“Oh, we can all persuade ourselves that we are the Heaven-ordained dictator of the human race,” he answered. “Love of power is at the bottom of it. Why do our Rockefellers and our Carnegies condemn themselves to the existence of galley slaves, ruining their digestions so that they never can enjoy a square meal. It isn’t the money; it’s the trouble of their lives how to get rid of that. It is the notoriety, the power that they are out for. In Carleton’s case, it is to feel himself the power behind the throne; to know that he can make and unmake statesmen; has the keys of peace and war in his pocket; is able to exclaim: Public opinion? It is I.”
“It can be a respectable ambition,” suggested Joan.
“It has been responsible for most of man’s miseries,” he answered. “Every world’s conqueror meant to make it happy after he had finished knocking it about. We are all born with it, thanks to the devil.” He shifted his position and regarded her with critical eyes. “You’ve got it badly,” he said. “I can see it in the tilt of your chin and the quivering of your nostrils. You beware of it.”
Miss Greyson left them. She had to finish an article. They debated “Clorinda’s” views; and agreed that, as a practical housekeeper, she would welcome attention being given to the question of the nation’s food. The Evening Gazette would support Phillips in principle, while reserving to itself the right of criticism when it came to details.
“What’s he like in himself?” he asked her. “You’ve been seeing something of him, haven’t you?”
“Oh, a little,” she answered. “He’s absolutely sincere; and he means business. He won’t stop at the bottom of the ladder now he’s once got his foot upon it.”
“But he’s quite common, isn’t he?” he asked again. “I’ve only met him in public.”
“No, that’s precisely what he isn’t,” answered Joan. “You feel that he belongs to no class, but his own. The class of the Abraham Lincolns, and the Dantons.”
“England’s a different proposition,” he mused. “Society counts for so much with us. I doubt if we should accept even an Abraham Lincoln: unless in some supreme crisis. His wife rather handicaps him, too, doesn’t she?”
“She wasn’t born to be the châtelaine of Downing Street,” Joan admitted. “But it’s not an official position.”
“I’m not so sure that it isn’t,” he laughed. “It’s the dinner-table that rules in England. We settle everything round a dinner-table.”
She was sitting in front of the fire in a high-backed chair. She never cared to loll, and the shaded light from the electric sconces upon the mantelpiece illumined her.
“If the world were properly stage-managed, that’s what you ought to be,” he said, “the wife of a Prime Minister. I can see you giving such an excellent performance.”
“I must talk to Mary,” he added, “see if we can’t get you off on some promising young Under Secretary.”
“Don’t give me ideas above my station,” laughed Joan. “I’m a journalist.”
“That’s the pity of it,” he said. “You’re wasting the most important thing about you, your personality. You would do more good in a drawing-room, influencing the rulers, than you will ever do hiding behind a pen. It was the drawing-room that made the French Revolution.”
The firelight played about her hair. “I suppose every woman dreams of reviving the old French Salon,” she answered. “They must have been gloriously interesting.” He was leaning forward with clasped hands. “Why shouldn’t she?” he said. “The reason that our drawing-rooms have ceased to lead is that our beautiful women are generally frivolous and our clever women unfeminine. What we are waiting for is an English Madame Roland.”
Joan laughed. “Perhaps I shall some day,” she answered.
He insisted on seeing her as far as the bus. It was a soft, mild night; and they walked round the Circle to Gloucester Gate. He thought there would be more room in the buses at that point.
“I wish you would come oftener,” he said. “Mary has taken such a liking to you. If you care to meet people, we can always whip up somebody of interest.”
She promised that she would. She always felt curiously at home with the Greysons.
They were passing the long sweep of Chester Terrace. “I like this neighbourhood with its early Victorian atmosphere,” she said. “It always makes me feel quiet and good. I don’t know why.”
“I like the houses, too,” he said. “There’s a character about them. You don’t often find such fine drawing-rooms in London.”
“Don’t forget your promise,” he reminded her, when they parted. “I shall tell Mary she may write to you.”
She met Carleton by chance a day or two later, as she was entering the office. “I want to see you,” he said; and took her up with him into his room.
“We must stir the people up about this food business,” he said, plunging at once into his subject. “Phillips is quite right. It overshadows everything. We must make the country self-supporting. It can be done and must. If a war were to be sprung upon us we could be starved out in a month. Our navy, in face of these new submarines, is no longer able to secure us. France is working day and night upon them. It may be a bogey, or it may not. If it isn’t, she would have us at her mercy; and it’s too big a risk to run. You live in the same house with him, don’t you? Do you often see him?”
“Not often,” she answered.
He was reading a letter. “You were dining there on Friday night, weren’t you?” he asked her, without looking up.
Joan flushed. What did he mean by cross-examining her in this way? She was not at all used to impertinence from the opposite sex.
“Your information is quite correct,” she answered.
Her anger betrayed itself in her tone; and he shot a swift glance at her.
“I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said. “A mutual friend, a Mr. Airlie, happened to be of the party, and he mentioned you.”
He threw aside the letter. “I’ll tell you what I want you to do,” he said. “It’s nothing to object to. Tell him that you’ve seen me and had a talk. I understand his scheme to be that the country should grow more and more food until it eventually becomes self-supporting; and that the Government should control the distribution. Tell him that with that I’m heart and soul in sympathy; and would like to help him.” He pushed aside a pile of papers and, leaning across the desk, spoke with studied deliberation. “If he can see his way to making his policy dependent upon Protection, we can work together.”
“And if he can’t?” suggested Joan.
He fixed his large, colourless eyes upon her. “That’s where you can help him,” he answered. “If he and I combine forces, we can pull this through in spite of the furious opposition that it is going to arouse. Without a good Press he is helpless; and where is he going to get his Press backing if he turns me down? From half a dozen Socialist papers whose support will do him more harm than good. If he will bring the working class over to Protection I will undertake that the Tariff Reformers and the Agricultural Interest shall accept his Socialism. It will be a victory for both of us.
“If he gain his end, what do the means matter?” he continued, as Joan did not answer. “Food may be dearer; the Unions can square that by putting up wages; while the poor devil of a farm labourer will at last get fair treatment. We can easily insist upon that. What do you think, yourself?”
“About Protection,” she answered. “It’s one of the few subjects I haven’t made up my mind about.”
He laughed. “You will find all your pet reforms depend upon it, when you come to work them out,” he said. “You can’t have a minimum wage without a minimum price.”