"By all means," the other replied. "We'll go into the smoking room."

They strolled off together, followed by more than one pair of curious eyes. An interview between the editor of the daily journal having the largest circulation in Great Britain and Tallente, possible dictator of a new party in politics, was not without its dramatic interest.

Tallente wasted no words as soon as they had entered the smoking room and found it empty.

"Do you mind talking shop, Greening?" he asked. "I've been down to your place twice this morning, but couldn't find you."

"Go ahead," the other invited. "I had to go round to Downing Street and then on to see the chief. Sorry you had a fruitless journey."

"I will be quite frank with you," Tallente went on. "What I am going to suggest to you is pure guesswork. A political opponent, if I can dignify the fellow with such a term, has in his possession an article of mine which I wrote some years ago, during the war. I have been given to understand that he means to obtain publication of it for the purpose of undermining my position with the Labour Party. Has he brought it to you?"

"He has," Greening answered briefly.

"Are you going to use it?"

"We are. The article is in type now. It won't be out for a day or two.

When it does, we look upon it as the biggest political scoop of this decade."

"I protest to you formally," Tallente said, "against the publication by a respectable journal of a stolen doc.u.ment."

Greening shook his head.

"Won't do, Tallente," he replied. "We have had a meeting and decided to publish. The best I can do for you is to promise that we will publish unabridged any comments you may have to make upon the matter, on the following day."

"I have always understood that there is such a thing as a journalistic conscience," Tallente persisted. "Can you tell me what possible justification you can find for making use of stolen material?"

"The journalistic conscience is permitted some lat.i.tude in these matters," Greening answered drily. "We are not publishing for the sake of any pecuniary benefit or even for the kudos of a scoop. We are publishing because we want to do our best to drive you out from amongst the Democrats."

"Did Horlock send Miller to you?" Tallente enquired.

Greening shook his head once more.

"I cannot answer that sort of question. I will say as much as this in our justification. We stand for sane politics and your defection from the ranks of sane politicians has been very seriously felt. We look upon this opportunity of weakening your present position with the Democratic Party as a matter of political necessity. Personally, I am very sorry, Tallente, to do an unfriendly action, but I can only say, like the school-master before he canes a refractory pupil, that it is for your own good."

"I should prefer to remain the arbiter of my own destiny," Tallente observed drily. "I suppose you fully understand that that noxious person, Miller, paid my defaulting secretary five thousand pounds for that ma.n.u.script?"

"My dear fellow, if your pocket had been picked in the street of that ma.n.u.script and it had been brought to us, we should still have used it,"

was the frank reply.

Tallente stared gloomily out of the window.

"Then I suppose there is nothing more to be said," he wound up.

"Nothing! Sorry, Tallente, but the chief is absolutely firm. He looks upon you as the monkey pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the Labour Party and he has made up his mind to singe your paws."

"The Democrats will rule this country before many years have pa.s.sed,"

Tallente said earnestly, "whether your chief likes it or not. Isn't it better to have a reasonable and moderate man like myself of influence in their councils than to have to deal with Miller and his lot?"

Greening shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the clock.

"Orders are orders," he declared, "and even if I disbelieved in the policy of the paper, I couldn't afford to disobey. Come and lunch, Tallente."

"Can I have a proof of the article?"

"By all means," was the prompt reply. "Shall I send it to your rooms or here?"

"Send it direct to Stephen Dartrey at the House of Commons."

"I see," Greening murmured thoughtfully, "and then a council of war, eh?

Don't forget our promise, Tallente. We'll publish your counterblast, whatever the consequences."

Tallente sighed.

"It isn't decided yet," he said, as they made their way towards the luncheon room, "whether there is to be a counterblast."

CHAPTER XVI

"We have achieved a triumph," Jane declared, when the last of the servants had disappeared and the little party of four were left to their own devices. "We have sat through the whole of dinner and not once mentioned politics."

"You made us forget them," Tallente murmured.

"A left-handed compliment," Jane laughed. "You should pay your tribute to my cook. Mr. Dartrey, I have told you all about my farms and your wife has explained all that I could not understand of her last article in the National. Now I am going to seek for further enlightenment.

Tell my why the publication of an article written years ago is likely to affect Mr. Tallente's present position so much?"

"Because," Dartrey explained, "it is an attack upon the most sensitive, the most difficult, and the section of our party furthest removed from us--the great trades unions. Some years ago, Lady Jane, since the war, one of our shrewdest thinkers declared that the greatest danger overshadowing this country was the power wielded by the representatives of these various unions, a power which amounted almost to a dictatorship. We have drawn them into our party through detaching the units. We have never been able to capture them as a whole. Even to-day their leaders are in a curiously anomalous position. They see their power going in the dawn of a more socialistic age. They cannot refuse to accept our principles but in their hearts they know that our triumph sounds the death knell to their power. This article of Tallente's would give them a wonderful chance. Out of very desperation they will seize upon it."

"Have you read the article?" Jane enquired.

"This evening, just before I came," Dartrey replied gravely.

"I can understand," Tallente intervened, "that you feel bound to take this seriously, Dartrey, but after all there is nothing traitorous to our cause in what I wrote. I attacked the trades unions for their colossal and fiendish selfishness when the Empire was tottering. I would do it again under the same circ.u.mstances. Remember I was fresh from Ypres. I had seen Englishmen, not soldiers but just hastily trained citizens--bakers, commercial travellers, clerks, small tradesmen--butchered like rabbits but fighting for their country, dying for it--and all the time those blackguardly stump orators at home turned their backs to France and thought the time opportune to wrangle for a rise in wages and bring the country to the very verge of a universal strike. It didn't come off, I know, but there were very few people who really understood how near we were to it. Dartrey, we sacrifice too much of our real feelings to political necessity. I won't apologize for my article; I'll defend it."

Dartrey sighed.

"It will be a difficult task, Tallente. The spirit has gone. People have forgotten already the danger which we so narrowly escaped--forgotten before the gra.s.s has grown on the graves of our saviours."

"Still, you wouldn't have Mr. Tallente give in without a struggle?"

Jane asked.

"I hope that Tallente will fight," Dartrey replied, "but I must warn you, Lady Jane, that I am the guardian of a cause, and for that reason I am an opportunist. If the division of our party which consists of the trades unionists refuses to listen to any explanation and threatens severance if Tallente remains, then he will have to go."

"So far as your personal view is concerned," Tallente asked, "you could do without Miller, couldn't you?"

"I could thrive without him," Dartrey declared heartily.

"Then you shall," Tallente a.s.serted. "We'll show the world what his local trades unionism stands for. He has belittled the whole principle of cooperation. He tw.a.n.gs all the time one brazen chord instead of seeking to give expression to the clear voices of the millions. Miller would impoverish the country with his accursed limited production, his threatened strikes, his parochial outlook. Englishmen are brimful of common sense, Dartrey, if you know where to dig for it. We'll materialise your own dream. We'll bring the principles of socialism into our human and daily life and those octopus trades unions shall feel the knife."

Jane laid her hand for a moment upon his arm.