The Devils Paw | Page 4

known that he had refused a
seat in the Cabinet in order to preserve an absolute independence. He
had a remarkable gift of taciturnity, which in a man of his class made
for strength, and it was concerning him that the Prime Minister had
made his famous epigram, that Furley was the Labour man whom he
feared the most and dreaded the least.
Julian Orden, with an exterior more promising in many respects than
that of his friend, could boast of no similar distinctions. He was the
youngest son of a particularly fatuous peer resident in the
neighbourhood, had started life as a barrister, in which profession he
had attained a moderate success, had enjoyed a brief but not inglorious
spell of soldiering, from which he had retired slightly lamed for life,
and had filled up the intervening period in the harmless occupation of

censoring. His friendship with Furley appeared on the surface too
singular to be anything else but accidental. Probably no one save the
two men themselves understood it, and they both possessed the gift of
silence.
"What's all this peace talk mean?" Julian Orden asked, fingering the
stern of his wineglass.
"Who knows?" Furley grunted. "The newspapers must have their daily
sensation."
"I have a theory that it is being engineered."
"Bolo business, eh?"
Julian Orden moved in his place a little uneasily. His long, nervous
fingers played with the stick which stood always by the side of his
chair.
"You don't believe in it, do you?" he asked quietly.
Furley looked straight ahead of him. His eyes seemed caught by the
glitter of the lamplight upon the cut-glass decanter.
"You know my opinion of war, Julian," he said. "It's a filthy,
intolerable heritage from generations of autocratic government. No
democracy ever wanted war. Every democracy needs and desires
peace."
"One moment," Julian interrupted. "You must remember that a
democracy seldom possesses the imperialistic spirit, and a great empire
can scarcely survive without it."
"Arrant nonsense!" was the vigorous reply. "A great empire, from
hemisphere to hemisphere, can be kept together a good deal better by
democratic control. Force is always the arriere pensee of the individual
and the autocrat."
"These are generalities," Julian declared. "I want to know your opinion

about a peace at the present moment."
"Not having any, thanks. You're a dilettante journalist by your own
confession, Julian, and I am not going to be drawn."
"There is something in it, then?"
"Maybe," was the careless admission. "You're a visitor worth having,
Julian. '70 port and homegrown walnuts! A nice little addition to my
simple fare! Must you go back to-morrow?"
Julian nodded.
"We've another batch of visitors coming, - Stenson amongst them, by
the bye."
Furley nodded. His eyes narrowed, and little lines appeared at their
corners.
"I can't imagine," he confessed. "What brings Stenson down to
Maltenby. I should have thought that your governor and he could
scarcely spend ten minutes together without quarrelling!"
"They never do spend ten minutes together alone," Julian replied drily.
"I see to that. Then my mother, you know, has the knack of getting
interesting people together. The Bishop is coming, amongst others. And,
Furley, I wanted to ask you - do you know anything of a young woman
- she is half Russian, I believe - who calls herself Miss Catherine
Abbeway?"
"Yes, I know her," was the brief rejoinder.
"She lived in Russia for some years, it seems," Julian continued. "Her
mother was Russian - a great writer on social subjects."
Furley nodded.
"Miss Abbeway is rather that way herself," he remarked. "I've heard
her lecture in the East End. She has got hold of the woman's side of the

Labour question as well as any one I ever came across."
"She is a most remarkably attractive young person," Julian declared
pensively.
"Yes, she's good-looking. A countess in her own right, they tell me, but
she keeps her title secret for fear of losing influence with the working
classes. She did a lot of good down Poplar way. Shouldn't have thought
she'd have been your sort, Julian."
"Why?"
"Too serious."
Julian smiled - rather a peculiar, introspective smile.
"I, too, can, be serious sometimes," he said.
His friend thrust his hands into his trousers pocket and, leaning back in
his chair, looked steadfastly at his guest.
"I believe you can, Julian," he admitted. "Sometimes I am not quite
sure that I understand you. That's the worst of a man with the gift for
silence."
"You're not a great talker yourself," the younger man reminded his
host.
"When you get me going on my own subject," Furley remarked, "I find
it hard to stop, and you are a wonderful listener. Have you got any
views of your own? I never hear them."
Julian drew the box of cigarettes towards