He stood out curiously youthful against
the background of grey-haired and bald-headed men behind him; and there
was youth also in his clear, ringing voice that not even the vault-like
atmosphere of that shadowless chamber could altogether rob of its
vitality. He spoke simply and good-humouredly, without any attempt at
rhetoric, relying chiefly upon a crescendo of telling facts that
gradually, as he proceeded, roused the House to that tense stillness that
comes to it when it begins to think.
"A distinctly dangerous man," Joan overheard a little old lady behind her
comment to a friend. "If I didn't hate him, I should like him."
He met her in the corridor, and they walked up and down and talked, too
absorbed to be aware of the curious eyes that were turned upon them. Joan
gave him Carleton's message.
"It was clever of him to make use of you," he said. "If he'd sent it
through anybody else, I'd have published it."
"You don't think it even worth considering?" suggested Joan.
"Protection?" he flashed out scornfully. "Yes, I've heard of that.
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