‘We stand or fall together.’

Her glowing look doated on the faithful lieutenant.

’And if the henchman is my hero, I am but a waiting-woman.  But I must admire his leader.’

‘Tony!’

‘Ah! no,’ she joined her hands, wondering whither her armed majesty had fled; ’no softness! no payments!  Flatter me by letting me think you came to a head not a silly woman’s heart, with one name on it, as it has not to betray.  I have been frank; you need no proofs . . .’  The supplicating hands left her figure an easy prey to the storm, and were crushed in a knot on her bosom.  She could only shrink.  ’Ah!  Percy . . you undo my praise of you—­my pride in receiving you.’

They were speechless perforce.

‘You see, Tony, my dearest, I am flesh and blood after all.’

‘You drive me to be ice and door-bolts!’

Her eyes broke over him reproachfully.

‘It is not so much to grant,’ he murmured.

‘It changes everything between us.’

‘Not me.  It binds me the faster.’

‘It makes me a loathsome hypocrite.’

‘But, Tony! is it so much?’

‘Not if you value it low.’

‘But how long do you keep me in this rag-puppet’s state of suspension?’

‘Patience.’

‘Dangling and swinging day and night!’

’The rag-puppet shall be animated and repaid if I have life.  I wish to respect my hero.  Have a little mercy.  Our day will come:  perhaps as wonderfully as this wonderful news.  My friend, drop your hands.  Have you forgotten who I am?  I want to think, Percy!’

‘But you are mine.’

‘You are abasing your own.’

‘No, by heaven!’

’Worse, dear friend; you are lowering yourself to the woman who loves you.’

‘You must imagine me superhuman.’

‘I worship you—­or did.’

’Be reasonable, Tony.  What harm!  Surely a trifle of recompense?  Just to let me feel I live!  You own you love me.  Then I am your lover.’

’My dear friend Percy, when I have consented to be your paramour, this kind of treatment of me will not want apologies.’

The plain speaking from the wound he dealt her was effective with a gentleman who would never have enjoyed his privileges had he been of a nature unsusceptible to her distinct wish and meaning.

He sighed.  ’You know how my family bother me.  The woman I want, the only woman I could marry, I can’t have.’

‘You have her in soul.’

‘Body and soul, it must be!  I believe you were made without fire.’

’Perhaps.  The element is omitted with some of us happily, some think.  Now we can converse.  There seems to be a measurement of distances required before men and women have a chance with their brains:—­or before a man will understand that he can be advised and seconded.  When will the Cabinet be consulted?’

‘Oh, a few days.  Promise me . . .’