A People's Man. E. Phillips Oppenheim
was bare, her hair simply arranged, her fingers and wrists innocent of even the simplest article of jewellery. He, on the other hand, the Elijah of her dreams, appeared in the guise of a man of fashion, wearing, as though he were used to them, the attire of the hated class, obviously qualified by breeding and use to hold his place amongst them. Was this indeed to be the disappointment of her life? Then she remembered and her courage rose. After all, he was the Master.
"I will go now," she said. "I am glad to have been the first to have welcomed you."
He held out his hands. Then for a moment they both listened and turned towards the door. There was the sound of an angry voice—a visitor, apparently trying to force his way in. Maraton strode towards the door and opened it. A young man was in the hall, expostulating angrily with a resolute man servant. His hat had rolled on to the floor, his face was flushed with anger. The servant, on recognising his master, stepped back at once.
"The gentleman insisted upon forcing his way in, sir," he explained softly. "I wished him to wait while I brought you his name."
Maraton smiled and made a little gesture of dismissal. The young man picked up his hat. He was still hot with anger. Maraton pointed to the room on the threshold of which the girl was still standing.
"If you wish to speak to me," he said, "I am quite at your service. Only it is a little late for a visit, isn't it? And yours seems to be a rather unceremonious way, of insisting upon it. Who are you?"
The young man stood and stared at his questioner. He was wearing a blue serge suit, obviously ready-made, thick boots, a doubtful collar, a machine-knitted silk tie of vivid colour. He had curly fair hair, a sharp face with narrow eyes, thick lips and an indifferent complexion.
"Are you Maraton?" he demanded.
"I am," Maraton admitted. "And you?"
"I am Richard Graveling, M.P.," the young man announced, with a certain emphasis on those last two letters—"M.P. for Poplar East. We expected you at the Clarion to-night."
"I had other business," Maraton remarked calmly.
The young man appeared a trifle disconcerted.
"I don't see what business you can have here till we've talked things out and laid our plans," he declared. "I am secretary of the committee appointed to meet and confer with you. Peter Dale is chairman, of course. There are five of us. We expected you 'round to-night. You got our telegram at Liverpool?"
"Certainly," Maraton admitted. "It did not, however, suit my plans to accept your invitation. I had a message from Mr. Foley, begging me to see him to-night. I have been to his house."
The young man distinctly scowled.
"So Foley's been getting at you, has he?"
Maraton's face was inscrutable but there was, for a moment, a dangerous flash in his eyes.
"I had some conversation with him this evening.
"What did he want?" Graveling asked bluntly.
Maraton raised his eyebrows. He turned to the girl.
"Do you know Mr. Graveling?"
The young man scowled. Julia smiled but there was a shadow of trouble in her face.
"Naturally," she replied. "Mr. Graveling and I are fellow workers."
"Yes, we are that," the young man declared pointedly, "that and a little more, I hope. To tell you the truth, I followed Miss Thurnbrein here, and I think she'd have done better to have asked for my escort—the escort of the man she's going to marry—before she came here alone at this time of night." Mr. Graveling's ill-humour was explained. He was of the order of those to whom the ability to conceal their feelings is not given, and he was obviously in a temper. Maraton's face remained impassive. The girl, however, stood suddenly erect. There was a vivid spot of colour in her cheeks.
"You had better keep to the truth, Richard Graveling!" she cried fearlessly. "I have never promised to marry you, or if I have, it was under certain conditions. You had no right to follow me here."
The young man opened his lips and closed them again. He was scarcely capable of speech. The very intensity of his anger seemed to invest the little scene with a peculiar significance. The girl had the air of one who has proclaimed her freedom. The face of the man who glared at her was distorted with unchained passions. In the background, Maraton stood with tired but expressionless countenance, and the air of one who listens to a quarrel between children, a quarrel in which he has no concern.
"It is not fair," Julia continued, "to discuss a purely personal matter here. You can walk home with me if you care to, Richard Graveling, but all that I have to say to you, I prefer to say here. I never promised to marry you. You have always chosen to take it for granted, and I have let you speak of it because I was indifferent, because I have never chosen to think of such matters, because my thoughts have been wholly, wholly dedicated to the greatest cause in the world. To-night you have forced yourself upon me. You have done yourself harm, not good. You have surprised the truth in my heart. It is clear to me that I—cannot marry you; I never could. I shall not change. Now let us go back to our work hand in hand, if you will, but that other matter is closed between us forever."
She turned to say farewell to Maraton, but Graveling interposed himself between them. His voice shook and there were evil things in his distorted face.
"To-night, for the first time," he exclaimed hoarsely, "you speak in this fashion! Before, even if you were indifferent, marriage at least seemed possible to you. To-night you say that the truth has come to you. You look at me with different eyes. You draw back. You begin to feel, to understand. You are a woman to-night! Why? Answer me that! Why? Why to-night? Why not before? Why is it that to-night you have awakened? I will know! Look at me."
She was taken unawares, assailed suddenly, not only by his words but by those curious new sensations, her own, yet unfamiliar to her. It was civil war. A part of herself was in league with her accuser. She felt the blushes stain her cheeks. She looked imploringly at Maraton for help. He smiled at her reassuringly, delightfully.
"Children," he expostulated, "this is absurd! Off with you to your homes. These are small matters of which you speak."
His hands were courteously laid upon both of them. He led them to the door and pointed eastwards through the darkness.
"Think of the morning. Think of the human beings who wake in a few hours, only to bend their bodies once more to the yoke. The other things are but trifles."
She looked back at him from the corner of the Square, a straight, impassive figure in a little halo of soft light. There was a catch in her heart. Her companion's words were surely spoken in some foreign tongue.
"We have got to have this out, Julia," he was saying. "If anybody or anything has come between us, there's going to be trouble. If that's the great Maraton, with his swagger evening clothes and big house, well, he's not the man for our job, and I shan't mind being the first to tell him so."
She glanced at him, for a moment, almost in wonder. Was he indeed so small, so insignificant?
"There are many paths," she said softly, "which lead to the light. Ours may be best suited to ourselves but it may not be the only one. It is not for you or for me to judge."
Richard Graveling talked on, doing his cause harm with every word he uttered. Julia relapsed into silence; soon she did not even hear his words. They rode for some distance on an omnibus through the city, now shrouded and silent. At the corner of the street where she had her humble lodgings, he left her.
"Well, I have had my say," he declared. "Think it over. I'll meet you out of work to-morrow, if I can. We shall have had a talk with Mr. Maraton by that time!"
She left him with a smile upon her lips. His absence seemed like an immense, a wonderful relief. Once more her thoughts were free.
CHAPTER V