‘I’m afraid there’ll be references to the girl.’
‘The girl?’ Richard hesitated. ‘What girl? What do you know about any girl?’
‘It’s only the gossip I’ve heard. I thought it would be as well if I went about among them last night just to pick up hints, you know.’
‘They’re talking about that, are they? Well, let them. It isn’t hard to invent lies.’
‘Just so,’ observed Mr. Keene sympathisingly. ‘Of course I know they’d twisted the affair.’
Mutimer glanced at him and smoked in silence.
‘I think I’d better be there to-night,’ the journalist continued. ‘I shall be more useful there than at the hall.’
‘As you like,’ said Mutimer lightly.
The subject was not pursued.
Though the occasion was of so much importance, Commonwealth Hall contained but a moderate audience when Mr. Westlake rose to deliver his address. The people who occupied the benches were obviously of a different stamp from those wont to assemble at the Hoxton meeting-place. There were perhaps a dozen artisans of intensely sober appearance, and the rest were men and women who certainly had never wrought with their hands. Near Mrs. Westlake sat several ladies, her personal friends. Of the men other than artisans the majority were young, and showed the countenance which bespeaks meritorious intelligence rather than ardour of heart or brain. Of enthusiasts in the true sense none could be discerned. It needed but a glance over this assembly to understand how very theoretical were the convictions that had brought its members together.