“Well?”

“Mr. Maraton is to go there Thursday, to address a meeting,—­a Unionist meeting.”

Aaron glowered at her from over his typewriter.

“Why not?  It’s Mr. Foley’s idea.  He wants Mr. Maraton in Parliament.  Why not?”

“But as a Unionist!” she gasped.  “Nottingham isn’t a Labour constituency at all.”

“He is coming in as a Unionist, so as to have a free hand.  We don’t want any interference from Peter Dale and that lot.”

She looked at him aghast.  Peter Dale and his colleagues had been gods a few weeks ago!

“Can’t you see,” Aaron continued irritably, “that the coming of Maraton has changed many things?  A man like that can’t serve under anybody, and no man could come as a stranger and lead the Labour Party.  He has to be outside.  This is a working man’s constituency.  He is pledged to fight Capital, fight it tooth and nail.”

“I suppose it’s all right,” Julia said.  “It seems different, somehow, from what we had expected, and he never goes to the Clarion at all.”

“Why should he?” Aaron demanded.  “They are all jealous of him, every one of ’em; Peter Dale is the worst of the lot.  Didn’t you hear how they talked to him at Manchester?”

She nodded, and for a time they went on with their work.  She found herself, however, continually returning to the subject of those vital differences; the Maraton as they had dreamed of him—­the prophet with the flaming sword, and this wonderfully civilised person.

“Tell me honestly, Aaron,” she asked presently, “what do you think of it all?—­of him—­of his methods?  You are with him all the time.  Haven’t you ever any doubts?”

She watched him closely.  She would have been conscious of the slightest tremor in his reply, the slightest hesitation.  There was nothing of the sort.  He was merely tolerant of her ignorance.

“No one who knows Maraton,” he pronounced, “could fail to trust him.”

After that she asked no more questions.  They worked steadily for another half hour or so.  Messages were sometimes brought in to Aaron, which he summarily disposed of.  Julia wondered at the new facility, the heart-whole eagerness which he devoted to every trifling matter.  Then, just as she was halfway through copying out a pile of figures, Maraton came in.  He stood and watched them in the doorway, half amused, half surprised.  For a moment she kept her head down.  Then she looked up slowly.

“Since when,” he asked, “have I been the proud possessor of two secretaries?”

“You left me letters enough for four, sir,” Aaron reminded him.  “I wanted to finish them all, so Julia stayed to help me.”

Maraton came smiling towards them.

“Why, I am afraid I forgot,” he said.  “In America I used sometimes to have four typists working.  You can’t possibly get out all those details by yourself, Aaron.”

“We shall have finished this lot, anyhow, in an hour.”