“If I tore about like a raging bull I might accomplish notoriety, but I certainly should accomplish nothing else. And the secret of the failure of the ‘reformers’ of the United States is that they have the ideals and the political bosses have the sense.”
She asked irresistibly, “If it ever came to a choice between your country and a woman, what would be the result?”
“No such question will ever arise.”
“No?”
“Certainly not. Do you think so meanly of my resources as that?”
“But circumstances are sometimes stronger than men.”
“Some men.”
Ranata had let her arm drop to her side; her hand was not an inch from Fessenden’s. Both were acutely aware of the magnetic temptation of that nearness; for a second all their being seemed to have surged into their finger-tips. Fessenden’s curved rigidly inward. His brain was still in control, and he was accustomed to play a careful and far-seeing game. Her hand fluttered towards his; then she swung about abruptly.
“Why don’t you sit in your rocking-chair?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “I must turn you out directly; it is nearly time to dress.”
Fessenden marched to the chair, and rocked himself for twenty minutes with every appearance of content. Alexandra came in from the next room, and they talked of the ball of the following night and of other impersonal things. The peasants had come and were housed, and a remarkable band of gypsies had been found in Transylvania. Fessenden, who was dining in Pest, rose regretfully at seven.