“I shall be ready to pack up and follow you any day, Merton. And I think that I might assist you a little; at all events I shall try, and go about among the women and listen to what they say while you are listening to the men.” Merton was delighted. “You have a prophetic soul, Connie,” he said, “and I shall be as much astonished as yourself if something grand doesn't come of this. A great thing in my favour is that I can generally manage to get at the pith of a thing, while most people can do nothing but sniff in a hopeless sort of way at the rind. Of course you have noticed that in me, Connie. I sometimes regret that I am not a barrister, for I possess the qualities that lead to success in that profession. At the same time it is a profession that has a very narrowing effect on the mind--the issues are really in most cases so paltry. Your barrister never can be a statesman; he has looked at things so closely, to study the little details, that his eagle vision has changed into the short sight of the owl. And, by the way, now I think of it, I must have a little brandy in to-night to drink success to our new scheme.” “Do you really need brandy, Merton? I thought--” “Yes, I really do--to-night. I feel so thoroughly knocked up, Connie; and now my brain is in such a state of activity that a little brandy will have no more effect than so much water. Do you know, it is an ascertained fact in science that alcohol taken when you are active--either physically or mentally active--does not go off nor remain in the tissues, but is oxygenised and becomes food. Besides this, I fancy, will be about the last bottle I shall allow myself, I know that you are a Sir Wilfred Lawsonite, and I am determined to respect all your little prepossessions. Not that you have much to thank me for in this case, for I really care very little about strong waters.” He rang the bell, and gave the servant-girl six shillings to get a bottle of Hennessy's brandy. With that bottle of brandy looking very conspicuous on the table, and her husband more talkative and in need of her companionship than ever, Constance could not go away to her room, as she would have liked to do, to be alone with that dull pain at her heart--the sorrow and sense of shame--or perhaps to forget it in sleep. She sat on with him into the small hours, while that oxygenising process was going on, listening, smiling at the right time, entering into all his plans, and even assisting him to find a startling title for the series of brilliant articles on the true condition of the East End, about which all London would no doubt soon be talking. CHAPTER XXXII