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The New Machiavelli Chapter 14 Part 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter fourteen, Section two of the New Machiavelli by H. G. Wells.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
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  Speaker 1: antony Ogus four. I was driven to tell Margaret about
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  Speaker 1: our situation by my intolerable dread that otherwise the thing
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  Speaker 1: might come to her through some stupid and clumsy informant.
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  Speaker 1: She might even meet Altiora and have it from her.
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  Speaker 1: I can still recall the feeling of sitting at my
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  Speaker 1: desk that night, in that large study of mine in
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  Speaker 1: Ragness Square, waiting for Margaret to come home. It was
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  Speaker 1: oddly like the feeling of a dentist's reception room, only
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  Speaker 1: it was for me to do the dentistry with clumsy,
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  Speaker 1: cruel hands. I had left the door open so that
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  Speaker 1: she would come in to me. I heard her silken
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  Speaker 1: rustle on the stairs at last, and then she was
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  Speaker 1: in the doorway. May I come in? She said, Do?
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  Speaker 1: I said, and turned round to her working. She said hard,
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  Speaker 1: I answered, where have you been at the valleries? Mister
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  Speaker 1: Efsham was talking about you. They were all talking. I
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  Speaker 1: don't think everybody knew who I was. Just missus Mumble
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  Speaker 1: had been to them. Lord Wardenham doesn't like you. He doesn't,
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  Speaker 1: but they all feel you're rather big anyhow. Then I
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  Speaker 1: went on to Park Lane to hear a new pianist
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  Speaker 1: and some other music at Eva's Yes. Then I looked
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  Speaker 1: in at the Brabans for some midnight tea before I
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  Speaker 1: came on here. They've got some writers, and Grant was there.
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  Speaker 1: You have been flying round, There was little pause between us.
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  Speaker 1: I looked at her pretty unsuspecting face and at the
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  Speaker 1: slender grace of her golden robe body. What gulfs there
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  Speaker 1: were between us. You've been amused, I said, it's it's
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  Speaker 1: been amusing. You've been at the house. The medical education
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  Speaker 1: bill kept me. After all, why should I tell her
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  Speaker 1: she'd got to a way of living that fulfilled her requirements.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps she'd never hear, but all that day and the
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  Speaker 1: day before, I'd be making up my mind to do
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  Speaker 1: the thing. I want to tell you something, I said.
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  Speaker 1: I wish you'd sit down for a moment or so.
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  Speaker 1: Once I had begun, it seemed to me I had
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  Speaker 1: to go through with it. Something in the quality of
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  Speaker 1: my voice gave her an intimation of unusual gravity. She
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  Speaker 1: looked at me steadily for a moment and sat down
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  Speaker 1: slowly in my armed chair. What is it, she said,
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  Speaker 1: I went on awkwardly. I've got to tell you something
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  Speaker 1: extraordinarily distressing, I said. She was manifestly altogether unaware. There
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  Speaker 1: seems to be a good deal of scandal abroad. I've
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  Speaker 1: only recently heard of it about myself and Isabel. Isabel,
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  Speaker 1: I nodded. What do they say? She asked. It was
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  Speaker 1: difficult I found to speak. They say she's my mistress. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: how bominable. She spoke, with the most natural indignation. Our
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  Speaker 1: eyes met. We've been great friends, I said, yes, And
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  Speaker 1: to make that of it, my poor dear. But how
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  Speaker 1: can they? She paused and looked at me. It's so incredible.
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  Speaker 1: How can any one believe it? I couldn't. She stopped,
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  Speaker 1: with her distressed eyes regarding me. Her expression changed to dread.
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  Speaker 1: There was a tense stillness for a second. Perhaps I
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  Speaker 1: turned my face towards the desk and took up and
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  Speaker 1: dropped a handful of paper fastness Margaret, I said, I'm
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  Speaker 1: afraid you'll have to believe it. Five. Margaret sat very still.
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  Speaker 1: When I looked at her again, her face was very white,
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  Speaker 1: and her distressed eyes scrutinized me. Her lips quivered as
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  Speaker 1: she spoke, you really mean that, she said, I nodded.
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  Speaker 1: I never dreamt. I never meant you to dream, And
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  Speaker 1: that is why we've been apart, I thought, I suppose
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  Speaker 1: it is. Why have you told me now those rumors?
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  Speaker 1: I didn't want any one else to tell you, or
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  Speaker 1: else it wouldn't have mattered.
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  Speaker 2: No.
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  Speaker 1: She turned her eyes from me to the fire. Then
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  Speaker 1: for a moment she looked about the room she had
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  Speaker 1: made for me, and then, quite silently, with a childish
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  Speaker 1: quivering of her lips, with a sort of dismayed distress
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  Speaker 1: upon her face, she was weeping. She sat weeping in
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  Speaker 1: her dress of cloth of gold, with her bare, slender
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  Speaker 1: arms dropped limp over the arms of her chair, and
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  Speaker 1: her eyes averted from me, making no effort to stay
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  Speaker 1: or staunch her tears. I am sorry, Margaret, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I was in love. I did not understand. Presently, she asked,
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  Speaker 1: what are you going to do? You see, Margaret, now
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  Speaker 1: it's come to be your affair. I want to know
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  Speaker 1: what you what you want? You want to leave me?
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  Speaker 1: If you want me to, I must leave Parliament, leave
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  Speaker 1: all the things you are doing all this fine movement
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  Speaker 1: of yours. No, I spoke sullenly. I don't want to
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  Speaker 1: leave anything. I want to stay on. I've told you
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  Speaker 1: because I think we Isabel and I, I mean, have
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  Speaker 1: got to drive through a storm of scandal. Anyhow. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know how far things may go, how much people
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  Speaker 1: may feel, and I can't I can't have you unconscious, unarmed,
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  Speaker 1: open to any revelation. She made no answer. When the
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  Speaker 1: thing began, I knew it was stupid, but I thought
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  Speaker 1: it was a thing that wouldn't change, wouldn't be anything
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  Speaker 1: but itself, wouldn't unfold consequences. People have got hold of
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  Speaker 1: these vague rumors directly. It reached anyone else but us too.
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  Speaker 1: I saw it had to come to you. I stopped.
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  Speaker 1: I had that distressful feeling I have always had with
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  Speaker 1: Margaret of not being altogether sure. She heard, of being
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  Speaker 1: doubtful if she understood. I perceived that once again I
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  Speaker 1: had struck at her and shattered a thousand unsubstantial pinnacles,
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  Speaker 1: and I couldn't get at her to help her or
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  Speaker 1: touch her mind. I stood up, and at my movement
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  Speaker 1: she moved. She produced a dainty little handkerchief and made
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  Speaker 1: an effort to wipe her face with it and held
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  Speaker 1: it to her eyes. Oh, my husband, she sobbed. What
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  Speaker 1: do you mean to do, she said, with her voice
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  Speaker 1: muffled by her handkerchief. We're going to end it, I said.
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  Speaker 1: Something gripped me tormentingly. As I said that, I drew
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  Speaker 1: a chair beside her and sat down. You and I, Margaret,
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  Speaker 1: have been partners, I began. We've built up this life
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  Speaker 1: of ours together. I couldn't have done it without you.
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  Speaker 1: We've made a position, created a work. She shook her head. You,
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  Speaker 1: she said, you helping. I don't want to shatter it
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  Speaker 1: if you don't want it shattered. I can't leave my work.
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  Speaker 1: I can't leave you. I want you to have all
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  Speaker 1: that you have ever had. I've never meant to rob you.
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  Speaker 1: I've made an immense and tragic blunder. You don't know
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  Speaker 1: how things took us, how different they seemed. My character
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  Speaker 1: and accident have conspired. We'll pay in ourselves, not in
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  Speaker 1: our public service. I halted again. Margaret remained very still.
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  Speaker 1: I want you to understand that the thing is at
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  Speaker 1: an end. It is definitely at an end. We we
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  Speaker 1: talked yesterday. We mean to end it altogether. I clenched
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  Speaker 1: my hands. She's she's going to marry Arnold Shuesmith. I
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  Speaker 1: wasn't looking now at Margaret any more, but I heard
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  Speaker 1: the rustle of her movement as she turned on me.
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  Speaker 1: It's all right, I said, clinging to my explanation. We're
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  Speaker 1: doing nothing shabby. He knows, he will. It's all as
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  Speaker 1: right as things can be. Now. We're not she any one, Margaret.
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  Speaker 1: We're doing things straight now. Of course, you know we shall.
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  Speaker 1: We shall have to make sacrifices, give things up pretty completely,
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  Speaker 1: very completely. We shall have not to see each other
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  Speaker 1: for a time, you know, perhaps not a long time,
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  Speaker 1: two or three years, or right, or just any of
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  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Ever, some subconscious barrier gave way
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  Speaker 1: in me. I found myself crying uncontrollably, as I have
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  Speaker 1: never cried since I was a little child. I was
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  Speaker 1: amazed and horrified at myself, and wonderfully. Margaret was on
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  Speaker 1: her knees beside me, with her arms about me, mingling
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  Speaker 1: her weeping with mine. Oh my husband, she cried, My
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  Speaker 1: poor husband. Does it hurt you so I would do anything?
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  Speaker 1: Oh the fool I am, dear. I love you, I
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  Speaker 1: love you over and away and above all these jealous
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  Speaker 1: little things. She drew down my head to her, as
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  Speaker 1: a mother might draw down the head of a son.
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  Speaker 1: She caressed me, weeping bitterly with me. Oh, my dear,
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  Speaker 1: she sobbed, My dear, I've never seen you cry. I've
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  Speaker 1: never seen you cry. Ever, I didn't know you could. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: my dear.
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  Speaker 2: Can't you have her, my dear, if you want her,
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  Speaker 2: I can't bear her. Let me help you, dear, Oh,
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  Speaker 2: my husband, my man, I can't bear to have you cry.
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  Speaker 1: For time. She held me in silence. I've thought this
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  Speaker 1: might happen. I dreamt it might happen, you two. I
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  Speaker 1: mean it was dreaming put it into my head when
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  Speaker 1: I've seen you together, so glad with each other. O, husband, mine,
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  Speaker 1: believe me, Believe me. I'm stupid, I'm cold. I'm only
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  Speaker 1: beginning to realize how stupid and cold. But all I
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  Speaker 1: want in all the world is to give my life
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  Speaker 1: to you. Six. We can't part in a room, said Isabel.
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  Speaker 1: We'll have one last talk together, I said, and planned
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  Speaker 1: that we should meet for half a day between Dover
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  Speaker 1: and Warmer and talk ourselves out. I still recall that
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  Speaker 1: day very well. Recall even the curious exultation of grief
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  Speaker 1: that made our mental atmosphere distinctive and memorable. We had
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  Speaker 1: seen so much of one another, had become so intimate
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  Speaker 1: that we talked of parting, even as we parted, with
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  Speaker 1: a sense of incredible remoteness. We went together up over
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  Speaker 1: the cliffs and to a place where they fall towards
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  Speaker 1: the sea, past the white Quake lantern lighthouses of the
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  Speaker 1: South falland there, in a kind of niche below the crest,
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  Speaker 1: we sat talking. It was a spacious day, serenely blue
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  Speaker 1: and warm, and on the wrinkled water remotely below, a
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  Speaker 1: black tender and six hooded submarines came presently and engaged
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  Speaker 1: in mysterious maneuvers. Shrieking gulls and chattering jackdaws circled over
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  Speaker 1: us and below us, and dived and swooped, and a
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  Speaker 1: scarry of weedy fallen chalk appeared and gradually disappeared again.
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  Speaker 1: As the tide fell and rose, We talked and thought
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  Speaker 1: that afternoon on every aspect of our relations. It seems
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  Speaker 1: to me now we talked so wide and far that
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  Speaker 1: scarcely an issue in the life between man and woman
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  Speaker 1: can arise that we did not at least touch. Upon
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  Speaker 1: lying there at Isabel's feet, I have become from myself
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  Speaker 1: a symbol of all this world wide problem between duty
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  Speaker 1: and conscious passionate love. The world has still to solve.
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  Speaker 1: Because it isn't solved. There's a wrong in it either way.
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  Speaker 1: The sky, the wide horizon, seemed to lift us out
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  Speaker 1: of ourselves until we were something representative and general. She was,
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  Speaker 1: womanhood become articulate talking to her lover. I ought, I said,
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  Speaker 1: never to have loved you. It wasn't a thing planned,
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  Speaker 1: she said. I ought never to have let our talk
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  Speaker 1: slip to that, never to have turned back from America.
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  Speaker 1: I'm glad we did it, she said. Don't think I repent.
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  Speaker 1: I looked at her. I will never repent, she said, never,
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  Speaker 1: as though she clung to her life in saying it.
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  Speaker 1: I remember we talked for a long time of divorce.
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  Speaker 1: It seemed to us then, and it seems to us still,
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  Speaker 1: that it ought to have been possible for Margaret to
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  Speaker 1: divorce me and for me to marry without the scandalous
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  Speaker 1: and ugly publicity, the tains and ostracism that follow such
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  Speaker 1: a readjustment. We went on to the whole perplexing riddle
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  Speaker 1: of marriage. We criticized the current code, how muddled and
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  Speaker 1: conventionalized it had become, how modified by subterfuges and concealments
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  Speaker 1: and new necessities, and the increasing freedom of women. It's
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  Speaker 1: all like Bromsted when the building came, I said, for
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  Speaker 1: I had often talked to her of that early impression
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  Speaker 1: of purpose dissolving again into chaotic forces. There is no
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  Speaker 1: clear right in the world any more. The world is
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  Speaker 1: by zantine. The justice man to day must practice a
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  Speaker 1: tainted goodness. These questions need discussion, a magnificent frankness of discussion.
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  Speaker 1: If any standards are again to establish an effective hold
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  Speaker 1: upon educated discretions, as I have said already, will never
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  Speaker 1: hold anyone worth holding longer than they held us against
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  Speaker 1: every shalt not. There must be a why not, plainly put,
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  Speaker 1: the why not largest and plainest the law deduced from
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  Speaker 1: its purpose. You and I, Isabelle, I said, have always
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  Speaker 1: been a little disregardful of duty, partly at least because
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  Speaker 1: the idea of duty comes to us so ill clad. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: I know there's an extravagant insubordinate strain in us, but
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  Speaker 1: that wasn't all I wish humbugs would leave duty alone.
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  Speaker 1: I wish all duty wasn't covered with slime. That's where
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  Speaker 1: the real mischief comes in. Passion can always contrive to
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  Speaker 1: clothe itself in beauty, strips itself splendid that carried us.
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  Speaker 1: But for all its mean associations, there is this duty.
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  Speaker 1: Don't we come rather late to it? Not so late
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  Speaker 1: that it won't be atrociously hard to do. It's queer
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  Speaker 1: to think of now, said Isabel. Who could believe we
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  Speaker 1: did all we have done honestly, well in a manner honestly?
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  Speaker 1: Who could believe we thought this might be hidden? Who
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  Speaker 1: could trace it all step by step from the time
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  Speaker 1: when we found that a certain boldness in our talk
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  Speaker 1: was pleasing we talked of love master. There's not much
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  Speaker 1: for us to do in the way of Apalojia that
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  Speaker 1: anyone will credit. And yet, if it were possible to
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  Speaker 1: tell the very heart of our story, does Margaret really
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  Speaker 1: want to go on with you? She asked? Shield you
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  Speaker 1: knowing of this? I'm certain I don't understand, just as
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  Speaker 1: I don't understand Shuesmith, But she does. These people walk
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  Speaker 1: on solid ground, which is just thin air to us.
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  Speaker 1: They've got something we haven't got assurances. I wonder then
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  Speaker 1: it was or later we talked of Shoesmith and what
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  Speaker 1: her life might be with him. He's good, she said,
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  Speaker 1: He's kindly, he's everything but magic. He's the very image
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  Speaker 1: of the decent, sober, honorable life. You can't say a
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  Speaker 1: thing against him or I, except that something, something in
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  Speaker 1: his imagination, something in the tone of his voice, fails
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  Speaker 1: for me. Why don't I love him? He's a better
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  Speaker 1: man than you? Why don't you? Is he a better
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  Speaker 1: man than you? His usage, his honor, he's the right thing.
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  Speaker 1: He's the breed and the tradition, a gentleman. You're your erring,
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  Speaker 1: incalculable self. I suppose we women will trust this sort
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  Speaker 1: and love your sort to the very end of time.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: We lay side by side and nibbled at grass stalks
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  Speaker 1: as we talked. It seemed enormously unreasonable to us that
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  Speaker 1: two people who had come to the pitture easy and
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  Speaker 1: confident affection happiness that held between us, should be obliged
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  Speaker 1: to part and shun one another, or murder half the
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  Speaker 1: substance of their lives. We felt ourselves crushed and beaten
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  Speaker 1: by an indiscriminating machine which destroys happiness in the service
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  Speaker 1: of jealousy. The mass of people don't feel these things
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  Speaker 1: in quite the same manner as we feel them, She said,
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  Speaker 1: Is it because they're different in grain, or educated out
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  Speaker 1: of some primitive instinct. It's because we've explored love a little,
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  Speaker 1: and they know no more than the gateway. I said,
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  Speaker 1: Lust and then jealousy their simple conception. And we have
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  Speaker 1: gone past all that, and wandered hand in hand. I
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  Speaker 1: remember that for a time we watched two of that
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  Speaker 1: larger sort of gull, whose wings of brownish white circle
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  Speaker 1: and hover against the blue. And then we lay and
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  Speaker 1: look to a band of water mirror clear far out
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to sea, and wondered why the breeze that rippled all
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  Speaker 1: the rest shall leave it so serene and in this
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  Speaker 1: state of ours I resumed, eh, said Isabel, rolling over
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  Speaker 1: into a sitting posture and looking out at the horizon.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk no more of things we can never see.
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  Speaker 1: Talk to me of the work you are doing and
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  Speaker 1: all we shall do after we have parted. We've said
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  Speaker 1: too little of that. We've had our red life, and
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  Speaker 1: it's over, thank Heaven, though we stole it. Talk about
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  Speaker 1: your work, dear, and the things we'll go on doing,
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  Speaker 1: just as though we were still together. We'll still be
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  Speaker 1: together in a sense through all these things we have
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: then common. And so we talked of politics and our outlook.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: We were interested to the pitch of self forgetfulness. We
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: weighed persons and forces, discuss the probabilities of the next
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: general election, the steady drift of public opinion in the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: North and West away from liberalism towards us. It was
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: very manifest that, in spite of Wardenham and the Expagator,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: we should come into the new government strongly. The party
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  Speaker 1: had no one else. All the young men were formally
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: or informally with us. Esmere would have office, Lord Tarvril.
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  Speaker 1: I and very probably there will be something for Shuesmith
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  Speaker 1: and for my own part, I said, I count on
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  Speaker 1: backing on the liberal side. For the last two years
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  Speaker 1: we've been forcing competition in constructive legislation between the parties.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: The liberals have not been long in following up our
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: endowment of motherhood lead. They'll have to give votes and
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  Speaker 1: lip service. Anyhow, Half the readers of the Blue Weekly,
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  Speaker 1: they say, are liberals. I remember talking about things of
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  Speaker 1: this sort with old Willesley, I said, Ever, so many
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  Speaker 1: years ago. It was some place near Locano, and we
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: looked down the lake that shone weltering, just as now
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: we look over the sea. And then we dreamt, in
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  Speaker 1: an indistinct, featureless way, of all that you and I
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  Speaker 1: are doing now. Aye, said Isabel, and laughed well of
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  Speaker 1: some such thing I said, and remained for a while silent.
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  Speaker 1: Thinking of Lucano. I recalled once more the largeness, the
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  Speaker 1: release from small personal things that I had felt in
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  Speaker 1: my youth. State craft became real and wonderful again with
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  Speaker 1: the memory the gigantic handling of gigantic problems. I began
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  Speaker 1: to talk out my thoughts, sitting up beside her, as
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  Speaker 1: I could never talk of them to anyone. But Isabel
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: began to recover again the purpose that lay under all
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  Speaker 1: my political ambitions and adjustments and anticipation. I saw the
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  Speaker 1: state splendid and wide, as I had seen it in
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: that first travel of mine. But now it was no
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  Speaker 1: mere distant prospect of spires and pinnacles, but populous, with fine, trained,
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  Speaker 1: bold thinking, bold doing people. It was as if I
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  Speaker 1: had forgotten for a long time and now remembered with amazement.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: At first, I told her I had been altogether at
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: a loss how I could do anything to battle against
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the aimless muddle of our world. I had wanted a
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: clue until she had come into my life, questioning, suggesting,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: and consciously illuminating. But I have done nothing, she protested,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I declared, she had done everything in growing to education
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: under my eyes, in reflecting again upon all the processes
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that had made myself so that instead of abstractions and
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: blue books and bills and devices, I had realized the
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: world of mankind as a crowd kneading before all things,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: fine women and men, which spoiled ourselves in learning that.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: But anyhow we had our lesson before her. I was
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: in a nineteenth century darkness, dealing with the nation as
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: if it were a crowd of selfish men, forgetful of
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: women and children, and that shy, wild thing in the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: hearts of men love, which must be drawn upon as
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: it has never been drawn upon before, if the state
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: is to live. I saw now how it is possible
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: to bring the loose factors of a great realm together
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to create a mind of literature and thought in it,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and the expression of a purpose, to make it self
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: conscious and fine. I had it all clear before me
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: so that at a score of points I could presently begin.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: The Blue Weekly was a center of force. Already we
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: had given imperialism a criticism and leavened half the press
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: from our columns. Our movement consolidated and spread. We should
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: presently come into power. Everything moved towards our hands. We
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: should be able to get at the school, the services,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the universities, the church. Enormously, increase the endowment of research,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and organize what was sorely wanted. A criticism of research,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Contrive a closer contact between the press and creative intellectual life.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Foster literature, clarify, strengthen the public consciousness, develop social organization
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: and a sense of the state. Men were coming to
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: us every day, brilliant young peers like Lord Dentonhill, writers
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: like Carno and Creswell. It filled me with pride to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: win such men. We stand for so much more than
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: we seemed to stand for. I said, I opened my
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: heart to her so freely that I hesitate to open
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: my heart even to the reader, telling of projects and ambitions.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I cherished of my consciousness of great powers and widening opportunities.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Isabel watched me as I talked. She too, I think
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: had forgotten these things for a while. For it is curious,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and I think a very significant thing, that since we
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: had become lovers, we had talked very little of the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: broader things that had once so strongly gripped our imaginations.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: It's good, I said, to talk like this to you,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to get back to youth and great ambitions with you.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: There have been times lately when politics has seemed the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: pettious game played with mean tools for mean ends, and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: none the less so that the happiness of three hundred
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: million people might be touched by our follies. I talked
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: to no one else like this, and now I think
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of parting. I think, but of how much more I
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: might have talked to you. Things drew to an end
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: at last, But after we had spoken of a thousand
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: things we've talked away our last half day, I said,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: staring over my shoulder the blazing sunset sky behind us. Dear,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: it's been the last stay of our lives. For us,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like the last day of our lives,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: or any day. I wonder how it will feel, said Isabel.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: It will be very strange at first not to be
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: able to tell you things I've a superstition that after
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: after we've parted, if ever I go into my room
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and talk, you'll hear. You'll be somewhere. I shall be
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: in the world. Yes, I don't feel as though these
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: days ahead were real. Here we are, here, we remain. Yes,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I feel that as though you and I were two
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: immortals who didn't live in time and space at all,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: who never met, who couldn't part, And here we lie
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: on Olympus, and those two poor creatures who did meet,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: poor little Richard Remington and Isabel Rivers, who met and
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: love too much and had to part. They part and
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: go their ways, and we lie here and watch them,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: you and I. She'll cry, poor dear, she'll cry. She's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: crying now, poor little beasts. I think he'll cry too.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: He winces he could for tuppence. I didn't know he
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: had lachrymal glands at all until a little while ago.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I suppose all love is hysterical and a little foolish.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Poor mites, silly, little pitiful creatures. How we have blundered.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Think how he must look to God. Well, we'll pity them,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: and then we'll inspire him to stiffen up again and
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: do as we've determined he shall do. We'll see it
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: through we who lie here on the cliff. They'll be
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: mean at times and horrid at times. We know them.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: Do you see her, poor little fine lady in a
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: great house. She sometimes goes to her room and writes.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: She writes for his blue weekly. Still, yes, sometimes, I hope.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: And he's there in the office with a bit of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: her copy in his hand. Is it as good as
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: if she still talked it over with him before she
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: wrote it? Is it better? I think? Let's play it's better? Anyhow?
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: It may be that talking over was rather mixed with
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: love making. After all, love making is joy rather than magic.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Don't let's pretend about that. Even, Let's go on watching him.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I don't see why her writing shouldn't be better. Indeed,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: I don't see there. He goes down along the embankment
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to Westminster, just like a real man. For all that
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: is smaller than a grain of dust? What is running
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: round inside that speck of a head of his? Look
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: at him going past the police specs too, selected large
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: ones from the country. I think he's going to dinner
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: with a speaker, some old thing like that? Is his
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: face harder or commoner or stronger. I can't quite see.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: And now he's up and speaking in the house. Hope
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: he'll hold on to the thread. He'll have to plan
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: his speeches to the very end of his days and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: learn the headings. Isn't she up in the women's gallery
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to hear him. No, unless it's by accident, she's there,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: she said, Well, by accident, it happens. Not too many accidents.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Isabelle never any more adventures for us? Dear? Now? No,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: they play the game. You know, they've begun late, but
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: now they've got to. You see, it's not so very
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: hard for them. Since you and I, my dear, are
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: a here, always, always, faithfully here on this warm cliff
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: of love, accomplished, watching and helping them under high heaven,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: it isn't so very hard, rather good. In some ways,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: some people have to be broken a little. Can you
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: see Altayora down there? By any chance? She's too little
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: to be seen, she said, can you see the sins
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: they once committed? I can only see you here beside me, dear, forever,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: for all my life, dear till I die. Was that
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the sin. I took her to the station, and after
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: she had gone, I was to drive to Dover and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: cross to Calais by the night boat. I couldn't, I felt,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: return to London. We walked over the crest and down
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to the little station of Martin Mill, side by side,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: talking at first in broken fragments, for the most part
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of unimportant things. None of this, she said, abruptly, seems
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: in the slightest degree real to me. I've got no
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: sense of things ending. We're parting, I said, we're part
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: as people part in a play. It's distressing. But I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: don't feel as though you and I were really never
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: to see each other again for years, do you, I thought, no,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: I said, after we've parted, I shall look to talk
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it over with you, so shall I. That's absurd, absurd.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I feel as if it'd always be there, just about
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: where you are now, invisible perhaps, but there. We've spent
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: so much of our lives joggling elbows. Yes, yes, I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: don't in the least realize it. I suppose I shall
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: begin to When the train goes out of the station,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: are we wanting in imagination? Isabel? I don't know. We've
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: always assumed it was the other way about. Even when
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: the train goes out of the station, I've seen you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: into so many trains. I shall go on thinking of
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: things to say to you, things to put in your
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: letters for years to come. How can I have us
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: stop thinking in that way? Now we've got into each
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: other's brains. It isn't real, I said, Nothing is real.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: The world's no more than a fantastic dream. Why are
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: we parting, Isabel? I don't know. It seems how supremely silly.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I suppose we have to. Can't we meet? Don't you
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: think we shall meet? Even in dreams? We'll meet her
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: thousand times in dreams, I said. I wish we could
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: dream at the same time, said Isabel. Dream walks. I
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: can't believe, dear, I shall never have a walk with
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you again. If I'd stayed six months in America, I said,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: we might have walked long walks and talked long talks
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: for all our lives. Not in a world of baylis,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: said Isabel. And anyhow, she stopped short. I looked interrogation.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: We've laughed, she said. I took her ticket, saw to
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: her luggage, and stood by the door of the compartment.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Good Bye, I said, a little stiffly, conscious of the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: people upon the platform. She bent above me, white and dusky,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: looking at me, very steadfastly, Come here, she whispered. Never
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: mind the porters, what can they know? Just one time
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: more I must. She rested her hand against the door
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of the carriage, and bent down upon me, and put
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: her cold, moist lips to mine. End of chapter fourteen.