And Marcella could not get over the astonishment of Wharton's part in it. She shut her eyes sometimes for an instant and tried to see him as her girl's fancy had seen him at Mellor—the solitary, eccentric figure pursued by the hatreds of a renounced Patricianate—bringing the enmity of his own order as a pledge and offering to the Plebs he asked to lead. Where even was the speaker of an hour ago? Chat of Ascot and of Newmarket; discussion with Lady Selina or with his left-hand neighbour of country-house "sets," with a patter of names which sounded in her scornful ear like a paragraph from the World; above all, a general air of easy comradeship, which no one at this table, at any rate, seemed inclined to dispute, with every exclusiveness and every amusement of the "idle rich," whereof—in the popular idea—he was held to be one of the very particular foes!—
No doubt, as the dinner moved on, this first impression changed somewhat. She began to distinguish notes that had at first been lost upon her. She caught the mocking, ambiguous tone under which she herself had so often fumed; she watched the occasional recoil of the women about him, as though they had been playing with some soft-pawed animal, and had been suddenly startled by the gleam of its claws. These things puzzled, partly propitiated her. But on the whole she was restless and hostile. How was it possible—from such personal temporising—such a frittering of the forces and sympathies—to win the single-mindedness and the power without which no great career is built? She wanted to talk with him—reproach him!
"Well—I must go—worse luck," said Wharton at last, laying down his napkin and rising. "Lane, will you take charge? I will join you outside later."
"If he ever finds us!" said her neighbour to Marcella. "I never saw the place so crowded. It is odd how people enjoy these scrambling meals in these very ugly rooms."
Marcella, smiling, looked down with him over the bare coffee-tavern place, in which their party occupied a sort of high table across the end, while two other small gatherings were accommodated in the space below.
"Are there any other rooms than this?" she asked idly.
"One more," said a young man across the table, who had been introduced to her in the dusk outside, and had not yet succeeded in getting her to look at him, as he desired. "But there is another big party there to-night—Raeburn—you know," he went on innocently, addressing the minister; "he has got the Winterbournes and the Macdonalds—quite a gathering—rather an unusual thing for him."
The minister glanced quickly at his companion. But she had turned to answer a question from Lady Selina, and thenceforward, till the party rose, she gave him little opportunity of observing her.
As the outward-moving stream of guests was once more in the corridor leading to the terrace, Marcella hurriedly made her way to Mrs. Lane.
"I think," she said—"I am afraid—we ought to be going—my friend and I. Perhaps Mr. Lane—perhaps he would just show us the way out; we can easily find a cab."