"He will be at the Ritz Hotel to-night," Selingman continued, unruffled. "When he arrives, I shall be there. We speak together for an hour and then I come for you."
"I shall be glad to meet Maxendorf," Maraton agreed quietly. "He is a great man. But don't you think for his first few days in England it would be better to leave him alone, so far as I am concerned?"
"Later I will remind you of those words," Selingman declared. "For a genius you see no further than the end of your nose. They tell me that when you landed, there were prophets in the East End who rose up and shouted—'Maraton is come! Maraton is here!' No more—just the simple announcement—as though that fact alone were changing life. Very well. I will be your prophet and you shall be the people. I will say to you, as they cried to the Children of Israel groaning under their toil—Maxendorf has come! Maxendorf is here!"
Maraton was silent for a moment. He was sitting on the edge of the table, with folded arms. His visitor was pacing up and down the room, blowing out dense volumes of smoke.
"You have more in your mind, Selingman, than you have told me," he said.
"What is there that is hidden from the eye of genius?" Selingman cried, with a theatrical wave of the hand. "More than I have told you indeed—more than I shall tell you. One thing, at least, I have learnt in my struggles with the pen, and that is to avoid the anti-climax. It is a great thing to remember that. So I am dumb, I speak no more. . . Why don't you send your poor little secretary out for a walk? Mademoiselle, forgive me, but he works you too hard."
She looked up at him, smiling.
"I worked very much harder before I came here," she answered quietly.
"I am fortunate in my secretary," Maraton interposed. "This is Miss
Julia Thurnbrein, Selingman. I don't suppose you read our reviews, but
Miss Thurnbrein is an authority on woman labour."
"I read nothing," Selingman declared, moving over and grasping her by the hand. "I read nothing. People are my books. I am forty-five years old. I have done with reading. I know a great deal, I have read a great deal; I read no more. Miss Julia Thurnbrein, you say. Well, I like the name of Julia. Only, young lady, you would do better to spend a little more time with the roses, and a little less under the roofs of this grey city. Youth, you know, youth is everything. You work best for others by realising the joys of life yourself. I, too, am a philanthropist, Miss Julia—I don't like your other name—I, too, think and write for others. I, too, have dreams of a millennium, of days when the huge wheel shall be driven to a different tune, and faces be lifted to the skies that hang now towards the gutters. But details annoy me, details I cannot master. I do not want to know how many sufferers there are in the world and what particular sum they starve upon. I leave others to do that work. I only point forward to the day of emancipation. Put your hand in mine and I will show you in time where the clouds will first break."