"Oh! of course he will vote," said Marcella, moving a little uneasily; "but one cannot help trying to modify his way of looking at things. And his tone _is_ changed." Maxwell stood at the foot of her sofa, considering, a host of perplexed and unwelcome notions flitting across his mind. In spite of his idealist absorption in his work, his political aims, and the one love of his life, he had the training of a man of the world, and could summon the shrewdness of one when he pleased. He had liked this young Tressady, for the first time, at Castle Luton, and had seen him fall under Marcella's charm with some amusement. But this haunting of their camp in the East End, at such a marked and critical moment, was strange, to say the least of it. It must point, one would think, to some sudden and remarkable strength of personal influence. Had she any real consciousness of the power she wielded? Once or twice, in the years since they had been married, Maxwell had watched this spell of his wife's at work, and had known a moment of trouble. "If I were the fellow she had talked and walked with so," he had once said to himself, "I must have fallen in love with her had she been twenty times another man's wife!" Yet no harm had happened; he had only reproached himself for a gross mind without daring to breathe a word to her. And he dared not now. Besides, how absurd! The young man was just married, and, to Maxwell's absent, incurious eyes, the bride had seemed a lively, pretty little person enough. No doubt it was the nervous strain of his political life that made such fancies possible to him. Let him not cumber her ears with them! Then gradually, as he stood at her feet, the sight of her, breathing weakness, submission, loveliness, her eyes raised to his, banished every other thought from his happy heart, and drew him like a magnet. Meanwhile she began to smile. He knelt down beside her, and she put both hands on his shoulders. "Dear!" she said, half laughing and half crying, "I did speak so badly; you would have been ashamed of me. I couldn't hold the meeting. I didn't persuade a soul. Lord Fontenoy's ladies had it all their own way. And first I was dreadfully sorry I couldn't do such a thing decently--sorry because of one's vanity, and sorry because I couldn't help you. And now I think I'm rather glad." "Are you?" said Maxwell, drily; "as for me, I'm enchanted! There!--so much penalty you _shall_ have." She pressed his lips with her hand. "Don't spoil my pretty speech. I am only glad because--because public life and public success make one stand separate--alone. I have gone far enough to know how it might be. A new passion would come in, and creep through one like a poison. I should win you votes--and our hearts would burn dry! There! take me--scold me--despise me. I am a poor thing--but yours!" With such a humbleness might Diana have wooed her shepherd, stooping her goddess head to him on the Latmian steep. CHAPTER XV