She rested her face upon her hand, and looked into the fire.

“I suppose,” she said, “this means that you have refused Mr. Letheringham’s offer.”

“I have refused it,” he answered.

“I am sorry,” she said simply.

She rose from her chair with a sudden start, began to draw on her cloak, and then let it fall altogether from her shoulders.

“Why do you do this?” she asked earnestly.  “Is it that you are so ambitious?  You used not to be so—­in the old days.”

He laughed bitterly.

“You too, then,” he said, “can remember.  Ambitious!  Well, why not?  To be Premier of England, to stand for the people, to carry through to its logical consummation a bloodless revolution, surely this is worth while.  Is there anything in the world better worth having than power?”

“Yes,” she answered, looking him full in the eyes.

“What is it then?  Let me know before it is too late.”

“Love!”

He threw his arms about her.  For a moment she was powerless in his grasp.

“So be it then,” he cried fiercely.  “Give me the one, and I will deny the other.  Only no half measures!  I will drink to the bottom of the cup or not at all.”

She shook herself free from him, breathless, consumed with an anger to which she dared not give voice.  For a moment or two she was speechless.  Her bosom rose and fell, a bright streak of colour flared in her cheeks.  Brott stood away from her, white and stern.

“You—­are clumsy!” she said.  “You frighten me!”

Her words carried no conviction.  He looked at her with a new suspicion.

“You talk like a child,” he answered roughly, “or else your whole conduct is a fraud.  For months I have been your slave.  I have abandoned my principles, given you my time, followed at your heels like a tame dog.  And for what?  You will not marry me, you will not commit yourself to anything.  You are a past mistress in the art of binding fools to your chariot wheels.  You know that I love you—­that there breathes on this earth no other woman for me but you.  I have told you this in all save words a hundred times.  And now—­now it is my turn.  I have been played with long enough.  You are here unbidden—­unexpected.  You can consider that door locked.  Now tell me why you came.”

Lucille had recovered herself.  She stood before him, white but calm.

“Because,” she said, “I am a woman.”

“That means that you came without reason—­on impulse?” he asked.

“I came,” she said, “because I heard that you were about to take a step which must separate us for ever.”

“And that,” he asked, “disturbed you?”

“Yes!”

“Come, we are drawing nearer together,” he said, a kindling light in his eyes.  “Now answer me this.  How much do you care if this eternal separation does come?  Here am I on the threshold of action.  Unless I change my mind within ten minutes I must throw in my lot with those whom you and your Order loathe and despise.  There can be no half measures.  I must be their leader, or I must vanish from the face of the political world.  This I will do if you bid me.  But the price must be yourself—­wholly, without reservation—­yourself, body and soul.”