“Well, the people are turning against the old gang, at last. The Prime Minister has only his favorites and parasites and newspapers left with him. The Unionists are scared stiff by the sudden uprising of the Anti-waste Party and Labor has been drained of its fighting funds. The Liberals have withered. There is one great cry for honest government, relief from crushing taxation, a fair reward for hard work, and new leadership that will make the future safe from new wars. We must have Fallaray. He’s the only man. I came here this evening to fetch him. He refuses to come because of you. What are you going to do?”
As he drew up short and faced her, she looked like a deer surrounded by dogs. He was sorry, but this was no time for fooling. What stuff was this girl made of? Had she the gift of self-sacrifice as well as the magnetism of sex? Or was she just a female, who would cling to what she had won, self before everything?
“I love him,” she said.
Well, it was good to know that, but was that an answer? “Yes,” he said. “Well?” He would like to have added “But does he love you and can you keep him after passion is dead,—a man like Fallaray, who, after all, is forty.” But he hadn’t the courage or the desire to hurt.
“And because I love him he must go,” she said.
He leaned forward and seized her hand. He was surprised, delighted, and a little awed. She had gone as white as a lily. “You will see to that? You will use all your influence to give him back to us?” He could hardly believe his ears and his eyes.
“All my influence,” she said, standing very straight.
He bent down and touched her hand with his lips.
They were at the gate. They heard steps on the other side of the wall.
“Go,” she said, “quickly.”