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"And what does Mannering think of it all, I wonder!" Lord Redford remarked, lighting a fresh cigarette. "This may be his opportunity, who can tell!"
"Will he have the nerve to grasp it?" Borrowdean asked. "Mannering has never been proved in a crisis."
"He may have the nerve. I should be more inclined to question the desire," Lord Redford said. "For a man in his position he has always seemed to me singularly unambitious. I don't think that the prospect of being Prime Minister would dazzle him in the least. It is part of the genius of the politician too, to know exactly when and how to seize an opportunity. I can imagine him watching it come, examining it through his eyeglass, and standing on one side with a shrug of the shoulders."
"You do not believe, then," Berenice said, "that he is sufficiently in earnest to grasp it?"
"Exactly," Lord Redford said. "I have that feeling about Mannering, I must admit, especially during the last two years. He seems to have drawn away from all of us, to live altogether too absorbed and self-contained a life for a man who has great ambitions to realize, or who is in downright earnest about his work."
"What you all forget when you discuss Lawrence Mannering is this," Berenice said. "He holds his position almost as a sacred charge. He is absolutely conscientious. He wants certain things for the sake of the people, and he will work steadily on until he gets them. I believe it is the truth that he has no personal ambition, but if the cause he has at heart is to be furthered at all it must be by his taking office. Therefore I think that when the time comes he will take it."
"That sounds reasonable enough," Lord Redford admitted. "By the bye, did you notice that he is included in the house party at Sandringham again this week?"
Anstruther, the youngest Cabinet Minister, and Lord Redford's nephew, joined in the conversation.
"I can tell you something for a fact," he said. "My cousin is Lady-in-Waiting, and she's been up in town for a few days, and she asked me about Mannering. A Certain Personage thinks very highly of him indeed. Told some one that Mr. Mannering was the most statesman-like politician in the service of his country. I believe he'd sooner see Mannering Prime Minister than any one."
"But he has no following," Borrowdean objected.
"I think," Berenice said, slowly, "that he keeps as far aloof as possible for one reason, and one reason only. He avoids friendship, but he makes no enemies. He cultivates a neutral position whenever he can. What he is looking forward to, I am sure, is to found a coalition Government."
"It is very possible," Lord Redford remarked. "I wonder if he will ask me to join."
"Always selfish," Berenice laughed. "You men are all alike!"
"On the contrary," Lord Redford answered, "my interest was purely patriotic. I cannot imagine the affairs of the country flourishing deprived of my valuable services. Let us go and wander through the crowd. Members of a Government in extremes like ours ought not to whisper together in corners. It gives rise to comment."
Anstruther came hurrying up. He drew Redford on one side.
"Mannering is here," he said, quietly. "Just arrived from Sandringham. He is looking for you."
Almost as he spoke Mannering appeared. He did not at first see Berenice, and from the corner where she stood she watched him closely.
It was two years since those few weeks at Bonestre, and during all that time they had scarcely met. Berenice knew that he had avoided her. For twelve months he had declined all social engagements, and since then he had pleaded the stress of political affairs as an excuse for leading the life almost of a recluse. Unseen herself, she studied him closely. He was much thinner, and every trace of his once healthy colouring had disappeared. His eyes seemed deeper set. There were streaks of grey in his hair. But for all that to her he was unaltered. He was still the one man in the world. She saw him shake hands with Lord Redford and draw him a little on one side.
"Can you spare me five minutes?" he asked. "I have a matter to discuss with you."
"Certainly!" Lord Redford answered. "I am leaving directly, and I might drive you home if you liked. We heard that you were at Sandringham."
"I came up this afternoon," Mannering answered. "I heard that you were likely to be here, and as Lady Herrington had been kind enough to send me a card I came on."
Lord Redford nodded.
"Borrowdean and Anstruther are here too," he remarked. "We all felt in need of diversion. As you know very well, we're in a tight corner."
Berenice came out from her place. At the sound of the rustling of her skirts both men turned their heads. She wore a gown of black velvet and a wonderful rope of pearls hung from her neck. She raised her hand and smiled at Mannering.
"I am glad to see you again," she said, softly. "It is quite an age since we met, isn't it?"
He held her hand for a moment. The touch of his fingers chilled her. He greeted her with quiet courtesy, but there was no answering smile upon his lips.
"I have heard often of your movements from Clara," he said. "You have been very kind to her."
"It has never occurred to me in that light," she said. "Clara needs a chaperon, and I need a companion. We were talking yesterday of going to Cairo for the winter. My only fear is that I am robbing you of your niece."
"Please do not let that trouble you," he said. "Clara would be a most uncomfortable member of my household."
"But are you never at all lonely?" she asked.
"I never have time to think of such a thing," he answered. "Besides, I have Hester. She makes a wonderful secretary, and she seems to enjoy the work."
"I should like to have a talk with you some time," she said. "Won't you come and see me?"
He hesitated.
"It is very kind of you to ask me," he said. "Don't think me churlish, but I go nowhere. I am trying to make up, you see, for my years of idleness."
She looked at him steadfastly, and her heart sank. The change in his outward appearance seemed typical of some deeper and more final alteration in his whole nature. She felt herself powerless against the absolute impenetrability of his tone and manner. She felt that he had fought a battle within himself and conquered; that for some reason or other he had decided to walk no longer in the pleasanter paths of life. She had come to him unexpectedly, but he had shown no sign of emotion. Her influence over him seemed to be wholly a thing of the past. She made one more effort.
"I think," she said, "that as one grows older one parts the less readily with the few friends who count. I hope that you will change your mind."
He bowed gravely, but he made no answer. Berenice took Borrowdean's arm and passed on. There was a little spot of colour in her cheeks. Borrowdean felt nerved to his enterprise.
"Let us go somewhere and sit down for a few minutes," he suggested. "The rooms are so hot this evening."
She assented without words, and he found a solitary couch in one of the further apartments.
"I wonder," he said, after a moment's pause, "whether I might say something to you, whether you would listen to me for a few minutes."
Berenice was absorbed in her own thoughts. She allowed him to proceed.
"For a good many years," he said, lowering his voice a little, "I have worked hard and done all I could to be successful. I wanted to have some sort of a position to offer. I am a Cabinet Minister now, and although I don't suppose we can last much longer this time, I shall have a place whenever we are in again."
The sense of what he was saying began to dawn upon her. She stopped him at once.
"Please do not say any more, Sir Leslie," she begged. "I should have given you credit for sufficient perception to have known beforehand the absolute impossibility of—of anything of the sort."
"You are still a young woman," he said, quietly. "The world expects you to marry again."
"I have no interest in what the world expects of me," she answered, "but I may tell you at once that my refusal has nothing whatever to do with the question of marriage in the abstract. You are a man of perception, Sir Leslie! It will be, I trust, sufficient if I say that I have no feelings whatever towards you which would induce me to consider the subject even for a moment."
She was unchanged, then! This time he recognized the note of finality in her tone. All the time and thought he had given to this matter were wasted. He had failed, and he knew why. He seldom permitted himself the luxury of anger, but he felt all the poison of bitter hatred stirring within him at that moment, and craving for some sort of expression. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could say. But if Mannering had been within reach then he would have struck him. He rose and walked slowly away.