He returned very gently the pressure of her burning fingers.  She drew his eyes towards hers, and he was startled to see in those few minutes how beautiful she was.  There was inspiration in her splendidly modelled face—­the high forehead, the eyes brilliantly clear, kindled now with the light of enthusiasm and all the softer burning of her exquisite sympathy.  Her lips—­full and red they seemed—­were slightly parted.  She was breathing quickly, like one who has run a race.

“Oh, dear master,” she whispered—­“let me call you that—­don’t, even for a moment, be faint-hearted!”

The door was suddenly thrown open.  Selingman entered, an enormous bunch of roses in his hand, a green hat on the back of his head.

“Faint-hearted?” he exclaimed.  “What a word!  Who is faint-hearted?  Julia, I have brought you flowers.  You would have to kiss rue for them if he were not here.  Don’t glower at me.  Every one kisses me.  Great ladies would if I asked them to.  That’s the best of being a genius.  Lord, what a wreck he looks!  What’s wrong with you, man?  I know!  I met them at the corner of the street.  There was the rat-faced fellow with the red tie, and the miner—­Labour Members, they call themselves.  I would like to see them with a spade!  Have you been trying to get at their brains, Maraton?  What’s that to make a man like you depressed?  Did you think they had any?  Did you think you could draw a single spark of fire out of dull pap like that?  Bah!”

Julia was moving quietly about the room, putting the flowers in water.  Aaron had slipped in and was seated before his desk.  Selingman, his broad face set suddenly into hard lines, plumped himself into the chair which Peter Dale had occupied.

“Man alive, lift your head—­lift your head to the skies!” he ordered.  “You’re the biggest man in this country.  Will you treat the prick of a pin like a mortal wound?  What did you expect from them?  Lord Almighty! . . .  I’ve packed my bag.  I’m ready for the road.  Two hundred and fifty pounds a time from the Daily Oracle for thumbnail sketches of the Human Firebrand!  Lord, what is any one depressed for in this country!  It’s chock-full of humour.  If I lived here long, I should be fat.”

He looked downward at his figure with complacency.  Julia laughed softly.

“Aren’t you fat now?” she asked.

“Immense,” he confessed, “but it’s nothing to what I could be.  It agrees with me,” he went on.  “You see, I have learnt the art of being satisfied with myself.  I know what I am.  I am content.  That is where you, my friend Maraton, need to grow a little older.  Oh, you are great enough, great enough if you only knew it!  Even Maxendorf admits that, and he told me frankly he’s disappointed in you.  Don’t sit there like a dumb figure any longer.  We are all coming with you, aren’t we?  I have brought my car over from Belgium.  It is a caravan.  It will hold us all—­Aaron, too.  Let us start; let us get out of this accursed city.  Where is the first move?”