"It was a labour of love," she said deprecatingly.
"My noble Amber. But did you think, selfishly engrossed though I have been with the Fight for Power, that this love-labour of yours was lost on me? No, 'terrible ambitious' as I was, I could still see I got the blackberries and you little more than the scratches, and the less you began to press your claim upon my heart, the more my heart was opening out with an answering passion. I began to watch the play of your eyes, the shimmer of light across your cheek, the roguish pout of your lips, the lock that strayed across your temple—as it is straying now."
She pushed it back impatiently. "But what has all this to do with the Cabinet Secret?"
"Patience, darling! How much nicer to listen to you than to the Opposition."
"I shall be in the Opposition unless you get along faster."
"That is what I want—your face opposite me always, instead of bald-headed babblers. Ah, if you knew how often, of late, it has floated before me in the House, reducing historic wrangles to the rocking of children's boats in stormy ponds, accentuating the ponderous futility." He took her hand again, and a great joy filled him as he felt its gentle responsive pressure.
"Ponderous, perhaps," she said, smiling faintly; "but not futile, Walter."
"Futile, so far as I am concerned, dearest. Ah, you are right. Love is the only reality—everything else a game played with counters. What are our winnings? A few cheers drowned in the roar that greets the winning jockey, a few leading articles, stale as yesterday's newspaper."
"But the good to the masses—" she reminded him.
"Don't mock me with my own phrases, darling. The masses have done me more good than I can ever do them. Next Monday, dear Amber Roan, we'll try our honeymoon over again." And his lips sought hers.