"It is at any rate consoling to hear you say so," he remarked. "Yet, when you have made up your mind to play the martyr, it is a little hard," he added, helping himself to strawberries, "to be treated like a pampered being."
"In other words," she laughed, "you are discontented because you have been successful?"
"I suppose human nature never meant to let us rest satisfied."
"Don't you ever think of yourself," she asked, "what your own life is going to be? You've settled down now. You will be a Member of Parliament in a few weeks, a Cabinet Minister before long. I know what my uncle thinks of you. He believes in you. To tell you the truth, so do I."
"I am glad."
"I believe," she went on, "that you will do the work that you came here to do. There is no reason why you should not do it from the Cabinet. But there is the rest—your own life. Are you never going to amuse yourself, to take holiday, to draw some of the outside things into your scheme of being?"
He sat quite silent for a little time. He was inclined to struggle against the charm of her soft voice, the easy intimacy with which she treated him. In a sense he felt as though he were losing control of himself.
"I don't know," he said. "I think one ought to find one's work sufficient for a time. It is engrossing, isn't it? And that reminds me—I must go."
He rose almost abruptly to his feet. She was quick to appreciate his slight confusion of thought, his nervous self-impatience, and she smiled quietly. She was content to let him escape. She held out her hand, though, and his fingers seemed conscious of the firm, delicate warmth of her clasp.
"Come and talk to me again soon," she begged. "Come either as a politician or a friend, or however you like. It gives me so much pleasure to talk with you. Uncle will tell you that every one spoils me. Even Sir William comes and tells me about his troubles with the Irish Members. Will you come?"