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The New Machiavelli Chapter 14 Part 1 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen of the New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Antoniogus.
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Speaker 1: The impossible position one. To any one who did not
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Speaker 1: know of that glowing secret between Isabel and myself, I
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Speaker 1: might well have appeared at that time the most successful
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Speaker 1: and enviable of men. I had recovered rapidly from an
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Speaker 1: uncongenial start in political life. I had become a considerable
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Speaker 1: force through the Blue Weekly, and was shaping an increasingly
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Speaker 1: influential body of opinion. I had re entered Parliament with
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Speaker 1: quite dramatic distinction, and in spite of a certain faltering
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Speaker 1: on the part of the Orthodox Conservatives towards the bolder
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Speaker 1: elements in our propaganda, I had loyal and unenvious associates
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Speaker 1: who were making me a power in the party. People
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Speaker 1: were coming to our group, understandings were developing. It was
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Speaker 1: clear we should play a prominent part in the next
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Speaker 1: general election, and that given a Conservative victory, I should
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Speaker 1: be assured of office. The world opened out to me
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Speaker 1: brightly and invitingly. Great schemes took shape in my mind,
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Speaker 1: always more concrete, always more practicable. The years ahead seemed
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Speaker 1: falling into order, shining with the credible promise of immense achievement.
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Speaker 1: And at the heart of it, all unseen and unsuspected,
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Speaker 1: was the secret of my relations with Isabel. Like a
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Speaker 1: seed that germinates and thrusts, thrusts relentlessly from the onset
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Speaker 1: of the hand which contest onward. My meetings with her
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Speaker 1: had been more and more pervaded by the discussion of
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Speaker 1: our situation. It had innumerable aspects. It was very present
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Speaker 1: to us that we wanted to be together as much
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Speaker 1: as possible. We were beginning to long very much for
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Speaker 1: actual living together in the same house, so that one
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Speaker 1: could come, as it were, carelessly unawares upon the other, busy,
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Speaker 1: perhaps about some trivial thing. We wanted to feel each
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Speaker 1: other in the daily atmosphere preceding our imperatively sterile passion.
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Speaker 1: You must remember outside it altogether greater than it, So
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Speaker 1: far as our individual lives were concerned, there had grown,
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Speaker 1: and still grew an enormous affection in intellectual sympathy between us.
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Speaker 1: We brought all our impressions and all our ideas to
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Speaker 1: each other to see them in each other's light. It
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Speaker 1: is hard to convey that quality of intellectual unison to
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Speaker 1: anyone who has not experienced it. I thought more and
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Speaker 1: more in terms of conversation with Isabelle. Her possible comments
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Speaker 1: upon things would flash into my mind. Oh, with the
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Speaker 1: very sound of her voice. I remember too, the odd
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Speaker 1: effect of seeing her in the day distance, going about
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Speaker 1: handitch like any stranger canvasser, the queer emotion of her
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Speaker 1: approach along the street, the greeting as she passed. The
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Speaker 1: morning of the polling she vanished from the constituency. I
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Speaker 1: saw her for an instant in the passage beyond our
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Speaker 1: committee rooms, going, said I. She nodded, stare it out.
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Speaker 1: I want you to see the fun. I remember the
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Speaker 1: other time. She didn't answer for a moment or so
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Speaker 1: and stood with face averted. It's Margaret's show, she said, abruptly.
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Speaker 1: If I see her smiling there like a queen by
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Speaker 1: your side she did last time. I remember she caught
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Speaker 1: at a sob and dashed her hand across her face,
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Speaker 1: impatiently jealous, fool, mean and petty, jealous fool. Good luck,
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Speaker 1: old man to you. You're going to win, But I
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Speaker 1: don't want to see the end of it all the same.
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Speaker 1: Good Bye, said I. Clasping her hand as some supporter
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Speaker 1: appeared in the passage. I came back to London, victorious
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Speaker 1: and a little flushed and coarse with victory, and so
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Speaker 1: soon as I could break away, I went to Isabel's
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Speaker 1: flat and found her white and worn, with the stain
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Speaker 1: of secret weeping about her eyes. I came into the
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Speaker 1: room to her and shut the door. You said, I'd win,
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Speaker 1: I said, and held out my arms. She hugged me
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Speaker 1: closely for a moment, My dear, I whispered, it's nothing
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Speaker 1: without you, nothing. We didn't speak for some seconds. Then
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Speaker 1: she slipped from my hold. Look, she said, smiling like
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Speaker 1: winter sunshine. I've had in all the morning papers the
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Speaker 1: parlor them, and and you resounding. It's more than I dared,
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Speaker 1: hope or I. She stood for a moment, still smiling bravely,
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Speaker 1: and then she was sobbing in my arms. The bigger
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Speaker 1: you are, the more you show, she said, the more
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Speaker 1: we are parted. I know, I know. I held her
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Speaker 1: close to me, making no answer. Presently she became still.
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Speaker 1: Oh well, she said, and wiped her eyes and sat
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Speaker 1: down on the little sofa by the fire, and I
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Speaker 1: sat down beside her. I didn't know all there was
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Speaker 1: in love, she said, staring at the coals. When we
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Speaker 1: went love making. I put my arm behind her and
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Speaker 1: took a handful of her dear soft hair in my
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Speaker 1: hand and kissed it. You've done a great thing this time,
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Speaker 1: she said, And it will make you. It opens big chances,
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Speaker 1: I said, But why are you weeping, dear one envy,
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Speaker 1: she said, and love, You're not lonely, up plenty to
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Speaker 1: do and lots of people. Well, I want you, You've
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Speaker 1: got me. She put her arm about me and kissed me.
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Speaker 1: I want you, she said, just as if I had
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Speaker 1: nothing of you. You don't understand how a woman wants
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Speaker 1: a man. I thought once, if I just gave myself
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Speaker 1: to you, it would be enough. It was nothing. It
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Speaker 1: was just a step across the threshold, My dear. Every
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Speaker 1: moment you are away, I ache for you. Ache. I
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Speaker 1: want to be about when it isn't love making or talk.
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Speaker 1: I want to be doing things for you and watching
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Speaker 1: you when you're not thinking of me, all those safe,
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Speaker 1: careless intimate things and something else. She stopped. Dear, I
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Speaker 1: don't want to bother you. I just want you to
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Speaker 1: know I love you. She caught my head in her
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Speaker 1: hands and kissed it, then stood up abruptly. I looked
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Speaker 1: up at her, a little perplexed, said, I isn't this enough.
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Speaker 1: You're my counselor my colleague, my right hand, the secret
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Speaker 1: soul of my life, and I want to darn your socks,
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Speaker 1: She said, smiling back at me. You're insatiable. She smiled. No,
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Speaker 1: she said, I'm not insatiable, Master, but I'm a woman
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Speaker 1: in love, and I'm finding out what I want and
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Speaker 1: what is necessary to me and what I can't have.
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Speaker 1: That's all. We get a lot, We want a lot.
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Speaker 1: You and I are greedy people for the things we like. Master,
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Speaker 1: It's very evident we've got nearly all we can ever
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Speaker 1: have of one another. And I'm not satisfied. What more
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Speaker 1: is there for you? Very little? I wonder for me everything,
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Speaker 1: Yes everything, You didn't mean it, Master, You didn't know
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Speaker 1: any more than I did when I began. But love
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Speaker 1: between a man and a woman is sometimes very one sided. Fearfully,
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Speaker 1: once I did, that's all. Don't you ever want children,
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Speaker 1: she said abruptly. I suppose I do. You don't. I
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Speaker 1: haven't thought of them A man doesn't, perhaps, but I have.
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Speaker 1: I want them like hunger, your children, and home with you,
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Speaker 1: really continually you. That's the trouble. I can't have a master,
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Speaker 1: and I can't have you. She was crying, and through
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Speaker 1: her tears she laughed. I'm going to make a scene,
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Speaker 1: she said, and get this over. I'm so discontented and miserable.
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Speaker 1: I've got to tell you it would come between us
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Speaker 1: if I didn't. I'm in love with you, with everything,
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Speaker 1: with all my brains. I'll pull through, all right. I'll
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Speaker 1: be good master. Never you fear. But to day I'm
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Speaker 1: crying out with all my being. This election, you're going up,
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Speaker 1: You're going on in these papers. You're a great, big fact.
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Speaker 1: It's suddenly come home to me. At the back of
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Speaker 1: my mind. I've always had the idea I was going
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Speaker 1: to have you somehow, presently for myself. I mean to
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Speaker 1: have you to go along tramps with, to keep house for,
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Speaker 1: to get meals for, to watch for an evening. It's
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Speaker 1: a sort of habitual background to my thought of you.
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Speaker 1: And it's nonsense, utter nonsense. She stopped. She was crying
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Speaker 1: and choking. The child, you know, the child. I was
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Speaker 1: troubled beyond measure. But hand itch and its intimations were
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Speaker 1: clear and strong. We can't have that, I said, no,
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Speaker 1: she said, we can't have that. We've got our own
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Speaker 1: things to do. Your things, she said, aren't they yours too?
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Speaker 1: Because of you? She said, aren't they your very own things?
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Speaker 1: We meen don't have that sort of very own thing. Indeed,
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Speaker 1: it's true. And think you've been down there preaching the
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Speaker 1: goodness of children, telling them the only good thing in
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Speaker 1: state is happy, hopeful children working to free mothers and children.
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Speaker 1: And we give our own children to do it. I said, yes,
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Speaker 1: she said, And sometimes I think it's too much to give,
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Speaker 1: too much altogether. Children get into a woman's brain when
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Speaker 1: she mustn't have them, especially when she must never hope
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Speaker 1: for them. Think of the child we might have now,
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Speaker 1: the little creature with soft tender skin and little hands
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Speaker 1: and little feet. At times it haunts me. It comes
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Speaker 1: and says, why wasn't I given life? I can hear
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Speaker 1: it in the night. The world is full of such
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Speaker 1: little ghosts, de lover, little things that asked for life.
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Speaker 1: When were refused, they clamor to me, it's like a
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Speaker 1: little fist beating at my heart. Love children, beautiful children,
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Speaker 1: little cold hands that tear at my heart. Oh, my heart,
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Speaker 1: and my lord. She was holding my arm with both
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Speaker 1: her hands and weeping against it. And now she drew
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Speaker 1: herself to my shoulder and wept and sobbed in my embrace.
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Speaker 1: I shall never sit with your child on my knee,
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Speaker 1: and you beside me never, And I am a woman
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Speaker 1: and your lover. Two. But the profound impossibility of our
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Speaker 1: relation was now becoming more and more apparent to us.
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Speaker 1: We found ourselves seeking justification, clinging passionately to a situation
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Speaker 1: that was coldly, pitilessly impossible and fated. We wanted quite
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Speaker 1: intensely to live together and have a child, but also
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Speaker 1: we wanted very many other things that were incompatible with
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Speaker 1: these desires. It was extraordinarily difficult to weigh our political
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Speaker 1: and intellectual ambitions against those intimate wishes. The weights kept
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Speaker 1: altering according as one found oneself grasping this valued thing
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Speaker 1: or that. It wasn't as if we could throw everything
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Speaker 1: aside for our love and have that as we wanted it.
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Speaker 1: Love such as we bore one another isn't altogether or
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Speaker 1: even chiefly a thing in itself. It is, for the
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Speaker 1: most part of value set upon things. Our love was
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Speaker 1: interwoven with all our other interests. To go out of
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Speaker 1: the world and live in isolation seemed to us like
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Speaker 1: killing the best parts of each other. We loved the
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Speaker 1: sight of each other engaged finally and characteristically, we knew
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Speaker 1: each other best as activities. We had no delusions about
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Speaker 1: material facts. We didn't want each other alive or dead.
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Speaker 1: We wanted each other fully alive. We wanted to do
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Speaker 1: big things together, and for us to take each other
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Speaker 1: openly and desperately would leave us nothing in the world
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Speaker 1: to do. We wanted children, indeed, passionately, but children with
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Speaker 1: every helpful chance in the world, and children born in
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Speaker 1: scandal would be handicapped at every turn. We wanted to
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Speaker 1: share a home and not a solitude. And when we
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Speaker 1: were at this stage of realization, began the intimations that
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Speaker 1: we were found out and that scandal was afoot against us.
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Speaker 1: I heard of it first from Zmir, who deliberately mentioned
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Speaker 1: it with that steady gray eye of his watching me
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Speaker 1: as an instance of the preposterous falsehoods people will circulate.
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Speaker 1: It came to Isabel almost simultaneously through a married college
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Speaker 1: friend who made it her business to demand either confirmation
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Speaker 1: or denial. It filled us both with consternation. In the
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Speaker 1: surprise of the moment, Isabel admitted her secret, and her
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Speaker 1: friend went off, reserving her freedom of action. Discovery broke
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Speaker 1: out in every direction. Friends with grave faces and an
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Speaker 1: atmosphere of inn tact invaded us. Both other friends ceased
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Speaker 1: to invade either of us. It was manifest we had become.
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Speaker 1: We knew not how a private scandal, a subject for duelogus,
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Speaker 1: an amazement, a perplexity, a vivid interest. In a few
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Speaker 1: brief weeks, it seemed London passed from absolute unsuspiciousness to
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Speaker 1: a chattering exaggeration of its knowledge of our relations. It
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Speaker 1: was just the most inappropriate time for that disclosure. The
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Speaker 1: long smoldering antagonism to my endowment of motherhood ideas had
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Speaker 1: flared up into an active campaign in the expigator, and
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Speaker 1: it would be altogether disastrous to us if I should
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Speaker 1: be convicted of any personal irregularity. It was just because
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Speaker 1: of the manifest and challenging respectability of my position that
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Speaker 1: I had been able to carry the thing as far
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Speaker 1: as I had done. Now, suddenly my fortunes had sprung
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Speaker 1: a leak, and scandal was pouring in. It chanced, too
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Speaker 1: that a wave of moral intolerance was sweeping through London,
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Speaker 1: one of those waves in which the bitterness of the
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Speaker 1: consciously just finds an ally in the panic of the undiscovered.
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Speaker 1: A certain farther Blodget had been preaching against social corruption
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Speaker 1: with extraordinary force, and had roused the Church of England
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Speaker 1: people to a kind of competition in denunciation. The old
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Speaker 1: methods of the anti socialist campaign had been renewed and
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Speaker 1: had offered far too wider scope and too tempting, an
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Speaker 1: opportunity for private animosity to be restricted to the private
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Speaker 1: affairs of the socialists. I had intimations of an extensive
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Speaker 1: circulation of private and confidential letters. I think there can
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Speaker 1: be nothing else in life quite like the unnerving realization
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Speaker 1: that rumor and scandal are afoot about. One. Abruptly one's
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Speaker 1: confidence in the solidity of the universe disappears. One walks
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Speaker 1: silenced through a world that one feels to me full
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Speaker 1: of inaudible accusations. One cannot challenge the assault, get it
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Speaker 1: out into the open, separate truth and falsehood. It SLINKs
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Speaker 1: from you, turns aside its face. Old acquaintances suddenly evaded me,
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Speaker 1: made extraordinary excuses. Men who had presumed on the verge
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Speaker 1: of my world, and pestered me with an intrusive enterprise.
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Speaker 1: Now took the bold step of flat repudiation. I became
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Speaker 1: doubtful about the return of a nod, retracted all those
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Speaker 1: tentacles of easy civility that I had hitherto spread to
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Speaker 1: the world. I still grow warm with amazed indignation when
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Speaker 1: I recall that Edward Crampton, meeting me full on the
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Speaker 1: steps of the Climax Club, cut me dead. By God,
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Speaker 1: I cried and came near, catching him by the throat,
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Speaker 1: and wringing out of him, What of all good deeds
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Speaker 1: and bads could hearten him, a younger man than I,
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Speaker 1: an empty beyond comparison to dare to play the judge
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Speaker 1: to me? And then I had an open slight from
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Speaker 1: Missus Millingham, whom I had counted on as one counts
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Speaker 1: upon the sunrise. I had not expected things of that sort.
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Speaker 1: They were disconcerting beyond measure. It was as if the
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Speaker 1: world were giving way beneath my feet, as though something
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Speaker 1: failed in the essential confidence of life, as though a
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Speaker 1: hand of wet ice had touched my heart. Similar things
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Speaker 1: were happening to Isabel. Yet we went on working, visiting meeting,
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Speaker 1: trying to ignore this gathering of implacable forces against us.
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Speaker 1: For a time I was perplexed beyond measure to account
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Speaker 1: for this campaign. Then I got a clue. The center
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Speaker 1: of diffusion was the Bailey household. The Bailies had never
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Speaker 1: forgiven me my bt adment of the young Liberal group
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Speaker 1: they had done so much to inspire and organize. Their
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Speaker 1: dinner table had long been a scene of hostile deppreciation
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Speaker 1: of the Blue Weekly and all its allies. Week after week,
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Speaker 1: Altiora proclaimed that I was doing nothing and found other
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Speaker 1: causes for our by election triumphs. I counted Chambers Street
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Speaker 1: a dangerous place for me, Yet nevertheless I was astonished
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Speaker 1: to find them using a private scandal against me. They did.
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Speaker 1: I think hand itch had filled up the measure of
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Speaker 1: their bitterness, For I had not only abandoned them, but
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Speaker 1: I was succeeding beyond even their power of misrepresentation. Always
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Speaker 1: I had been a wasp in their spider's web. Difficult
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Speaker 1: to claim as at all uncritical antagonistic. I admirred their
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Speaker 1: work and devotion enormously, but I had never concealed my
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Speaker 1: contempt for certain childish vanity They displayed the frequent purility
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Speaker 1: of their political intrigues. I suppose contempt ghouls more than injuries.
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Speaker 1: And anyhow they had me, now they had me. Bailey,
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Speaker 1: I found, was warning fathers of girls against me as
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Speaker 1: a reckless libertine, and Altiora, flushed, roguish and disheveled, was
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Speaker 1: sitting on her fender curb after dinner and pledging little
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Speaker 1: parties of five or six women at a time, with
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Speaker 1: infinite gusto not to let the matter go further. Our
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Speaker 1: cell was open to the world and oblique, distressful daylight
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Speaker 1: streaming in. I had a gleam of a more intimate
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Speaker 1: motive in Altiora from the reports that came to me.
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Speaker 1: Isabel had been doing a series of five or six
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Speaker 1: articles in the Political Review in support of our campaign.
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Speaker 1: The Political Review, which had hitherto been royally Baillite. Quite
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Speaker 1: her best writing up to the present, at any rate,
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Speaker 1: is in those papers, and no doubt Altiora had not
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Speaker 1: only to read her in those invaded columns, but listened
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Speaker 1: to her praises in the mouths of the tactless influential.
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Speaker 1: Altiora likes so many people who rely on gesture and
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Speaker 1: vocal insistence in conversation, writes a poor and slovenly prose,
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Speaker 1: and handles an argument badly. Isabel has her university training
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Speaker 1: behind her and wrote from the first with the stark
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Speaker 1: power of a clear headed man. Now we know, said Altiora,
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Speaker 1: with just a gleam of malice showing through her brightness.
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Speaker 1: Now we know who helps with the writing. She revealed
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Speaker 1: astonishing knowledge. For a time I couldn't, for the life
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Speaker 1: of me discover her sources. I had, indeed a desperate
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Speaker 1: intention of challenging her. And then I bethought me of
20:51
Speaker 1: a youngster named Coermayne, who had been my supplemental typist
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Speaker 1: and secretary for a time, and whom I had sent
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Speaker 1: on to her before the days of our breach. Of course,
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Speaker 1: said I Kermain. He was a tall, drooping, sidelong youth
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Speaker 1: with sandy hair, a little forward head, and a long,
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Speaker 1: thin neck. He stole stamps, and I suspected rifled my
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Speaker 1: private letter drawer, and I found him one day on
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Speaker 1: a turn of the stairs, looking guilty and ruffled with
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Speaker 1: a pretty Irish housemaid of Margaret's, manifestly in a state
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Speaker 1: of hot indignation. I saw nothing, but I felt everything
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Speaker 1: in the air between them. I hate this pestering of servants,
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Speaker 1: but at the same time I didn't want Kermain wiped
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Speaker 1: out of existence, so I had packed him off without
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Speaker 1: unnecessary discussion. To Altiora, he was quick and cheap anyhow,
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Speaker 1: and I thought her general austerity ought to redeem him,
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Speaker 1: if anything could. The Chambers Street housemaid wasn't for any
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Speaker 1: man's kissing, and showed it, and the stamps and private
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Speaker 1: letters were looked after with an efficiency altogether surpassing mine
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Speaker 1: and Altiora. I've no doubt left now. Whatever pumped this
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Speaker 1: young undesirable about me and scenting a story, had him
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Speaker 1: to dinner alone one evening to get to the bottom
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Speaker 1: of the matter. She got quite to the bottom of it.
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Speaker 1: It must have been a queer duelog. She read Isabel's
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Speaker 1: careless intimate letters to me, so to speak, by this proxy,
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Speaker 1: and she wasn't ashamed to use this information in the
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Speaker 1: service of the bitterness that had sprung up in her
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Speaker 1: since our political breach. It was essentially a personal bitterness.
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Speaker 1: It helped no public purpose of theirs to get rid
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Speaker 1: of me. My downfall in any public sense was sheer waste.
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Speaker 1: The loss of a man. She knew she was behaving badly,
22:49
Speaker 1: and so when it came to remonstrance, she behaved worse.
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Speaker 1: She'd got names and dates and places. The efficiency of
22:57
Speaker 1: her information was irresistible, and she set to work at
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Speaker 1: it marvelously. Never before, in all her pursuit of efficient
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Speaker 1: ideals had Altiora achieved such levels of efficiency. I wrote
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Speaker 1: a protest that was perhaps ill advised, and angry, I
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Speaker 1: went to her and tried to stop her. She wouldn't listen,
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Speaker 1: she wouldn't think, She denied and lied. She behaved like
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Speaker 1: a naughty child of six years old, which had made
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Speaker 1: up its mind to be hurtful. It wasn't only I
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Speaker 1: think that she couldn't bear our political and social influence.
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Speaker 1: She also I realized that that interview couldn't bear our loving.
23:38
Speaker 1: It seemed to her the sickliest thing, a thing quite unendurable.
23:43
Speaker 1: While such things were, the virtue had gone out of
23:46
Speaker 1: her world. At the vividous memory of that call of mine,
23:51
Speaker 1: she'd just come in and taken off her hat, and
23:53
Speaker 1: she was gray and disheveled and tired, and in a
23:56
Speaker 1: businesslike dress of black and crimson that didn't suit her,
24:00
Speaker 1: and was muddy about the skirts. She looked cold in
24:03
Speaker 1: her head and sniffed penetratingly. She avoided my eye as
24:08
Speaker 1: she talked and interrupted everything I had to say. She
24:12
Speaker 1: kept stabbing fiercely at the cushions of her sofa with
24:15
Speaker 1: a long hatpin, and pretending she was overwhelmed with grief.
24:19
Speaker 1: At the de Barkler, she was deliberately organizing. Then part,
24:24
Speaker 1: she cried. Part. If you don't want a smashing up part,
24:28
Speaker 1: you two have got to be parted. You've got never
24:31
Speaker 1: to see each other ever, never to speak. There was
24:34
Speaker 1: a zest in her voice. We are not circulating stories,
24:38
Speaker 1: she denied. No, And Courmaye never told us anything. Courmayne
24:43
Speaker 1: is an excellent young man, Oh, a quite excellent young man.
24:46
Speaker 1: You misjudged him altogether. I was equally unsuccessful with Bailey.
24:53
Speaker 1: I caught the little wretch in the league club, and
24:56
Speaker 1: he wriggled and lied. He wouldn't say where he he
25:00
Speaker 1: had got his facts. He wouldn't admit he had told anyone.
25:04
Speaker 1: When I gave him the names of two men who
25:06
Speaker 1: had come to me astonished and incredulous, he attempted absurdly
25:10
Speaker 1: to make me think they had told him. He did
25:14
Speaker 1: his horrible little best to suggest that honest old Quackett,
25:18
Speaker 1: who had just left England for the Cape, was the
25:20
Speaker 1: real scandalmonger. That struck me as mean even for Bailey,
25:27
Speaker 1: of still the odd, vivid impression of his fluting voice
25:30
Speaker 1: excusing the inexcusable, his big, shifty face evading me, his
25:35
Speaker 1: perspiration beaded forehead, the shrugging shoulders, and the would be
25:40
Speaker 1: exculpatory gestures houndsditch gestures of his enormous, ugly hands. I
25:47
Speaker 1: can assure you, my dear fellow, he said, I can
25:50
Speaker 1: assure you have done everything to shield you everything. Three.
25:57
Speaker 1: Isabel came after dinner one evening and talked in the office.
26:01
Speaker 1: She made a white robe, dusky figure against the deep
26:05
Speaker 1: blues of my big window. I sat at my desk
26:08
Speaker 1: and tore a quill pen to pieces as I talked.
26:12
Speaker 1: The bailies don't intend to let this drop, I said.
26:16
Speaker 1: They mean that every one in London is to know
26:18
Speaker 1: about it. I know well, I said, dear heart, said Isabel,
26:25
Speaker 1: facing it. It's no good waiting for things to overtake us.
26:28
Speaker 1: We're at the parting of the ways. What are we
26:31
Speaker 1: to do? They won't let us go on. Damn them,
26:35
Speaker 1: they are organizing scandal. It's no good waiting for things
26:40
Speaker 1: to overtake us, I echoed. They have overtaken us. I
26:44
Speaker 1: turned on her. What do you want to do everything?
26:48
Speaker 1: She said, keep you and have our work? Aren't we mates?
26:53
Speaker 1: We can't and we can't. I've got to tell Margaret,
26:57
Speaker 1: I said, Margaret. I can't bear the idea of any
27:02
Speaker 1: one else getting in front with it. I've been wincing
27:05
Speaker 1: about Margaret's secretly. I know you'll have to tell her
27:09
Speaker 1: and make your peace with her. She leant back against
27:13
Speaker 1: the bookcases under the window. We've had some good times, master,
27:18
Speaker 1: she said, with a sigh in her voice. And then
27:20
Speaker 1: for a long time we stared at one another in silence.
27:25
Speaker 1: We haven't much time left, she said, Shall we bolt?
27:29
Speaker 1: I said, and leave all this? She asked, with her
27:33
Speaker 1: eyes going round the room and that and her head
27:37
Speaker 1: indicated Westminster. No, I said, no more of bolting. We've
27:44
Speaker 1: got to screw ourselves up to surrender. She said something
27:49
Speaker 1: a lot, Master, She said, it isn't all sex and
27:54
Speaker 1: stuff between us. No. I can't give up the work.
27:59
Speaker 1: Our work's my life life. We came upon another long pause,
28:04
Speaker 1: no one will believe we've ceased to be lovers if
28:07
Speaker 1: we simply do. She said, we shouldn't. We've got to
28:11
Speaker 1: do something more parting than that. I nodded, and again
28:16
Speaker 1: we paused. She was coming to something. I could marry
28:21
Speaker 1: Shu Smith, she said abruptly, But I objected. He knows
28:28
Speaker 1: it wasn't fair. I told him, Oh, that explains, I said,
28:34
Speaker 1: there's been the kind of sulkiness. But you told him,
28:39
Speaker 1: She nodded. He's rather badly hurt. She said. He's been
28:44
Speaker 1: a good friend to me. He's curiously loyal, but something
28:48
Speaker 1: he said one day forced me to let him know.
28:52
Speaker 1: That's been the beastliness of all this secrecy. That's the
28:55
Speaker 1: beastliness of all secrecy. You have to spring surprises on people,
29:00
Speaker 1: but he keeps on. He's steadfast. He'd already suspected. He
29:05
Speaker 1: wants me very badly to marry him. But you don't
29:09
Speaker 1: want to marry him. I'm forced to think of it.
29:12
Speaker 1: But does he want to marry you at that take
29:15
Speaker 1: you as a present from the world at large, against
29:18
Speaker 1: your will and desire. I don't understand him. He cares
29:23
Speaker 1: for me, how he thinks this is a fearful mess
29:26
Speaker 1: for me. He wants to pull it straight. We sat
29:30
Speaker 1: for a time in silence, with imaginations that obstinately refuse
29:35
Speaker 1: to take up the realities of this proposition. I don't
29:38
Speaker 1: want you to marry s Smith, I said, at last.
29:42
Speaker 1: Don't you like him? Not as your husband. He's a
29:46
Speaker 1: very clever and sturdy person, and very generous and devoted
29:50
Speaker 1: to me and me. You can't expect that he thinks
29:55
Speaker 1: you are wonderful and naturally that you ought not to
29:58
Speaker 1: have started this. I've a curious dislike to any one
30:02
Speaker 1: thinking that, but myself, I'm quite ready to think it myself.
30:08
Speaker 1: He'd let us be friends and meet. Let us be friends,
30:13
Speaker 1: I cried, after a long pause, you and me. He
30:18
Speaker 1: wants me to be engaged soon. Then he says he
30:20
Speaker 1: can go round fighting these rumors, defending us both, and
30:24
Speaker 1: force a quarrel on the bailis. I don't understand him,
30:28
Speaker 1: I said, and added, I don't understand you. I was
30:33
Speaker 1: staring at her face. It seemed white and set in
30:37
Speaker 1: the dimness. Do you really mean this, Isabel? I asked?
30:42
Speaker 1: What else is there to do, my dear? What else
30:45
Speaker 1: is there to do at all? I've been thinking day
30:47
Speaker 1: and night. You can't go away with me. You can't
30:51
Speaker 1: smash yourself suddenly in the sight of all men. I'd
30:54
Speaker 1: rather die than that should happen. Look what you're becoming
30:57
Speaker 1: in the country. Look at all you've built up me helping.
31:01
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let you do it if you could. I
31:04
Speaker 1: wouldn't let you if it were only for Margaret's sake.
31:07
Speaker 1: This closes, a scandal, closes everything. It closes all our
31:13
Speaker 1: life together, I cried. She was silent. It never ought
31:19
Speaker 1: to have begun, I said. She winced. Then abruptly she
31:25
Speaker 1: was on her knees before me, with her hands upon
31:28
Speaker 1: my shoulder and her eyes meeting mine. My dear, she said,
31:33
Speaker 1: very earnestly. Don't misunderstand me. Don't think I'm retreating from
31:38
Speaker 1: the things we've done. Our love is the best thing
31:41
Speaker 1: I could ever have had from life. Nothing can ever
31:44
Speaker 1: equal it, Nothing could ever equal the beauty and delight
31:47
Speaker 1: you and I have had together. Never you have loved me,
31:51
Speaker 1: you do love me. No one could ever know how
31:55
Speaker 1: to love you as I have loved you. No one
31:57
Speaker 1: could ever love me as you have loved me. My,
32:00
Speaker 1: And it's just because it's been so splendid Dear, it's
32:04
Speaker 1: just because I die, rather than have a tithe of
32:06
Speaker 1: all this wiped out of my life again. For it's
32:09
Speaker 1: made me, it's all I am, Dear. It's years since
32:13
Speaker 1: I began loving you. It's just because of its goodness
32:16
Speaker 1: that I want not to end in wreckage now, not
32:19
Speaker 1: to end in the smashing up of all the big
32:22
Speaker 1: things I understand in you and love in you. What
32:26
Speaker 1: is there for us if we keep on and go away?
32:28
Speaker 1: She went on, All the big interests in our lives
32:32
Speaker 1: will vanish everything. We shall become specialized people, people overshadowed
32:38
Speaker 1: by a situation. We shall be an elopement, a romance,
32:42
Speaker 1: all our breadth and meaning gone. People will always think
32:46
Speaker 1: of it first when they think of us. All our
32:48
Speaker 1: work and aims will be warped by it and subordinated
32:52
Speaker 1: to it. Is it good enough, dear, just to specialize
32:57
Speaker 1: I think of you. We've got a case of passionate case,
33:01
Speaker 1: the best of cases. But do we want to spend
33:04
Speaker 1: all our lives defending it and justifying it? And there's
33:07
Speaker 1: that other life? I know now you care for Margaret,
33:11
Speaker 1: You care more than you think you do. You have
33:14
Speaker 1: said fine things of her. I've watched you about her.
33:17
Speaker 1: Little things have dropped from you. She's given her life
33:21
Speaker 1: for you. She's nothing without you. You feel that to
33:24
Speaker 1: your marrow all the time you're thinking about these things. Oh,
33:29
Speaker 1: I'm not jealous, dear. I love you for loving her.
33:32
Speaker 1: I love you in relation to her. But there it
33:35
Speaker 1: is an added weight against us, another thing worth saving presently.
33:43
Speaker 1: I remember she sat back on her heels and looked
33:47
Speaker 1: up into my face. We've done wrong, and parting's paying.
33:52
Speaker 1: It's time to pay. We needn't have paid if we
33:55
Speaker 1: kept to the track. You and I Master, we've got
33:58
Speaker 1: to be men, Yes, I said, We've got to be men.
34:05
Speaker 1: End of Chapter fourteen, Section one