A People's Man Part 5

Maraton led her gently back to the chair in which she had been sitting.

"Now we must talk," he declared. "Sit opposite to me there."

He struck a match and lit the lamp of a little coffee machine which stood upon the table. She sprang eagerly to her feet.

"Let me, please," she begged. "I understand those things. Please let me make the coffee."

He laughed and, going to the cabinet, brought another of the old blue china cups and saucers. With very deft fingers she manipulated the machine. Presently, when her task was finished, she sat back in her chair, her coffee cup in her hand, her great eyes fixed upon him. She had the air of a person entirely content.

"So you are Julia Thurnbrein."

"And you," she replied, still with that note of suppressed yet pa.s.sionate reverence in her tone, "are Maraton."

He smiled.

"The women workers of the world owe you a great deal," he said.

"But it is so little that one can do," she answered, quivering with pleasure at his words. "One needs inspiration, direction. Now that you have come, it will be different; it will be wonderful!"

She leaned towards him, and once more Maraton was conscious of the splendid mobility of her trembling body. She was a revelation to him--a modern Joan of Arc.

"Remember that I am no magician," he warned her.

"Ah, but your very presence alters everything!" she cried. "It makes everything possible--everything. My brother, too, is mad with excitement. He hoped that you might have been at the Clarion Hall to-night, before you went to Downing Street. You have seen Mr. Foley and talked with him?"

"I have come straight from there," he told her. "Foley is a shrewd man.

He sees the writing upon the wall. He is afraid."

She looked at him and laughed.

"They will try to buy you," she remarked scornfully. "They will try to deal with you as they did with Blake and others like him--you--Maraton!

Oh, I wonder if England knows what it means, your coming!--if she really feels the breaking dawn!"

"Tell me about yourself?" Maraton asked, a little abruptly--"your work?

I know you only by name, remember--your articles in the reviews and your evidence before the Woman Labour Commission.

"I am a tailoress," she replied. "It is horrible work, but I have the good fortune to be quick. I can make a living--there are many who cannot."

He was leaning back in his chair, his head supported by his hand, his eyes fixed curiously upon her. Her pallor was not wholly the pallor of ill-health. In her beautiful eyes shone the fire of life. She laughed at him softly and held out her hands for his inspection. They were shapely enough, but her finger-tips were scotched and p.r.i.c.ked.

"Here are the hall-marks of my trade. Others who work by my side have fallen away. It is of their sufferings I have written. I myself am physically very strong. It is the average person who counts."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"You have written and worked a great deal for your age. Are you still in employment?"

"Of course! I left off at seven this evening. I have nothing else in my life," she added simply, "but my work, our work, the breaking of these vile bonds. I need no pleasures. I have never thought of any."

Her eyes suddenly dropped before his. A confusion of thought seemed to have seized upon her. Maraton, too, conscious of the nature of his imaginings, although innocent of any personal application, was not wholly free from embarra.s.sment.

"Perhaps you will think," he observed, "that I am asking too many personal questions for a new acquaintance, but, after all, I must know you, must I not? We are fellow workers in a great cause. The small things do not matter."

She looked at him once more frankly. The blush had pa.s.sed from her cheeks, her eyes were untroubled.

"I don't know what came over me," she confessed. "I was suddenly afraid that you might misunderstand my coming to you like this, without invitation, so late. Somehow, with you, it didn't seem to count."

"It must not!"

More at her ease now she glanced around the room and back at him. He smiled.

"Confess," he said, "that there are some things about me and my surroundings which have surprised you?"

She nodded.

"Willingly. I was surprised at your house, at being received by a man servant--at everything," she added, with a glance at his attire. "Yet what does that matter? It is because I do not understand."

The little lines about his eyes deepened. He laughed softly.

"I only hope that the others will adopt your att.i.tude. I hear that many of them have very decided views about evening dress and small luxuries of any description."

"Graveling and Peter Dale--especially Dale--are terrible," she declared.

"Dale is very narrow, indeed. You must bear with them if they are foolish at first. They are uncultured and rough. They do not quite understand. Sometimes they do not see far enough. But to-morrow you will meet them. You will be at the Clarion to-morrow?"

"I am not sure," he answered thoughtfully. "I am thinking matters over. To-morrow I shall meet the men of whom you have spoken, and a few others whose names I have on my list, and consult with them.

Personally, I am not sure as to the wisdom of opening my lips until after our meeting at Manchester."

"Oh, don't say that!" she begged. "What we all need so much is encouragement, inspiration. Our greatest danger is lethargy. There are millions who stare into the darkness, who long for a single word of hope. Their eyes are almost tired. Come and speak to us to-morrow as you spoke to the men and women of Chicago."

He smiled a little grimly.

"You forget that this is England. Until the time comes, one must choose one's words. It is just what would please our smug enemies best to have me break their laws before I have been here long enough to become dangerous."

"You broke the laws of America," she protested eagerly.

"I had a million men and women primed for battle at my back," he reminded her. "The warrant was signed for my arrest, but no one dared to serve it. All the same, I had to leave the country with some work half finished."

"It was a glorious commencement," she cried enthusiastically.

"One must not forget, though," he sighed, "that England is different.

To attain the same ends here, one may have to use somewhat different methods."

For the moment, perhaps, she was stirred by some prophetic misgiving.

The hard common sense of his words fell like a cold douche upon the furnace of her enthusiasms. She had imagined him a prophet, touched by the great and unmistakable fire, ready to drive his chariot through all the hosts of iniquity; irresistible, una.s.sailable, cleaving his way through the bending ma.s.ses of their oppressors to the goal of their desires. His words seemed to proclaim him a disciple of other methods.

There were to be compromises. His attire, his dwelling, this luxuriously furnished room, so different from anything which she had expected, proclaimed it. She herself held it part of the creed of her life to be free from all ornaments, free from even the shadow of luxury.

Her throat was bare, her hair simply arranged, her fingers and wrists innocent of even the simplest article of jewellery. He, on the other hand, the Elijah of her dreams, appeared in the guise of a man of fashion, wearing, as though he were used to them, the attire of the hated cla.s.s, obviously qualified by breeding and use to hold his place amongst them. Was this indeed to be the disappointment of her life?

Then she remembered and her courage rose. After all, he was the Master.

"I will go now," she said. "I am glad to have been the first to have welcomed you."