“We’ve been so confoundedly busy. But I often think of you, and I like to picture you in this room with a book, or asleep when other women are baking their complexions.”
Lee smiled. “That was very astute. You would rather I did not go out, then?”
“I feel a selfish brute. Let me know what you particularly want to go to, and I’ll try to pair and take you myself.”
But Lee knew that he hated the very thought of it, and he was more and more absorbed in his work. Of his ambition there was now no question; he had even gone so far as to half admit it to her. He did not return to the subject, upon which their conversation had, indeed, been so brief that he might be pardoned for forgetting it. Lee attempted to find oblivion in the mass of data elucidative of colonial history, past and present, to which Cecil, with his usual thoroughness, was devoting his leisure. It had been his purpose, from the moment he had decided upon his career, to achieve a full and sympathetic understanding of the colonies. He had given no little attention to politics in India and South Africa, as well as to their peoples, during his sporting tour, and he intended to revisit these and other parts of the Empire as soon as he felt reasonably sure of his footing at home, and had mastered the enormous bulk of colonial conditions in the abstract. He had no belief in home-made theories for governing the alien millions of the English race.
Lee looked forward to these journeyings with some interest, although she would have preferred to explore the crumbling and rather more picturesque civilisations of Europe. Travel would be more comfortable, and the Continent was a superb theatre, under superb management—to take it seriously was out of the question; but although it did not appeal to the soul, it was a delight to the imagination. But neither the one change in her programme nor the other seemed imminent; Cecil found too much to do in England. The present routine bid fair to last for three or four years to come.
And to have argued that social success would have conduced to her husband’s advancement would have been a waste of words, for Cecil was a man of ideals and regarded meretricious connectives with scorn. He was very much elated at this period, for there was every indication that the Liberal tenure was a brief one, and that his party was regaining all it had lost, and more. He intended to speak throughout the North, pending the next elections, and he had good reason to anticipate that his services to his party would be rewarded with that first stepping-stone to power, an Under-Secretaryship. Lee was to go about with him, of course; he would as soon have thought of leaving one of his members at home, and she looked forward to the variation of the usual autumn programme with some enthusiasm. She was tremendously proud of her gifted and high-minded young husband, and when disposed to repine, forced into her mind her ten years of unremitting determination and desire to marry Cecil Maundrell, and her girlish hopes and dreams, some of which had certainly been realised.
It was just after the Easter recess that he began to feel the need of a secretary, for he was doing certain work outside the House. Lee disliked the idea of a stranger in her maisonnette, to say nothing of the fact that she would see less of her husband by many hours, and offered herself for the post. He was surprised and delighted, for he was reserved almost to secrecy with every one else, and had contemplated admitting a stranger into the privacy of his study with much distaste.
“Are you sure it won’t tire you?” he asked fondly. He was always very careful of her.
“Of course not! And I haven’t a thing to do, now that all my clothes are made. I’m sick of the sight of Bond Street. You know I love to feel that I am of use to you.”
“You are always that, whether you are doing anything for me or not. I’m quite selfish enough to accept your offer, if you really mean it. I simply hated the thought of an outsider. But if I find it tires or bores you, we can put a stop to the arrangement any day.”