E Phillips Oppenheim

The Mischief Maker E Phillips Oppenheim

Book Excerpt: ...med to be making some effort to conceal. She nodded slowly. He held out his hand, but she did not at once part with it."Algernon," she said quietly, "you know that I am not very scrupulous. We both of us want success--a certain sort of success--and we have both of us been content to pay the price. You have spent a good deal of money and you have succeeded very well indeed. Somehow or other, I feel to-day as though I were spending more than money."He laughed a little uncomfortably."My dear Mabel!" he protested. "You are not going to back out, are you?""No," she replied, "I do not think that I shall back out. There is nothing in the whole world I want so much as to have you a Cabinet Minister. If there had been any other way--""But there is no other way," her husband interrupted. "So long as Julien Portel lives, I should never get my chance. He holds the post I want. Every one knows that he is clever. He has the ear of the Prime Minister and he hates me. My only chance is his retirement."Close...