Elisabeth picked up the paper which she had set down the moment before.
Her eyes had been quick to appreciate the smothered fierceness of
Julia's gaze. At Maraton she did not glance.
"Well, I am sorry," Mr. Foley said. "You are a young man now, Maraton, but one works the better for a change. I didn't come to talk shop, but you've set a nice hornet's nest about our heads up in Sheffield."
"There are many more to follow," Maraton assured him.
Mr. Foley chuckled. His sense of humour was indomitable.
"If there is one thing in the Press this morning," he declared, "more pronounced than the diatribes upon your speech, it is the number of compliments paid to me for my perspicuity in extending the hand of friendship to the most dangerous political factor at present existent,—vide the Oracle. I've wasted many hours arguing with some of my colleagues. If I had known what was coming, I might just as well have sat tight and waited for to-day. I am vindicated, whitewashed. Only the Opposition are furious. They are trying to claim you as a natural member of the Radical Party. Shouldn't be surprised if they didn't approach you to-day sometime."
Maraton smiled.
"The people I am in the most disgrace with," he observed, "are my own little lot."
"That needn't worry you," Mr. Foley rejoined. "Our Labour Members are not a serious body. The forces they represent are all right, but they seem to have a perfectly devilish gift of selecting the wrong representatives. . . . You'll be in the House this afternoon?" Certainly!
"I shall be rather curious to see what sort of a reception they give you," Mr. Foley continued. "You couldn't manage to walk in with me, I suppose? It would mean such a headline for the Daily Oracle!"
Elisabeth glanced up from her paper.