Sir Charles fingered the dinner cloth nervously, and when he spoke, fixed his eyes anxiously upon Miss Cameron.
“Do you know,” he said, “I have been thinking of doing that very thing, of resigning my post here and going back, entering Parliament, and all the rest of it.”
His declaration met with a unanimous chorus of delight. Miss Cameron nodded her head with eager approval.
“Yes, if I were a man, that is where I should wish to be,” she said, “at the heart of it. Why, whatever you say in the House of Commons is heard all over the world the next morning.”
Sir Charles felt the blood tingle in his pulses. He had not been so stirred in years. Her words ran to his head like wine.
Mr. Collier raised his glass.
“Here’s to our next meeting,” he said, “on the terrace of the House of Commons.”
But Miss Cameron interrupted. “No; to the Colonial Secretary,” she amended.
“Oh yes,” they assented, rising, and so drank his health, smiling down upon him with kind, friendly glances and good-will.
“To the Colonial Secretary,” they said. Sir Charles clasped the arms of his chair tightly with his hands; his eyes were half closed, and his lips pressed into a grim, confident smile. He felt that a single word from her would make all that they suggested possible. If she cared for such things, they were hers; he had them to give; they were ready lying at her feet. He knew that the power had always been with him, lying dormant in his heart and brain. It had only waited for the touch of the Princess to wake it into life.