A People's Man Part 4

Maraton turned once more to the window, raised the curtain, and gazed out into the darkness. There was a little movement at the end of the street. The police had driven back the crowd to allow a carriage to pa.s.s through. A hoa.r.s.e murmur of voices came floating into the room.

The people gave way slowly and unwillingly--still, they gave way. Law and order, strenuous though the task of preserving them was becoming, prevailed.

"Mr. Foley," Maraton said, dropping the curtain and returning once more to his place, "I am honoured by your confidence. You force me, however, to remind you that you have spoken to me as a politician. I am not a politician. The cause of the people is above politics."

"I am for the people," Mr. Foley declared, with a sudden pa.s.sion in his tone. "It is their own fault, the blind prejudice of their ignorant leaders, if they fail to recognise it."

"For the people," Maraton repeated softly.

"Haven't my Government done their best to prove it?" the Prime Minister demanded, almost fiercely. "We have pa.s.sed at least six measures which a dozen years ago would have been reckoned rank Socialism. What we do need to-day is a people's man in our Government. I admit our weakness.

I admit that with every desire to do the right thing, we may sometimes err through lack of knowledge. Our great trouble is this; there is not to-day a single man amongst the Labour Party, a single man who has come into Parliament on the mandate of the people, whose a.s.sistance would be of the slightest service to us. I make you an offer which you yourself must consider a wonderful one. You come to this country as an enemy, and I offer you my hand as a friend. I offer you not only a seat in Parliament but a share in the counsels of my party. I ask you to teach us how to legislate for the people of the future."

Maraton remained for a moment silent. His face betrayed no exultation.

His tone, when at last he spoke, was almost sad.

"Mr. Foley," he said, "if you are not a great man, you have in you, at least, the elements of greatness. You have imagination. You know how to meet a crisis. I only wish that what you suggest were possible.

Twenty years ago, perhaps, yes. To-day I fear that the time for any legislation in which you would concur, is past."

"What have you to hope for but legislation?" Mr. Foley asked. "What else is there but civil war?"

Maraton smiled a little grimly.

"There is what in your heart you are fearing all the time," he replied.

"There is the slow paralysis of all your manufactures, the stoppage of your railways, the dislocation of every industry and undertaking built upon the slavery of the people. What about your British Empire then?"

Mr. Foley regarded his visitor with quiet dignity.

"I have understood that you were an Englishman, Mr. Maraton," he said.

"Am I to look upon you as a traitor?"

"Not to the cause which is my one religion," Maraton retorted swiftly.

"Empires may come and go, but the people remain. What changes may happen to this country before the great and final one, is a matter in which I am not deeply concerned."

The telephone bell upon the table between them rang. Mr. Foley frowned slightly, as he raised the receiver to his ear.

"You will forgive me?" he begged. "This is doubtless a matter of some importance. It is not often that my secretary allows me to be disturbed at this hour."

Maraton wandered back to the window, raised the curtain and once more looked out upon the scene which seemed to him that night so pregnant with meaning. His mind remained fixed upon the symbolism of the streets. He heard only the echoes of a somewhat prolonged exchange of questions and answers. Finally, Mr. Foley replaced the receiver and announced the conclusion of the conversation. When Maraton turned round, it seemed to him that his host's face was grey.

"You come like the stormy petrel," the latter remarked bitterly. "There is bad news to-night from the north. We are threatened with militant labour troubles all over the country."

"It is the inevitable," Maraton declared.

Mr. Foley struck the table with his fist.

"I deny it!" he cried. "These troubles can and shall be stopped.

Legislation shall do it--amicable, if possible; brutal, if not. But the man who is content to see his country ruined, see it presented, a helpless prey, to our enemies for the mere trouble of landing upon our sh.o.r.es,--that man is a traitor and deserves to be treated as such. Tell me, on behalf of the people, Mr. Maraton, what is it that you want?

Name your terms?"

Maraton shook his head doubtfully.

"You are a brave man, Mr. Foley," he said, "but remember that you do not stand alone. There are your fellow Ministers."

"They are my men," Mr. Foley insisted. "Besides, there is the thunder in the air. We cannot disregard it. We are not ostriches. Better to meet the trouble bravely than to be crushed by it."

There was a tap at the door, and Lady Elisabeth appeared upon the threshold. Maraton was conscious of realising for the first time that this was the most beautiful woman whom he had ever seen in his life.

She avoided looking at him as she addressed her uncle.

"Uncle," she said deprecatingly, "I am so sorry, but every one is asking for you. You have been in here for nearly twenty minutes. There is a rumour that you are ill."

Mr. Foley rose to his feet reluctantly.

"I will come," he promised.

She closed the door and departed silently. At no time had she glanced towards or taken any notice of Maraton.

"We discuss the fate of an empire," Mr. Foley sighed, "and necessity demands that I must return to my guests! This conversation between us must be finished. You are a reasonable man; you cannot deny the right of an enemy to demand your terms before you declare war?"

Maraton, too, had risen to his feet. He had turned slightly and his eyes were fixed upon the door through which Elisabeth had pa.s.sed. For a moment or two he seemed deep in thought. The immobility of his features was at last disturbed. His eyes were wonderfully bright, his lips were a little parted.

"On Sat.u.r.day," Mr. Foley continued, "we leave for our country home.

For two days we shall be alone. It is not far away--an hour by rail.

Will you come, Mr. Maraton?"

Maraton withdrew his eyes from the door. "It seems a little useless,"

he said quietly. "Will you give me until to-morrow to think it over?"

CHAPTER IV

Maraton made his way from Downing Street on foot, curiously enough altogether escaping recognition from the crowds who were still hanging about on the chance of catching a glimpse of him. He was somehow conscious, as he turned northwards, of a peculiar sense of exhilaration, a savour in life unexpected, not altogether a.n.a.lysable. As a rule, the streets themselves supplied him with illimitable food for thought; the pa.s.sing mult.i.tudes, the ceaseless flow of the human stream, justification absolute and most complete for the new faith of which he was the prophet. For the cause of the people had only been recognised during recent days as something entirely distinct from the Socialism and Syndicalism which had been its precursors. It was Maraton himself who had raised it to the level of a religion.

To-night, however, there was a curious background to his thoughts. Some part of his earlier life seemed stirred up in the man. The one selfishness permitted to rank as a virtue in his s.e.x was alive. His heart had ceased to throb with the loiterers, the flotsam and jetsam of the gutters. For the moment he was cast loose from the absorbed and serious side of his career. A curious wave of sentiment had enveloped him, a wave of sentiment una.n.a.lysable and as yet impersonal; he walked as a man in a dream. For the first time he had seen and recognised the imperishable thing in a woman's face.

He reached at last one of the large, somewhat gloomy squares in the district between St. Pancras and New Oxford street, and paused before one of the most remote houses situated at the extreme northeast corner.

He opened the front door with a latch-key and pa.s.sed across a large but simply furnished hall into his study. He entered a little abstractedly, and it was not until he had closed the door behind him that he realised the presence of another person in the room. At his entrance she had risen to her feet.

"At last!" she exclaimed. "At last you have come!"

There was a silence, prolonged, curious, in a sense thrilling. A girl of wonderful appearance had risen to her feet and was looking eagerly towards him. She was wearing the plain black dress of a working woman, whose clumsy folds inadequately concealed a figure of singular beauty and strength. Her cheeks were colourless; her eyes large and deep, and of a soft shade of grey, filled just now with the half wondering, half worshipping expression of a pilgrim who has reached the Mecca of her desires. Her hair--her shabby hat lay upon the table--was dark and glossy. Her arms were a little outstretched. Her lips, unusually scarlet against the pallor of her face, were parted. Her whole att.i.tude was one of quivering eagerness. Maraton stood and looked at her in wonder. The little cloud of sentiment in which he had been moving, perhaps, made him more than ever receptive to the impressions which she seemed to create. Both the girl herself and her pose were splendidly allegorical. She stood there for the great things of life.

"I would not go away," she cried softly. "They forbade me to stay, but I came back. I am Julia Thurnbrein. I have waited so long."

Maraton stepped towards her and took her hands.

"I am glad," he said. "It is fitting that you should be one of the first to welcome me. You have done a great work, Julia Thurnbrein."

"And you," she murmured pa.s.sionately, still clasping his hands, "you a far greater one! Ever since I understood, I have longed for this meeting. It is you who will become the world's deliverer."