Lord of the World | Page 7

study except a smooth, soothing murmur that filled the air like the
murmur of bees in a garden.
Oliver loved every hint of human life--all busy sights and sounds--and was listening now,
smiling faintly to himself as he stared out into the clear air. Then he set his lips, laid his
fingers on the keys once more, and went on speech-constructing.
* * * * *
He was very fortunate in the situation of his house. It stood in an angle of one of those
huge spider-webs with which the country was covered, and for his purposes was all that
he could expect. It was close enough to London to be extremely cheap, for all wealthy
persons had retired at least a hundred miles from the throbbing heart of England; and yet
it was as quiet as he could wish. He was within ten minutes of Westminster on the one
side, and twenty minutes of the sea on the other, and his constituency lay before him like
a raised map. Further, since the great London termini were but ten minutes away, there
were at his disposal the First Trunk lines to every big town in England. For a politician of

no great means, who was asked to speak at Edinburgh on one evening and in Marseilles
on the next, he was as well placed as any man in Europe.
He was a pleasant-looking man, not much over thirty years old; black wire-haired,
clean-shaven, thin, virile, magnetic, blue-eyed and white-skinned; and he appeared this
day extremely content with himself and the world. His lips moved slightly as he worked,
his eyes enlarged and diminished with excitement, and more than once he paused and
stared out again, smiling and flushed.
Then a door opened; a middle-aged man came nervously in with a bundle of papers, laid
them down on the table without a word, and turned to go out. Oliver lifted his hand for
attention, snapped a lever, and spoke.
"Well, Mr. Phillips?" he said.
"There is news from the East, sir," said the secretary.
Oliver shot a glance sideways, and laid his hand on the bundle.
"Any complete message?" he asked.
"No, sir; it is interrupted again. Mr. Felsenburgh's name is mentioned."
Oliver did not seem to hear; he lifted the flimsy printed sheets with a sudden movement,
and began turning them.
"The fourth from the top, Mr. Brand," said the secretary.
Oliver jerked his head impatiently, and the other went out as if at a signal.
The fourth sheet from the top, printed in red on green, seemed to absorb Oliver's attention
altogether, for he read it through two or three times, leaning back motionless in his chair.
Then he sighed, and stared again through the window.
Then once more the door opened, and a tall girl came in.
"Well, my dear?" she observed.
Oliver shook his head, with compressed lips.
"Nothing definite," he said. "Even less than usual. Listen."
He took up the green sheet and began to read aloud as the girl sat down in a window-seat
on his left.
She was a very charming-looking creature, tall and slender, with serious, ardent grey eyes,
firm red lips, and a beautiful carriage of head and shoulders. She had walked slowly
across the room as Oliver took up the paper, and now sat back in her brown dress in a
very graceful and stately attitude. She seemed to listen with a deliberate kind of patience;

but her eyes flickered with interest.
"'Irkutsk--April fourteen--Yesterday--as--usual--But--rumoured--
defection--from--Sufi--party--Troops--continue--gathering--
Felsenburgh--addressed--Buddhist--crowd--Attempt--on--Llama--last--
Friday--work--of--Anarchists--Felsenburgh--leaving--for--Moscow--as --arranged--he....'
There--that is absolutely all," ended Oliver dispiritedly. "It's interrupted as usual."
The girl began to swing a foot.
"I don't understand in the least," she said. "Who is Felsenburgh, after all?"
"My dear child, that is what all the world is asking. Nothing is known except that he was
included in the American deputation at the last moment. The Herald published his life
last week; but it has been contradicted. It is certain that he is quite a young man, and that
he has been quite obscure until now."
"Well, he is not obscure now," observed the girl.
"I know; it seems as if he were running the whole thing. One never hears a word of the
others. It's lucky he's on the right side."
"And what do you think?"
Oliver turned vacant eyes again out of the window.
"I think it is touch and go," he said. "The only remarkable thing is that here hardly
anybody seems to realise it. It's too big for the imagination, I suppose. There is no doubt
that the East has been preparing for a descent on Europe for these last five years. They
have only been checked by America; and this is one last attempt to stop them. But why
Felsenburgh should come to the front---" he broke