WHEN the door closed, Helen began to feel that she could breathe again. The room was large, high-ceiled, well-ventilated; but the Colossus had seemed to absorb every molecule of air there was in it. In this mood of expansion he was truly formidable. No matter what his detractors had to say of him, and they said much and said it bitterly, it was never denied that Saul Hartz was a power.
As soon as the door had closed, however, Helen for the first time in a two years’ intercourse, brought herself to shape a question. Was it really wise to trust this man so blindly? Where there was so much smoke must there not be also a certain amount of fire?
Encompassed by that dynamic force the higher nerve-centers were a little apt to fail. And to submit the all-embracing mind of Saul Hartz to the common scale of right and wrong was hardly feasible. Right and wrong in that paradoxical cosmos of a brain, which yet formed a key to the whole objective modern world, seemed interchangeable terms. She recalled hearing him say more than once, that Right in the midday special was Wrong in the evening edition. Certainly he made a jest of everything. He seemed to believe in nothing, to respect nobody; yet in her dealings with the man himself she had always found him scrupulously kind, wonderfully considerate, nobly generous.
To-night, in this chance visit, she had never felt so much out of her depth, she had never been swept so completely off her feet. John Endor was no common man, but this Chief to whom she owed allegiance had somehow a quality which seemed to raise him almost beyond good and evil.
In a time which to Helen was unexpectedly brief, Mr. Hartz was back in the room. “So much for that,” he said with the light, casual air that was always charming.
Helen rose at once. “Ever so many thanks,” she said, wholeheartedly. “I was quite sure it had only to be mentioned.” A look of gratitude drove the words right home. “And now I must fly. Good-night—and again, thank you.”
The passage to the door, however, was barred, playfully, if resolutely, by the genial spread of the Colossus: “Now please don’t run away. Sit down and tell me a little about yourself.”
“There’s the last train from Piccadilly Circus to think of.”
“’Tisn’t twelve yet. The South Kensington tube is open till one o’clock.”
It was flattering to think that so great a man should carry in his mind her address, but it was like him not to forget the simplest of facts. “Besides, I take all responsibility for getting you home.”
“And accept it, I hope”—yielding with a laugh—“if I am late to-morrow at the Office.”
“Let me get you a cup of tea or something.” He pressed a bell. “I’m going to have a whisky and soda myself.”
Helen declined refreshment.
To the servant who entered Mr. Hartz said: “Please tell Jennings the brougham will be wanted in half an hour.”
Duly armed with a “nightcap” which contained a great deal more soda than whisky the Colossus sat cosily down by the fire immediately opposite Helen. A man of fifty-two, his manner towards this singularly attractive woman of six-and-twenty was so whimsically, yet frankly, paternal, that something beyond disparity of years seemed necessary to sustain it.
An odd sensation, unlike anything she had ever felt before, came subtly upon Helen. This man’s personality was geared very high, but unlike that of John Endor it seemed to be a fixed quantity, not liable to fluctuate. In his case the nerves didn’t show. To talk to, when he chose, he was delightful. Just now, perhaps half deliberately, he chose.
If the question was not impertinent, why was she concerned so particularly for John Endor’s reputation?
Her shrewdness had allowed her to foresee that such a question might arise. She was half prepared to answer it. As the necessity came, however, she yielded to a slight embarrassment which did not make her attraction less.
“We are going to be married.”
Saul Hartz gave a sharp upthrow of the head.
“Lucky fellow!” The words of the Colossus were almost as quick as thought itself. “Devilish lucky fellow! I do congratulate him—upon my word!” The purr of the gentle voice had a warmth of overtone that in the ear of Helen was delicious. She felt the blood pass over her cheeks in a wave. Such a voice as that must have opened the heart of any woman. He had the power, when he chose, of simulating an intense humanity.
“Won’t you congratulate me?” she ventured.
“Why, of course—of course.” The purr had not changed and yet, in a way that almost impinged on the mysteries of counterpoint, she was made to guess rather than to feel that a vital something was no longer there.
Madness in the mother’s family. Those five words descended upon her from the upper air. Almost in the same instant the open book on her knee slid to the carpet.
She had not time to recover the book before Mr. Hartz was on his feet politely restoring it to her.
“Clever, you know.” He seemed to think aloud. “A mind at work there.” The book was placed loverly in her hand. “Only one hopes——”
Sighing delicately he returned to his chair. His air had now become that of one who has to reconcile a very good heart with the sterner impulses of duty.
“You hope?” She caught up the broken phrase with an eagerness that was a little pitiful.
“Nothing, nothing.”
She shivered slightly. Madness in the mother’s family.
“Wonderful faculty he has”—the Colossus seemed again to be thinking aloud—“of swaying audiences. Rather picked audiences, too. And as men are reckoned nowadays, hardly more than a boy.”
“He’s thirty-eight.”
“Almost an infant prodigy!” The deep laugh was very good to hear. “I never heard Gladstone. Before my day. But one or two of the fathers who go back to prehistoric times say that your young man is such another, but that the People’s John—proud title the People’s John—and only thirty-eight—has one shot in his game that the G. O. M. never had. It’s the master-shot, too, believe me. Humor. Cool-drawn humor. With that in your bag, you’ve always a chance of holing out under bogey. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I hope he has it,” said the cautious Helen. “But whether on the platform it quite ‘gets over,’ as they say in the theater, one is never quite sure. Whenever one hears him one is always dominated by his tremendous moral enthusiasm.”
“There’s your Gladstone. Always the card, of course. That’s why good judges think he may go a very long way.”
Helen’s heart took fire. These were big words in the mouth of the Colossus. “You think that?” She looked eagerly across at him. “Really and truly you think that?”
The immediate answer of the great man was slowly to produce a cigar case. “No use offering you a cigarette. I know you don’t smoke. Wise—very wise woman.” As he spoke he chose a cigar, cut off the end, lit it.
“Do you really think he’ll go far?” she persisted.
“The pundits seem pretty unanimous.”
“But you—yourself—personally?”
The Colossus drew tentatively at his cigar. “Pray, who am I—a mere newspaper man—to hold an opinion—on such a matter? I can only tell you that Mr. Ransom thinks so and he, as you know, held office before the Deluge.”
“But you—yourself?” She was determined to nail him down. “Do you think John Endor may one day be Prime Minister?”
“Well, since you ask me”—each word was like a drip of ice-cold water—“in my humble opinion, I don’t.”
Something in the deliberate voice clutched her by the throat. As his eye caught hers and held it, she drew her breath quickly in.
“Since you ask me.” The tone was sweet apology, “Only my poor opinion. Really, I don’t pretend to know. Why should one?”
“You think,” said Helen, “that ... he ... might...?”
“My dear, I think nothing.” It was the father speaking again. “One can’t help feeling he’s a rather high explosive, that’s all. And of course, the mother——”
“The mother!” Her breath came and went in a little gasp.
Watching her closely he saw her turn very white. “I beg your pardon!” He was very quick, very adroit. “But you pin me down. And you mean so much to one, you know. In the Office we have come quite to depend on you. I can’t help thinking of you almost as a girl of my own.”
The simple words sank deep. They were music. This man had always had her loyal admiration. And now, as she sat facing him, she began to feel awed by a sense of all that he had done for her.
Suddenly a picture was flashed before her mind. Far away in America, in a backwater of a southern state, she saw her old parents hard pressed by modern conditions, but whose lot for nearly two years now she had been able to lighten with a liberal slice from her salary. It was going to be a terrible wrench to give up her life at the Office. And then John himself, would he, could he...?
The man who sat opposite seemed to read every thought she had.
“Hardly a matter upon which one is entitled to speak.”
The father again. “But, as I say, you mean so much to us in the Office—so please—please look before and after.”
A sense of being overcome by a great spirit afflicted her now. Here was an infinite power. She felt her defenses giving. The walls of the large room were beginning to press upon her. She was alone with the man in his own house, it was after midnight, she was at his mercy. Such fear was unworthy, but she was seized by a fierce desire to escape. There was the unknown to reckon with. At its beck, and under its fires, even her most sacred instincts were in danger of being subverted.