This afternoon the confidence received a little shock. He came late, after tea-time, and walking before the maid into the drawing-room had time, before Felicia saw him, to grasp the disturbing significance of her attitude. She was sitting alone near the window, her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. For a moment he thought that she was crying, and, like a pang, the memory of sunlight among young birches, snowdrops, a distant bird-song, went through him.
Felicia, however, was not crying; and as she looked round at him, he saw that the attitude might have been one of merely momentary weariness.
Taking up a bit of sewing she began to talk about the political prospects. "I hear that you are not altogether in sympathy with the Government," she said.
"Perhaps I would," said Geoffrey, leaning back and smoothing his hand over his hair, "if I could afford it. I serve my own purposes better by remaining in office."
"Do you mean that you can't afford--financially--to risk failure?" Felicia asked. "I never associated you with compromise."
"It's not my own failure, but the failure of the policy I believe in that I might risk by refusing to compromise. One fights for one's cause in politics with all sorts of weapons. As for personal failure, I may not be put to too stringent a test; I may make enough money to float me to absolute independence. Did you know that I was a ferocious gambler--and not only on the Stock Exchange, but with cards?"
The placidity with which he showed her his faults always amused Felicia, even when she could not share it. He made no effort to win good opinion--not even hers.
"I have heard, and to tell you the truth I am sorry about the cards."
"I don't like the idea of a pastime becoming so significant. To say the least of it--it's not fitting."
"Well," said Geoffrey, laughing, "I won't do it any more. You are quite right."
"Oh, not on account of what I say, please," she protested, slightly flushing; "you must judge for yourself."
"So I do. I have judged. You may be sure I would never yield anything I believed in--even to please you. I have always disliked the significance cards might come to assume, so I yield, and gladly, since it does please you."
"That is a relief. I could not bear to be a standard. And I can't believe," she added, "that your winnings at cards can have any significance for your career."
