“And you could not dissuade him?”

“I did not try,” she answered, simply.  “Lawrence Mannering is not a man of ordinary disposition, you know.  He had come to the conclusion that it was right for him to go, and opposition would only have made him the more determined.  I cannot see that there is any harm likely to come of it.”

“I am not so sure of that,” Borrowdean answered, seriously.  “Mannering is au fond a man of sentiment.  There is no clearer thinker or speaker when his judgment is unbiassed, but on the other hand, the man’s nature is sensitive and complex.  He has a sort of maudlin self-consciousness which is as dangerous a thing as the nonconformist conscience.  Heaven knows into whose hands he may fall up there.”

“He is going incognito,” she remarked.

“He is not the sort of man to escape notice,” Borrowdean answered.  “He will be discovered for certain.  Of course, if it comes off all right, the whole thing will be a feather in his cap.  But when I think how much we are dependent upon him, I don’t like the risk.”

“You are sure,” she remarked, thoughtfully, “that you do not over-rate—­”

“Mannering himself, perhaps,” Borrowdean interrupted.  “There is no man whose personal place cannot be filled.  But one thing is very certain.  Mannering is the only man who unites both sides of our scattered party, the only man under whom Fergusson and Johns would both serve.  You know quite well the curse which has rested upon us.  We have become a party of units, and our whole effectiveness is destroyed.  We want welding into one entity.  A single session, a single year of office, and the thing would be done.  We who do the mechanical work would see that there was no breaking away again.  But we must have that year, we must have Mannering.  That is why I watch him like a child, and I must say that he has given me a good deal of anxiety lately.”

“In what way?” she asked.

Borrowdean hesitated.  He seemed uncertain how to answer.

“If I explain what I mean,” he said, “you will understand that I do not speak to you as a woman and an acquaintance of Mannering’s, but simply as one of ourselves.  Mannering’s private life is, of course, interesting to me only as an index to his political destiny, and my acquaintance with it arises solely from my political interest in him.  There are things in connection with it which I feel that I shall never properly be able to understand.”

She looked at him steadily.  Her cheeks were a little whiter, but her tone was deliberate.

“I do not wish to hear anything about Mr. Mannering’s private life,” she said.  “You will understand that I am not free or disposed to listen when I tell you that I am going to marry him.”

This was perhaps the worst blow Borrowdean had ever experienced in the course of his whole life.  The possibility of this was a danger which he had recognized might some time have to be reckoned with, but for the present he had felt safe enough.  He was taken so completely aback that for a few moments his mind was a blank.  He remained silent.