“Perfectly satisfied,” Catherine replied, looking him in the face, “that you have told us as much as you choose to for the present.”
Fenn closed the door behind Catherine and the Bishop and turned back into the room. Bright laughed at him unpleasantly.
“Love affair not going so strong, eh?”
Fenn threw himself into his chair, took a cigarette from a paper packet, and lit it.
“Blast Julian Orden!” he muttered.
“No objection,” his friend yawned. “What’s wrong now?”
“Haven’t you heard the news? It seems he’s the fellow who has been writing those articles on Socialism and Labour, signing them ‘Paul Fiske.’ Idealistic rubbish, but of course the Bishop and his lot are raving about him.”
“I’ve read some of his stuff,” Bright admitted, himself lighting a cigarette; “good in its way, but old-fashioned. I’m out for something a little more than that.”
“Stick to the point,” Fenn enjoined morosely. “Now they’ve found out who Julian Orden is, they want him produced. They want to elect him on the Council, make him chairman over all our heads, let him reap the reward of the scheme which our brains have conceived.”
“They want him, eh? That’s awkward.”