Page:The council of seven.djvu/14

 the telephone and rang up John's chambers in Bury Street. She was informed that Mr. Endor had not yet returned from Blackhampton, but that he was expected home about half-past seven. Thereupon she left a message, asking him, if not otherwise engaged, to come and dine with her, adding the little feminine proviso that "he was not to dress."

It was then a quarter to six. Two hours slowly passed. Helen had letters to write, a book deeply interesting to look at. Much was said, all the same, for her mental habit that, with a grim specter in the outskirts of her mind, she could yet dragoon her will to the task of putting it away.

A few minutes before eight John arrived. She went to him at once. The glow of her greeting masked a tumult of feeling. None could have guessed from such entrain that she was facing a crisis upon whose issue her whole life must turn.

"What a piece of luck that you were able to come!"

The eyes and the laugh of a man deeply in love proclaimed this happy chance to be even more than that.

With no other preface, Helen led the way to the dining room. Before one question could be put to a hard-driven politician he must be fed. No matter what her own emotions might immediately dictate, she had a sense, almost masculine, of the rules of the game. Hers was a powerfully disciplined nature. A terrible phrase seared her like an acid, but for the time being sheer stoicism allowed her to bear the pain.