A Lost Leader Part 34

THE WOMAN AND--THE OTHER WOMAN

"You see, Mannering," Lord Redford said, tapping the outspread evening paper with his forefinger, "the situation now presents a different aspect. I have no wish to force your hand--a few hours ago I think I proved this. But if you are to remain even nominally with us some sort of p.r.o.nouncement must come from you in reply to these statements."

"Yes," Mannering said, "that is quite reasonable."

"The postponement of your campaign has been hinted at before," Lord Redford continued, "but we have never used the word abandonment. Now, to speak bluntly, the whole fat is in the fire. Your place on the fence is no longer possible. You must make your own declaration, and it must be for one of three things. You must remain with us, abandon public life for a time, or go over to the other side. And you must make promptly an announcement of your intentions."

"I have no alternative in the matter," Mannering said. "In fact, I think that this has happened opportunely. My presence with you was sure to prove something of an embarra.s.sment to all of us. I shall apply for the Chiltern Hundreds to-morrow, and I shall not seek to re-enter the present Parliament. The few months' respite will be useful to me. I can only express to you, Lord Redford, my sincere grat.i.tude for all your consideration, and my regret for this disarrangement of your plans."

Lord Redford sighed. Why were men born, he wondered, with such a prodigious capacity for playing the fool?

"My chief regret, Mannering," he said, "is for you. The Fates so controlled circ.u.mstances that you seemed certain to achieve as a young man what is the crowning triumph of us veterans in the political world. I respect the honest scruples of every man, but it seems to me that you are throwing away an unparalleled opportunity in a fit of what a practical man like myself can only call sentimentality. I have no more to say.

Forgive me if I have said too much. For the rest, give us the pleasure of your company here for as long as you find it convenient. We will abjure politics, and you shall give me my revenge at golf."

Mannering shook his head.

"I am very much obliged to you," he said, "but there is only one course open to me. I must go back and make my plans. If I could have a carriage for the nine-forty!"

Lord Redford made no effort to induce him to change his mind, though he remained courteous to the last.

"I was really glad to have him go," he told Borrowdean afterwards. "His very presence--the thought that there could be such colossal fools in the world--irritated me beyond measure. You can write his epitaph, Leslie, if your humorous vein is working, for the man is politically dead."

"One never knows," Berenice said, quietly. "There must be something great about a man capable of such prodigious self-sacrifice. For at heart Lawrence Mannering is an ambitious man."

Lord Redford shrugged his shoulders.

"Perhaps," he said, "but I am very sure of this. There is nothing so great about the man as his folly."

Berenice smiled.

"We shall see," she said. "Personally, I believe that Sir Leslie would find his epitaph a little previous. I saw a great deal of Lawrence Mannering in the country, and I think that I understand him as well as either of you. I believe that his day will come."

"Well, all I can say is," Lord Redford p.r.o.nounced, "that I very much wish you had left him down at his country home. Between you you have created a very serious situation. I must go up to town to-morrow and see Manningham. In the meantime, Leslie, I shall leave those reports severely alone. We must ignore Mannering altogether."

Berenice turned away with a smile at her lips. She had a very little opinion of Lord Redford and his following. Already she saw the man whose career they counted finished, at the head of a new and greater party.

There were plenty of clever men of the coming generation, plenty of room for compromises, for the formation of a great national party out of the scattered units of a disunited opposition. She believed Mannering strong enough to do this. She saw in it greater possibilities than might have been forthcoming even if he had been chosen to lead the somewhat ragged party represented by Lord Redford and his followers. For the rest, she had been very near the success she so desired. Only an accident had robbed her of victory. If once they had reached the rose-garden she knew that she would have triumphed.

As her maid took off her jewellery that night she smiled at herself in the gla.s.s. She was thinking of that moment on the terrace. The glow had not wholly faded from her face--she saw herself with her long, slender neck and smooth, unwrinkled complexion, still beautiful, still a woman to be loved. Her maid ventured to whisper a word of respectful compliment.

Truly Madame La d.u.c.h.esse was growing younger!

What strange whim, or evil fate, had turned his feet in that direction?

Mannering often tried to trace backwards the workings of his mind that night, but he never wholly succeeded. He reached London about eleven, and sent his man home with his luggage, intending merely to call in at the club for letters. But afterwards he remembered only that he had strolled aimlessly along homewards, thinking deeply, and not particularly careful as to his direction. Even then he would have pa.s.sed the house in Sloane Gardens without looking up, but for the civil "Good-night, sir," of a coachman sitting on the box of a small brougham drawn up against the kerb. He raised his head to return the salute, and realized at once where he was. Almost at the same moment the front door opened, and behind a glow of light in the hall he saw a familiar figure in the act of pa.s.sing out to her carriage. The street was well lit, and he was almost opposite a lamp-post. She recognized him at once.

"Lawrence," she exclaimed, incredulously. "You--were you coming in?"

She was wrapped from head to foot in a long white opera cloak, but the jewels in her hair and at her throat glistened in the flashing light. She moved slowly forward to his side. Her maid, who had been coming out to open the carriage door, lingered behind.

"I--upon my word, I scarcely know how I came here," he answered, a little bewildered. "I was walking home--it is scarcely out of my way--and thinking. You are going out?"

She nodded. Looking at her now more closely he saw the shadows under her eyes, only imperfectly concealed. The little gesture with which she answered him savoured of weariness.

"Yes, I was going out. I have sat alone with my thoughts all day, and I don't want to end my life in a lunatic asylum. I want a little change, that is all. If you will come in and talk to me instead, that will do as well. Any sort of distraction, you see," she added, with a hard little laugh, "just to keep me from--"

She did not finish her sentence. He looked at her gravely, and from her to the waiting carriage. He suddenly realized how the altered condition of affairs must affect her.

"I shall have to come and see you in a day or two," he said. "But now--" he hesitated.

"Why not now, then?" she asked.

"You have an engagement," he said.

She shook her head.

"I was only going somewhere to supper. I was going to call for Eva Fanesborough, and I suppose we should have had some bridge afterwards.

Come in instead, Lawrence. I can telephone to her."

Already a presage of evil seemed to be forming itself in his mind. He would have given anything to have thought of some valid excuse.

"Your carriage--"

"Pooh!" she answered. "John, I shall not want you to-night," she said to the coachman. "Come!"

She led the way, and Mannering followed. As the maid closed the door behind them Mannering felt his breath quicken--his sense of depression grew stronger. He seemed threatened by some new and intangible danger. He stood on the hearthrug while she bent over the switch and turned on the electric light in the sitting-room. Then she threw off her cloak and looked at him curiously for a moment. Her face softened.

"My dear Lawrence," she said, "has politics done this, or are you ill?"

"I am quite well," he answered. "A little tired, perhaps. I have had rather a trying day."

She rang the bell, and ordered sandwiches and wine.

"You look like a corpse," she said, and stood over him while he ate and drank. And all the time that indefinable fear within him grew. She made him smoke. Then she leaned back in an easy-chair and looked across at him.

"You had something to say to me. What was it?"

"Nothing good," he answered. "I have quarrelled with my party, and I have to resign my seat in the House."

"Already?"

"Already! I am sorry, as of course in a few months' time I should have been in office, and drawing a considerable salary. As it is--" he hesitated.

"Oh, I understand!" she said. "Well, it doesn't matter much. I only have the house for six months furnished, and that's paid for in advance. John must go, and the horses can be sold."

He looked at her in amazement. Only a few months ago she had talked very differently.

"I--I am not sure whether all that will be necessary," he said. "I can find a tenant for Blakely, and I daresay I can manage another hundred a year or so. Only, of course, the large increase we had thought of will not be possible now."