Mr. Pearson? Well!—Mr. Pearson had offered him a bribe; there could be no question as to that. His clear sense never blinked the matter for an instant. Nor had he any illusions as to his own behaviour. Even now he had no further right to the sleep of the honest man.
Let him realise, however, what had happened. He had gone to Lady Masterton's party, in the temper of a man who knows that ruin is upon him, and determined, like the French criminal, to exact his cigar and eau de vie before the knife falls. Never had things looked so desperate; never had all resource seemed to him so completely exhausted. Bankruptcy must come in the course of a few weeks; his entailed property would pass into the hands of a receiver; and whatever recovery might be ultimately possible, by the end of August he would be, for the moment, socially and politically undone.
There could be no question of his proposing seriously to Marcella Boyce. Nevertheless, he had gone to Lady Masterton's on purpose to meet her; and his manner on seeing her had asserted precisely the same intimate claim upon her, which, during the past six weeks, had alternately attracted and repelled her.
Then Mr. Pearson had interrupted.
Wharton, shutting his eyes, could see the great man lean against the window-frame close to the spot where, a quarter of an hour later, Marcella had sat among the flowers—the dapper figure, the long, fair moustaches, the hand playing with the eye-glass.
"I have been asked—er—er—" What a conceited manner the fellow had!—"to get some conversation with you, Mr. Wharton, on the subject of the Damesley strike. You give me leave?"
Whereupon, in less than ten minutes, the speaker had executed an important commission, and, in offering Wharton a bribe of the most bare-faced kind, had also found time for supplying him with a number of the most delicate and sufficient excuses for taking it.
The masters, in fact, sent an embassy. They fully admitted the power of the Clarion and its owner. No doubt, it would not be possible for the paper to keep up its strike fund indefinitely; there were perhaps already signs of slackening. Still it had been maintained for a considerable time; and so long as it was reckoned on, in spite of the wide-spread misery and suffering now prevailing, the men would probably hold out.
In these circumstances, the principal employers concerned had thought it best to approach so formidable an opponent and to put before him information which might possibly modify his action. They had authorised Mr. Pearson to give him a full account of what was proposed in the way of re-organisation of the trade, including the probable advantages which the work-people themselves would be likely to reap from it in the future.
Mr. Pearson ran in a few sentences through the points of the scheme. Wharton stood about a yard away from him, his hands in his pockets, a little pale and frowning—looking intently at the speaker.