"Good!" cried Anthony, not able to suppress the note of exultation.
Louis did not speak. He looked at Marcella.
"Did he defend himself?" she asked in a low, sharp voice.
Louis shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, yes. He spoke—but it did him no good. Everybody agreed that the speech was curiously ineffective. One would have expected him to do it better. But he seemed to be knocked over. He said, of course, that he had satisfied himself, and given proof in the paper, that the strike could not be maintained, and that being so he was free to join any syndicate he pleased. But he spoke amid dead silence, and there was a general groan when he sat down. Oh, it was not this business only! Wilkins made great play in part of his speech with the Company scandal too. It is a complete smash all round."
"Which he will never get over?" said Marcella, quickly.
"Not with our men. What he may do elsewhere is another matter. Anthony has told you how it came out?"
She made a sign of assent. She was sitting erect and cold, her hands round her knees.
"I did not mean to keep anything from you," he said in a low voice,
bending to her. "I know—you admired him—that he had given you cause.
But—my mind has been on fire—ever since I came back from those
Damesley scenes!"
She offered no reply. Silence fell upon all three for a minute or two; and in the twilight each could hardly distinguish the others. Every now and then the passionate tears rose in Marcella's eyes; her heart contracted. That very night when he spoke to her, when he used all those big words to her about his future, those great ends for which he had claimed her woman's help—he had these things in his mind.