A People's Man Part 26

"Now I am going to begin to talk," he said. "Don't look as though you were going to run away, because you're not. I am going to talk to you about that fellow Maraton."

"Why do you mention his name?" she asked, stiffening. "What has he to do with it?"

"A good deal, to my thinking," was the grim reply. "It's my belief that you've a fancy for him, and that's why you've turned against me."

"You've no right to say anything of the sort!" she exclaimed.

"And, by G.o.d, why haven't I?" he insisted, striking his knee with his clenched fist. "Haven't you been my girl for six years before he came?

You were kind of shy, but you'd have been mine in the end, and you know it. Waiting was all I had to do, and I was content to wait. And now he's come along, and I know very well that I haven't a dog's chance.

You're a working la.s.s, Julia, fit mate for a working man. Do you think he's one of our sort? Not he! Do you think he's for marrying a girl who works for her bread? If you do, you're a bigger fool than I think you. He's forever nosing around amongst these swell ladies and gentlemen with handles to their names, ladies and gentlemen who live on the other side of the earth to us. He can talk like a prophet, I grant you, but that's all there is of the prophet about him. People's man, indeed! He'll be the people's man so long as it pays him and not a second longer."

"Have you finished?" she asked quietly.

"No, nor never shall have finished," he continued, raising his voice, "while he's playing the rotten game he's at now, and you're mooning around after him as though he were a G.o.d. I'll never stop speaking until I've knocked the bottom out of that, Julia. You never used to think anything of fine clothes and all these gentlemen's tricks, it's all come of a sudden."

"Have you finished?" she asked again.

"Never in this life!" he replied fiercely. "I tell you he shan't have you, and you shan't have him. I'm there between, and I'm not to be got rid of. I'll take one of you or both of you by the throat and strangle the life out of you, before I quit. It isn't," he went on, his face once more disfigured by that ample sneer, "it isn't that I'm afraid of his wanting to marry you. He won't do that. But he's one of those who are fond of messing about--philanderer's the word. If he tries it on with you, he'll find h.e.l.l before his time! Sit down!"

She had risen to her feet. He clutched at her skirt. The sense of his touch--she was peculiarly sensitive to touch--gave her the strength she needed. She s.n.a.t.c.hed it away.

"Now," she declared', "you have had your say. This is what you get for it. You have offended me. Our friendship is forgotten. The less I see of you, the more content I shall be. And as to what I do or what becomes of me, it isn't your business. I shall do with myself exactly as I choose--exactly as I choose, Richard Graveling! You hear that?"

she reiterated, with blazing eyes and tone cruelly deliberate. "I haven't much in the world, but my body and my soul are my own. I shall give them where I choose, and on what terms I please. If you try to follow me, you'll put me to the expense of a cab home. That's all!"

She walked away with firm footsteps. She felt stronger, more of a woman than she had done all day. Graveling made no attempt to follow her. He sat and smoked in stolid silence.

CHAPTER XIX

Julia was conscious of a new vitality as she left the Park. She was her own mistress now; her half tie to Graveling was permanently broken. So much the better! The man's personality had always been distasteful to her. She had suffered him only as a fellow worker. His overtures in other directions had kept her in a continual state of embarra.s.sment, but in her ignorance as to her own feelings, she had hesitated to speak out.

She put sedulously behind her the question of what had brought this new enlightenment.

She took the Tube to the British Museum and went round to see Aaron.

The house was busier than she had ever seen it before; taxicabs were coming and going, and four or five people sat in the waiting-room.

Aaron looked up and waved his hand as she entered. He was alone in the study where he worked.

"Come in," he cried eagerly. "Sit down. It's a joy to see you, Julia, but I daren't stop working. I've forty or fifty letters to type before he comes in, and he'll be off again in half-an-hour."

She sank into an easy chair. The atmosphere of the cool room, with its opened windows and drawn Venetian blinds, was most restful.

"Is everything going well, Aaron?" she asked him.

He nodded.

"Better than well. There's a telegram just in from Manchester. We are bound to win there. Did you read Foley's speech?"

"Yes. Did he mean it all, do you think?" she asked doubtfully.

"Every word," he replied confidently. "We've got it here in black and white. There has been a commission appointed. Members of the Government, if you please--nothing less. The masters have got an ultimatum. If they refuse, Mr. Foley has asked Maraton to frame a bill. We've got the sketch of it here already. What do you think of that, Julia?"

"I only wish that I knew," she murmured. "What can have happened to Mr.

Foley?"

"They all do as Maraton bids them!" Aaron ex-claimed triumphantly. "If only I had four hands! I can't finish, Julia. It's impossible."

She sprang up and tore off her gloves.

"Let me help," she cried eagerly. "You have another typewriter in the corner there. I can work it, and you know I could always read your shorthand."

He accepted her help a little grudgingly.

"You must be careful, then," he enjoined, with the air of one who confers a favour. "There must be no mistakes. Begin here and do those letters. One carbon copy of each. I'll lift the machine on to the table for you."

She propped up the book and very soon there was silence in the room, except for the click of the two typewriters. Presently she stopped short and uttered a little cry.

"What is it?" he demanded, without looking up from his work.

"This letter to the Secretary of the Unionist a.s.sociation, Nottingham!"

"Well?"

"Mr. Maraton is to go there Thursday, to address a meeting,--a Unionist meeting."

Aaron glowered at her from over his typewriter.

"Why not? It's Mr. Foley's idea. He wants Mr. Maraton in Parliament.

Why not?"

"But as a Unionist!" she gasped. "Nottingham isn't a Labour const.i.tuency at all."

"He is coming in as a Unionist, so as to have a free hand. We don't want any interference from Peter Dale and that lot."

She looked at him aghast. Peter Dale and his colleagues had been G.o.ds a few weeks ago!

"Can't you see," Aaron continued irritably, "that the coming of Maraton has changed many things? A man like that can't serve under anybody, and no man could come as a stranger and lead the Labour Party. He has to be outside. This is a working man's const.i.tuency. He is pledged to fight Capital, fight it tooth and nail."

"I suppose it's all right," Julia said. "It seems different, somehow, from what we had expected, and he never goes to the Clarion at all."

"Why should he?" Aaron demanded. "They are all jealous of him, every one of 'em; Peter Dale is the worst of the lot. Didn't you hear how they talked to him at Manchester?"

She nodded, and for a time they went on with their work. She found herself, however, continually returning to the subject of those vital differences; the Maraton as they had dreamed of him--the prophet with the flaming sword, and this wonderfully civilised person.

"Tell me honestly, Aaron," she asked presently, "what do you think of it all?--of him--of his methods? You are with him all the time. Haven't you ever any doubts?"

She watched him closely. She would have been conscious of the slightest tremor in his reply, the slightest hesitation. There was nothing of the sort. He was merely tolerant of her ignorance.