A hurried consultation took place among the gentlemen on the platform, which ended in Mr. O’Rourke stepping forward with a smile and an outstretched hand to welcome Augusta Goold as she ascended the steps. The expression of his face belied the smile which he had impressed upon his lips. His eyes had the same look of furtive malice as a dog’s which wants to bite but fears the stick. Augusta Goold waved aside the proffered hand, and stepped unaided on to the platform. Mr. O’Rourke placed a chair for her, but she ignored it and stood, with her followers behind her, facing the audience. O’Rourke and two of his tried and trusty members of Parliament approached her. They stood between her and the audience, and talked to her for some time, apparently very earnestly. Augusta Goold looked past them, over them, sometimes it seemed through them, while they spoke, but made them no answer whatever. At last Mr. O’Rourke shrugged his shoulders, and withdrew to his chair with a sulky scowl. ‘I wish,’ said Augusta Goold, ‘to ask a simple question of your chairman.’ Mr. O’Rourke rose. ‘This meeting,’ he said, ‘is convened for the purpose of raising funds for the carrying on of the national business in the House of Commons. If Miss Goold’s question relates to the business in hand, I shall be most happy to answer it. If not, I am afraid I cannot allow it to be asked here. At another time and in another place I shall be prepared to listen to what Miss Goold has to say, and in the meantime if she will take her seat on the platform she will be heartily welcome.’ ‘My question,’ said Augusta Goold, ‘is intimately connected with the business of the meeting. It is simply this: Are you, Mr. O’Rourke, prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom?’ It was manifestly absurd to ask such a question at all. Mr. O’Rourke had no intention of collecting money for the Boers, who seemed to have plenty of their own, and he could not without breach of trust have applied funds subscribed to feed and clothe members of Parliament to arming volunteers. Nevertheless, it was an awkward question to answer in the presence of an audience excited by Augusta Goold’s beauty and splendid audacity. A really strong man, like, for instance, O’Rourke’s predecessor, John O’Neill, might have faced the situation, and won, if not the immediate cheers, at least the respect of the Irish people. But Mr. O’Rourke was not a strong man, and besides he was out of temper and had lost his nerve. He took perhaps the worst course open to him: he made a speech. He appealed to his past record as a Nationalist, and to his publicly reiterated expressions of sympathy with the Boer cause. He asked the audience to trust him to do what was right, but he neither said Yes nor No to the question he was asked.