“Have you got something up your sleeve, old man?” asked Howarth, in a foolish, coaxing tone. “There’s no denying you’re a pretty shrewd lad in your own way, Rufus, and you don’t often make mistakes. Personally, I rely absolutely upon your judgment, and am ready to follow—oh, absolutely,” he insisted, conscious of a slight twitching at the corners of Mr. Sullivan’s full lips. “At the same time, there are occasions recorded in history, when the most astute persons have been misled, when the best-laid schemes have taken a most unprecedented and disastrous twist. If you have a plan, why not take us into your confidence, Rufus? Why not discuss your ideas . . . three heads, you know . . .”
“Reminiscent of Cerberus”, cut in Turner. “Pretty good watch dog, eh?”
“Sure,” assented Howarth. “Three heads . . . as I say. And besides, I’m just restless in my desire to help.”
But it was Marjorie who was the Hon. Member’s first confidante. She neither realised the importance of this, nor appreciated the honour that he did her.
He had begged for an uninterrupted moment—a moment clipped from her over-full days, when appointment followed appointment in a continuous, dizzying succession—and, because he had said it was urgent, she agreed to receive him one night at ten o’clock. An earlier release was impossible from the pandemonium advertised as a Patriotic Bazaar.
“The dear little woman looks tired,” he said, taking her hand. “Isn’t she trying to push a great heavy Mercedes up a very steep hill, with a Ford engine? Aren’t you doing far too much of this hysterical War Work, little Marjorie?”
“Wednesday is my worst day,” she told him, and tried to withdraw her hand . . . “not the actual work, but going to things. You see,” she explained, “it makes such a difference . . . I can’t understand it, really . . . If we go to these patriotic things . . . the Ministers’ wives, I mean. We don’t do anything but walk around, and have people introduced to us, and it’s so useless and tiring!”
“My dear . . . my dear!” murmured the sympathetic Member.
“I don’t mind the work, a bit,” Marjorie continued, trying to force a note of weariness out of her voice. “The sewing and sorting of donations and that kind of thing. I feel as though—as though, well, I feel that I am really doing something for our boys over there, whereas walking around these bazaars and sitting idle at Executive meetings—” she shook her head and left the sentence unfinished. “But you wanted to see me about something in particular, you said.”
The Hon. Member for Morroway assumed his most charmingly avuncular air. Little by little, he overcame Marjorie’s instinctive resistance. She was always so eager to like people, to believe in them and find them good. He asked if she could keep a secret—even from her husband, and gaining a somewhat hesitant answer, whispered,