The Duchess shook her head despondently.
“I hardly know what will happen yet. I hinted that his brother might come to his help if he would give up his present life, and he refused. Do you know what I am actually afraid of? I believe that woman is scheming to make him marry her!”
Hero Vanbrugh was as much shocked by this suggestion as the Duchess could have desired. Her training had not been severely Puritanical, but an instinct older than copybooks and Sunday schools taught her to look on Molly Finucane as her natural enemy. Such women as Molly were traitors to their sex; they were the blacklegs of the feminine trades-union. The wage which the others had worked from time immemorial to establish—honour, a home, the half of all a man’s possessions, and the chief place in his life—all this the free-lance had foregone, to snatch the miserable gains of adventure.
The announcement that lunch was on the table did not interrupt the conversation. But it added another interlocutor in the person of the Duke of Trent.
The new Minister had passed a busy morning at the Home Office. His first care had been to send for his solicitor, to consult him about Lord Alistair’s affairs. The lawyer told him that, though the nominal amount of his brother’s indebtedness was not less than fifty thousand pounds, the creditors would probably be willing to accept one-half to cancel the proceedings. Twenty-five thousand was a large sum to a man circumstanced as the Duke was; nevertheless, he had made up his mind that it should be forthcoming, and he had instructed the solicitor to open the negotiations on his behalf.
The most important item of official business had been a call from the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who reported a fresh piece of hooligan violence from the neighbourhood of Bermondsey. A policeman was again the victim, and the Force were beginning to show a dangerous temper, and to demand permission to carry revolvers for their own protection.
The Home Secretary privately sympathized with this demand, but he foresaw that such a departure would be the signal for a storm of protest in the workmen’s papers and in the House of Commons. The particular quarter of London where the latest outrage had occurred was represented in the House by a sturdy demagogue who was not likely to sit with his mouth closed while his constituents were threatened with what he had already described in advance as martial law. The very gangs which were now defying the police were believed to have done effective work during the last election, and on one memorable occasion their popular representative had led them to an armed encounter with the forces of law and order in the heart of the capital.
These considerations had to be weighed by the Home Secretary. A Cabinet Minister in these days holds the position of a buffer between the permanent heads of his department, who really govern the Raj, and the assembly elected by the populace to supervise them. The first duty of the Minister, no doubt, was to support his staff, but it was also imperative to take no step that might endanger the popularity of his party in the constituencies. In this dilemma the Duke of Trent had reserved his decision till he should have had an opportunity of consulting Major Berwick, the trusted chief of the electoral machine.
A smile of pleasure betrayed his gratification at the entrance of Miss Vanbrugh, who greeted him with the ease of old friendship. He told his mother briefly of the steps he had already taken on Alistair’s behalf.
The Duchess gave him a grateful look.