At that hour Mrs. Wade and her guest were together in the
sitting-room. The lamp had just been lighted, the red blind drawn
down. Lilian reclined on a couch; she looked worse in health than
when she had taken leave of Denzil; her eyes told of fever, and her
limbs were relaxed. Last night she had not enjoyed an hour of sleep;
the strange room and the recollection of Northway's visit to this
house (Quarrier, in his faith that Mrs. Wade's companionship was
best for Lilian, had taken no account of the disagreeable
association) kept her nerves in torment, and with the morning she
had begun to suffer from a racking headache.
Mrs. Wade was talking, seated by the table, on which her arms
rested. She, too, had a look of nervous tension. and her voice was
slightly hoarse.
"Ambition," she said, with a slow emphasis, "is the keynote of Mr.
Quarrier's character. If you haven't understood that, you don't yet
know him--indeed you don't! A noble ambition, mind. He is above
all meanness. In wishing to take a foremost part in politics, he
cares, at heart, very little for the personal dignity it will bring
him; his desire--I am convinced--is to advance all causes that
appeal to an honest and feeling man. He has discovered that he can
do this in a way he had never before suspected--by the exercise of
a splendid gift of eloquence.
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