She tried to forget her companions altogether. Oh! what would Robert have to say? She was unhappy, restless. In her trouble lately it had often pleased her to go quite alone to strange churches, where for a moment the burden of the self had seemed lightened. But the old things were not always congenial to her, and there were modern ferments at work in her. No one of her family, unless it were Agnes, suspected what was going on. But in truth the rich crude nature had been touched at last, as Robert's had been long ago in Mr. Grey's lecture-room, by the piercing under-voices of things—the moral message of the world. 'What will he have to say?' she asked herself again feverishly, and as she looked across to Mr. Flaxman she felt a childish wish to be friends again with him, with everybody. Life was too difficult as it was, without quarrels and misunderstandings to make it worse.
CHAPTER XL
A long street of warehouses—and at the end of it the horses slackened.
'I saw the president of the club yesterday,' said Flaxman, looking out. 'He is an old friend of mine—a most intelligent fanatic—met him on a Mansion House Fund committee last winter. He promised we should be looked after. But we shall only get back seats, and you'll have to put up with the smoking. They don't want ladies, and we shall only be there on sufferance.'
The carriage stopped. Mr. Flaxman guided his charges with some difficulty through the crowd about the steps, who inspected them and their vehicle with a frank and not over-friendly curiosity. At the door they found a man who had been sent to look for them, and were immediately taken possession of. He ushered them into the back of a large bare hall, glaringly lit, lined with white brick, and hung at intervals with political portraits and a few cheap engravings of famous men, Jesus of Nazareth taking his turn with Buddha, Socrates, Moses, Shakespeare, and Paul of Tarsus.
'Can't put you any forrarder, I'm afraid,' said their guide, with a shrug of the shoulders. 'The committee don't like strangers coming, and Mr. Collett, he got hauled over the coals for letting you in this evening.'
It was a new position for Lady Charlotte to be anywhere on sufferance. However, in the presence of three hundred smoking men, who might all of them be political assassins in disguise for anything she knew, she accepted her fate with meekness; and she and Rose settled themselves into their back seat under a rough sort of gallery, glad of their veils, and nearly blinded with the smoke.
The hall was nearly full, and Mr. Flaxman looked curiously round upon its occupants. The majority of them were clearly artisans—a spare, stooping, sharp-featured race. Here and there were a knot of stalwart dock-labourers, strongly marked out in physique from the watchmakers and the potters, or an occasional seaman out of work, ship-steward, boatswain, or what not, generally bronzed, quick-eyed, and comely, save where the film of excess had already deadened colour and expression. Almost every one had a pot of beer before him, standing on long wooden flaps attached to the benches. The room was full of noise, coming apparently from the farther end, where some political bravo seemed to be provoking his neighbours. In their own vicinity the men scattered about were for the most part tugging silently at their pipes, alternately eyeing the clock and the new-comers.