"Don't be very long," said her mother.

"I'll--I'll--see," Rachel said, and she suddenly bent over her mother and kissed her, then went quickly out by one door as the other was thrown open to admit a visitor.

CHAPTER V

Francis Rendel came into the room with his usual air of ceremony, amounting almost to stiffness. Then, as he realised that his hostess was alone, his face lighted up and he came eagerly towards her.

"This _is_ a piece of good fortune, to find you alone," he said. "I was afraid I should find you surrounded."

"It is early yet," Lady Gore said, with a smile.

"I know, yes," Rendel said. "I must apologise for coming at this time, but I wanted very much to see you----" He paused.

"I am delighted to see you at any time," Lady Gore said.

"It is so good of you," he answered, in the tone of one who is thinking of the next thing he is going to say. There was a silence.

"I hope you enjoyed yourself at Maidenhead?" said Lady Gore.

"Very, very much," Rendel answered with an air of penetrated conviction.

There was another pause. Then he suddenly said, "Lady Gore----" and stopped.

She waited a moment, then said gently, "Yes, I know. Rachel has been telling me."

"She has! Oh, I am so glad," Rendel said. Then he added, finding apparently an extreme difficulty in speaking at all, "And--and--do you mind?"

"That is a modest way of putting it," said Lady Gore, smiling. "No, I don't mind. I am glad."

"Are you really?" said Rendel, looking as if his life depended on the answer. "Do you mean that you really think you--you--could be on my side? Then it will come all right."

"I will be on your side, certainly," said Lady Gore; "but I don't know that that is the essential thing. I am not, after all, the person whose consent matters most."

"Do you know, I believe you are," Rendel said. "I verily believe that at this moment you come before any one else in the world." There was no need to say in whose estimation, or to mention Rachel's name.

"Well, perhaps at this moment, as you say," said Lady Gore, "it is possible, but there is no reason why it should go on always."

"She is absolutely devoted to you," Rendel said.

"Rachel has a fund," her mother said, "of loyal devotion, of unswerving affection, which makes her a very precious possession."

"I have seen it," said Rendel. "Her devotion to you and her father is one of the most beautiful things in the world, even though...."

"Even...?" said Lady Gore, with a smile.

"Did she tell you what she said to me this morning?"

"I gathered, yes," Lady Gore replied, "both what you had said and her answer."

"I didn't take it as an answer," said Rendel. "I thought that I would come straight to you and ask you to help me, and that you would understand, as you always do, in the way that n.o.body else does."

"Take care," said Lady Gore smiling, "that you don't blindly accept Rachel's view of her surroundings."

"Oh, it is not only Rachel who has taught me that," said Rendel, his heart very full. "It is you yourself, and your sympathy. I wonder," he went on quickly, "if you know what it has meant to me? You see, it is not as if I had ever known anything of the sort before. To have had it all one's life, as your daughter has, must be something very wonderful.

I don't wonder she does not want to give it up."

Lady Gore tried to speak more lightly than she felt. "She need not give it up," she said, with a somewhat quivering smile. "And you need not thank me any more," she went on. "I should like you to know what a great interest and a great pleasure it has been to me that you should have cared to come and see me as you have done, and to take me into your life." Rendel was going to speak, but she went on. "I have never had a son of my own. It was a great disappointment to me at first; I was very anxious to have one. I used to think how he and I would have planned out his life together, and that he might perhaps do some of the things in the world that are worth doing. You see how foolish I was," she ended, with a tremulous little smile.

Rendel, in spite of his gravity, experience and intuitive understanding, had a sudden and almost bewildering sense of a change of mental focus as he heard the wise, gentle adviser confiding in her turn, and confessing to foolish and unfulfilled illusions. He felt a pa.s.sionate desire to be of use to her.

"I should have been quite content if he had been like you," she said, and she held out her hand, which he instinctively raised to his lips.

"You make me very happy," he said. "You make me hope."

"But," she said, trying to speak in her ordinary voice, "--perhaps I ought to have begun by saying this--I wonder if Rachel is the right sort of wife for a rising politician?"

"She is the right sort of wife for me," said Rendel. "That is all that matters."

"I'm afraid," Lady Gore said, "she isn't ambitious."

"Afraid!" said Rendel.

"She has no ardent political convictions."

"I have enough for both," said Rendel.

"And--and--such as she has are naturally her father's, and therefore opposed to yours."

"Then we won't talk about politics," Rendel said, "and that will be a welcome relief."

"I'm afraid also," the mother went on, smiling, "that she is not abreast of the age--that she doesn't write, doesn't belong to a club, doesn't even bicycle, and can't take photographs."

"Oh, what a perfect woman!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Rendel.

"In fact I must admit that she has no bread-winning talent, and that in case of need she could not earn her own livelihood."

"If she had anything to do with me," said Rendel, "I should be ashamed if she tried."

"She is not as clever as you are."

"But even supposing that to be true," said Rendel, "isn't that a state of things that makes for happiness?"

"Well," replied Lady Gore, "I believe that as far as women are concerned you are behind the age too."

"I am quite certain of it," Rendel said, "and it is therefore to be rejoiced over that the only woman I have ever thought of wanting should not insist on being in front of it."