'Not to-night. He is lecturing at some East-end club. What a man he is; so devoted to the cause. It seems so sad that he should be so very extreme in his views. Force is such a terrible thing, and I very much fear that he believes in that more than in the power of love.'
'I think he does,' answered Clare, seeing herself appealed to.
'Ah, well; we must try to convert him,' Mrs Quaid said, smiling. 'I should imagine him to be a most reasonable person to talk to, and not difficult to convince. I like him so much. It is so seldom one meets a man with just his polish of manner and strength of mind. Cora, dear, I've had no lunch. Just ring and order some for me. I really feel quite faint.'
At eight o'clock that evening Petrovitch stood in the softly-lighted hall of Marlborough Villa. He felt more interested in the coming evening than he generally was on such occasions. Hirsch, who was with him, was very much surprised to find himself within the portals of one of those middle-class establishments against which he had always inveighed so bitterly. But Mrs Quaid's manner had overborne his determinations with its resistless flow of gush, and he had accepted her invitation from sheer inability to edge in a word of refusal. He had been in a state of mingled remorse and terror ever since, and only Petrovitch's strong representations to the effect that men who set themselves against Society should at least not fall below Society in the matter of keeping their word, had induced him to face the dreadful ordeal of meeting half-a-dozen well-dressed Social Reformers in a large and luxurious drawing-room.
It would be impossible for any human being to be quite as glad to see any other human being as Mrs Quaid appeared to be to see her two new friends. They came in together, and while Hirsch looked round on the handsome furniture with a savagely appraising glance, prompted equally by his Jewish blood and his Socialistic convictions, Petrovitch, having seen that Clare was present, delivered himself an unresisting prey to his hostess, knowing that to even her eloquence an end must come, and knowing, too, that sooner or later he would find himself beside the girl whom his paper on Socialism had seemed to impress so much, the first time he had ever been in that room. He had been in that room more than once since but never without seeing a very vivid vision of the fair face, shining eyes, and red lips, slightly parted in the interest of listening, the girlish figure bent forward the better to catch every word of his. It was not only the flattery of her undisguised interest in him which had painted for him this memory-picture, and had given him a constantly-recurring desire to see the original again. He was pretty well skilled by this time in reading the faces of his fellow-creatures, and when all the thanks and congratulations of the Cleon's visitors were ringing in his ears, he had known perfectly well that the only heart he had touched, the only mind that had followed his reasoning, and the only soul that understood him, were those of the dark-eyed girl at his side. And the look those dark eyes had given him when he said good-night, had haunted him ever since.
From the seat of honour on the sofa beside Mrs Quaid, Petrovitch looked, perhaps rather longingly, towards the other end of the room, where Hirsch and Vernon were talking to the two girls.
It was unworthy weakness, perhaps, in a Friend of Humanity, but he could not help straining his ears to try to catch what they were saying, and wondering what subject they could be discussing to bring such interest into Clare's face. This effort interfered somewhat with the lucidity of his replies, until Mr Quaid, who had hardly spoken before, brought him up short with the question,—
'What do you mean, now, by Socialism?' and the Socialist, with an imperceptible shrug of the shoulders and a sort of 'in for a penny in for a pound' feeling, gave up trying to do two things at once, and plunged heart and soul into explanations, knowing quite well neither of his hearers would understand them.
If there is any truth in the old adage his ears should have burned, for the group at the end of the room were discussing nothing less than himself.