed something ominous in this message, delivered apparently from one typical of his class, a worker out of work, a pipe in his mouth, a generally aimless air about his movements.

"But forgive me," Selingman remarked, "I am a stranger in this country. I have been told that Maraton is a friend of the people."

The man nodded gloomily.

"There's plenty that calls him so in other parts of the country," he assented. "I belong to a Working Man's Club and what we can't see is what's the bally use of a job like this? He's bitten off more than he can chew—that's what Maraton's done. He's stopped the railways and the coal, and even you can tell what that means, I suppose, sir? Pretty well every factory in the country is shutting down or has shut down. Well, supposing the Government make terms, which they say they can't. The miners and railway men may get a bit more. What about all the rest of us? We're more likely to get a bit less. Then what if the Germans get over here? There's all sorts of rumours about this morning. They say that three-quarters of the fleet is hung up for want of coal. . . . My! Look there, they've fired his house! I wouldn't be in his shoes for something! They say he's hiding up in Northumberland."

The man passed on. Maraton was the first to speak.

"Come," he said quietly, "there is nothing here to be discouraged at. We knew very well that for the first few months—years, perhaps—this thing had to be faced. We must get rooms somewhere. I have to meet the railway men to-night. Young Ernshaw rode up from Derby on a motor-cycle to make the appointment. As for you, Selingman," Maraton went on, as they turned back towards New Oxford Street, "why do you stay here? Your coming has been splendid. It has been a joy to have you near. But between ourselves," he added, lowering his voice, "you know what mobs are. Take my advice and get back home for a time. We shall meet again."

Selingman shook his head.

"I helped to light the torch," he declared. "I'll see it burn for a while. I was in Paris through the last riots—a dirty sight it was! You'll pull through this. Maybe we're better apart for a time. But we'll see one another housed first," he added. "I want to know where you all are."

There was no difficulty about shelter of a sort. The private hotels, which were plentiful in the neighbourhood, were half empty, and supplied rooms readily enough, although they were curiously apathetic about the matter. At each one of them the charges for food were enormous. Maraton divided a bundle of notes into half and made Aaron take one portion.

"Look after Julia," he directed, "and I think you'd better keep away from me. A good many of them knew that you were my secretary. Look after your sister. Keep quiet for a time. Wait."

He tore a sheet of paper from his pocket-book, wrote a few lines upon it and twisted it up.

"You will find an address in New York there," he said. "If anything happens to me, go over and present it in person."

Aaron took it almost mechanically. His eyes scarcely for a second had left his master's face.

"Let me stay here," he begged, "if it's only an attic. There may be work to be done. Let me stay, sir. My little bit of life is of no more account to me than a snap of the fingers. Don't send me away. Julia's a woman—they won't hurt her. She can go back to her old rooms. The streets are quite orderly. Let me stay, sir!"

"No one seemed to notice us come in," Julia pleaded. "Let me stay, too. You heard what the porter said—we could choose what rooms we liked. It is safer in this part of London than in the East End, and you know," she added, looking at him steadily, "that if there is trouble to come, I have no fear."

Maraton hesitated. Perhaps they were as well where they were, under shelter. He nodded.

"Very well," he agreed. "There seems to be no one to show us about. We will go and select rooms."

In the hall they passed a man in the livery of the hotel. Maraton enquired the way to the telephone, but he only shook his head.

"Telephone isn't working, sir," he announced, "not to private subscribers, at any rate. They haven't answered a call for two days."

"Are any meals being served in the restaurant?" Maraton asked.

The man shook his head.

"Not regular meals, sir," he replied. "What food we've got is all locked up. You can get something between eight and nine. We close the hotel doors then."

"They tell me I can select any room I like upstairs that isn't occupied," Maraton remarked.

The porter nodded.

"Nearly all the servants have gone," he explained, "so they can't try to run the hotel. Gone out to find food somewhere. They couldn't feed them here."

"Is there wine in the place?" Selingman asked.

"Plenty," the man answered.

"If needs be, then, we will carouse," Selingman declared. "First, a wash. Then I will forage. Leave it to me to forage, you others. I know the tricks. I shall not go away. I shall stay here with you."

They selected rooms—Maraton and Selingman adjoining ones on the first floor; the others higher up. Then Selingman departed on his expedition, and Maraton sat down before the window in the sitting-room. He drew aside the curtain and stared. They had been in the hotel rather less than half an hour, but the autumn twilight had deepened rapidly. Darkness had fallen upon the city—a strange, unredeemed darkness. The street lamps were unlit. It was as though a black hand had been laid upon the place. Only here and there the sky was reddened as though with conflagration. Maraton's head sunk upon his arms. These, indeed, were the days when he would need all his courage. He threw open the window. There was a curious silence without. The roar of traffic had ceased entirely. The only sound was the footfall of the people upon the pavement. He looked down into the street, crowded with little knots of men, one or two of them carrying torches. He watched them stream by. It was the breaking up of the crowd which had gathered together to sack and burn his house.

The door was softly opened and closed again. He turned half around. Through the shadows he saw Julia's pale face as she came swiftly towards him. With a sudden gesture she fell on her knees by his side. Her fingers clasped him, she clung to his arm.

"Ah, I knew that I should find you like this!" she cried. "Don't look down into the street, don't look at those unlit places! Look up to the skies. See, there is a star there already. Nothing up there—nothing which really matters—is altered. This is only the destruction that must come before the dawn. It was you yourself who prophesied it, you yourself who saw it so clearly. Oh, don't be sad because you have pulled down the pillars! It isn't so very long before the morning."

He passed his arm around her and gripped her fingers tightly. So they were sitting when, by and by, Selingman burst into the room.



CHAPTER XXXV

Selingman was once more entirely his old self. He staggered into the room with a tin of biscuits under one arm, and three bottles of hock under the other, all of which he deposited noisily upon the round table in the middle of the room.

"I am the prince of caterers," he declared. "I surpass myself. Come out of the shadows, you dreamer. There is work to be done, food to be eaten, wine to be drunk."

From his left-hand pocket he produced three candles, which he placed at intervals along the mantelpiece and lit. Then for the first time he saw Julia.

"Ah," he cried, "our inspiration! Congratulate yourself, dear Miss Julia. After all, you are going to dine or sup, or whatever meal you may choose to call it. Behold!"

From his other pocket he produced two great jars of potted meat, a jar of jam, a handful of miscellaneous knives and forks, and a corkscrew.

"I have found an intelligent person here," he confided to them. "He has shown me the way to the wine cellar. Only the landlord and he are permitted to fetch wine. They fear a raid. Niersteiner, of a reasonable vintage."

"I will fetch Aaron," Julia said as she left the room.

"The girl worships you, and you're a beast to her," Selingman exclaimed, his eyes fixed upon the door through which she had vanished. "A man, indeed! A creature of wood and sawdust! Listen!"

His hand flashed out, his hand which grasped still the corkscrew.

"Listen, you man from the clouds," he continued. "I shall rob you of her. I adore her. To-day she may think me merely fat and eccentric. Don't rely upon that. I have the gift when I choose. I can tell fairy tales, I can creep a little way into her mind and fill her brain with delicate fancies, build images there and destroy them, play softly upon the keynote of her emotions, until one day she will wake up and what will have happened? She will be mine!"

He banged the table with the bottle of wine he was holding. Then, with great care and accuracy, he drew the cork.

"Your health!" he cried, raising his glass. "Ah, no! I have not sipped the wine. I change the toast. To Julia!"

Maraton rose to his feet, and turned his back upon the gloomy darkness which brooded over the city. He took the glass of wine which Selingman was holding out and leaned towards him earnestly.

"My friend," he said, "it seems strange to me that we speak of these things at such an hour. Yet let me tell you something. I don't know why I want to tell you, but I do. I am not, perhaps, quite what you think me. Only, the night you and I went north together, the gates of that world which you speak of so easily were closed behind me."

"It was the other woman," Selingman exclaimed.

"It was the other woman," Maraton echoed.

Selingman set down the bottle upon the table. Two great tears rolled down from his blue eyes. He held out both his hands and gripped Maraton's.

"My friend," he said, "now indeed I love you! We are twin souls. You, too, are human as you are wonderful. You see what an old woman I am. This sentiment—oh, it will be the end of me! But tell me—I must know. It was because you went north that it was ended?"

Maraton nodded slowly.

"I chose the opposite camp," he answered. "What could I do?"

"Nature," Selingman declared, brandishing a great silk handkerchief, "is the queerest mistress who ever played pranks with us. Here, in the same camp, dwells a divinity, and you—you must peer down into the lower world. . . . Never mind, potted meat and hock are good. Julia," he added, turning his head at the sound of the opening door, "to genius in adversity all gentle familiarities are permitted. I grant myself the privilege of your Christian name. Come and grace our feast. I have found food and wine. I am your self-appointed caterer. There is no butter, but that is simply one of those pleasant tests for us, a test of will and fortitude. All my life until to-night I have loved butter. From henceforth—until we can get it again—I detest it. Let us eat, drink and be merry. Where is Aaron?"