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diff --git a/35338-h/35338-h.htm b/35338-h/35338-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3e766a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/35338-h/35338-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,21896 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Marriage, by H. G. Wells. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left: 15%; +margin-right: 15%;} +h1,h2,h3{text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ +clear: both;} +p {margin-top: .75em; +text-align: justify; +margin-bottom: .75em;} +p.title {text-align:center; text-indent:0; +font-weight:bold; font-variant:small-caps; +line-height:1.4; margin-bottom:3em;} +small {font-size:60%;} +big {font-size:140%;} +hr {width: 33%; +margin-top: 2em; +margin-bottom: 2em; +margin-left: auto; +margin-right: auto; +clear: both;} +.tnote {border: solid 1px; +margin-left: 10%; +margin-right: 10%; +padding-bottom: .5em; +padding-top: .5em; +padding-left: .5em; +padding-right: .5em;} +.pagenum {position: absolute; +left: 92%; +color: #808080; font-size: smaller; +text-align: right;} +.hang {text-indent: -1em; margin-left: 1em;} +.bbox {border: solid 2px; +margin-left: 10%; +margin-right: 10%; +margin-top: 1em; +margin-bottom: 1em; +padding: 1em;} +.centerbox {width: 50%; margin: 0 auto;} +.center {text-align: center;} +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} +.figcenter { margin: auto; +text-align: center;} +.poem { margin-left:10%; +margin-right:10%; +text-align: left;} +.poem br {display: none;} +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} +.poem span.i0 {display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em;} +.poem span.i2 {display: block; + margin-left: 1em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em;} + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marriage, by H. G. Wells + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Marriage + +Author: H. G. Wells + +Release Date: February 20, 2011 [EBook #35338] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARRIAGE *** + + + + +Produced by Eleni Christofaki, Juliet Sutherland and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="centerbox bbox"> +<p><big>MR. WELLS HAS ALSO WRITTEN</big></p> +<p class="hang">The following Novels:<br /> +TONO BUNGAY<br /> +LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM<br /> +KIPPS ANN VERONICA<br /> +THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY<br /> +and THE NEW MACHIAVELLI</p> +<p class="hang">Numerous short stories now published +in a single volume under the title.<br /> +THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND</p> +<p class="hang">The following fantastic Romances:<br /> +THE TIME MACHINE<br /> +THE WONDERFUL VISIT<br /> +THE INVISIBLE MAN<br /> +THE WAR OF THE WORLDS<br /> +THE SEA LADY<br /> +IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET<br /> +THE SLEEPER AWAKES<br /> +THE FOOD OF THE GODS<br /> +THE WAR IN THE AIR<br /> +THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON<br /> +and THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU</p> +<p class="hang">And a series of books upon social and political +questions of which<br /> +A MODERN UTOPIA<br /> +FIRST AND LAST THINGS (RELIGION)<br /> +NEW WORLDS FOR OLD<br /> +THE FUTURE IN AMERICA<br /> +and ANTICIPATIONS<br /> +are the chief.</p></div> + +<h1>MARRIAGE<br /> + +<small>BY</small></h1> + +<h2>H. G. WELLS</h2> + +<p class="center"><br />"And the Poor Dears haven't the shadow of a doubt they will live<br /> +happily ever afterwards."—<i>From a Private Letter</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 120px;"> +<img src="images/illustrationfirstpage.png" width="120" height="170" alt="" title="front_page" /> +</div> + +<p class="center"><br /><b>NEW YORK</b><br /> +<b>DUFFIELD & COMPANY</b><br /> +<b>1912</b></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><br /> +<span class="smcap">COPYRIGHT, 1912</span><br /> +<big>DUFFIELD & COMPANY</big></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><i>FRATERNALLY<br /> +TO<br /> +<big>ARNOLD BENNETT</big></i></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><br /> +<span class="smcap">BOOK THE FIRST</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>MARJORIE MARRIES</big></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>MARRIAGE</h1> + +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">A Day with the Popes</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>An extremely pretty girl occupied a second-class +compartment in one of those trains which percolate +through the rural tranquillities of middle England +from Ganford in Oxfordshire to Rumbold Junction +in Kent. She was going to join her family at Buryhamstreet +after a visit to some Gloucestershire +friends. Her father, Mr. Pope, once a leader in the +coach-building world and now by retirement a gentleman, +had taken the Buryhamstreet vicarage furnished +for two months (beginning on the fifteenth of July) +at his maximum summer rental of seven guineas a +week. His daughter was on her way to this retreat.</p> + +<p>At first she had been an animated traveller, erect +and keenly regardful of every detail upon the platforms +of the stations at which her conveyance lingered, +but the tedium of the journey and the warmth of +the sunny afternoon had relaxed her pose by imperceptible +degrees, and she sat now comfortably in the +corner, with her neat toes upon the seat before her, +ready to drop them primly at the first sign of a +fellow-traveller. Her expression lapsed more and +more towards an almost somnolent reverie. She +wished she had not taken a second-class ticket, because +then she might have afforded a cup of tea at Reading,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">-4-</a></span> +and so fortified herself against this insinuating +indolence.</p> + +<p>She was travelling second class, instead of third as +she ought to have done, through one of those lapses +so inevitable to young people in her position. The +two Carmel boys and a cousin, two greyhounds and a +chow had come to see her off; they had made a brilliant +and prosperous group on the platform and +extorted the manifest admiration of two youthful +porters, and it had been altogether too much for +Marjorie Pope to admit it was the family custom—except +when her father's nerves had to be considered—to +go third class. So she had made a hasty calculation—she +knew her balance to a penny because of +the recent tipping—and found it would just run to +it. Fourpence remained,—and there would be a porter +at Buryhamstreet!</p> + +<p>Her mother had said: "You will have Ample." +Well, opinions of amplitude vary. With numerous +details fresh in her mind, Marjorie decided it would +be wiser to avoid financial discussion during her first +few days at Buryhamstreet.</p> + +<p>There was much in Marjorie's equipment in the +key of travelling second class at the sacrifice of afternoon +tea. There was, for example, a certain quiet +goodness of style about her clothes, though the skirt +betrayed age, and an entire absence of style about +her luggage, which was all in the compartment with +her, and which consisted of a distended hold-all, a +very good tennis racquet in a stretcher, a portmanteau +of cheap white basketwork held together by +straps, and a very new, expensive-looking and meretricious +dressing-bag of imitation morocco, which had +been one of her chief financial errors at Oxbridge. +The collection was eloquent indeed of incompatible +standards....</p> + +<p>Marjorie had a chin that was small in size if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">-5-</a></span> +resolute in form, and a mouth that was not noticeably +soft and weak because it was conspicuously soft and +pretty. Her nose was delicately aquiline and very +subtly and finely modelled, and she looked out upon +the world with steady, grey-blue eyes beneath broad, +level brows that contradicted in a large measure the +hint of weakness below. She had an abundance of +copper-red hair, which flowed back very prettily from +her broad, low forehead and over her delicate ears, +and she had that warm-tinted clear skin that goes +so well with reddish hair. She had a very dainty neck, +and the long slender lines of her body were full of +the promise of a riper beauty. She had the good +open shoulders of a tennis-player and a swimmer. +Some day she was to be a tall, ruddy, beautiful +woman. She wore simple clothes of silvery grey and +soft green, and about her waist was a belt of grey +leather in which there now wilted two creamy-petalled +roses.</p> + +<p>That was the visible Marjorie. Somewhere out of +time and space was an invisible Marjorie who looked +out on the world with those steady eyes, and smiled +or drooped with the soft red lips, and dreamt, and +wondered, and desired.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>What a queer thing the invisible human being +would appear if, by some discovery as yet inconceivable, +some spiritual X-ray photography, we could +flash it into sight! Long ago I read a book called +"Soul Shapes" that was full of ingenious ideas, but I +doubt very much if the thing so revealed would have +any shape, any abiding solid outline at all. It is +something more fluctuating and discursive than that—at +any rate, for every one young enough not to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">-6-</a></span> +have set and hardened. +Things come into it and become it, things drift out of it +and cease to be it, things turn upside down in it +and change and colour and dissolve, and grow and eddy about and blend +into each other. One might figure it, I suppose, as a +preposterous jumble animated by a will; a floundering +disconnectedness through which an old hump of +impulse rises and thrusts unaccountably; a river +beast of purpose wallowing in a back eddy of mud +and weeds and floating objects and creatures drowned. +Now the sunshine of gladness makes it all vivid, +now it is sombre and grimly insistent under the sky +of some darkling mood, now an emotional gale sweeps +across it and it is one confused agitation....</p> + +<p>And surely these invisible selves of men were never +so jumbled, so crowded, complicated, and stirred +about as they are at the present time. Once I am +told they had a sort of order, were sphered in religious +beliefs, crystal clear, were arranged in a cosmogony +that fitted them as hand fits glove, were +separated by definite standards of right and wrong +which presented life as planned in all its essential +aspects from the cradle to the grave. Things are so +no longer. That sphere is broken for most of us; +even if it is tied about and mended again, it is burst +like a seed case; things have fallen out and things +have fallen in....</p> + +<p>Can I convey in any measure how it was with +Marjorie?</p> + +<p>What was her religion?</p> + +<p>In college forms and returns, and suchlike documents, +she would describe herself as "Church of +England." She had been baptized according to the +usages of that body, but she had hitherto evaded +confirmation into it, and although it is a large,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">-7-</a></span> +wealthy, and powerful organization with many minds +to serve it, it had never succeeded in getting into her +quick and apprehensive intelligence any lucid and +persuasive conception of what it considered God and +the universe were up to with her. It had failed to +catch her attention and state itself to her. A number +of humorous and other writers and the general +trend of talk around her, and perhaps her own shrewd +little observation of superficial things, had, on the +other hand, created a fairly definite belief in her that +it wasn't as a matter of fact up to very much at all, +that what it said wasn't said with that absolute +honesty which is a logical necessity in every religious +authority, and that its hierarchy had all sorts of +political and social considerations confusing its treatment +of her immortal soul....</p> + +<p>Marjorie followed her father in abstaining from +church. He too professed himself "Church of England," +but he was, if we are to set aside merely superficial +classifications, an irascible atheist with a respect +for usage and Good Taste, and an abject fear of the +disapproval of other gentlemen of his class. For +the rest he secretly disliked clergymen on account of +the peculiarity of their collars, and a certain +influence they had with women. When Marjorie at the +age of fourteen had displayed a hankering after ecclesiastical +ceremony and emotional religion, he had +declared: "We don't want any of <i>that</i> nonsense," +and sent her into the country to a farm where there +were young calves and a bottle-fed lamb and kittens. +At times her mother went to church and displayed +considerable orthodoxy and punctilio, at times the +good lady didn't, and at times she thought in a broad-minded +way that there was a Lot in Christian Science, +and subjected herself to the ministrations of an +American named Silas Root. But his ministrations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">-8-</a></span> +were too expensive for continuous use, and so the old +faith did not lose its hold upon the family altogether.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%" /> + +<p>At school Marjorie had been taught what I may +best describe as Muffled Christianity—a temperate +and discreet system designed primarily not to irritate +parents, in which the painful symbol of the crucifixion +and the riddle of what Salvation was to save +her from, and, indeed, the coarser aspects of religion +generally, were entirely subordinate to images of +amiable perambulations, and a rich mist of finer feelings. +She had been shielded, not only from arguments +against her religion, but from arguments for +it—the two things go together—and I do not think +it was particularly her fault if she was now growing +up like the great majority of respectable English +people, with her religious faculty as it were, artificially +faded, and an acquired disposition to regard +any speculation of why she was, and whence and +whither, as rather foolish, not very important, and +in the very worst possible taste.</p> + +<p>And so, the crystal globe being broken which once +held souls together, you may expect to find her a little +dispersed and inconsistent in her motives, and with +none of that assurance a simpler age possessed of the +exact specification of goodness or badness, the exact +delimitation of right and wrong. Indeed, she did not +live in a world of right and wrong, or anything so +stern; "horrid" and "jolly" had replaced these +archaic orientations. In a world where a mercantile +gentility has conquered passion and God is neither +blasphemed nor adored, there necessarily arises this +generation of young people, a little perplexed, indeed, +and with a sense of something missing, but feeling +their way inevitably at last to the great releasing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">-9-</a></span> +question, "Then why shouldn't we have a good +time?"</p> + +<p>Yet there was something in Marjorie, as in most +human beings, that demanded some general idea, some +aim, to hold her life together. A girl upon the borders +of her set at college was fond of the phrase "living +for the moment," and Marjorie associated with it the +speaker's lax mouth, sloe-like eyes, soft, quick-flushing, +boneless face, and a habit of squawking and +bouncing in a forced and graceless manner. Marjorie's +natural disposition was to deal with life in a +steadier spirit than that. Yet all sorts of powers +and forces were at work in her, some exalted, some +elvish, some vulgar, some subtle. She felt keenly and +desired strongly, and in effect she came perhaps +nearer the realization of that offending phrase than +its original exponent. She had a clean intensity of +feeling that made her delight in a thousand various +things, in sunlight and textures, and the vividly +quick acts of animals, in landscape, and the +beauty of other girls, in wit, and people's voices, and +good strong reasoning, and the desire and skill of art. +She had a clear, rapid memory that made her excel +perhaps a little too easily at school and college, an +eagerness of sympathetic interest that won people +very quickly and led to disappointments, and a very +strong sense of the primary importance of Miss +Marjorie Pope in the world. And when any very +definite dream of what she would like to be and what +she would like to do, such as being the principal of a +ladies' college, or the first woman member of Parliament, +or the wife of a barbaric chief in Borneo, or a +great explorer, or the wife of a millionaire and a +great social leader, or George Sand, or Saint Teresa, +had had possession of her imagination for a few +weeks, an entirely contrasted and equally attractive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">-10-</a></span> +dream would presently arise beside it and compete +with it and replace it. It wasn't so much that she +turned against the old one as that she was attracted +by the new, and she forgot the old dream rather than +abandoned it, simply because she was only one person, +and hadn't therefore the possibility of realizing both.</p> + +<p>In certain types Marjorie's impressionability +aroused a passion of proselytism. People of the most +diverse kinds sought to influence her, and they invariably +did so. Quite a number of people, including +her mother and the principal of her college, believed +themselves to be the leading influence in her life. And +this was particularly the case with her aunt Plessington. +Her aunt Plessington was devoted to social and +political work of an austere and aggressive sort (in +which Mr. Plessington participated); she was childless, +and had a Movement of her own, the Good +Habits Movement, a progressive movement of the +utmost scope and benevolence which aimed at extensive +interferences with the food and domestic intimacies +of the more defenceless lower classes by means +ultimately of legislation, and she had Marjorie up +to see her, took her for long walks while she influenced +with earnestness and vigour, and at times had an air +of bequeathing her mantle, movement and everything, +quite definitely to her "little Madge." She spoke of +training her niece to succeed her, and bought all the +novels of Mrs. Humphry Ward for her as they +appeared, in the hope of quickening in her that +flame of politico-social ambition, that insatiable +craving for dinner-parties with important guests, +which is so distinctive of the more influential variety +of English womanhood. It was due rather to her +own habit of monologue than to any reserve on the +part of Marjorie that she entertained the belief that +her niece was entirely acquiescent in these projects.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">-11-</a></span> +They went into Marjorie's mind and passed. For +nearly a week, it is true, she had dramatized herself +as the angel and inspiration of some great modern +statesman, but this had been ousted by a far more +insistent dream, begotten by a picture she had seen +in some exhibition, of a life of careless savagery, +whose central and constantly recurrent incident was +the riding of barebacked horses out of deep-shadowed +forest into a foamy sunlit sea—in a costume that +would certainly have struck Aunt Plessington as a +mistake.</p> + +<p>If you could have seen Marjorie in her railway +compartment, with the sunshine, sunshine mottled by +the dirty window, tangled in her hair and creeping to +and fro over her face as the train followed the curves +of the line, you would certainly have agreed with me +that she was pretty, and you might even have thought +her beautiful. But it was necessary to fall in love +with Marjorie before you could find her absolutely +beautiful. You might have speculated just what +business was going on behind those drowsily thoughtful +eyes. If you are—as people say—"Victorian," +you might even have whispered "Day Dreams," at +the sight of her....</p> + +<p>She <i>was</i> dreaming, and in a sense she was thinking +of beautiful things. But only mediately. She was +thinking how very much she would enjoy spending +freely and vigorously, quite a considerable amount +of money,—heaps of money.</p> + +<p>You see, the Carmels, with whom she had just +been staying, were shockingly well off. They had two +motor cars with them in the country, and the boys +had the use of the second one as though it was just +an old bicycle. Marjorie had had a cheap white +dinner-dress, made the year before by a Chelsea +French girl, a happy find of her mother's, and it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">-12-</a></span> +shapely and simple and not at all bad, and she had +worn her green beads and her Egyptian necklace of +jade; but Kitty Carmel and her sister had had a new +costume nearly every night, and pretty bracelets, +and rubies, big pearls, and woven gold, and half a +score of delightful and precious things for neck and +hair. Everything in the place was bright and good +and abundant, the servants were easy and well-mannered, +without a trace of hurry or resentment, and +one didn't have to be sharp about the eggs and things +at breakfast in the morning, or go without. All +through the day, and even when they had gone to +bathe from the smart little white and green shed on +the upper lake, Marjorie had been made to feel the +insufficiency of her equipment. Kitty Carmel, being +twenty-one, possessed her own cheque-book and had +accounts running at half a dozen West-end shops; +and both sisters had furnished their own rooms according +to their taste, with a sense of obvious effect +that had set Marjorie speculating just how a room +might be done by a girl with a real eye for colour +and a real brain behind it....</p> + +<p>The train slowed down for the seventeenth time. +Marjorie looked up and read "Buryhamstreet."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>Her reverie vanished, and by a complex but almost +instantaneous movement she had her basket off +the rack and the carriage door open. She became +teeming anticipations. There, advancing in a string, +were Daffy, her elder sister, Theodore, her younger +brother, and the dog Toupee. Sydney and Rom +hadn't come. Daffy was not copper red like her sister, +but really quite coarsely red-haired; she was +bigger than Marjorie, and with irregular teeth instead +of Marjorie's neat row;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">-13-</a></span> she confessed them in +a broad simple smile of welcome. Theodore was +hatless, rustily fuzzy-headed, and now a wealth of +quasi-humorous gesture. The dog Toupee was +straining at a leash, and doing its best in a yapping, +confused manner, to welcome the wrong people by +getting its lead round their legs.</p> + +<p>"Toupee!" cried Marjorie, waving the basket. +"Toupee!"</p> + +<p>They all called it Toupee because it was like one, +but the name was forbidden in her father's hearing. +Her father had decided that the proper name for a +family dog in England is Towser, and did his utmost +to suppress a sobriquet that was at once unprecedented +and not in the best possible taste. Which was +why the whole family, with the exception of Mrs. +Pope, of course, stuck to Toupee....</p> + +<p>Marjorie flashed a second's contrast with the +Carmel splendours.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, old Daffy. What's it like?" she asked, +handing out the basket as her sister came up.</p> + +<p>"It's a lark," said Daffy. "Where's the dressing-bag?"</p> + +<p>"Thoddy," said Marjorie, following up the +dressing-bag with the hold-all. "Lend a hand."</p> + +<p>"Stow it, Toupee," said Theodore, and caught +the hold-all in time.</p> + +<p>In another moment Marjorie was out of the +train, had done the swift kissing proper to the occasion, +and rolled a hand over Toupee's head—Toupee, +who, after a passionate lunge at a particularly +savoury drover from the next compartment, was now +frantically trying to indicate that Marjorie was the +one human being he had ever cared for. Brother and sister +were both sketching out the state of affairs +at Buryhamstreet Vicarage in rapid competitive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">-14-</a></span> +jerks, each eager to tell things first—and the whole +party moved confusedly towards the station exit. +Things pelted into Marjorie's mind.</p> + +<p>"We've got an old donkey-cart. I thought we +shouldn't get here—ever.... Madge, we can go +up the church tower whenever we like, only old Daffy +won't let me shin up the flagstaff. It's <i>perfectly</i> +safe—you couldn't fall off if you tried.... Had +positively to get out at the level crossing and <i>pull</i> +him over.... There's a sort of moat in the garden.... +You never saw such furniture, Madge! +And the study! It's hung with texts, and stuffed +with books about the Scarlet Woman.... Piano's +rather good, it's a Broadwood.... The Dad's +got a war on about the tennis net. Oh, frightful! +You'll see. It won't keep up. He's had a letter +kept waiting by the <i>Times</i> for a fortnight, and it's a +terror at breakfast. Says the motor people have +used influence to silence him. Says that's a game two +can play at.... Old Sid got herself upset stuffing +windfalls. Rather a sell for old Sid, considering +how refined she's getting...."</p> + +<p>There was a brief lull as the party got into the +waiting governess cart. Toupee, after a preliminary +refusal to enter, made a determined attempt on the +best seat, from which he would be able to bark in a +persistent, official manner at anything that passed. +That suppressed, and Theodore's proposal to drive +refused, they were able to start, and attention was +concentrated upon Daffy's negotiation of the station +approach. Marjorie turned on her brother with a +smile of warm affection.</p> + +<p>"How are you, old Theodore?"</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, old Madge."</p> + +<p>"Mummy?"</p> + +<p>"Every one's all right," said Theodore; "if it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">-15-</a></span> +wasn't for that damned infernal net——"</p> + +<p>"Ssssh!" cried both sisters together.</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> says it," said Theodore.</p> + +<p>Both sisters conveyed a grave and relentless disapproval.</p> + +<p>"Pretty bit of road," said Marjorie. "I like +that little house at the corner."</p> + +<p>A pause and the eyes of the sisters met.</p> + +<p>"<i>He's</i> here," said Daffy.</p> + +<p>Marjorie affected ignorance.</p> + +<p>"Who's here?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Il vostro senior Miraculoso</i>."</p> + +<p>"Just as though a fellow couldn't understand +your kiddy little Italian," said Theodore, pulling +Toupee's ear.</p> + +<p>"Oh well, I thought he might be," said Marjorie, +regardless of her brother.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Daffy. "I didn't know——"</p> + +<p>Both sisters looked at each other, and then both +glanced at Theodore. He met Marjorie's eyes with +a grimace of profound solemnity.</p> + +<p>"Little brothers," he said, "shouldn't know. +Just as though they didn't! Rot! But let's change +the subject, my dears, all the same. Lemme see. +There are a new sort of flea on Toupee, Madge, that +he gets from the hens."</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> a new sort," corrected Daffy. "He's horrider +than ever, Madge. He leaves his soap in soak +now to make us think he has used it. This is the +village High Street. Isn't it jolly?"</p> + +<p>"Corners don't <i>bite</i> people," said Theodore, with +a critical eye to the driving.</p> + +<p>Marjorie surveyed the High Street, while Daffy +devoted a few moments to Theodore.</p> + +<p>The particular success of the village was its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">-16-</a></span> +brace of chestnut trees which, with that noble disregard +of triteness which is one of the charms of villages +the whole world over, shadowed the village +smithy. On either side of the roadway between it +and the paths was a careless width of vivid grass +protected by white posts, which gave way to admit a +generous access on either hand to a jolly public +house, leering over red blinds, and swinging a painted +sign against its competitor. Several of the cottages +had real thatch and most had porches; they had +creepers nailed to their faces, and their gardens, +crowded now with flowers, marigolds, begonias, snapdragon, +delphiniums, white foxgloves, and monkshood, +seemed almost too good to be true. The +doctor's house was pleasantly Georgian, and the +village shop, which was also a post and telegraph +office, lay back with a slight air of repletion, keeping +its bulging double shop-windows wide open in a manifest +attempt not to fall asleep. Two score of shock-headed +boys and pinafored girls were drilling upon a +bald space of ground before the village school, and +near by, the national emotion at the ever-memorable +Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria had evoked an +artistic drinking-fountain of grey stone. Beyond +the subsequent green—there were the correctest geese +thereon—the village narrowed almost to a normal +road again, and then, recalling itself with a start, +lifted a little to the churchyard wall about the grey +and ample church. "It's just like all the villages +that ever were," said Marjorie, and gave a cry of +delight when Daffy, pointing to the white gate between +two elm trees that led to the vicarage, remarked: +"That's us."</p> + +<p>In confirmation of which statement, Sydney and +Rom, the two sisters next in succession to Marjorie, +and with a strong tendency to be twins in spite of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">-17-</a></span> +year between them, appeared in a state of vociferous +incivility opening the way for the donkey-carriage. +Sydney was Sydney, and Rom was just short for +Romola—one of her mother's favourite heroines in +fiction.</p> + +<p>"Old Madge," they said; and then throwing +respect to the winds, "Old Gargoo!" which was Marjorie's +forbidden nickname, and short for gargoyle +(though surely only Victorian Gothic, ever produced +a gargoyle that had the remotest right to be associated +with the neat brightness of Marjorie's face).</p> + +<p>She overlooked the offence, and the pseudo-twins +boarded the cart from behind, whereupon the already +overburthened donkey, being old and in a manner +wise, quickened his pace for the house to get the +whole thing over.</p> + +<p>"It's really an avenue," said Daffy; but Marjorie, +with her mind strung up to the Carmel standards, +couldn't agree. It was like calling a row of +boy-scouts Potsdam grenadiers. The trees were at +irregular distances, of various ages, and mostly on +one side. Still it was a shady, pleasant approach.</p> + +<p>And the vicarage was truly very interesting and +amusing. To these Londoners accustomed to live in +a state of compression, elbows practically touching, +in a tall, narrow fore-and-aft stucco house, all window +and staircase, in a despondent Brompton square, +there was an effect of maundering freedom about the +place, of enlargement almost to the pitch of adventure +and sunlight to the pitch of intoxication. The +house itself was long and low, as if a London house +holidaying in the country had flung itself asprawl; it +had two disconnected and roomy staircases, and when +it had exhausted itself completely as a house, it +turned to the right and began again as rambling, +empty stables, coach house, cart sheds, men's bedrooms +up ladders, and outhouses of the most various +kinds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">-18-</a></span> +On one hand was a neglected orchard, in the +front of the house was a bald, worried-looking lawn +area capable of simultaneous tennis and croquet, and +at the other side a copious and confused vegetable +and flower garden full of roses, honesty, hollyhocks, +and suchlike herbaceous biennials and perennials, +lapsed at last into shrubbery, where a sickle-shaped, +weedy lagoon of uncertain aims, which had evidently, +as a rustic bridge and a weeping willow confessed, +aspired to be an "ornamental water," declined at +last to ducks. And there was access to the church, +and the key of the church tower, and one went across +the corner of the lawn, and by a little iron gate into +the churchyard to decipher inscriptions, as if the +tombs of all Buryhamstreet were no more than a part +of the accommodation relinquished by the vicar's +household.</p> + +<p>Marjorie was hurried over the chief points of all +this at a breakneck pace by Sydney and Rom, and +when Sydney was called away to the horrors of practice—for +Sydney in spite of considerable reluctance +was destined by her father to be "the musical one"—Rom +developed a copious affection, due apparently +to some occult æsthetic influence in Marjorie's silvery-grey +and green, and led her into the unlocked +vestry, and there prayed in a whisper that she might +be given "one good hug, just <i>one</i>"—and so they +came out with their arms about each other very +affectionately to visit the lagoon again. And then +Rom remembered that Marjorie hadn't seen either +the walnut-tree in the orchard, or the hen with nine +chicks....</p> + +<p>Somewhere among all these interests came tea and +Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope kissed her daughter with an air of +having really wanted to kiss her half an hour ago,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">-19-</a></span> +but of having been distracted since. She was a fine-featured, +anxious-looking little woman, with a close +resemblance to all her children, in spite of the fact +that they were markedly dissimilar one to the other, +except only that they took their ruddy colourings +from their father. She was dressed in a neat blue +dress that had perhaps been hurriedly chosen, and +her method of doing her hair was a manifest compromise +between duty and pleasure. She embarked +at once upon an exposition of the bedroom arrangements, +which evidently involved difficult issues. Marjorie +was to share a room with Daffy—that was the +gist of it—as the only other available apartment, +originally promised to Marjorie, had been secured +by Mr. Pope for what he called his "matutinal ablutions, +<i>videlicet</i> tub."</p> + +<p>"Then, when your Aunt Plessington comes, you +won't have to move," said Mrs. Pope with an air of +a special concession. "Your father's looking forward +to seeing you, but he mustn't be disturbed just +yet. He's in the vicar's study. He's had his tea +in there. He's writing a letter to the <i>Times</i> answering +something they said in a leader, and also a +private note calling attention to their delay in printing +his previous communication, and he wants to be +delicately ironical without being in any way offensive. +He wants to hint without actually threatening +that very probably he will go over to the <i>Spectator</i> +altogether if they do not become more attentive. +The <i>Times</i> used to print his letters punctually, but +latterly these automobile people seem to have got +hold of it.... He has the window on the lawn +open, so that I think, perhaps, we'd better not stay +out here—for fear our voices might disturb him."</p> + +<p>"Better get right round the other side of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">-20-</a></span> +church," said Daffy.</p> + +<p>"He'd hear far less of us if we went indoors," +said Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>The vicarage seemed tight packed with human +interest for Marjorie and her mother and sisters. +Going over houses is one of the amusements proper to +her sex, and she and all three sisters and her mother, +as soon as they had finished an inaudible tea, went to +see the bedroom she was to share with Daffy, and then +examined, carefully and in order, the furniture and +decoration of the other bedrooms, went through the +rooms downstairs, always excepting and avoiding +very carefully and closing as many doors as possible +on, and hushing their voices whenever they approached +the study in which her father was being delicately +ironical without being offensive to the <i>Times</i>. None +of them had seen any of the vicarage people at all—Mr. +Pope had come on a bicycle and managed all the +negotiations—and it was curious to speculate about +the individuals whose personalities pervaded the +worn and faded furnishings of the place.</p> + +<p>The Popes' keen-eyed inspection came at times, I +think, dangerously near prying. The ideals of decoration +and interests of the vanished family were so +absolutely dissimilar to the London standards as to +arouse a sort of astonished wonder in their minds. +Some of the things they decided were perfectly hideous, +some quaint, some were simply and weakly silly. +Everything was different from Hartstone Square. +Daffy was perhaps more inclined to contempt, and +Mrs. Pope to refined amusement and witty appreciation +than Marjorie. Marjorie felt there was something +in these people that she didn't begin to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">-21-</a></span> +understand, she needed some missing clue that would +unlock the secret of their confused peculiarity. She +was one of those people who have an almost instinctive +turn for decoration in costume and furniture; +she had already had a taste of how to do things in +arranging her rooms at Bennett College, Oxbridge, +where also she was in great demand among the richer +girls as an adviser. She knew what it was to try +and fail as well as to try and succeed, and these +people, she felt, hadn't tried for anything she comprehended. +She couldn't quite see why it was that +there was at the same time an attempt at ornament +and a disregard of beauty, she couldn't quite do as +her mother did and dismiss it as an absurdity and +have done with it. She couldn't understand, too, +why everything should be as if it were faded and +weakened from something originally bright and clear.</p> + +<p>All the rooms were thick with queer little objects +that indicated a quite beaver-like industry in the production +of "work." There were embroidered covers +for nearly every article on the wash-hand-stand, and +mats of wool and crochet wherever anything stood on +anything; there were "tidies" everywhere, and odd +little brackets covered with gilded and varnished fir +cones and bearing framed photographs and little jars +and all sorts of colourless, dusty little objects, and +everywhere on the walls tacks sustained crossed fans +with badly painted flowers or transfer pictures. +There was a jar on the bedroom mantel covered with +varnished postage stamps and containing grey-haired +dried grasses. There seemed to be a moral element +in all this, for in the room Sydney shared with +Rom there was a decorative piece of lettering which +declared that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Something attempted, something done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has earned a night's repose."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">-22-</a></span></div></div> + +<p>There were a great number of texts that set Marjorie's +mind stirring dimly with intimations of a +missed significance. Over her own bed, within the +lattice of an Oxford frame, was the photograph of a +picture of an extremely composed young woman in a +trailing robe, clinging to the Rock of Ages in the +midst of histrionically aggressive waves, and she had +a feeling, rather than a thought, that perhaps for +all the oddity of the presentation it did convey something +acutely desirable, that she herself had had +moods when she would have found something very +comforting in just such an impassioned grip. And +on a framed, floriferous card, these incomprehensible +words:</p> + +<div class="centerbox bbox"> +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Thy Grace is Sufficient for Me.</span></p> +</div> + +<p>seemed to be saying something to her tantalizingly +just outside her range of apprehension.</p> + +<p>Did all these things light up somehow to those +dispossessed people—from some angle she didn't +attain? Were they living and moving realities when +those others were at home again?</p> + +<p>The drawing-room had no texts; it was altogether +more pretentious and less haunted by the faint and +faded flavour of religion that pervaded the bedrooms. +It had, however, evidences of travel in Switzerland +and the Mediterranean. There was a piano in black +and gold, a little out of tune, and surmounted by a +Benares brass jar, enveloping a scarlet geranium in +a pot. There was a Japanese screen of gold wrought +upon black, that screened nothing. There was a +framed chromo-lithograph of Jerusalem hot in the +sunset, and another of Jerusalem cold under a sub-tropical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">-23-</a></span> +moon, and there were gourds, roses of Jericho, +sandalwood rosaries and kindred trash from +the Holy Land in no little profusion upon a what-not. +Such books as the room had contained had been arranged +as symmetrically as possible about a large, +pink-shaded lamp upon the claret-coloured cloth of +a round table, and were to be replaced, Mrs. Pope +said, at their departure. At present they were piled +on a side-table. The girls had been through them +all, and were ready with the choicer morsels for Marjorie's +amusement. There was "Black Beauty," the +sympathetic story of a soundly Anglican horse, and +a large Bible extra-illustrated with photographs of +every well-known scriptural picture from Michael +Angelo to Doré, and a book of injunctions to young +ladies upon their behaviour and deportment that +Rom and Sydney found particularly entertaining. +Marjorie discovered that Sydney had picked up a +new favourite phrase. "I'm afraid we're all dreadfully +cynical," said Sydney, several times.</p> + +<p>A more advanced note was struck by a copy of +"Aurora Leigh," richly underlined in pencil, but +with exclamation marks at some of the bolder passages....</p> + +<p>And presently, still avoiding the open study window +very elaborately, this little group of twentieth +century people went again into the church—the +church whose foundations were laid in <span class="smcap">A.D.</span> 912—foundations +of rubble and cement that included flat +Roman bricks from a still remoter basilica. Their +voices dropped instinctively, as they came into its +shaded quiet from the exterior sunshine. Marjorie +went a little apart and sat in a pew that gave her a +glimpse of the one good stained-glass window. Rom +followed her, and perceiving her mood to be restful, +sat a yard away. Syd began a whispered dispute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">-24-</a></span> +with her mother whether it wasn't possible to try +the organ, and whether Theodore might not be bribed +to blow. Daffy discovered relics of a lepers' squint +and a holy-water stoup, and then went to scrutinize +the lettering of the ten commandments of the Mosaic +law that shone black and red on gold on either side +of the I.H.S. monogram behind the white-clothed +communion table that had once been the altar. Upon +a notice board hung about the waist of the portly +pulpit were the numbers of hymns that had been +sung three days ago. The sound Protestantism of +the vicar had banished superfluous crosses from the +building; the Bible reposed upon the wings of a great +brass eagle; shining blue and crimson in the window, +Saint Christopher carried his Lord. What a harmonized +synthesis of conflicts a country church presents! +What invisible mysteries of filiation spread +between these ancient ornaments and symbols and +the new young minds from the whirlpool of the town +that looked upon them now with such bright, keen +eyes, wondering a little, feeling a little, missing so +much?</p> + +<p>It was all so very cool and quiet now—with something +of the immobile serenity of death.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>When Mr. Pope had finished his letter to the +<i>Times</i>, he got out of the window of the study, treading +on a flower-bed as he did so—he was the sort of +man who treads on flower-beds—partly with the purpose +of reading his composition aloud to as many +members of his family as he could assemble for the +purpose, and so giving them a chance of appreciating +the nuances of his irony more fully than if they +saw it just in cold print without the advantage of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">-25-</a></span> +intonation, and partly with the belated idea of welcoming +Marjorie. The law presented a rather discouraging +desolation. Then he became aware that +the church tower frothed with his daughters. In +view of his need of an audience, he decided after a +brief doubt that their presence there was unobjectionable, +and waved his MS. amiably. Marjorie +flapped a handkerchief in reply....</p> + +<p>The subsequent hour was just the sort of hour +that gave Mr. Pope an almost meteorological importance +to his family. He began with an amiability +that had no fault, except, perhaps, that it was a +little forced after the epistolary strain in the study, +and his welcome to Marjorie was more than cordial. +"Well, little Madge-cat!" he said, giving her an +affectionate but sound and heavy thump on the left +shoulder-blade, "got a kiss for the old daddy?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie submitted a cheek.</p> + +<p>"That's right," said Mr. Pope; "and now I just +want you all to advise me——"</p> + +<p>He led the way to a group of wicker garden +chairs. "You're coming, mummy?" he said, and +seated himself comfortably and drew out a spectacle +case, while his family grouped itself dutifully. It +made a charming little picture of a Man and his +Womankind. "I don't often flatter myself," he said, +"but this time I think I've been neat—neat's the +word for it."</p> + +<p>He cleared his throat, put on his spectacles, and +emitted a long, flat preliminary note, rather like the +sound of a child's trumpet. "Er—'Dear Sir!'"</p> + +<p>"Rom," said Mrs. Pope, "don't creak your +chair."</p> + +<p>"It's Daffy, mother," said Rom.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Rom!</i>" said Daffy.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope paused, and looked with a warning eye<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">-26-</a></span> +over his left spectacle-glass at Rom.</p> + +<p>"Don't creak your chair, Rom," he said, "when +your mother tells you."</p> + +<p>"I was <i>not</i> creaking my chair," said Rom.</p> + +<p>"I heard it," said Mr. Pope, suavely.</p> + +<p>"It was Daffy."</p> + +<p>"Your mother does not think so," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Oh, all right! I'll sit on the ground," said Rom, +crimson to the roots of her hair.</p> + +<p>"Me too," said Daffy. "I'd rather."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope watched the transfer gravely. Then he +readjusted his glasses, cleared his throat again, +trumpeted, and began. "Er—'Dear Sir,'"</p> + +<p>"Oughtn't it to be simply 'Sir,' father, for an +editor?" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I didn't explain, Marjorie," said her +father, with the calm of great self-restraint, and +dabbing his left hand on the manuscript in his right, +"that this is a <i>private</i> letter—a private letter."</p> + +<p>"I didn't understand," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"It would have been evident as I went on," said +Mr. Pope, and prepared to read again.</p> + +<p>This time he was allowed to proceed, but the interruptions +had ruffled him, and the gentle stresses that +should have lifted the subtleties of his irony into prominence +missed the words, and he had to go back and +do his sentences again. Then Rom suddenly, horribly, +uncontrollably, was seized with hiccups. At the +second hiccup Mr. Pope paused, and looked very +hard at his daughter with magnified eyes; as he was +about to resume, the third burst its way through the +unhappy child's utmost effort.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope rose with an awful resignation. "That's +enough," he said. He regarded the pseudo-twin vindictively. +"You haven't the self-control of a child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">-27-</a></span> +of six," he said. Then very touchingly to Mrs. +Pope: "Mummy, shall we try a game of tennis with +the New Generation?"</p> + +<p>"Can't you read it after supper?" asked Mrs. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"It must go by the eight o'clock post," said Mr. +Pope, putting the masterpiece into his breast pocket, +the little masterpiece that would now perhaps never +be read aloud to any human being. "Daffy, dear, do +you mind going in for the racquets and balls?"</p> + +<p>The social atmosphere was now sultry, and overcast, +and Mr. Pope's decision to spend the interval +before Daffy returned in seeing whether he couldn't +do something to the net, which was certainly very unsatisfactory, +did not improve matters. Then, unhappily, +Marjorie, who had got rather keen upon +tennis at the Carmels', claimed her father's first two +services as faults, contrary to the etiquette of the +family. It happened that Mr. Pope had a really +very good, hard, difficult, smart-looking serve, whose +only defect was that it always went either too far +or else into the net, and so a feeling had been fostered +and established by his wife that, on the whole, it was +advisable to regard the former variety as a legitimate +extension of a father's authority. Naturally, +therefore, Mr. Pope was nettled at Marjorie's ruling, +and his irritation increased when his next two services +to Daffy perished in the net. ("Damn that net! +Puts one's eye out.") Then Marjorie gave him an +unexpected soft return which he somehow muffed, +and then Daffy just dropped a return over the top +of the net. (Love-game.) It was then Marjorie's +turn to serve, which she did with a new twist acquired +from the eldest Carmel boy that struck Mr. Pope as +un-English. "Go on," he said concisely. "Fifteen +love."</p> + +<p>She was gentle with her mother and they got their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">-28-</a></span> +first rally, and when it was over Mr. Pope had to +explain to Marjorie that if she returned right up into +his corner of the court he would have to run backwards +very fast and might fall over down the silly +slope at that end. She would have to consider him +and the court. One didn't get everything out of a +game by playing merely to win. She said "All right, +Daddy," rather off-handedly, and immediately served +to him again, and he, taken a little unawares, hit the +ball with the edge of his racquet and sent it out, and +then he changed racquets with Daffy—it seemed he +had known all along she had taken his, but he had +preferred to say nothing—uttered a word of advice +to his wife just on her stroke, and she, failing to +grasp his intention as quickly as she ought to have +done, left the score forty-fifteen. He felt better +when he returned Marjorie's serve, and then before +she could control herself she repeated her new unpleasant +trick of playing into the corner again, +whereupon, leaping back with an agility that would +have shamed many a younger man, Mr. Pope came +upon disaster. He went spinning down the treacherous +slope behind, twisted his ankle painfully and collapsed +against the iron railings of the shrubbery. It +was too much, and he lost control of himself. His +daughters had one instant's glimpse of the linguistic +possibilities of a strong man's agony. "I told her," +he went on as if he had said nothing. "<i>Tennis!</i>"</p> + +<p>For a second perhaps he seemed to hesitate upon +a course of action. Then as if by a great effort he +took his coat from the net post and addressed himself +houseward, incarnate Grand Dudgeon—limping.</p> + +<p>"Had enough of it, Mummy," he said, and added +some happily inaudible comment on Marjorie's new +style of play.</p> + +<p>The evening's exercise was at an end.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">-29-</a></span></p> + +<p>The three ladies regarded one another in silence +for some moments.</p> + +<p>"I will take in the racquets, dear," said Mrs. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"I think the other ball is at your end," said +Daffy....</p> + +<p>The apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister +strolled thoughtfully away from the house.</p> + +<p>"There's croquet here too," said Daffy. "We've +not had the things out yet!"....</p> + +<p>"He'll play, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"He wants to play."...</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Marjorie after a long pause, +"there's no <i>reasoning</i> with Dad!"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Character is one of England's noblest and most +deliberate products, but some Englishmen have it to +excess. Mr. Pope had.</p> + +<p>He was one of that large and representative class +which imparts a dignity to national commerce by +inheriting big businesses from its ancestors. He +was a coach-builder by birth, and a gentleman by +education and training. He had been to City Merchant's +and Cambridge.</p> + +<p>Throughout the earlier half of the nineteenth +century the Popes had been the princes of the coach-building +world. Mr. Pope's great-grandfather had +been a North London wheelwright of conspicuous +dexterity and integrity, who had founded the family +business; his son, Mr. Pope's grandfather, had made +that business the occupation of his life and brought +it to the pinnacle of pre-eminence; his son, who was +Marjorie's grandfather, had displayed a lesser enthusiasm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">-30-</a></span> +left the house at the works for a home ten +miles away and sent a second son into the Church. +It was in the days of the third Pope that the business +ceased to expand, and began to suffer severely from +the competition of an enterprising person who had +originally supplied the firm with varnish, gradually +picked up the trade in most other materials and +accessories needed in coach-building, and passed on +by almost imperceptible stages to delivering the article +complete—dispensing at last altogether with +the intervention of Pope and Son—to the customer. +Marjorie's father had succeeded in the fulness of +time to the inheritance this insurgent had damaged.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope was a man of firm and resentful temper, +with an admiration for Cato, Brutus, Cincinnatus, +Cromwell, Washington, and the sterner heroes generally, +and by nature a little ill-used and offended at +things. He suffered from indigestion and extreme +irritability. He found himself in control of a business +where more flexible virtues were needed. The +Popes based their fame on a heavy, proud type of +vehicle, which the increasing luxury and triviality of +the age tended to replace by lighter forms of carriage, +carriages with diminutive and apologetic +names. As these lighter forms were not only lighter +but less expensive, Mr. Pope with a pathetic confidence +in the loyalty of the better class of West End +customer, determined to "make a stand" against +them. He was the sort of man to whom making a +stand is in itself a sombre joy. If he had had to +choose his pose for a portrait, he would certainly have +decided to have one foot advanced, the other planted +like a British oak behind, the arms folded and the +brows corrugated,—making a stand.</p> + +<p>Unhappily the stars in their courses and the general +improvement of roads throughout the country<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">-31-</a></span> +fought against him. The lighter carriages, and especially +the lighter carriages of that varnish-selling +firm, which was now absorbing businesses right and +left, prevailed over Mr. Pope's resistance. For +crossing a mountain pass or fording a river, for +driving over the scene of a recent earthquake or following +a retreating army, for being run away with +by frantic horses or crushing a personal enemy, +there can be no doubt the Pope carriages remained +to the very last the best possible ones and fully worth +the inflexible price demanded. Unhappily all carriages +in a civilization essentially decadent are not +subjected to these tests, and the manufactures of his +rivals were not only much cheaper, but had a sort of +meretricious smartness, a disingenuous elasticity, +above all a levity, hateful indeed to the spirit of Mr. +Pope yet attractive to the wanton customer. Business +dwindled. Nevertheless the habitual element in +the good class customer did keep things going, albeit +on a shrinking scale, until Mr. Pope came to the unfortunate +decision that he would make a stand against +automobiles. He regarded them as an intrusive +nuisance which had to be seen only to be disowned by +the landed gentry of England. Rather than build a +car he said he would go out of business. He went out +of business. Within five years of this determination +he sold out the name, good will, and other vestiges of +his concern to a mysterious buyer who turned out to +be no more than an agent for these persistently expanding +varnish makers, and he retired with a genuine +grievance upon the family accumulations—chiefly +in Consols and Home Railways.</p> + +<p>He refused however to regard his defeat as final, +put great faith in the approaching exhaustion of the +petrol supply, and talked in a manner that should +have made the Automobile Association uneasy, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">-32-</a></span> +devoting the rest of his days to the purification of +England from these aggressive mechanisms. "It +was a mistake," he said, "to let them in." He became +more frequent at his excellent West End club, and +directed a certain portion of his capital to largely +indecisive but on the whole unprofitable speculations +in South African and South American enterprises. +He mingled a little in affairs. He was a tough conventional +speaker, rich in established phrases and +never abashed by hearing himself say commonplace +things, and in addition to his campaign against automobiles +he found time to engage also in quasi-political +activities, taking chairs, saying a few words and +so on, cherishing a fluctuating hope that his eloquence +might ultimately win him an invitation to contest a +constituency in the interests of reaction and the +sounder elements in the Liberal party.</p> + +<p>He had a public-spirited side, and he was particularly +attracted by that mass of modern legislative +proposals which aims at a more systematic control of +the lives of lower class persons for their own good by +their betters. Indeed, in the first enthusiasm of his +proprietorship of the Pope works at East Purblow, +he had organized one of those benevolent industrial +experiments that are now so common. He felt +strongly against the drink evil, that is to say, the +unrestricted liberty of common people to drink what +they prefer, and he was acutely impressed by the +fact that working-class families do not spend their +money in the way that seems most desirable to upper +middle-class critics. Accordingly he did his best to +replace the dangerous freedoms of money by that +ideal of the social reformer, Payment in Kind. To +use his invariable phrase, the East Purblow experiment +did "no mean service" to the cause of social +reform. Unhappily it came to an end through a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">-33-</a></span> +prosecution under the Truck Act, that blot upon the +Statute Book, designed, it would appear, even deliberately +to vitiate man's benevolent control of his +fellow man. The lessons to be drawn from that +experience, however, grew if anything with the years. +He rarely spoke without an allusion to it, and it was +quite remarkable how readily it could be adapted to +illuminate a hundred different issues in the hospitable +columns of the <i>Spectator</i>....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock Marjorie found herself upstairs +changing into her apple-green frock. She had had a +good refreshing wash in cold soft water, and it was +pleasant to change into thinner silk stockings and +dainty satin slippers and let down and at last brush +her hair and dress loiteringly after the fatigues of her +journey and the activities of her arrival. She +looked out on the big church and the big trees behind +it against the golden quiet of a summer evening with +extreme approval.</p> + +<p>"I suppose those birds are rooks," she said.</p> + +<p>But Daffy had gone to see that the pseudo-twins +had done themselves justice in their muslin frocks and +pink sashes; they were apt to be a little sketchy with +their less accessible buttons.</p> + +<p>Marjorie became aware of two gentlemen with +her mother on the lawn below.</p> + +<p>One was her almost affianced lover, Will Magnet, +the humorous writer. She had been doing her best +not to think about him all day, but now he became an +unavoidable central fact. She regarded him with an +almost perplexed scrutiny, and wondered vividly why +she had been so excited and pleased by his attentions +during the previous summer.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet was one of those quiet, deliberately<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">-34-</a></span> +unassuming people who do not even attempt to be +beautiful. Not for him was it to pretend, but to +prick the bladder of pretence. He was a fairish man +of forty, pale, with a large protuberant, observant +grey eye—I speak particularly of the left—and a +face of quiet animation warily alert for the wit's opportunity. +His nose and chin were pointed, and his +lips thin and quaintly pressed together. He was +dressed in grey, with a low-collared silken shirt showing +a thin neck, and a flowing black tie, and he carried +a grey felt hat in his joined hands behind his +back. She could hear the insinuating cadences of his +voice as he talked in her mother's ear. The other +gentleman, silent on her mother's right, must, she +knew, be Mr. Wintersloan, whom Mr. Magnet had +proposed to bring over. His dress betrayed that +modest gaiety of disposition becoming in an artist, +and indeed he was one of Mr. Magnet's favourite +illustrators. He was in a dark bluish-grey suit; a +black tie that was quite unusually broad went twice +around his neck before succumbing to the bow, and +his waistcoat appeared to be of some gaily-patterned +orange silk. Marjorie's eyes returned to Mr. Magnet. +Hitherto she had never had an opportunity of +remarking that his hair was more than a little attenuated +towards the crown. It was funny how his tie +came out under his chin to the right.</p> + +<p>What an odd thing men's dress had become, she +thought. Why did they wear those ridiculous collars +and ties? Why didn't they always dress in flannels +and look as fine and slender and active as the elder +Carmel boy for example? Mr. Magnet couldn't be +such an ill-shaped man. Why didn't every one dress +to be just as beautiful and splendid as possible?—instead +of wearing queer things!</p> + +<p>"Coming down?" said Daffy, a vision of sulphur-yellow,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">-35-</a></span> +appearing in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Let <i>them</i> go first," said Marjorie, with a finer +sense of effect. "And Theodore. We don't want to +make part of a comic entry with Theodore, Daffy."</p> + +<p>Accordingly, the two sisters watched discreetly—they +had to be wary on account of Mr. Magnet's +increasingly frequent glances at the windows—and +when at last all the rest of the family had appeared +below, they decided their cue had come. Mr. Pope +strolled into the group, with no trace of his recent +debacle except a slight limp. He was wearing a +jacket of damson-coloured velvet, which he affected +in the country, and all traces of his Grand Dudgeon +were gone. But then he rarely had Grand Dudgeon +except in the sanctities of family life, and hardly ever +when any other man was about.</p> + +<p>"Well," his daughters heard him say, with a +witty allusiveness that was difficult to follow, "so +the Magnet has come to the Mountain again—eh?"</p> + +<p>"Come on, Madge," said Daffy, and the two sisters +emerged harmoniously together from the house.</p> + +<p>It would have been manifest to a meaner capacity +than any present that evening that Mr. Magnet regarded +Marjorie with a distinguished significance. +He had two eyes, but he had that mysterious quality +so frequently associated with a bluish-grey iris which +gives the effect of looking hard with one large orb, a +sort of grey searchlight effect, and he used this eye +ray now to convey a respectful but firm admiration +in the most unequivocal manner. He saluted Daffy +courteously, and then allowed himself to retain Marjorie's +hand for just a second longer than was necessary +as he said—very simply—"I am very pleased +indeed to meet you again—very."</p> + +<p>A slight embarrassment fell between them.</p> + +<p>"You are staying near here, Mr. Magnet?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">-36-</a></span></p> + +<p>"At the inn," said Mr. Magnet, and then, "I +chose it because it would be near you."</p> + +<p>His eye pressed upon her again for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Is it comfortable?" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"So charmingly simple," said Mr. Magnet. "I +love it."</p> + +<p>A tinkling bell announced the preparedness of +supper, and roused the others to the consciousness +that they were silently watching Mr. Magnet and +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"It's quite a simple farmhouse supper," said +Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>There were ducks, green peas, and adolescent new +potatoes for supper, and afterwards stewed fruit +and cream and junket and cheese, bottled beer, Gilbey's +Burgundy, and home-made lemonade. Mrs. +Pope carved, because Mr. Pope splashed too much, +and bones upset him and made him want to show up +chicken in the <i>Times</i>. So he sat at the other end +and rallied his guests while Mrs. Pope distributed the +viands. He showed not a trace of his recent umbrage. +Theodore sat between Daffy and his mother +because of his table manners, and Marjorie was on +her father's right hand and next to Mr. Wintersloan, +while Mr. Magnet was in the middle of the table on +the opposite side in a position convenient for looking +at her. Both maids waited.</p> + +<p>The presence of Magnet invariably stirred the +latent humorist in Mr. Pope. He felt that he who +talks to humorists should himself be humorous, and it +was his private persuasion that with more attention +he might have been, to use a favourite form of expression, +"no mean jester." Quite a lot of little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">-37-</a></span> +things of his were cherished as "Good" both by +himself and, with occasional inaccuracies, by Mrs. +Pope. He opened out now in a strain of rich allusiveness.</p> + +<p>"What will you drink, Mr. Wintersloan?" he +said. "Wine of the country, yclept beer, red wine +from France, or my wife's potent brew from the golden +lemon?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Wintersloan thought he would take Burgundy. +Mr. Magnet preferred beer.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I've heard there's iron in the Beer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I believe it,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>misquoted Mr. Pope, and nodded as it were to the +marker to score. "Daffy and Marjorie are still in +the lemonade stage. Will you take a little Burgundy +to-night, Mummy?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope decided she would, and was inspired to +ask Mr. Wintersloan if he had been in that part of +the country before. Topography ensued. Mr. Wintersloan +had a style of his own, and spoke of the +Buryhamstreet district as a "pooty little country—pooty +little hills, with a swirl in them."</p> + +<p>This pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes +met for a moment.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Magnet, with a ray full on Marjorie, +said he had always been fond of Surrey. "I think +if ever I made a home in the country I should like it +to be here."</p> + +<p>Mr. Wintersloan said Surrey would tire him, it +was too bossy and curly, too flocculent; he would +prefer to look on broader, simpler lines, with just a +sudden catch in the breath in them—if you understand +me?</p> + +<p>Marjorie did, and said so.</p> + +<p>"A sob—such as you get at the break of a pinewood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">-38-</a></span> +on a hill."</p> + +<p>This baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. "Or +the short dry cough of a cliff," she said.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," said Mr. Wintersloan, and having +turned a little deliberate close-lipped smile on her for +a moment, resumed his wing.</p> + +<p>"So long as a landscape doesn't <i>sneeze</i>" said +Mr. Magnet, in that irresistible dry way of his, and +Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked.</p> + +<p>"Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn," +mused Mr. Pope, coming in all right at the end.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Pope asked Mr. Wintersloan, about +his route to Buryhamstreet, and then Mr. Pope asked +Mr. Magnet whether he was playing at a new work +or working at a new play.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet said he was dreaming over a play. +He wanted to bring out the more serious side of his +humour, go a little deeper into things than he had +hitherto done.</p> + +<p>"Mingling smiles and tears," said Mr. Pope approvingly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour +did that.</p> + +<p>Then Mrs. Pope asked what the play was to be +about, and Mr. Magnet, who seemed disinclined to +give an answer, turned the subject by saying he had +to prepare an address on humour for the next dinner +of the <i>Literati</i>. "It's to be a humourist's dinner, +and they've made me the guest of the evening—by +way of a joke to begin with," he said with that dry +smile again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope said he shouldn't say things like that. +She then said "Syd!" quietly but sharply to Sydney, +who was making a disdainful, squinting face at Theodore, +and told the parlourmaid to clear the plates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">-39-</a></span> +for sweets. Mr. Magnet professed great horror of +public speaking. He said that whenever he rose to +make an after-dinner speech all the ices he had ever +eaten seemed to come out of the past, and sit on his +backbone.</p> + +<p>The talk centered for awhile on Mr. Magnet's +address, and apropos of Tests of Humour Mr. Pope, +who in his way was "no mean raconteur," related the +story of the man who took the salad dressing with +his hand, and when his host asked why he did that, +replied: "Oh! I thought it was spinach!"</p> + +<p>"Many people," added Mr. Pope, "wouldn't see +the point of that. And if they don't see the point +they can't—and the more they try the less they do."</p> + +<p>All four girls hoped secretly and not too confidently +that their laughter had not sounded hollow.</p> + +<p>And then for a time the men told stories as they +came into their heads in an easy, irresponsible way. +Mr. Magnet spoke of the humour of the omnibus-driver +who always dangled and twiddled his badge +"by way of a joke" when he passed the conductor +whose father had been hanged, and Mr. Pope, perhaps, +a little irrelevantly, told the story of the little +boy who was asked his father's last words, and said +"mother was with him to the end," which particularly +amused Mrs. Pope. Mr. Wintersloan gave the story +of the woman who was taking her son to the hospital +with his head jammed into a saucepan, and explained +to the other people in the omnibus: "You see, +what makes it so annoying, it's me only saucepan!" +Then they came back to the Sense of Humour with +the dentist who shouted with laughter, and when asked +the reason by his patient, choked out: "Wrong +tooth!" and then Mr. Pope reminded them of the +heartless husband who, suddenly informed that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">-40-</a></span> +mother-in-law was dead, exclaimed "Oh, don't make +me laugh, please, I've got a split lip...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>The conversation assumed a less anecdotal quality +with the removal to the drawing-room. On Mr. +Magnet's initiative the gentlemen followed the ladies +almost immediately, and it was Mr. Magnet who +remembered that Marjorie could sing.</p> + +<p>Both the elder sisters indeed had sweet clear +voices, and they had learnt a number of those jolly +songs the English made before the dull Hanoverians +came. Syd accompanied, and Rom sat back in the +low chair in the corner and fell deeply in love with +Mr. Wintersloan. The three musicians in their green +and sulphur-yellow and white made a pretty group +in the light of the shaded lamp against the black and +gold Broadwood, the tawdry screen, its pattern thin +glittering upon darkness, and the deep shadows behind. +Marjorie loved singing, and forgot herself as +she sang.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I love, and he loves me again,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Yet dare I not tell who;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For if the nymphs should know my swain,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">I fear they'd love him too,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>she sang, and Mr. Magnet could not conceal the +intensity of his admiration.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope had fallen into a pleasant musing; +several other ripe old yarns, dear delicious old things, +had come into his mind that he felt he might presently +recall when this unavoidable display of accomplishments +was overpast, and it was with one of them +almost on his lips that he glanced across at his guest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">-41-</a></span> +He was surprised to see Mr. Magnet's face transfigured. +He was sitting forward, looking up at Marjorie, +and he had caught something of the expression +of those blessed boys who froth at the feet of an +Assumption. For an instant Mr. Pope did not +understand.</p> + +<p>Then he understood. It was Marjorie! He had +a twinge of surprise, and glanced at his own daughter +as though he had never seen her before. He perceived +in a flash for the first time that this troublesome, +clever, disrespectful child was tall and shapely +and sweet, and indeed quite a beautiful young +woman. He forgot his anecdotes. His being was +suffused with pride and responsibility and the sense +of virtue rewarded. He did not reflect for a moment +that Marjorie embodied in almost equal proportions +the very best points in his mother and his mother-in-law, +and avoided his own more salient characteristics +with so neat a dexterity that from top to toe, except +for the one matter of colour, not only did she not +resemble him but she scarcely even alluded to him. +He thought simply that she was his daughter, that +she derived from him, that her beauty was his. She +was the outcome of his meritorious preparations. He +recalled all the moments when he had been kind and +indulgent to her, all the bills he had paid for her; all +the stresses and trials of the coach-building collapse, +all the fluctuations of his speculative adventures, +became things he had faced patiently and valiantly +for her sake. He forgot the endless times when he +had been viciously cross with her, all the times when +he had pished and tushed and sworn in her hearing. +He had on provocation and in spite of her mother's +protests slapped her pretty vigorously, but such +things are better forgotten; nor did he recall how +bitterly he had opposed the college education which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">-42-</a></span> +had made her now so clear in eye and thought, nor +the frightful shindy, only three months since, about +that identical green dress in which she now stood +delightful. He forgot these petty details, as an +idealist should. There she was, his daughter. An +immense benevolence irradiated his soul—for Marjorie—for +Magnet. His eyes were suffused with a +not ignoble tenderness. The man, he knew, was +worth at least thirty-five thousand pounds, a discussion +of investments had made that clear, and he must +be making at least five thousand a year! A beautiful +girl, a worthy man! A good fellow, a sound good +fellow, a careful fellow too—as these fellows went!</p> + +<p>Old Daddy would lose his treasure of course.</p> + +<p>Well, a father must learn resignation, and he for +one would not stand in the way of his girl's happiness. +A day would come when, very beautifully and +tenderly, he would hand her over to Magnet, his +favourite daughter to his trusted friend. "Well, +my boy, there's no one in all the world——" he +would begin.</p> + +<p>It would be a touching parting. "Don't forget +your old father, Maggots," he would say. At such a +moment that quaint nickname would surely not be +resented....</p> + +<p>He reflected how much he had always preferred +Marjorie to Daffy. She was brighter—more like +him. Daffy was unresponsive, with a touch of bitterness +under her tongue....</p> + +<p>He was already dreaming he was a widower, +rather infirm, the object of Magnet's and Marjorie's +devoted care, when the song ceased, and the wife he +had for the purpose of reveries just consigned so +carelessly to the cemetery proposed that they should +have a little game that every one could play at. A +number of pencils and slips of paper appeared in her hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">-43-</a></span> +She did not want the girls to exhaust their +repertory on this first occasion—and besides, Mr. +Pope liked games in which one did things with pencils +and strips of paper. Mr. Magnet wished the +singing to go on, he said, but he was overruled.</p> + +<p>So for a time every one played a little game in +which Mr. Pope was particularly proficient. Indeed, +it was rare that any one won but Mr. Pope. It was +called "The Great Departed," and it had such considerable +educational value that all the children had +to play at it whenever he wished.</p> + +<p>It was played in this manner; one of the pseudo +twins opened a book and dabbed a finger on the page, +and read out the letter immediately at the tip of her +finger, then all of them began to write as hard as they +could, writing down the names of every great person +they could think of, whose name began with that +letter. At the end of five minutes Mr. Pope said +Stop! and then began to read his list out, beginning +with the first name. Everybody who had that name +crossed it out and scored one, and after his list was +exhausted all the surviving names on the next list were +read over in the same way, and so on. The names +had to be the names of dead celebrated people, only +one monarch of the same name of the same dynasty +was allowed, and Mr. Pope adjudicated on all doubtful +cases. It was great fun.</p> + +<p>The first two games were won as usual by Mr. +Pope, and then Mr. Wintersloan, who had been a +little distraught in his manner, brightened up and +scribbled furiously.</p> + +<p>The letter was <i>D</i>, and after Mr. Pope had rehearsed +a tale of nine and twenty names, Mr. Wintersloan +read out his list in that curious voice of his +which suggested nothing so much as some mobile +drink glucking out of the neck of a bottle held upside +down.</p> + +<p>"Dahl," he began.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">-44-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who was Dahl?" asked Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"'Vented dahlias," said Mr. Wintersloan, with a +sigh. "Danton."</p> + +<p>"Forgot him," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Davis."</p> + +<p>"Davis?"</p> + +<p>"Davis Straits. Doe."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"John Doe, Richard Roe."</p> + +<p>"Legal fiction, I'm afraid," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Dam," said Mr. Wintersloan, and added after +a slight pause: "Anthony van."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope made an interrogative noise.</p> + +<p>"Painter—eighteenth century—Dutch. Dam, Jan +van, his son. Dam, Frederich van. Dam, Wilhelm +van. Dam, Diedrich van. Dam, Wilhelmina, wood +engraver, gifted woman. Diehl."</p> + +<p>"Who?"</p> + +<p>"Painter—dead—famous. See Düsseldorf. It's +all painters now—all guaranteed dead, all good men. +Deeds of Norfolk, the aquarellist, Denton, Dibbs."</p> + +<p>"Er?" said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"The Warwick Claude, <i>you</i> know. Died 1823."</p> + +<p>"Dickson, Dunting, John Dickery. Peter Dickery, +William Dock—I beg your pardon?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope was making a protesting gesture, but +Mr. Wintersloan's bearing was invincible, and he +proceeded.</p> + +<p>In the end he emerged triumphant with forty-nine +names, mostly painters for whose fame he +answered, but whose reputations were certainly new +to every one else present. "I can go on like that," +said Mr. Wintersloan, "with any letter," and turned +that hard little smile full on Marjorie. "I didn't +see how to do it at first. I just cast about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">-45-</a></span> +But I know a frightful lot of painters. No end. Shall we +try again?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie glanced at her father. Mr. Wintersloan's +methods were all too evident to her. A +curious feeling pervaded the room that Mr. Pope +didn't think Mr. Wintersloan's conduct honourable, +and that he might even go some way towards saying +so.</p> + +<p>So Mrs. Pope became very brisk and stirring, and +said she thought that now perhaps a charade would +be more amusing. It didn't do to keep on at a game +too long. She asked Rom and Daphne and Theodore +and Mr. Wintersloan to go out, and they all agreed +readily, particularly Rom. "Come on!" said Rom +to Mr. Wintersloan. Everybody else shifted into an +audience-like group between the piano and the what-not. +Mr. Magnet sat at Marjorie's feet, while Syd +played a kind of voluntary, and Mr. Pope leant back +in his chair, with his brows knit and lips moving, +trying to remember something.</p> + +<p>The charade <i>was</i> very amusing. The word was +Catarrh, and Mr. Wintersloan, as the patient in the +last act being given gruel, surpassed even the children's +very high expectations. Rom, as his nurse, +couldn't keep her hands off him. Then the younger +people kissed round and were packed off to bed, and +the rest of the party went to the door upon the lawn +and admired the night. It was a glorious summer +night, deep blue, and rimmed warmly by the afterglow, +moonless, and with a few big lamp-like stars +above the black still shapes of trees.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope said they would all accompany their +guests to the gate at the end of the avenue—in spite +of the cockchafers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope's ankle, however, excused him; the cordiality +of his parting from Mr. Wintersloan seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">-46-</a></span> +a trifle forced, and he limped thoughtfully and a +little sombrely towards the study to see if he could +find an Encyclopædia or some such book of reference +that would give the names of the lesser lights of +Dutch, Italian, and English painting during the last +two centuries.</p> + +<p>He felt that Mr. Wintersloan had established an +extraordinarily bad precedent.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>Marjorie discovered that she and Mr. Magnet had +fallen a little behind the others. She would have +quickened her pace, but Mr. Magnet stopped short +and said: "Marjorie!"</p> + +<p>"When I saw you standing there and singing," +said Mr. Magnet, and was short of breath for a +moment.</p> + +<p>Marjorie's natural gift for interruption failed +her altogether.</p> + +<p>"I felt I would rather be able to call you mine—than +win an empire."</p> + +<p>The pause seemed to lengthen, between them, and +Marjorie's remark when she made it at last struck her +even as she made it as being but poorly conceived. +She had some weak idea of being self-depreciatory.</p> + +<p>"I think you had better win an empire, Mr. +Magnet," she said meekly.</p> + +<p>Then, before anything more was possible, they +had come up to Daffy and Mr. Wintersloan and her +mother at the gate....</p> + +<p>As they returned Mrs. Pope was loud in the +praises of Will Magnet. She had a little clear-cut +voice, very carefully and very skilfully controlled, +and she dilated on his modesty, his quiet helpfulness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">-47-</a></span> +at table, his ready presence of mind. She pointed +out instances of those admirable traits, incidents +small in themselves but charming in their implications. +When somebody wanted junket, he had made +no fuss, he had just helped them to junket. "So +modest and unassuming," sang Mrs. Pope. "You'd +never dream he was quite rich and famous. Yet +every book he writes is translated into Russian and +German and all sorts of languages. I suppose he's +almost the greatest humorist we have. That play of +his; what is it called?—<i>Our Owd Woman</i>—has been +performed nearly twelve hundred times! I think that +is the most wonderful of gifts. Think of the people +it has made happy."</p> + +<p>The conversation was mainly monologue. Both +Marjorie and Daffy were unusually thoughtful.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>Marjorie ended the long day in a worldly mood.</p> + +<p>"Penny for your thoughts," said Daffy abruptly, +brushing the long firelit rapids of her hair.</p> + +<p>"Not for sale," said Marjorie, and roused herself. +"I've had a long day."</p> + +<p>"It's always just the time I particularly wish I +was a man," she remarked after a brief return to +meditation. "Fancy, no hair-pins, no brushing, no +tie-up to get lost about, no strings. I suppose they +haven't strings?"</p> + +<p>"They haven't," said Daffy with conviction.</p> + +<p>She met Marjorie's interrogative eye. "Father +would swear at them," she explained. "He'd naturally +tie himself up—and we should hear of it."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think of that," said Marjorie, and stuck +out her chin upon her fists. "Sound induction."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">-48-</a></span></p> + +<p>She forgot this transitory curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Suppose one had a maid, Daffy—a real maid +... a maid who mended your things ... did +your hair while you read...."</p> + +<p>"Oh! here goes," and she stood up and grappled +with the task of undressing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Two Proposals of Mr. Magnet</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>It was presently quite evident to Marjorie that Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">-49-</a></span> +Magnet intended to propose marriage to her, and +she did not even know whether she wanted him to do +so.</p> + +<p>She had met him first the previous summer while +she had been staying with the Petley-Cresthams at +High Windower, and it had been evident that he found +her extremely attractive. She had never had a real +grown man at her feet before, and she had found it +amazingly entertaining. She had gone for a walk +with him the morning before she came away—a frank +and ingenuous proceeding that made Mrs. Petley-Crestham +say the girl knew what she was about, and +she had certainly coquetted with him in an extraordinary +manner at golf-croquet. After that Oxbridge +had swallowed her up, and though he had called once +on her mother while Marjorie was in London during +the Christmas vacation, he hadn't seen her again. He +had written—which was exciting—a long friendly +humorous letter about nothing in particular, with an +air of its being quite the correct thing for him to do, +and she had answered, and there had been other exchanges. +But all sorts of things had happened in +the interval, and Marjorie had let him get into quite +a back place in her thoughts—the fact that he was +a member of her father's club had seemed somehow +to remove him from a great range of possibilities—until +a drift in her mother's talk towards him and a +letter from him with an indefinable change in tone +towards intimacy, had restored him to importance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">-50-</a></span> +Now here he was in the foreground of her world again, +evidently more ardent than ever, and with a portentous +air of being about to do something decisive at +the very first opportunity. What was he going to +do? What had her mother been hinting at? And +what, in fact, did the whole thing amount to?</p> + +<p>Marjorie was beginning to realize that this was +going to be a very serious affair indeed for her—and +that she was totally unprepared to meet it.</p> + +<p>It had been very amusing, very amusing indeed, at +the Petley-Cresthams', but there were moments now +when she felt towards Mr. Magnet exactly as she +would have felt if he had been one of the Oxbridge +tradesmen hovering about her with a "little account," +full of apparently exaggerated items....</p> + +<p>Her thoughts and feelings were all in confusion +about this business. Her mind was full of scraps, +every sort of idea, every sort of attitude contributed +something to that Twentieth Century jumble. For +example, and so far as its value went among motives, +it was by no means a trivial consideration; she wanted +a proposal for its own sake. Daffy had had a proposal +last year, and although it wasn't any sort of +eligible proposal, still there it was, and she had given +herself tremendous airs. But Marjorie would certainly +have preferred some lighter kind of proposal +than that which now threatened her. She felt that +behind Mr. Magnet were sanctions; that she wasn't +free to deal with this proposal as she liked. He was +at Buryhamstreet almost with the air of being her +parents' guest.</p> + +<p>Less clear and more instinctive than her desire for +a proposal was her inclination to see just all that Mr. +Magnet was disposed to do, and hear all that he was +disposed to say. She was curious. He didn't behave +in the least as she had expected a lover to behave.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">-51-</a></span> +But then none of the boys, the "others" with whom +she had at times stretched a hand towards the hem of +emotion, had ever done that. She had an obscure +feeling that perhaps presently Mr. Magnet must light +up, be stirred and stirring. Even now his voice +changed very interestingly when he was alone with +her. His breath seemed to go—as though something +had pricked his lung. If it hadn't been for that new, +disconcerting realization of an official pressure behind +him, I think she would have been quite ready to experiment +extensively with his emotions....</p> + +<p>But she perceived as she lay awake next morning +that she wasn't free for experiments any longer. +What she might say or do now would be taken up very +conclusively. And she had no idea what she wanted +to say or do.</p> + +<p>Marriage regarded in the abstract—that is to +say, with Mr. Magnet out of focus—was by no means +an unattractive proposal to her. It was very much +at the back of Marjorie's mind that after Oxbridge, +unless she was prepared to face a very serious row +indeed and go to teach in a school—and she didn't +feel any call whatever to teach in a school—she would +probably have to return to Hartstone Square and +share Daffy's room again, and assist in the old collective, +wearisome task of propitiating her father. +The freedoms of Oxbridge had enlarged her imagination +until that seemed an almost unendurably irksome +prospect. She had tasted life as it could be in +her father's absence, and she was beginning to realize +just what an impossible person he was. Marriage +was escape from all that; it meant not only respectful +parents but a house of her very own, furniture of +her choice, great freedom of movement, an authority, +an importance. She had seen what it meant to be a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">-52-</a></span> +prosperously married young woman in the person of +one or two resplendent old girls revisiting Bennett +College, scattering invitations, offering protections +and opportunities....</p> + +<p>Of course there is love.</p> + +<p>Marjorie told herself, as she had been trained to +tell herself, to be sensible, but something within her +repeated: <i>there is love</i>.</p> + +<p>Of course she liked Mr. Magnet. She really did +like Mr. Magnet very much. She had had her girlish +dreams, had fallen in love with pictures of men and +actors and a music master and a man who used to +ride by as she went to school; but wasn't this desolating +desire for self-abandonment rather silly?—something +that one left behind with much else when +it came to putting up one's hair and sensible living, +something to blush secretly about and hide from every +eye?</p> + +<p>Among other discrepant views that lived together +in her mind as cats and rats and parrots and squirrels +and so forth used to live together in those Happy +Family cages unseemly men in less well-regulated days +were wont to steer about our streets, was one instilled +by quite a large proportion of the novels she had read, +that a girl was a sort of self-giving prize for high +moral worth. Mr. Magnet she knew was good, was +kind, was brave with that truer courage, moral courage, +which goes with his type of physique; he was +modest, unassuming, well off and famous, and very +much in love with her. His True Self, as Mrs. Pope +had pointed out several times, must be really very +beautiful, and in some odd way a line of Shakespeare +had washed up in her consciousness as being somehow +effectual on his behalf:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Love looks not with the eye but with the mind."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She felt she ought to look with the mind. Nice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">-53-</a></span> +people surely never looked in any other way. It +seemed from this angle almost her duty to love +him....</p> + +<p>Perhaps she did love him, and mistook the symptoms. +She did her best to mistake the symptoms. +But if she did truly love him, would it seem so queer +and important and antagonistic as it did that his +hair was rather thin upon the crown of his head?</p> + +<p>She wished she hadn't looked down on him....</p> + +<p>Poor Marjorie! She was doing her best to be +sensible, and she felt herself adrift above a clamorous +abyss of feared and forbidden thoughts. Down there +she knew well enough it wasn't thus that love must +come. Deep in her soul, the richest thing in her life +indeed and the best thing she had to give humanity, +was a craving for beauty that at times became almost +intolerable, a craving for something other than beauty +and yet inseparably allied with it, a craving for deep +excitement, for a sort of glory in adventure, for passion—for +things akin to great music and heroic poems +and bannered traditions of romance. She had hidden +away in her an immense tumultuous appetite for life, +an immense tumultuous capacity for living. To be +loved beautifully was surely the crown and climax of +her being.</p> + +<p>She did not dare to listen to these deeps, yet these +insurgent voices filled her. Even while she drove her +little crocodile of primly sensible thoughts to their +sane appointed conclusion, her blood and nerves and +all her being were protesting that Mr. Magnet would +not do, that whatever other worthiness was in him, +regarded as a lover he was preposterous and flat and +foolish and middle-aged, and that it were better never +to have lived than to put the treasure of her life to +his meagre lips and into his hungry, unattractive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">-54-</a></span> +arms. "The ugliness of it! The spiritless horror of +it!" so dumbly and formlessly the rebel voices urged.</p> + +<p>"One has to be sensible," said Marjorie to herself, +suddenly putting down Shaw's book on Municipal +Trading, which she imagined she had been reading....</p> + +<p>(Perhaps all marriage was horrid, and one had to +get over it.)</p> + +<p>That was rather what her mother had conveyed +to her.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet made his first proposal in form three +days later, after coming twice to tea and staying on +to supper. He had played croquet with Mr. Pope, +he had been beaten twelve times in spite of twinges in +the sprained ankle—heroically borne—had had three +victories lucidly explained away, and heard all the +particulars of the East Purblow experiment three +times over, first in relation to the new Labour Exchanges, +then regarded at rather a different angle in +relation to female betting, tally-men, and the sanctities +of the home generally, and finally in a more +exhaustive style, to show its full importance from +every side and more particularly as demonstrating the +gross injustice done to Mr. Pope by the neglect of its +lessons, a neglect too systematic to be accidental, in +the social reform literature of the time. Moreover, +Mr. Magnet had been made to understand thoroughly +how several later quasi-charitable attempts of a similar +character had already become, or must inevitably +become, unsatisfactory through their failure to follow +exactly in the lines laid down by Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope was really very anxious to be pleasant +and agreeable to Mr. Magnet, and he could think of +no surer way of doing so than by giving him an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">-55-</a></span> +unrestrained intimacy of conversation that prevented +anything more than momentary intercourse between +his daughter and her admirer. And not only did Mr. +Magnet find it difficult to get away from Mr. Pope +without offence, but whenever by any chance Mr. +Pope was detached for a moment Mr. Magnet discovered +that Marjorie either wasn't to be seen, or if she +was she wasn't to be isolated by any device he could +contrive, before the unappeasable return of Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet did not get his chance therefore until +Lady Petchworth's little gathering at Summerhay +Park.</p> + +<p>Lady Petchworth was Mrs. Pope's oldest friend, +and one of those brighter influences which save our +English country-side from lassitude. She had been +more fortunate than Mrs. Pope, for while Mr. Pope +with that aptitude for disadvantage natural to his +temperament had, he said, been tied to a business that +never gave him a chance, Lady Petchworth's husband +had been a reckless investor of exceptional good-luck. +In particular, led by a dream, he had put most of his +money into a series of nitrate deposits in caves in +Saghalien haunted by benevolent penguins, and had +been rewarded beyond the dreams of avarice. His +foresight had received the fitting reward of a knighthood, +and Sir Thomas, after restoring the Parish +Church at Summerhay in a costly and destructive +manner, spent his declining years in an enviable contentment +with Lady Petchworth and the world at +large, and died long before infirmity made him really +troublesome.</p> + +<p>Good fortune had brought out Lady Petchworth's +social aptitudes. Summerhay Park was everything +that a clever woman, inspired by that gardening +literature which has been so abundant in the opening +years of the twentieth century, could make it. It had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">-56-</a></span> +rosaries and rock gardens, sundials and yew hedges, +pools and ponds, lead figures and stone urns, box +borderings and wilderness corners and hundreds and +hundreds of feet of prematurely-aged red-brick wall +with broad herbaceous borders; the walks had primroses, +primulas and cowslips in a quite disingenuous +abundance, and in spring the whole extent of the park +was gay, here with thousands of this sort of daffodil +just bursting out and here with thousands of that sort +of narcissus just past its prime, and every patch +ready to pass itself off in its naturalized way as the +accidental native flower of the field, if only it hadn't +been for all the other different varieties coming on or +wilting-off in adjacent patches....</p> + +<p>Her garden was only the beginning of Lady +Petchworth's activities. She had a model dairy, and +all her poultry was white, and so far as she was able +to manage it she made Summerhay a model village. +She overflowed with activities, it was astonishing in +one so plump and blonde, and meeting followed meeting +in the artistic little red-brick and green-stained +timber village hall she had erected. Now it was the +National Theatre and now it was the National +Mourning; now it was the Break Up of the Poor +Law, and now the Majority Report, now the Mothers' +Union, and now Socialism, and now Individualism, +but always something progressive and beneficial. +She did her best to revive the old village life, and +brought her very considerable powers of compulsion +to make the men dance in simple old Morris dances, +dressed up in costumes they secretly abominated, +and to induce the mothers to dress their children in +art-coloured smocks instead of the prints and blue +serge frocks they preferred. She did not despair, +she said, of creating a spontaneous peasant art +movement in the district, springing from the people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">-57-</a></span> +and expressing the people, but so far it had been +necessary to import not only instructors and material, +but workers to keep the thing going, so sluggish +had the spontaneity of our English countryside +become.</p> + +<p>Her little gatherings were quite distinctive of her. +They were a sort of garden party extending from +mid-day to six or seven; there would be a nucleus of +house guests, and the highways and byeways on +every hand would be raided to supply persons and +interests. She had told her friend to "bring the +girls over for the day," and flung an invitation to +Mr. Pope, who had at once excused himself on the +score of his ankle. Mr. Pope was one of those men +who shun social gatherings—ostensibly because of a +sterling simplicity of taste, but really because his +intolerable egotism made him feel slighted and neglected +on these occasions. He told his wife he +would be far happier with a book at home, exhorted +her not to be late, and was seen composing himself +to read the "Vicar of Wakefield"—whenever they +published a new book Mr. Pope pretended to read +an old one—as the hired waggonette took the rest of +his family—Theodore very unhappy in buff silk and +a wide Stuart collar—down the avenue.</p> + +<p>They found a long lunch table laid on the lawn +beneath the chestnuts, and in full view of the poppies +and forget-me-nots around the stone obelisk, a +butler and three men servants with brass buttons and +red and white striped waistcoats gave dignity to the +scene, and beyond, on the terrace amidst abundance +of deckchairs, cane chairs, rugs, and cushions, a +miscellaneous and increasing company seethed under +Lady Petchworth's plump but entertaining hand. +There were, of course, Mr. Magnet, and his friend +Mr. Wintersloan—Lady Petchworth had been given<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">-58-</a></span> +to understand how the land lay; and there was Mr. +Bunford Paradise the musician, who was doing his +best to teach a sullen holiday class in the village +schoolroom to sing the artless old folk songs of Surrey +again, in spite of the invincible persuasion of +everybody in the class that the songs were rather +indelicate and extremely silly; there were the Rev. +Jopling Baynes, and two Cambridge undergraduates +in flannels, and a Doctor something or other from +London. There was also the Hon. Charles Muskett, +Lord Pottinger's cousin and estate agent, in tweeds +and very helpful. The ladies included Mrs. Raff, +the well-known fashion writer, in a wonderful costume, +the anonymous doctor's wife, three or four +neighbouring mothers with an undistinguished +daughter or so, and two quiet-mannered middle-aged +ladies, whose names Marjorie could not catch, and +whom Lady Petchworth, in that well-controlled +voice of hers, addressed as Kate and Julia, and seemed +on the whole disposed to treat as humorous. +There was also Fraulein Schmidt in charge of Lady +Petchworth's three tall and already abundant children, +Prunella, Prudence, and Mary, and a young, +newly-married couple of cousins, who addressed each +other in soft undertones and sat apart. These were +the chief items that became distinctive in Marjorie's +survey; but there were a number of other people who +seemed to come and go, split up, fuse, change their +appearance slightly, and behave in the way inadequately +apprehended people do behave on these +occasions.</p> + +<p>Marjorie very speedily found her disposition to +take a detached and amused view of the entertainment +in conflict with more urgent demands. From +the outset Mr. Magnet loomed upon her—he loomed +nearer and nearer. He turned his eye upon her as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">-59-</a></span> +she came up to the wealthy expanse of Lady Petchworth's +presence, like some sort of obsolescent iron-clad +turning a dull-grey, respectful, loving searchlight +upon a fugitive torpedo boat, and thereafter +he seemed to her to be looking at her without intermission, +relentlessly, and urging himself towards +her. She wished he wouldn't. She hadn't at all +thought he would on this occasion.</p> + +<p>At first she relied upon her natural powers of +evasion, and the presence of a large company. Then +gradually it became apparent that Lady Petchworth +and her mother, yes—and the party generally, and +the gardens and the weather and the stars in their +courses were of a mind to co-operate in giving opportunity +for Mr. Magnet's unmistakable intentions.</p> + +<p>And Marjorie with that instability of her sex +which has been a theme for masculine humour in all +ages, suddenly and with an extraordinary violence +didn't want to make up her mind about Mr. Magnet. +She didn't want to accept him; and as distinctly she +didn't want to refuse him. She didn't even want to +be thought about as making up her mind about him—which +was, so to speak, an enlargement of her +previous indisposition. She didn't even want to seem +to avoid him, or to be thinking about him, or aware +of his existence.</p> + +<p>After the greeting of Lady Petchworth she had +succeeded very clumsily in not seeing Mr. Magnet, +and had addressed herself to Mr. Wintersloan, who +was standing a little apart, looking under his hand, +with one eye shut, at the view between the tree stems +towards Buryhamstreet. He told her that he +thought he had found something "pooty" that +hadn't been done, and she did her best to share his +artistic interests with a vivid sense of Mr. Magnet's +tentative incessant approach behind her.</p> + +<p>He joined them, and she made a desperate attempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">-60-</a></span> +to entangle Mr. Wintersloan in a three-cornered +talk in vain. He turned away at the first +possible opportunity, and left her to an embarrassed +and eloquently silent <i>tête-à-tête</i>. Mr. Magnet's +professional wit had deserted him. "It's nice to see +you again," he said after an immense interval. +"Shall we go and look at the aviary?"</p> + +<p>"I hate to see birds in cages," said Marjorie, +"and it's frightfully jolly just here. Do you think +Mr. Wintersloan will paint this? He does paint, +doesn't he?"</p> + +<p>"I know him best in black and white," said Mr. +Magnet.</p> + +<p>Marjorie embarked on entirely insincere praises +of Mr. Wintersloan's manner and personal effect; +Magnet replied tepidly, with an air of reserving +himself to grapple with the first conversational opportunity.</p> + +<p>"It's a splendid day for tennis," said Marjorie. +"I think I shall play tennis all the afternoon."</p> + +<p>"I don't play well enough for this publicity."</p> + +<p>"It's glorious exercise," said Marjorie. "Almost +as good as dancing," and she decided to stick to that +resolution. "I never lose a chance of tennis if I can +help it."</p> + +<p>She glanced round and detected a widening space +between themselves and the next adjacent group.</p> + +<p>"They're looking at the goldfish," she said. "Let +us join them."</p> + +<p>Everyone moved away as they came up to the +little round pond, but then Marjorie had luck, and +captured Prunella, and got her to hold hands and +talk, until Fraulein Schmidt called the child away. +And then Marjorie forced Mr. Magnet to introduce +her to Mr. Bunford Paradise. She had a bright idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">-61-</a></span> +of sitting between Prunella and Mary at the lunch +table, but a higher providence had assigned her to +a seat at the end between Julia—or was it Kate?—and +Mr. Magnet. However, one of the undergraduates +was opposite, and she saved herself from +undertones by talking across to him boldly about +Newnham, though she hadn't an idea of his name or +college. From that she came to tennis. To her +inflamed imagination he behaved as if she was under +a Taboo, but she was desperate, and had pledged +him and his friend to a foursome before the meal was +over.</p> + +<p>"Don't <i>you</i> play?" said the undergraduate to +Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>"Very little," said Mr. Magnet. "Very little—"</p> + +<p>At the end of an hour she was conspicuously and +publicly shepherded from the tennis court by Mrs. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"Other people want to play," said her mother in +a clear little undertone.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet fielded her neatly as she came off the +court.</p> + +<p>"You play tennis like—a wild bird," he said, +taking possession of her.</p> + +<p>Only Marjorie's entire freedom from Irish blood +saved him from a vindictive repartee.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>"Shall we go and look at the aviary?" said Mr. +Magnet, reverting to a favourite idea of his, and +then remembered she did not like to see caged birds.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps we might see the Water Garden?" he +said. "The Water Garden is really very delightful +indeed—anyhow. You ought to see that."</p> + +<p>On the spur of the moment, Marjorie could think +of no objection to the Water Garden, and he led +her off.</p> + +<p>"I often think of that jolly walk we had last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">-62-</a></span> +summer," said Mr. Magnet, "and how you talked +about your work at Oxbridge."</p> + +<p>Marjorie fell into a sudden rapture of admiration +for a butterfly.</p> + +<p>Twice more was Mr. Magnet baffled, and then +they came to the little pool of water lilies with its +miniature cascade of escape at the head and source of +the Water Garden. "One of Lady Petchworth's +great successes," said Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>"I suppose the lotus is like the water-lily," said +Marjorie, with no hope of staving off the inevitable——</p> + +<p>She stood very still by the little pool, and in +spite of her pensive regard of the floating blossoms, +stiffly and intensely aware of his relentless regard.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," came his voice at last, strangely +softened. "There is something I want to say to +you."</p> + +<p>She made no reply.</p> + +<p>"Ever since we met last summer——"</p> + +<p>A clear cold little resolution not to stand this, +had established itself in Marjorie's mind. If she +must decide, she <i>would</i> decide. He had brought it +upon himself.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," said Mr. Magnet, "I love you."</p> + +<p>She lifted a clear unhesitating eye to his face. +"I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she said.</p> + +<p>"I wanted to ask you to marry me," he said.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she repeated.</p> + +<p>They looked at one another. She felt a sort of +scared exultation at having done it; her mother +might say what she liked.</p> + +<p>"I love you very much," he said, at a loss.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," she repeated obstinately.</p> + +<p>"I thought you cared for me a little."</p> + +<p>She left that unanswered. She had a curious<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">-63-</a></span> +feeling that there was no getting away from this +splashing, babbling pool, that she was fixed there +until Mr. Magnet chose to release her, and that he +didn't mean to release her yet. In which case she +would go on refusing.</p> + +<p>"I'm disappointed," he said.</p> + +<p>Marjorie could only think that she was sorry +again, but as she had already said that three times, +she remained awkwardly silent.</p> + +<p>"Is it because——" he began and stopped.</p> + +<p>"It isn't because of anything. Please let's go +back to the others, Mr. Magnet. I'm sorry if I'm +disappointing."</p> + +<p>And by a great effort she turned about.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet remained regarding her—I can only +compare it to the searching preliminary gaze of an +artistic photographer. For a crucial minute in his +life Marjorie hated him. "I don't understand," he +said at last.</p> + +<p>Then with a sort of naturalness that ought to +have touched her he said: "Is it possible, Marjorie—that +I might hope?—that I have been inopportune?"</p> + +<p>She answered at once with absolute conviction.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so, Mr. Magnet."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry," he said, "to have bothered you."</p> + +<p>"<i>I'm</i> sorry," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>A long silence followed.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry too," he said.</p> + +<p>They said no more, but began to retrace their +steps. It was over. Abruptly, Mr. Magnet's bearing +had become despondent—conspicuously despondent. +"I had hoped," he said, and sighed.</p> + +<p>With a thrill of horror Marjorie perceived he +meant to <i>look</i> rejected, let every one see he had been +rejected—after encouragement.</p> + +<p>What would they think? How would they look?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">-64-</a></span> +What conceivably might they not say? Something +of the importance of the thing she had done, became +manifest to her. She felt first intimations of regret. +They would all be watching, Mother, Daffy, Lady +Petchworth. She would reappear with this victim +visibly suffering beside her. What could she say to +straighten his back and lift his chin? She could +think of nothing. Ahead at the end of the shaded +path she could see the copious white form, the agitated +fair wig and red sunshade of Lady Petchworth——</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope's eye was relentless; nothing seemed +hidden from it; nothing indeed was hidden from it; +Mr. Magnet's back was diagrammatic. Marjorie +was a little flushed and bright-eyed, and professed +herself eager, with an unnatural enthusiasm, to play +golf-croquet. It was eloquently significant that Mr. +Magnet did not share her eagerness, declined to play, +and yet when she had started with the Rev. Jopling +Baynes as partner, stood regarding the game with a +sort of tender melancholy from the shade of the big +chestnut-tree.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively.</p> + +<p>"You're not playing, Mr. Magnet," she remarked.</p> + +<p>"I'm a looker-on, this time," he said with a sigh.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie's winning, I think," said Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p>He made no answer for some seconds.</p> + +<p>"She looks so charming in that blue dress," he +remarked at last, and sighed from the lowest deeps.</p> + +<p>"That bird's-egg blue suits her," said Mrs. Pope, +ignoring the sigh. "She's clever in her girlish way,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">-65-</a></span> +she chooses all her own dresses,—colours, material, +everything."</p> + +<p>(And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked +it, she concealed her bills.)</p> + +<p>There came a still longer interval, which Mrs. +Pope ended with the slightest of shivers. She perceived +Mr. Magnet was heavy for sympathy and +ripe to confide. "I think," she said, "it's a little +cool here. Shall we walk to the Water Garden, and +see if there are any white lilies?"</p> + +<p>"There are," said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, +"and they are very beautiful—<i>quite</i> beautiful."</p> + +<p>He turned to the path along which he had so +recently led Marjorie.</p> + +<p>He glanced back as they went along between +Lady Petchworth's herbaceous border and the poppy +beds. "She's so full of life," he said, with a sigh +in his voice.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope knew she must keep silent.</p> + +<p>"I asked her to marry me this afternoon," Mr. +Magnet blurted out. "I couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope made her silence very impressive.</p> + +<p>"I know I ought not to have done so without +consulting you"—he went on lamely; "I'm very +much in love with her. It's——It's done no harm."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. "I had no +idea, Mr. Magnet.... You know she is very +young. Twenty. A mother——"</p> + +<p>"I know," said Magnet. "I can quite understand. +But I've done no harm. She refused me. I +shall go away to-morrow. Go right away for ever.... +I'm sorry."</p> + +<p>Another long silence.</p> + +<p>"To me, of course, she's just a child," Mrs. Pope +said at last. "She <i>is</i> only a child, Mr. Magnet. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">-66-</a></span> +could have had no idea that anything of the sort was +in your mind——"</p> + +<p>Her words floated away into the stillness.</p> + +<p>For a time they said no more. The lilies came +into sight, dreaming under a rich green shade on a +limpid pool of brown water, water that slept and +brimmed over as it were, unconsciously into a cool +splash and ripple of escape. "How beautiful!" +cried Mrs. Pope, for a moment genuine.</p> + +<p>"I spoke to her here," said Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>The fountains of his confidence were unloosed.</p> + +<p>"Now I've spoken to you about it, Mrs. Pope," +he said, "I can tell you just how I—oh, it's the only +word—adore her. She seems so sweet and easy—so +graceful——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope turned on him abruptly, and grasped +his hands; she was deeply moved. "I can't tell +you," she said, "what it means to a mother to hear +such things——"</p> + +<p>Words failed her, and for some moments they +engaged in a mutual pressure.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish +it was the mother he had to deal with.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure, Mr. Magnet," Mrs. Pope went +on as their emotions subsided, "that she really meant +what she said? Girls are very strange creatures——"</p> + +<p>"She seems so clear and positive."</p> + +<p>"Her manner is always clear and positive."</p> + +<p>"Yes. I know."</p> + +<p>"I know she <i>has</i> cared for you."</p> + +<p>"No!"</p> + +<p>"A mother sees. When your name used to be +mentioned——. But these are not things to talk +about. There is something—something sacred——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "Yes. Only——Of course, +one thing——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">-67-</a></span> +water-lilies.</p> + +<p>"I wondered," said Mr. Magnet, and paused +again.</p> + +<p>Then, almost breathlessly, "I wondered if there +should be perhaps—some one else?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head slowly. "I should know," she +said.</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>"I know I should know."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps recently?"</p> + +<p>"I am sure I should know. A mother's intuition——"</p> + +<p>Memories possessed her for awhile. "A girl of +twenty is a mass of contradictions. I can remember +myself as if it was yesterday. Often one says no, or +yes—out of sheer nervousness.... I am sure +there is no other attachment——"</p> + +<p>It occurred to her that she had said enough. +"What a dignity that old gold-fish has!" she remarked. +"He waves his tail—as if he were a beadle +waving little boys out of church."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope astonished Marjorie by saying nothing +about the all too obvious event of the day for some +time, but her manner to her second daughter on their +way home was strangely gentle. It was as if she had +realized for the first time that regret and unhappiness +might come into that young life. After supper, +however, she spoke. They had all gone out just +before the children went to bed to look for the new +moon; Daffy was showing the pseudo-twins the old +moon in the new moon's arms, and Marjorie found +herself standing by her mother's side. "I hope<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">-68-</a></span> +dear," said Mrs. Pope, "that it's all for the best—and +that you've done wisely, dear."</p> + +<p>Marjorie was astonished and moved by her +mother's tone.</p> + +<p>"It's so difficult to know what <i>is</i> for the best," +Mrs. Pope went on.</p> + +<p>"I had to do—as I did," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"I only hope you may never find you have made +a Great Mistake, dear. He cares for you very, very +much."</p> + +<p>"Oh! we see it now!" cried Rom, "we see it now! +Mummy, have you seen it? Like a little old round +ghost being nursed!"</p> + +<p>When Marjorie said "Good-night," Mrs. Pope +kissed her with an unaccustomed effusion.</p> + +<p>It occurred to Marjorie that after all her mother +had no selfish end to serve in this affair.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>The idea that perhaps after all she had made a +Great Mistake, the Mistake of her Life it might be, +was quite firmly established in its place among all the +other ideas in Marjorie's mind by the time she had +dressed next morning. Subsequent events greatly +intensified this persuasion. A pair of new stockings +she had trusted sprang a bad hole as she put them +on. She found two unmistakable bills from Oxbridge +beside her plate, and her father was "horrid" +at breakfast.</p> + +<p>Her father, it appeared, had bought the ordinary +shares of a Cuban railway very extensively, on the +distinct understanding that they would improve. In +a decent universe, with a proper respect for meritorious +gentlemen, these shares would have improved +accordingly, but the weather had seen fit to shatter +the wisdom of Mr. Pope altogether. The sugar crop +had collapsed, the bears were at work, and every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">-69-</a></span> +morning now saw his nominal capital diminished by +a dozen pounds or so. I do not know what Mr. Pope +would have done if he had not had his family to help +him bear his trouble. As it was he relieved his tension +by sending Theodore from the table for dropping +a knife, telling Rom when she turned the plate +round to pick the largest banana that she hadn't +the self-respect of a child of five, and remarking +sharply from behind the <i>Times</i> when Daffy asked +Marjorie if she was going to sketch: "Oh, for God's +sake don't <i>whisper!</i>" Then when Mrs. Pope came +round the table and tried to take his coffee cup softly +to refill it without troubling him, he snatched at it, +wrenched it roughly out of her hand, and said with +his mouth full, and strangely in the manner of a +snarling beast: "No' ready yet. Half foo'."</p> + +<p>Marjorie wanted to know why every one didn't +get up and leave the room. She glanced at her +mother and came near to speaking.</p> + +<p>And very soon she would have to come home and +live in the midst of this again—indefinitely!</p> + +<p>After breakfast she went to the tumbledown summer-house +by the duckpond, and contemplated the bills +she had not dared to open at table. One was boots, +nearly three pounds, the other books, over seven. "I +<i>know</i> that's wrong," said Marjorie, and rested her +chin on her hand, knitted her brows and tried to +remember the details of orders and deliveries....</p> + +<p>Marjorie had fallen into the net prepared for +our sons and daughters by the delicate modesty of +the Oxbridge authorities in money matters, and she +was, for her circumstances, rather heavily in debt. +But I must admit that in Marjorie's nature the Oxbridge +conditions had found an eager and adventurous +streak that rendered her particularly apt to +these temptations.</p> + +<p>I doubt if reticence is really a virtue in a teacher.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">-70-</a></span> +But this is a fearful world, and the majority of those +who instruct our youth have the painful sensitiveness +of the cloistered soul to this spirit of terror in things. +The young need particularly to be told truthfully +and fully all we know of three fundamental things: +the first of which is God, the next their duty towards +their neighbours in the matter of work and money, +and the third Sex. These things, and the adequate +why of them, and some sort of adequate how, make +all that matters in education. But all three are obscure +and deeply moving topics, topics for which the +donnish mind has a kind of special ineptitude, and +which it evades with the utmost skill and delicacy. +The middle part of this evaded triad was now being +taken up in Marjorie's case by the Oxbridge tradespeople.</p> + +<p>The Oxbridge shopkeeper is peculiar among shopkeepers +in the fact that he has to do very largely +with shy and immature customers with an extreme +and distinctive ignorance of most commercial things. +They are for the most part short of cash, but with +vague and often large probabilities of credit behind +them, for most people, even quite straitened people, +will pull their sons and daughters out of altogether +unreasonable debts at the end of their university +career; and so the Oxbridge shopkeeper becomes a +sort of propagandist of the charms and advantages +of insolvency. Alone among retailers he dislikes the +sight of cash, declines it, affects to regard it as a +coarse ignorant truncation of a budding relationship, +begs to be permitted to wait. So the youngster +just up from home discovers that money may stay +in the pocket, be used for cab and train fares and +light refreshments; all the rest may be had for the +asking. Marjorie, with her innate hunger for good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">-71-</a></span> +fine things, with her quite insufficient pocket-money, +and the irregular habits of expenditure a spasmodically +financed, hard-up home is apt to engender, fell +very readily into this new, delightful custom of having +it put down (whatever it happened to be). She +had all sorts of things put down. She and the elder +Carmel girl used to go shopping together, having +things put down. She brightened her rooms with +colour-prints and engravings, got herself pretty and +becoming clothes, acquired a fitted dressing-bag +already noted in this story, and one or two other +trifles of the sort, revised her foot-wear, created a +very nice little bookshelf, and although at times she +felt a little astonished and scared at herself, resolutely +refused to estimate the total of accumulated +debt she had attained. Indeed until the bills came in +it was impossible to do that, because, following the +splendid example of the Carmel girl, she hadn't even +inquired the price of quite a number of things....</p> + +<p>She didn't dare think now of the total. She lied +even to herself about that. She had fixed on fifty +pounds as the unendurable maximum. "It is less +than fifty pounds," she said, and added: "<i>must</i> be." +But something in her below the threshold of consciousness +knew that it was more.</p> + +<p>And now she was in her third year, and the Oxbridge +tradesman, generally satisfied with the +dimensions of her account, and no longer anxious to +see it grow, was displaying the less obsequious side of +his character. He wrote remarks at the bottom of +his account, remarks about settlement, about having +a bill to meet, about having something to go on with. +He asked her to give the matter her "early attention." +She had a disagreeable persuasion that if she +wanted many more things anywhere she would have +to pay ready money for them. She was particularly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">-72-</a></span> +short of stockings. She had overlooked stockings +recently.</p> + +<p>Daffy, unfortunately, was also short of stockings.</p> + +<p>And now, back with her family again, everything +conspired to remind Marjorie of the old stringent +habits from which she had had so delightful an +interlude. She saw Daffy eye her possessions, reflect. +This morning something of the awfulness of her +position came to her....</p> + +<p>At Oxbridge she had made rather a joke of her +debts.</p> + +<p>"I'd <i>swear</i> I haven't had three pairs of house +shoes," said Marjorie. "But what can one do?"</p> + +<p>And about the whole position the question was, +"what can one do?"</p> + +<p>She proceeded with tense nervous movements to +tear these two distasteful demands into very minute +pieces. Then she collected them all together in the +hollow of her hand, and buried them in the loose +mould in a corner of the summer-house.</p> + +<p>"Madge," said Theodore, appearing in the sunshine +of the doorway. "Aunt Plessington's coming! +She's sent a wire. Someone's got to meet her by +the twelve-forty train."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>Aunt Plessington's descent was due to her sudden +discovery that Buryhamstreet was in close proximity +to Summerhay Park, indeed only three miles away. +She had promised a lecture on her movement for Lady +Petchworth's village room in Summerhay, and she +found that with a slight readjustment of dates she +could combine this engagement with her promised +visit to her husband's sister, and an evening or so of +influence for her little Madge. So she had sent Hubert +to telegraph at once, and "here," she said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">-73-</a></span> +triumphantly on the platform, after a hard kiss at +Marjorie's cheek, "we are again."</p> + +<p>There, at any rate, she was, and Uncle Hubert +was up the platform seeing after the luggage, in his +small anxious way.</p> + +<p>Aunt Plessington was a tall lean woman, with firm +features, a high colour and a bright eye, who wore +hats to show she despised them, and carefully dishevelled +hair. Her dress was always good, but extremely +old and grubby, and she commanded respect +chiefly by her voice. Her voice was the true governing-class +voice, a strangulated contralto, abundant +and authoritative; it made everything she said clear +and important, so that if she said it was a fine morning +it was like leaded print in the <i>Times</i>, and she had +over her large front teeth lips that closed quietly +and with a slight effort after her speeches, as if the +words she spoke tasted well and left a peaceful, +secure sensation in the mouth.</p> + +<p>Uncle Hubert was a less distinguished figure, and +just a little reminiscent of the small attached husbands +one finds among the lower crustacea: he was +much shorter and rounder than his wife, and if he +had been left to himself, he would probably have been +comfortably fat in his quiet little way. But Aunt +Plessington had made him a Haigite, which is one of +the fiercer kinds of hygienist, just in the nick of time. +He had round shoulders, a large nose, and glasses +that made him look astonished—and she said he had +a great gift for practical things, and made him see +after everything in that line while she did the lecturing. +His directions to the porter finished, he came +up to his niece. "Hello, Marjorie!" he said, in a +peculiar voice that sounded as though his mouth was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">-74-</a></span> +full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), +"how's the First Class?"</p> + +<p>"A second's good enough for me, Uncle Hubert," +said Marjorie, and asked if they would rather walk +or go in the donkey cart, which was waiting outside +with Daffy. Aunt Plessington, with an air of great +<i>bonhomie</i> said she'd ride in the donkey cart, and they +did. But no pseudo-twins or Theodore came to meet +this arrival, as both uncle and aunt had a way of +asking how the lessons were getting on that they +found extremely disagreeable. Also, their aunt measured +them, and incited them with loud encouraging +noises to grow one against the other in an urgent, +disturbing fashion.</p> + +<p>Aunt Plessington's being was consumed by +thoughts of getting on. She was like Bernard Shaw's +life force, and she really did not seem to think there +was anything in existence but shoving. She had no +idea what a lark life can be, and occasionally how +beautiful it can be when you do not shove, if only, +which becomes increasingly hard each year, you can +get away from the shovers. She was one of an energetic +family of eight sisters who had maintained +themselves against a mutual pressure by the use of +their elbows from the cradle. They had all married +against each other, all sorts of people; two had driven +their husbands into bishoprics and made quite +typical bishop's wives, one got a leading barrister, one +a high war-office official, and one a rich Jew, and +Aunt Plessington, after spending some years in just +missing a rich and only slightly demented baronet, +had pounced—it's the only word for it—on Uncle +Hubert. "A woman is nothing without a husband," +she said, and took him. He was a fairly comfortable +Oxford don in his furtive way, and bringing him out +and using him as a basis, she specialized in intellectual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">-75-</a></span> +philanthropy and evolved her Movement. It +was quite remarkable how rapidly she overhauled +her sisters again.</p> + +<p>What the Movement was, varied considerably +from time to time, but it was always aggressively +beneficial towards the lower strata of the community. +Among its central ideas was her belief that +these lower strata can no more be trusted to eat than +they can to drink, and that the licensing monopoly +which has made the poor man's beer thick, lukewarm +and discreditable, and so greatly minimized its +consumption, should be extended to the solid side of +his dietary. She wanted to place considerable restrictions +upon the sale of all sorts of meat, upon +groceries and the less hygienic and more palatable +forms of bread (which do not sufficiently stimulate +the coatings of the stomach), to increase the present +difficulties in the way of tobacco purchasers, and to +put an end to that wanton and deleterious consumption +of sweets which has so bad an effect upon +the enamel of the teeth of the younger generation. +Closely interwoven with these proposals was an adoption +of the principle of the East Purblow Experiment, +the principle of Payment in Kind. She was +quite in agreement with Mr. Pope that poor people, +when they had money, frittered it away, and so she +proposed very extensive changes in the Truck Act, +which could enable employers, under suitable safeguards, +and with the advice of a small body of +spinster inspectors, to supply hygienic housing, +approved clothing of moral and wholesome sort, +various forms of insurance, edifying rations, cuisine, +medical aid and educational facilities as circumstances +seemed to justify, in lieu of the wages the +employees handled so ill....</p> + +<p>As no people in England will ever admit they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">-76-</a></span> +belong to the lower strata of society, Aunt Plessington's +Movement attracted adherents from every +class in the community.</p> + +<p>She now, as they drove slowly to the vicarage, +recounted to Marjorie—she had the utmost contempt +for Daffy because of her irregular teeth and +a general lack of progressive activity—the steady +growth of the Movement, and the increasing respect +shown for her and Hubert in the world of politico-social +reform. Some of the meetings she had addressed +had been quite full, various people had made +various remarks about her, hostile for the most part +and yet insidiously flattering, and everybody seemed +quite glad to come to the little dinners she gave in +order, she said, to gather social support for her reforms. +She had been staying with the Mastersteins, +who were keenly interested, and after she had polished +off Lady Petchworth she was to visit Lady +Rosenbaum. It was all going on swimmingly, these +newer English gentry were eager to learn all she had +to teach in the art of breaking in the Anglo-Saxon +villagers, and now, how was Marjorie going on, and +what was <i>she</i> going to do in the world?</p> + +<p>Marjorie said she was working for her final.</p> + +<p>"And what then?" asked Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>"Not very clear, Aunt, yet."</p> + +<p>"Looking around for something to take up?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've time yet. And it's just as well to +see how the land lies before you begin. It saves going +back. You'll have to come up to London with +me for a little while, and see things, and be seen a +little."</p> + +<p>"I should love to."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you a good time," said Aunt Plessington,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">-77-</a></span> +nodding promisingly. "Theodore getting on +in school?"</p> + +<p>"He's had his remove."</p> + +<p>"And how's Sydney getting on with the music?"</p> + +<p>"Excellently."</p> + +<p>"And Rom. Rom getting on?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie indicated a more restrained success.</p> + +<p>"And what's Daffy doing?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>get</i> on!" said Daffy and suddenly whacked +the donkey rather hard. "I beg your pardon, Aunt?"</p> + +<p>"I asked what <i>you</i> were up to, Daffy?"</p> + +<p>"Dusting, Aunt—and the virtues," said Daffy.</p> + +<p>"You ought to find something better than that."</p> + +<p>"Father tells me a lot about the East Purblow +Experiment," said Daffy after a perceptible interval.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" cried Aunt Plessington with a loud encouraging +note, but evidently making the best of it, +"<i>that's</i> better. Sociological observation."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Aunt," said Daffy, and negotiated a corner +with exceptional care.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope, who had an instinctive disposition to +pad when Aunt Plessington was about, had secured +the presence at lunch of Mr. Magnet (who was after +all staying on in Buryhamstreet) and the Rev. Jopling +Baynes. Aunt Plessington liked to meet the +clergy, and would always if she could win them over +to an interest in the Movement. She opened the +meal with a brisk attack upon him. "Come, Mr. +Baynes," she said, "what do your people eat here? +Hubert and I are making a study of the gluttonous +side of village life, and we find that no one knows so +much of that as the vicar—not even the doctor."</p> + +<p>The Reverend Jopling Baynes was a clergyman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">-78-</a></span> +of the evasive type with a quite distinguished voice. +He pursed his lips and made his eyes round. "Well, +Mrs. Plessington," he said and fingered his glass, +"it's the usual dietary. The usual dietary."</p> + +<p>"Too much and too rich, badly cooked and +eaten too fast," said Aunt Plessington. "And what +do you think is the remedy?"</p> + +<p>"We make an Effort," said the Rev. Jopling +Baynes, "we make an Effort. A Hint here, a Word +there."</p> + +<p>"Nothing organized?"</p> + +<p>"No," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, and shook +his head with a kind of resignation.</p> + +<p>"We are going to alter all that," said Aunt Plessington +briskly, and went on to expound the Movement +and the diverse way in which it might be possible +to control and improve the domestic expenditure +of the working classes.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Jopling Baynes listened sympathetically +across the table and tried to satisfy a healthy +appetite with as abstemious an air as possible while +he did so. Aunt Plessington passed rapidly from +general principles, to a sketch of the success of the +movement, and Hubert, who had hitherto been busy +with his lunch, became audible from behind the exceptionally +large floral trophy that concealed him +from his wife, bubbling confirmatory details. She +was very bright and convincing as she told of this +prominent man met and subdued, that leading antagonist +confuted, and how the Bishops were coming +in. She made it clear in her swift way that an +intelligent cleric resolved to get on in this world <i>en +route</i> for a better one hereafter, might do worse than +take up her Movement. And this touched in, she +turned her mind to Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>(That floral trophy, I should explain, by the by,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">-79-</a></span> +was exceptionally large because of Mrs. Pope's firm +conviction that Aunt Plessington starved her husband. +Accordingly, she masked him, and so was able +to heap second and third helpings upon his plate +without Aunt Plessington discovering his lapse. The +avidity with which Hubert ate confirmed her worst +suspicions and evinced, so far as anything ever did +evince, his gratitude.)</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Magnet," she said, "I wish I had +your sense of humour."</p> + +<p>"I wish you had," said Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>"I should write tracts," said Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>"I knew it was good for something," said Mr. +Magnet, and Daffy laughed in a tentative way.</p> + +<p>"I mean it," said Aunt Plessington brightly. +"Think if we had a Dickens—and you are the nearest +man alive to Dickens—on the side of social +reform to-day!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet's light manner deserted him. "We +do what we can, Mrs. Plessington," he said.</p> + +<p>"How much more might be done," said Aunt +Plessington, "if humour could be organized."</p> + +<p>"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"If all the humorists of England could be induced +to laugh at something together."</p> + +<p>"They do—at times," said Mr. Magnet, but the +atmosphere was too serious for his light touch.</p> + +<p>"They could laugh it out of existence," said +Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>It was evident Mr. Magnet was struck by the idea.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said, "in <i>Punch</i>, to which I +happen to be an obscure occasional contributor——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope was understood to protest that he +should not say such things.</p> + +<p>"We <i>do</i> remember just what we can do either in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">-80-</a></span> +the way of advertising or injury. I don't think +you'll find us up against any really <i>solid</i> institutions."</p> + +<p>"But do you think, Mr. Magnet, you are sufficiently +kind to the New?" Aunt Plessington persisted.</p> + +<p>"I think we are all grateful to <i>Punch</i>," said the +Rev. Jopling Baynes suddenly and sonorously, "for +its steady determination to direct our mirth into the +proper channels. I do not think that any one can +accuse its editor of being unmindful of his great +responsibilities——"</p> + +<p>Marjorie found it a very interesting conversation.</p> + +<p>She always met her aunt again with a renewal of +a kind of admiration. That loud authoritative rudeness, +that bold thrusting forward of the Movement +until it became the sole criterion of worth or success, +this annihilation by disregard of all that Aunt Plessington +wasn't and didn't and couldn't, always in the +intervals seemed too good to be true. Of course this +really was the way people got on and made a mark, +but she felt it must be almost as trying to the nerves +as aeronautics. Suppose, somewhere up there your +engine stopped! How Aunt Plessington dominated +the table! Marjorie tried not to catch Daffy's eye. +Daffy was unostentatiously keeping things going, +watching the mustard, rescuing the butter, restraining +Theodore, and I am afraid not listening very +carefully to Aunt Plessington. The children were +marvellously silent and jumpily well-behaved, and +Mr. Pope, in a very unusual state of subdued amiability, +sat at the end of the table with the East Purblow +experiment on the tip of his tongue. He liked +Aunt Plessington, and she was good for him. They +had the same inherent distrust of the intelligence +and good intentions of their fellow creatures, and she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">-81-</a></span> +had the knack of making him feel that he too was +getting on, that she was saying things on his behalf +in influential quarters, and in spite of the almost +universal conspiracy (based on jealousy) to ignore +his stern old-world virtues, he might still be able to +battle his way to the floor of the House of Commons +and there deliver himself before he died of a few sorely +needed home-truths about motor cars, decadence +and frivolity generally....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>After lunch Aunt Plessington took her little +Madge for an energetic walk, and showed herself far +more observant than the egotism of her conversation +at that meal might have led one to suppose. Or +perhaps she was only better informed. Aunt Plessington +loved a good hard walk in the afternoon; +and if she could get any one else to accompany her, +then Hubert stayed at home, and curled up into a +ball on a sofa somewhere, and took a little siesta that +made him all the brighter for the intellectual activities +of the evening. The thought of a young life, +new, untarnished, just at the outset, just addressing +itself to the task of getting on, always stimulated her +mind extremely, and she talked to Marjorie with a +very real and effectual desire to help her to the +utmost of her ability.</p> + +<p>She talked of a start in life, and the sort of start +she had had. She showed how many people who +began with great advantages did not shove sufficiently, +and so dropped out of things and weren't seen and +mentioned. She defended herself for marrying Hubert, +and showed what a clever shoving thing it had +been to do. It startled people a little, and made them +realize that here was a woman who wanted something +more in a man than a handsome organ-grinder. She<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">-82-</a></span> +made it clear that she thought a clever marriage, if +not a startlingly brilliant one, the first duty of a +girl. It was a girl's normal gambit. She branched +off to the things single women might do, in order to +justify this view. She did not think single women +could do very much. They might perhaps shove as +suffragettes, but even there a husband helped tremendously—if +only by refusing to bail you out. +She ran over the cases of a number of prominent +single women.</p> + +<p>"And what," said Aunt Plessington, "do they +all amount to? A girl is so hampered and an old +maid is so neglected," said Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"Why don't you up and marry Mr. Magnet, +Marjorie?" she said, with her most brilliant flash.</p> + +<p>"It takes two to make a marriage, aunt," said +Marjorie after a slight hesitation.</p> + +<p>"My dear child! he worships the ground you +tread on!" said Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>"He's rather—grown up," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. He's not forty. He's just the +age."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it's a little impossible."</p> + +<p>"Impossible?"</p> + +<p>"You see I've refused him, aunt."</p> + +<p>"Naturally—the first time! But I wouldn't send +him packing the second."</p> + +<p>There was an interval.</p> + +<p>Marjorie decided on a blunt question. "Do you +really think, aunt, I should do well to marry Mr. +Magnet?"</p> + +<p>"He'd give you everything a clever woman +needs," said Aunt Plessington. "Everything."</p> + +<p>With swift capable touches she indicated the sort +of life the future Mrs. Magnet might enjoy. "He's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">-83-</a></span> +evidently a man who wants helping to a position," +she said. "Of course his farces and things, I'm told, +make no end of money, but he's just a crude gift by +himself. Money like that is nothing. With a clever +wife he might be all sorts of things. Without one +he'll just subside—you know the sort of thing this +sort of man does. A rather eccentric humorous +house in the country, golf, croquet, horse-riding, +rose-growing, queer hats."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that rather what he would like to do, +aunt?" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"That's not <i>our</i> business, Madge," said Aunt +Plessington with humorous emphasis.</p> + +<p>She began to sketch out a different and altogether +smarter future for the fortunate humorist. There +would be a house in a good central position in London +where Marjorie would have bright successful +lunches and dinners, very unpretending and very +good, and tempt the clever smart with the lure of the +interestingly clever; there would be a bright little +country cottage in some pretty accessible place to +which Aunt and Uncle Plessington and able and influential +people generally could be invited for gaily +recreative and yet extremely talkative and helpful +week-ends. Both places could be made centres of +intrigue; conspiracies for getting on and helping and +exchanging help could be organized, people could be +warned against people whose getting-on was undesirable. +In the midst of it all, dressed with all the +natural wit she had and an enlarging experience, +would be Marjorie, shining like a rising planet. It +wouldn't be long, if she did things well, before she +had permanent officials and young cabinet ministers +mingling with her salad of writers and humorists and +the Plessington connexion.</p> + +<p>"Then," said Aunt Plessington with a joyous +lift in her voice, "you'll begin to <i>weed</i> a little."</p> + +<p>For a time the girl's mind resisted her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">-84-</a></span></p> + +<p>But Marjorie was of the impressionable sex at an +impressionable age, and there was something overwhelming +in the undeviating conviction of her aunt, +in the clear assurance of her voice, that this life which +interested her was the real life, the only possible +successful life. The world reformed itself in Marjorie's +fluent mind, until it was all a scheme of +influence and effort and ambition and triumphs. Dinner-parties +and receptions, men wearing orders, +cabinet ministers more than a little in love asking her +advice, beautiful robes, a great blaze of lights; why! +she might be, said Aunt Plessington rising to enthusiasm, +"another Marcella." The life was not +without its adventurous side; it wasn't in any way +dull. Aunt Plessington to illustrate that point told +amusing anecdotes of how two almost impudent invitations +on her part had succeeded, and how she +had once scored off her elder sister by getting a +coveted celebrity through their close family resemblance. +"After accepting he couldn't very well +refuse because I wasn't somebody else," she ended +gleefully. "So he came—and stayed as long as +anybody."</p> + +<p>What else was there for Marjorie to contemplate? +If she didn't take this by no means unattractive +line, what was the alternative? Some sort +of employment after a battle with her father, a parsimonious +life, and even then the Oxbridge tradesmen +and their immortal bills....</p> + +<p>Aunt Plessington was so intent upon her theme +that she heeded nothing of the delightful little flowers +she trampled under foot across the down, nor the +jolly squirrel with an artistic temperament who saw +fit to give an uninvited opinion upon her personal +appearance from the security of a beech-tree in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">-85-</a></span> +wood. But Marjorie, noting quite a number of such +things with the corner of her mind, and being now +well under the Plessington sway, wished she had more +concentration....</p> + +<p>In the evening after supper the customary games +were suspended, and Mr. and Mrs. Plessington talked +about getting on, and work and efficiency generally, +and explained how so-and-so had spoilt his chances +in life, and why so-and-so was sure to achieve nothing, +and how this man ate too much and that man drank +too much, and on the contrary what promising and +capable people the latest adherents of and subscribers +to the Movement were, until two glasses of hot +water came—Aunt Plessington had been told it was +good for her digestion and she thought it just as well +that Hubert should have some too—and it was time +for every one to go to bed.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>Next morning an atmosphere of getting on and +strenuosity generally prevailed throughout the vicarage. +The Plessingtons were preparing a memorandum +on their movement for the "Reformer's Year +Book," every word was of importance and might win +or lose adherents and subscribers, and they secured +the undisturbed possession of the drawing-room, +from which the higher notes of Aunt Plessington's +voice explaining the whole thing to Hubert, who had +to write it out, reached, a spur to effort, into every +part of the house.</p> + +<p>Their influence touched every one.</p> + +<p>Marjorie, struck by the idea that she was not +perhaps getting on at Oxbridge so fast as she ought +to do, went into the summer-house with Marshall's +"Principles of Economics," read for two hours, and +did not think about her bills for more than a quarter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">-86-</a></span> +of the time. Rom, who had already got up early and +read through about a third of "Aurora Leigh," now +set herself with dogged determination to finish that +great poem. Syd practised an extra ten minutes—for +Aunt Plessington didn't mind practice so long as +there wasn't a tune. Mrs. Pope went into the kitchen +and made a long-needed fuss about the waste of rice. +Mr. Pope began the pamphlet he had had in contemplation +for some time upon the advantages to public +order of Payment in Kind. Theodore, who had +washed behind his ears and laced his boots in all the +holes, went into the yard before breakfast and hit a +tennis ball against the wall and back, five hundred +and twenty-two times—a record. He would have +resumed this after breakfast, but his father came +round the corner of the house with a pen in his mouth, +and asked him indistinctly, but fiercely, what the +<i>devil</i> he was doing. So he went away, and after a +fretful interval set himself to revise his Latin irregular +verbs. By twelve he had done wonders.</p> + +<p>Later in the day the widening circle of aggressive +urgency reached the kitchen, and at two the cook +gave notice in order, she said, to better herself.</p> + +<p>Lunch, unconscious of this impending shadow, +was characterized by a virtuous cheerfulness, and +Aunt Plessington told in detail how her seven and +twenty nephews and nieces, the children of her various +sisters, were all getting on. On the whole, they +were not getting on so brilliantly as they might have +done (which indeed is apt to be the case with the +children of people who have loved not well but too +wisely), and it was borne in upon the mind of the +respectfully listening Marjorie that, to borrow an +easy colloquialism of her aunt's, she might "take +the shine out of the lot of them" with a very little +zeal and effort—and of course Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>The lecture in the evening at Summerhay was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">-87-</a></span> +great success.</p> + +<p>The chair was taken by the Rev. Jopling Baynes, +Lady Petchworth was enthroned behind the table, +Hubert was in charge of his wife's notes—if notes +should be needed—and Mr. Pope, expectant of an invitation +at the end to say a few words about the East +Purblow experiment, also occupied a chair on the +platform. Lady Petchworth, with her abundant soft +blond hair, brightly blond still in spite of her fifty-five +years, her delicate features, her plump hands, her +numerous chins and her entirely inaudible voice, made +a pleasing contrast with Aunt Plessington's resolute +personality. She had perhaps an even greater assurance +of authority, but it was a quiet assurance; +you felt that she knew that if she spoke in her sleep +she would be obeyed, that it was quite unnecessary to +make herself heard. The two women, indeed, the one +so assertive, the other so established, were at the +opposite poles of authoritative British womanhood, +and harmonized charmingly. The little room struck +the note of a well-regulated brightness at every point, +it had been decorated in a Keltic but entirely respectful +style by one of Lady Petchworth's artistic discoveries, +it was lit by paraffin lamps that smelt +hardly at all, and it was gay with colour prints illustrating +the growth of the British Empire from the +battle of Ethandune to the surrender of Cronje. The +hall was fairly full. Few could afford to absent +themselves from these brightening occasions, but +there was a tendency on the part of the younger and +the less thoughtful section of the village manhood to +accumulate at the extreme back and rumble in what +appeared to be a slightly ironical spirit, so far as it +had any spirit, with its feet.</p> + +<p>The Rev. Jopling Baynes opened proceedings<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">-88-</a></span> +with a few well-chosen remarks, in which he complimented +every one present either singly or collectively +according to their rank and importance, and then +Aunt Plessington came forward to the centre of the +platform amidst a hectic flush of applause, and said +"Haw!" in a loud clear ringing tone.</p> + +<p>She spoke without resorting to the notes in Hubert's +little fist, very freely and easily. Her strangulated +contralto went into every corner of the room +and positively seemed to look for and challenge +inattentive auditors. She had come over, she said, +and she had been very glad to come over and talk to +them that night, because it meant not only seeing them +but meeting her very dear delightful friend Lady +Petchworth (loud applause) and staying for a day +or so with her brother-in-law Mr. Pope (unsupported +outburst of applause from Mr. Magnet), to whom +she and social reform generally owed so much. She +had come to talk to them that night about the National +Good Habits Movement, which was attracting so much +attention and which bore so closely on our +National Life and Character; she happened to be—here +Aunt Plessington smiled as she spoke—a humble +person connected with that movement, just a +mere woman connected with it; she was going to +explain to them as well as she could in her womanly +way and in the time at her disposal just what it was +and just what it was for, and just what means it +adopted and just what ends it had in view. Well, +they all knew what Habits were, and that there were +Good Habits and Bad Habits, and she supposed that +the difference between a good man and a bad man +was just that the good man had good habits and the +bad one had bad habits. Everybody she supposed +wanted to get on. If a man had good habits he got<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">-89-</a></span> +on, and if he had bad habits he didn't get on, and she +supposed it was the same with a country, if its people +had good habits they got on, and if its people had +bad habits they didn't get on. For her own part she +and her husband (Hubert gave a little self-conscious +jump) had always cultivated good habits, and she +had to thank him with all her heart for his help in +doing so. (Applause from the front seats.) Now, +the whole idea of her movement was to ask, how can +we raise the standard of the national habits? how can +we get rid of bad habits and cultivate good ones?... +(Here there was a slight interruption due to +some one being suddenly pushed off the end of a +form at the back, and coming to the floor with audible +violence, after which a choked and obstructed +tittering continued intermittently for some time.)</p> + +<p>Some of her audience, she remarked, had not yet +acquired the habit of sitting still.</p> + +<p>(Laughter, and a coarse vulgar voice: "Good old +Billy Punt!")</p> + +<p>Well, to resume, she and her husband had made a +special and careful study of habits; they had consulted +all sorts of people and collected all sorts of +statistics, in fact they had devoted themselves to this +question, and the conclusion to which they came was +this, that Good Habits were acquired by Training +and Bad Habits came from neglect and carelessness +and leaving people, who weren't fit for such freedom, +to run about and do just whatever they liked. And +so, she went on with a note of complete demonstration, +the problem resolved itself into the question of +how far they could get more Training into the national +life, and how they could check extravagant and +unruly and wasteful and unwise ways of living. +(Hear, hear! from Mr. Pope.) And this was the +problem she and her husband had set themselves to +solve.</p> + +<p>(Scuffle, and a boy's voice at the back, saying:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">-90-</a></span> +"Oh, <i>shut</i> it, Nuts! <span class="smcap">Shut</span> it!")</p> + +<p>Well, she and her husband had worked the thing +out, and they had come to the conclusion that what +was the matter with the great mass of English people +was first that they had rather too much loose money, +and secondly that they had rather too much loose +time. (A voice: "What O!" and the Rev. Jopling +Baynes suddenly extended his neck, knitted his brows, +and became observant of the interrupter.) She did +not say they had too much money (a second voice: +"Not Arf!"), but too much <i>loose</i> money. She did +not say they had too much time but too much loose +time, that is to say, they had money and time they +did not know how to spend properly. And so they +got into mischief. A great number of people in this +country, she maintained, and this was especially true +of the lower classes, did not know how to spend either +money or time; they bought themselves wasteful +things and injurious things, and they frittered away +their hours in all sorts of foolish, unprofitable ways. +And, after the most careful and scientific study of +this problem, she and her husband had come to the +conclusion that two main principles must underlie +any remedial measures that were attempted, the first +of which was the Principle of Payment in Kind, which +had already had so interesting a trial at the great +carriage works of East Purblow, and the second, the +Principle of Continuous Occupation, which had been +recognized long ago in popular wisdom by that +admirable proverb—or rather quotation—she believed +it was a quotation, though she gave, she feared, +very little time to poetry ("Better employed," from +Mr. Pope)—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Satan finds some mischief still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For idle hands to do."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">-91-</a></span></div></div> + +<p>(Irrepressible outbreak of wild and sustained applause +from the back seats, and in a sudden lull a +female voice asking in a flattened, thwarted tone: +"Ain't there to be no lantern then?")</p> + +<p>The lecturer went on to explain what was meant +by either member of what perhaps they would permit +her to call this double-barrelled social remedy.</p> + +<p>It was an admirable piece of lucid exposition. +Slowly the picture of a better, happier, more disciplined +England grew upon the minds of the meeting. +First she showed the new sort of employer her +movement would evoke, an employer paternal, philanthropic, +vaguely responsible for the social order +of all his dependants. (Lady Petchworth was seen +to nod her head slowly at this.) Only in the last +resort, and when he was satisfied that his worker +and his worker's family were properly housed, hygienically +clothed and fed, attending suitable courses +of instruction and free from any vicious inclinations, +would he pay wages in cash. In the discharge of the +duties of payment he would have the assistance of +expert advice, and the stimulus of voluntary inspectors +of his own class. He would be the natural clan-master, +the captain and leader, adviser and caretaker +of his banded employees. Responsibility +would stimulate him, and if responsibility did not +stimulate him, inspectors (both men and women +inspectors) would. The worker, on the other hand, +would be enormously more healthy and efficient under +the new régime. His home, designed by qualified and +officially recognized architects, would be prettier as +well as more convenient and elevating to his taste, +his children admirably trained and dressed in the new +and more beautiful clothing with which Lady Petchworth +(applause) had done so much to make them +familiar, his vital statistics compared with current<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">-92-</a></span> +results would be astonishingly good, his mind free +from any anxiety but the proper anxiety of a man +in his position, to get his work done properly and +earn recognition from those competent and duly authorized +to judge it. Of all this she spoke with the +inspiring note of absolute conviction. All this would +follow Payment in Kind and Continuous Occupation +as days follow sunrise. And there would always,—and +here Aunt Plessington's voice seemed to brighten—be +something for the worker to get on with, something +for him to do; lectures, classes, reading-rooms, +improving entertainments. His time would be filled. +The proper authorities would see that it was filled—and +filled in the right way. Never for a moment +need he be bored. He would never have an excuse +for being bored. That was the second great idea, the +complementary idea to the first. "And here it is," +she said, turning a large encouraging smile on Lady +Petchworth, "that the work of a National Theatre, +instructive, stimulating, well regulated, and morally +sustaining, would come in." He wouldn't, of course, +be <i>compelled</i> to go, but there would be his seat, part +of his payment in kind, and the public-house would +be shut, most other temptations would be removed....</p> + +<p>The lecture reached its end at last with only one +other interruption. Some would-be humorist suddenly +inquired, <i>à propos</i> of nothing: "What's the +fare to America, Billy?" and a voice, presumably +Billy's, answered him: "Mor'n <i>you'll</i> ev 'av in <i>you'</i> +pocket."</p> + +<p>The Rev. Jopling Baynes, before he called upon +Mr. Pope for his promised utterance about East +Purblow, could not refrain from pointing out how +silly "in every sense of the word" these wanton +interruptions were. What, he asked, had English +social reform to do with the fare to America?—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">-93-</a></span> +having roused the meeting to an alert silence by the +length of his pause, answered in a voice of ringing +contempt: "Nothing—<i>whatsoever</i>." Then Mr. Pope +made his few remarks about East Purblow with the +ease and finish that comes from long practice; much, +he said, had to be omitted "in view of" the restricted +time at his disposal, but he did not grudge that, the +time had been better filled. ("No, no," from Aunt +Plessington.) Yes, yes,—by the lucid and delightful +lecture they had all enjoyed, and he not least among +them. (Applause.)...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>They came out into a luminous blue night, with a +crescent young moon high overhead. It was so fine +that the Popes and the Plessingtons and Mr. Magnet +declined Lady Petchworth's proffered car, and walked +back to Buryhamstreet across the park through a +sleeping pallid cornfield, and along by the edge of +the pine woods. Mr. Pope would have liked to walk +with Mr. Magnet and explain all that the pressure on +his time had caused him to omit from his speech, and +why it was he had seen fit to omit this part and +include that. Some occult power, however, baffled +this intention, and he found himself going home in the +company of his brother-in-law and Daffy, with Aunt +Plessington and his wife like a barrier between him +and his desire. Marjorie, on the other hand, found +Mr. Magnet's proximity inevitable. They fell a little +behind and were together again for the first time +since her refusal.</p> + +<p>He behaved, she thought, with very great restraint, +and indeed he left her a little doubtful on +that occasion whether he had not decided to take<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">-94-</a></span> +her decision as final. He talked chiefly about +the lecture, which had impressed him very deeply. +Mrs. Plessington, he said, was so splendid—made +him feel trivial. He felt stirred up by her, +wanted to help in this social work, this picking +up of helpless people from the muddle in which they +wallowed.</p> + +<p>He seemed not only extraordinarily modest but +extraordinarily gentle that night, and the warm +moonshine gave his face a shadowed earnestness it +lacked in more emphatic lights. She felt the profound +change in her feelings towards him that had +followed her rejection of him. It had cleared away +his effect of oppression upon her. She had no longer +any sense of entanglement and pursuit, and all the +virtues his courtship had obscured shone clear again. +He was kindly, he was patient—and she felt something +about him a woman is said always to respect, he +gave her an impression of ability. After all, he could +banish the trouble that crushed and overwhelmed her +with a movement of his little finger. Of all her load +of debt he could earn the payment in a day.</p> + +<p>"Your aunt goes to-morrow?" he said.</p> + +<p>Marjorie admitted it.</p> + +<p>"I wish I could talk to her more. She's so inspiring."</p> + +<p>"You know of our little excursion for Friday?" +he asked after a pause.</p> + +<p>She had not heard. Friday was Theodore's +birthday; she knew it only too well because she had +had to part with her stamp collection—which very +luckily had chanced to get packed and come to Buryhamstreet—to +meet its demand. Mr. Magnet explained +he had thought it might be fun to give a +picnic in honour of the anniversary.</p> + +<p>"How jolly of you!" said Marjorie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">-95-</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's a pretty bit of river between Wamping +and Friston Hanger—I've wanted you to see it +for a long time, and Friston Hanger church has +the prettiest view. The tower gets the bend of the +river."</p> + +<p>He told her all he meant to do as if he submitted +his plans for her approval. They would drive to +Wamping and get a very comfortable little steam +launch one could hire there. Wintersloan was coming +down again; an idle day of this kind just suited +his temperament. Theodore would like it, wouldn't +he?</p> + +<p>"Theodore will think he is King of Surrey!"</p> + +<p>"I'll have a rod and line if he wants to fish. I +don't want to forget anything. I want it to be <i>his</i> +day really and truly."</p> + +<p>The slightest touch upon the pathetic note? She +could not tell.</p> + +<p>But that evening brought Marjorie nearer to +loving Magnet than she had ever been. Before she +went to sleep that night she had decided he was quite +a tolerable person again; she had been too nervous +and unjust with him. After all, his urgency and +awkwardness had been just a part of his sincerity. +Perhaps the faint doubt whether he would make his +request again gave the zest of uncertainty to his +devotion. Of course, she told herself, he would ask +again. And then the blissful air of limitless means +she might breathe. The blessed release....</p> + +<p>She was suddenly fast asleep.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 12</p> + +<p>Friday was after all not so much Theodore's day +as Mr. Magnet's.</p> + +<p>Until she found herself committed there was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">-96-</a></span> +shadow of doubt in Marjorie's mind of what she +meant to do. "Before I see you again," said Aunt +Plessington at the parting kiss, "I hope you'll have +something to tell me." She might have been Hymen +thinly disguised as an aunt, waving from the departing +train. She continued by vigorous gestures and +unstinted display of teeth and a fluttering handkerchief +to encourage Marjorie to marry Mr. Magnet, +until the curve of the cutting hid her from +view....</p> + +<p>Fortune favoured Mr. Magnet with a beautiful +day, and the excursion was bright and successful +from the outset. It was done well, and what perhaps +was more calculated to impress Marjorie, it was done +with lavish generosity. From the outset she turned a +smiling countenance upon her host. She did her +utmost to suppress a reviving irrational qualm in +her being, to maintain clearly and simply her overnight +decision, that he should propose again and that +she should accept him.</p> + +<p>Yet the festival was just a little dreamlike in its +quality to her perceptions. She found she could +not focus clearly on its details.</p> + +<p>Two waggonettes came from Wamping; there +was room for everybody and to spare, and Wamping +revealed itself a pleasant small country town with +stocks under the market hall, and just that tint of +green paint and that loafing touch the presence of +a boating river gives.</p> + +<p>The launch was brilliantly smart with abundant +crimson cushions and a tasselled awning, and away +to the left was a fine old bridge that dated in its +essentials from Plantagenet times.</p> + +<p>They started with much whistling and circling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">-97-</a></span> +and went away up river under overhanging trees that +sometimes swished the funnel, splashing the meadow +path and making the reeds and bulrushes dance with +their wash. They went through a reluctant lock, +steamed up a long reach, they passed the queerly +painted Potwell Inn with its picturesque group of +poplars and its absurd new notice-board of "Omlets." ... +Theodore was five stone of active +happiness; he and the pseudo-twins, strictly under +his orders as the universal etiquette of birthdays +prescribes, clambered round and round the boat, +clutching the awning rail and hanging over the water +in an entirely secure and perilous looking manner. +No one, unless his father happened to be upset by +something, would check him, he knew, on this auspicious +day. Mr. Magnet sat with the grey eye on +Marjorie and listened a little abstractedly to Mr. +Pope, who was telling very fully what he would say +if the Liberal party were to ask his advice at the +present juncture. Mrs. Pope attended discreetly, +and Daffy and Marjorie with a less restrained interest, +to Mr. Wintersloan, who showed them how to +make faces out of a fist tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, +how to ventriloquize, how to conjure with +halfpence—which he did very amusingly—and what +the buttons on a man's sleeve were for; Theodore +clambering at his back discovered what he was at, +and by right of birthday made him do all the faces +and tricks over again. Then Mr. Wintersloan told +stories of all the rivers along which, he said, he had +travelled in steamboats; the Rhine, the Danube, the +Hoogly and the Fall River, and particularly how he +had been bitten by a very young crocodile. "It's +the smell of the oil brings it all back to me," he said. +"And the kind of sway it gives you."</p> + +<p>He made sinuous movements of his hand, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">-98-</a></span> +looked at Marjorie with that wooden yet expressive +smile.</p> + +<p>Friston Hanger proved to be even better than +Wamping. It had a character of its own because it +was built very largely of a warm buff coloured local +rock instead of the usual brick, and the outhouses at +least of the little inn at which they landed were +thatched. Most of the cottages had casement windows +with diamond panes, and the streets were cobbled +and very up-and-down hill. The place ran to +high walls richly suggestive of hidden gardens, overhung +by big trees and pierced by secretive important +looking doors. And over it all rose an unusually big +church, with a tall buttressed tower surmounted by a +lantern of pierced stone.</p> + +<p>"We'll go through the town and look at the ruins +of the old castle beyond the church," said Mr. Magnet +to Marjorie, "and then I want you to see the +view from the church tower."</p> + +<p>And as they went through the street, he called +her attention again to the church tower in a voice +that seemed to her to be inexplicably charged with +significance. "I want you to go up there," he said.</p> + +<p>"How about something to eat, Mr. Magnet?" +remarked Theodore suddenly, and everybody felt a +little surprised when Mr. Magnet answered: "Who +wants things to eat on your birthday, Theodore?"</p> + +<p>But they saw the joke of that when they reached +the castle ruins and found in the old tilting yard, +with its ivy-covered arch framing a view of the town +and stream, a table spread with a white cloth that +shone in the sunshine, glittering with glass and silver +and gay with a bowl of salad and flowers and cold +pies and a jug of claret-cup and an ice pail—a silver +pail! containing two promising looking bottles, in the +charge of two real live waiters, in evening dress as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">-99-</a></span> +waiters should be, but with straw hats to protect +them from the sun and weather. "Oh!" cried Mrs. +Pope, "what a <i>splendid</i> idea, Mr. Magnet," when +the destination of the feast was perfectly clear, and +even Theodore seemed a little overawed—almost as +if he felt his birthday was being carried too far and +might provoke a judgment later. Manifestly Mr. +Magnet must have ordered this in London, and have +had it sent down, waiters and all! Theodore knew +he was a very wonderful little boy in spite of the +acute criticism of four devoted sisters, and Mr. +Magnet had noticed him before at times, but this +was, well, rather immense! "Look at the pie-crusts, +old man!" And on the pie-crusts, and on the icing +of the cake, their munificent host had caused to be +done in little raised letters of dough and chocolate +the word "Theodore."</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>Mr.</i> Magnet!" said Marjorie—his eye so +obviously invited her to say something. Mr. Pope +tried a nebulous joke about "groaning boards of +Frisky Hanger," and only Mr. Wintersloan restrained +his astonishment and admiration. "You could +have got those chaps in livery," he said—unheeded. +The lunch was as a matter of fact his idea; he had +refused to come unless it was provided, and he had +somehow counted on blue coats, brass buttons, and +yellow waistcoats—but everybody else of course +ascribed the whole invention to Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Pope with a fine air of epigram, +"the only thing I can say is—to eat it," and prepared +to sit down.</p> + +<p>"Melon," cried Mr. Magnet to the waiters, "we'll +begin with the melon. Have you ever tried melon +with pepper and salt, Mrs. Pope?"</p> + +<p>"You put salt in everything," admired Mr. Pope.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">-100-</a></span> +"Salt from those attics of yours—Attic salt."</p> + +<p>"Or there's ginger!" said Mr. Magnet, after a +whisper from the waiter.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope said something classical about "ginger +hot in the mouth."</p> + +<p>"Some of these days," said Mr. Wintersloan, +"when I have exhausted all other sensations, I mean +to try melon and mustard."</p> + +<p>Rom made a wonderful face at him.</p> + +<p>"I can think of worse things than that," said Mr. +Wintersloan with a hard brightness.</p> + +<p>"Not till after lunch, Mr. Wintersloan!" said +Rom heartily.</p> + +<p>"The claret cup's all right for Theodore, Mrs. +Pope," said Magnet. "It's a special twelve year old +brand." (He thought of everything!)</p> + +<p>"Mummy," said Mr. Pope. "You'd better +carve this pie, I think."</p> + +<p>"I want very much," said Mr. Magnet in Marjorie's +ear and very confidentially, "to show you the +view from the church tower. I think—it will appeal +to you."</p> + +<p>"Rom!" said Theodore, uncontrollably, in a +tremendous stage whisper. "There's peaches!... +<i>There!</i> on the hamper!"</p> + +<p>"Champagne, m'am?" said the waiter suddenly +in Mrs. Pope's ear, wiping ice-water from the bottle.</p> + +<p>(But what could it have cost him?)</p> + +<p class="title">§ 13</p> + +<p>Marjorie would have preferred that Mr. Magnet +should not have decided with such relentless determination +to make his second proposal on the church +tower. His purpose was luminously clear to her from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">-101-</a></span> +the beginning of lunch onward, and she could feel +her nerves going under the strain of that long expectation. +She tried to pull herself together, tried not +to think about it, tried to be amused by the high +spirits and nonsense of Mr. Wintersloan and Syd +and Rom and Theodore; but Mr. Magnet was very +pervasive, and her mother didn't ever look at her, +looked past her and away from her and all round her, +in a profoundly observant manner. Marjorie felt +chiefly anxious to get to the top of that predestinate +tower and have the whole thing over, and it was with +a start that she was just able to prevent one of the +assiduous waiters filling her glass with champagne +for the third time.</p> + +<p>There was a little awkwardness in dispersing after +lunch. Mr. Pope, his heart warmed by the champagne +and mellowed by a subsequent excellent cigar, +wanted very much to crack what he called a "postprandial +jest" or so with the great humorist, while +Theodore also, deeply impressed with the discovery +that there was more in Mr. Magnet than he had +supposed, displayed a strong disposition to attach +himself more closely than he had hitherto done to +this remarkable person, and study his quiet but +enormous possibilities with greater attention. Mrs. +Pope with a still alertness did her best to get people +adjusted, but Syd and Rom had conceived a base +and unnatural desire to subjugate the affections of +the youngest waiter, and wouldn't listen to her proposal +that they should take Theodore away into the +town; Mr. Wintersloan displayed extraordinary +cunning and resource in evading a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with +Mr. Pope that would have released Mr. Magnet. +Now Mrs. Pope came to think of it, Mr. Wintersloan +never had had the delights of a good talk with Mr. +Pope, he knew practically nothing about the East<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">-102-</a></span> +Purblow experiment except for what Mr. Magnet +might have retailed to him, and she was very greatly +puzzled to account for his almost manifest reluctance +to go into things thoroughly. Daffy remained on +hand, available but useless, and Mrs. Pope, smiling +at the landscape and a prey to Management within, +was suddenly inspired to take her eldest daughter +into her confidence. "Daffy," she said, with a guileful +finger extended and pointing to the lower sky +as though she was pointing out the less obvious and +more atmospheric beauties of Surrey, "get Theodore +away from Mr. Magnet if you can. He wants +to talk to Marjorie."</p> + +<p>Daffy looked round. "Shall I call him?" she +said.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mrs. Pope, "do it—just—quietly."</p> + +<p>"I'll try," said Daffy and stared at her task, and +Mrs. Pope, feeling that this might or might not succeed +but that anyhow she had done what she could, +strolled across to her husband and laid a connubial +touch upon his shoulder. "All the young people," +she said, "are burning to climb the church tower. I +never <i>can</i> understand this activity after lunch."</p> + +<p>"Not me," said Mr. Pope. "Eh, Magnet?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I'm</i> game," said Theodore. "Come along, Mr. +Magnet."</p> + +<p>"I think," said Mr. Magnet looking at Marjorie, +"I shall go up. I want to show Marjorie the view."</p> + +<p>"We'll stay here, Mummy, eh?" said Mr. Pope, +with a quite unusual geniality, and suddenly put his +arm round Mrs. Pope's waist. Her motherly eye +sought Daffy's, and indicated her mission. "I'll +come with you, Theodore," said Daffy. "There isn't +room for everyone at once up that tower."</p> + +<p>"I'll go with Mr. Magnet," said Theodore, relying +firmly on the privileges of the day....</p> + +<p>For a time they played for position, with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">-103-</a></span> +intentions of Mr. Magnet showing more and more +starkly through the moves of the game. At last +Theodore was lured down a side street by the sight of +a huge dummy fish dangling outside a tackle and bait +shop, and Mr. Magnet and Marjorie, already with a +dreadful feeling of complicity, made a movement so +rapid it seemed to her almost a bolt for the church +tower. Whatever Mr. Magnet desired to say, and +whatever elasticity his mind had once possessed with +regard to it, there can be no doubt that it had now +become so rigid as to be sayable only in that one +precise position, and in the exact order he had determined +upon. But when at last they got to that high +serenity, Mr. Magnet was far too hot and far too +much out of breath to say anything at all for a time +except an almost explosive gust or so of approbation +of the scenery. "Shor' breath!" he said, "win'ey +stairs always—that 'fect on me—buful sceny—Suwy—like +it always."</p> + +<p>Marjorie found herself violently disposed to +laugh; indeed she had never before been so near the +verge of hysterics.</p> + +<p>"It's a perfectly lovely view," she said. "No +wonder you wanted me to see it."</p> + +<p>"Naturally," said Mr. Magnet, "wanted you to +see it."</p> + +<p>Marjorie, with a skill her mother might have +envied, wriggled into a half-sitting position in an +embrasure and concentrated herself upon the broad +wooded undulations that went about the horizon, and +Mr. Magnet mopped his face with surreptitious gestures, +and took deep restoring breaths.</p> + +<p>"I've always wanted to bring you here," he said, +"ever since I found it in the spring."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">-104-</a></span></p> + +<p>"It was very kind of you, Mr. Magnet," said +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"You see," he explained, "whenever I see anything +fine or rich or splendid or beautiful now, I seem +to want it for you." His voice quickened as though +he were repeating something that had been long in +his mind. "I wish I could give you all this country. +I wish I could put all that is beautiful in the world at +your feet."</p> + +<p>He watched the effect of this upon her for a +moment.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," he said, "did you really mean what +you told me the other day, that there was indeed no +hope for me? I have a sort of feeling I bothered you +that day, that perhaps you didn't mean all——"</p> + +<p>He stopped short.</p> + +<p>"I don't think I knew what I meant," said Marjorie, +and Magnet gave a queer sound of relief at +her words. "I don't think I know what I mean now. +I don't think I can say I love you, Mr. Magnet. I +would if I could. I like you very much indeed, I +think you are awfully kind, you're more kind and +generous than anyone I have ever known...."</p> + +<p>Saying he was kind and generous made her +through some obscure association of ideas feel that +he must have understanding. She had an impulse to +put her whole case before him frankly. "I wonder," +she said, "if you can understand what it is to be a +girl."</p> + +<p>Then she saw the absurdity of her idea, of any +such miracle of sympathy. He was entirely concentrated +upon the appeal he had come prepared to +make.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," he said, "I don't ask you to love me +yet. All I ask is that you shouldn't decide <i>not</i> to +love me."</p> + +<p>Marjorie became aware of Theodore, hotly followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">-105-</a></span> +by Daffy, in the churchyard below. "I <i>know</i> +he's up there," Theodore was manifestly saying.</p> + +<p>Marjorie faced her lover gravely.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Magnet," she said, "I will certainly +promise you that."</p> + +<p>"I would rather be your servant, rather live for +your happiness, than do anything else in all the +world," said Mr. Magnet. "If you would trust your +life to me, if you would deign—." He paused to +recover his thread. "If you would deign to let me +make life what it should be for you, take every care +from your shoulders, face every responsibility——"</p> + +<p>Marjorie felt she had to hurry. She could almost +feel the feet of Theodore coming up that tower.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Magnet," she said, "you don't understand. +You don't realize what I am. You don't know how +unworthy I am—what a mere ignorant child——"</p> + +<p>"Let me be judge of that!" cried Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>They paused almost like two actors who listen +for the prompter. It was only too obvious that +both were aware of a little medley of imperfectly subdued +noises below. Theodore had got to the ladder +that made the last part of the ascent, and there Daffy +had collared him. "<i>My</i> birthday," said Theodore. +"Come down! You <i>shan't</i> go up there!" said Daffy. +"You <i>mustn't</i>, Theodore!" "Why not?" There +was something like a scuffle, and whispers. Then it +would seem Theodore went—reluctantly and with +protests. But the conflict receded.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie!" said Mr. Magnet, as though there +had been no pause, "if you would consent only to +make an experiment, if you would try to love me. +Suppose you <i>tried</i> an engagement. I do not care +how long I waited...."</p> + +<p>He paused. "Will you try?" he urged upon her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">-106-</a></span> +distressed silence.</p> + +<p>She felt as though she forced the word. "<i>Yes!</i>" +she said in a very low voice.</p> + +<p>Then it seemed to her that Mr. Magnet leapt upon +her. She felt herself pulled almost roughly from +the embrasure, and he had kissed her. She struggled +in his embrace. "Mr. Magnet!" she said. He +lifted her face and kissed her lips. "Marjorie!" he +said, and she had partly released herself.</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>don't</i> kiss me," she cried, "don't kiss me +yet!"</p> + +<p>"But a kiss!"</p> + +<p>"I don't like it."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I forgot——. But +you.... You.... I couldn't help it."</p> + +<p>She was suddenly wildly sorry for what she had +done. She felt she was going to cry, to behave absurdly.</p> + +<p>"I want to go down," she said.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie, you have made me the happiest of +men! All my life, all my strength I will spend in +showing you that you have made no mistake in trusting +me——"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said, "yes," and wondered what she +could say or do. It seemed to him that her shrinking +pose was the most tenderly modest thing he had ever +seen.</p> + +<p>"Oh my dear!" he said, and restrained himself +and took her passive hand and kissed it.</p> + +<p>"I want to go down to them!" she insisted.</p> + +<p>He paused on the topmost rungs of the ladder, +looking unspeakable things at her. Then he turned +to go down, and for the second time in her life she +saw that incipient thinness....</p> + +<p>"I am sure you will never be sorry," he said....</p> + +<p>They found Mr. and Mrs. Pope in the churchyard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">-107-</a></span> +Mr. Pope was reading with amusement for +the third time an epitaph that had caught his +fancy—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lands ever bright, days ever fair,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And yet we weep that <i>he</i> is there."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he read. "You know that's really Good. That ought +to be printed somewhere."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope glanced sharply at her daughter's +white face, and found an enigma. Then she looked at +Mr. Magnet.</p> + +<p>There was no mistake about Mr. Magnet. Marjorie +had accepted him, whatever else she had felt or +done.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 14</p> + +<p>Marjorie's feelings for the rest of the day are +only to be accounted for on the supposition that she +was overwrought. She had a preposterous reaction. +She had done this thing with her eyes open after days +of deliberation, and now she felt as though she was +caught in a trap. The clearest thing in her mind +was that Mr. Magnet had taken hold of her and +kissed her, kissed her on the lips, and that presently +he would do it again. And also she was asking herself +with futile reiteration why she had got into debt +at Oxbridge? Why she had got into debt? For such +silly little things too!</p> + +<p>Nothing definite was said in her hearing about +the engagement, but everybody seemed to understand. +Mr. Pope was the most demonstrative, he took occasion +to rap her hard upon the back, his face +crinkled with a resolute kindliness. "Ah!" he said, +"Sly Maggots!"</p> + +<p>He also administered several resounding blows<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">-108-</a></span> +to Magnet's shoulder blades, and irradiated the party +with a glow of benevolent waggery. Marjorie submitted +without an answer to these paternal intimations. +Mrs. Pope did no more than watch her +daughter. Invisible but overwhelming forces were +busy in bringing Marjorie and her glowing lover +alone together again. It happened at last, as he was +departing; she was almost to her inflamed imagination +thrust out upon him, had to take him to the +gate; and there in the shadows of the trees he kissed +her "good night" with passionate effusion.</p> + +<p>"Madge," he said, "Madge!"</p> + +<p>She made no answer. She submitted passively to +his embrace, and then suddenly and dexterously +disengaged herself from him, ran in, and without +saying good-night to anyone went to her room to +bed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope was greatly amused by this departure +from the customary routine of life, and noted it +archly.</p> + +<p>When Daffy came up Marjorie was ostentatiously +going to sleep....</p> + +<p>As she herself was dropping off Daffy became +aware of an odd sound, somehow familiar, and yet +surprising and disconcerting.</p> + +<p>Suddenly wide awake again, she started up. Yes +there was no mistake about it! And yet it was very +odd.</p> + +<p>"Madge, what's up?"</p> + +<p>No answer.</p> + +<p>"I say! you aren't crying, Madge, are you?"</p> + +<p>Then after a long interval: "<i>Madge!</i>"</p> + +<p>An answer came in a muffled voice, almost as if +Marjorie had something in her mouth. "Oh shut +it, old Daffy."</p> + +<p>"But Madge?" said Daffy after reflection.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">-109-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Shut it. <i>Do</i> shut it! Leave me alone, I say! +Can't you leave me alone? Oh!"—and for a moment +she let her sobs have way with her—"Daffy, don't +worry me. Old Daffy! <i>Please!</i>"</p> + +<p>Daffy sat up for a long time in the stifled silence +that ensued, and then like a sensible sister gave it up, +and composed herself again to slumber....</p> + +<p>Outside watching the window in a state of nebulous +ecstasy, was Mr. Magnet, moonlit and dewy. It +was a high serene night with a growing moon and a +scattered company of major stars, and if no choir +of nightingales sang there was at least a very active +nightjar. "More than I hoped," whispered Mr. +Magnet, "more than I dared to hope." He was very +sleepy, but it seemed to him improper to go to bed +on such a night—on such an occasion.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Man Who Fell Out of the Sky</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>For the next week Marjorie became more nearly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">-110-</a></span> +introspective than she had ever been in her life before. +She began to doubt her hitherto unshaken conviction +that she was a single, consistent human being. +She found such discords and discrepancies between +mood and mood, between the conviction of this hour +and the feeling of that, that it seemed to her she was +rather a collection of samples of emotion and attitude +than anything so simple as an individual.</p> + +<p>For example, there can be no denying there was +one Marjorie in the bundle who was immensely set +up by the fact that she was engaged, and going to be +at no very remote date mistress of a London house. +She was profoundly Plessingtonian, and quite the +vulgarest of the lot. The new status she had attained +and the possibly beautiful house and the probably +successful dinner-parties and the arrangements and +the importance of such a life was the substance of +this creature's thought. She designed some queenly +dresses. This was the Marjorie most in evidence when +it came to talking with her mother and Daphne. I +am afraid she patronized Daphne, and ignored the +fact that Daphne, who had begun with a resolute +magnanimity, was becoming annoyed and resentful.</p> + +<p>And she thought of things she might buy, and the +jolly feeling of putting them about and making fine +effects with them. One thing she told Daphne, she +had clearly resolved upon; the house should be always +full and brimming over with beautiful flowers. "I've +always wished mother would have more flowers—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">-111-</a></span> +not keep them so long when she has them...."</p> + +<p>Another Marjorie in the confusion of her mind +was doing her sincerest, narrow best to appreciate +and feel grateful for and return the devotion of Mr. +Magnet. This Marjorie accepted and even elaborated +his views, laid stress on his voluntary subjection, +harped upon his goodness, brought her to kiss him.</p> + +<p>"I don't deserve all this love," this side of Marjorie +told Magnet. "But I mean to learn to love +you——"</p> + +<p>"My dear one!" cried Magnet, and pressed her +hand....</p> + +<p>A third Marjorie among the many was an altogether +acuter and less agreeable person. She was a +sprite of pure criticism, and in spite of the utmost +efforts to suppress her, she declared night and day in +the inner confidences of Marjorie's soul that she did +not believe in Mr. Magnet's old devotion at all. She +was anti-Magnet, a persistent insurgent. She was +dreadfully unsettling. It was surely this Marjorie +that wouldn't let the fact of his baldness alone, and +who discovered and insisted upon a curious unbeautiful +flatness in his voice whenever he was doing his +best to speak from the heart. And as for this devotion, +what did it amount to? A persistent unimaginative +besetting of Marjorie, a growing air of +ownership, an expansive, indulgent, smiling disposition +to thwart and control. And he was always +touching her! Whenever he came near her she would +wince at the freedoms a large, kind hand might take +with her elbow or wrist, at a possible sudden, clumsy +pat at some erring strand of hair.</p> + +<p>Then there was an appraising satisfaction in his +eye.</p> + +<p>On the third day of their engagement he began, +quite abruptly, to call her "Magsy." "We'll end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">-112-</a></span> +this scandal of a Girl Pope," he said. "Magsy +Magnet, you'll be—M.M. No women M.P.'s for <i>us</i>, +Magsy...."</p> + +<p>She became acutely critical of his intellectual +quality. She listened with a new alertness to the +conversations at the dinner-table, the bouts of wit +with her father. She carried off utterances and +witticism for maturer reflection. She was amazed to +find how little they could withstand the tests and +acids of her mind. So many things, such wide and +interesting fields, he did not so much think about as +cover with a large enveloping shallowness....</p> + +<p>He came strolling around the vicarage into the +garden one morning about eleven, though she had not +expected him until lunch-time; and she was sitting +with her feet tucked up on the aged but still practicable +garden-seat reading Shaw's "Common Sense of +Municipal Trading." He came and leant over the +back of the seat, and she looked up, said "Good +morning. Isn't it perfectly lovely?" and indicated +by a book still open that her interest in it remained +alive.</p> + +<p>"What's the book, Magsy?" he asked, took it +out of her slightly resisting hand, closed it and read +the title. "Um," he said; "Isn't this a bit stiff for +little women's brains?"</p> + +<p>All the rebel Marjories were up in arms at that.</p> + +<p>"Dreadful word, 'Municipal.' I <i>don't</i> like it." +He shook his head with a grimace of humorous distaste.</p> + +<p>"I suppose women have as good brains as men," +said Marjorie, "if it comes to that."</p> + +<p>"Better," said Magnet. "That's why they +shouldn't trouble about horrid things like Municipal +and Trading.... On a day like this!"</p> + +<p>"Don't you think this sort of thing is interesting?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">-113-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh!" he said, and flourished the book. "Come! +And besides—<i>Shaw!</i>"</p> + +<p>"He makes a very good case."</p> + +<p>"But he's such a—mountebank."</p> + +<p>"Does that matter? He isn't a mountebank +there."</p> + +<p>"He's not sincere. I doubt if you had a serious +book on Municipal Trading, Magsy, whether you'd +make head or tail of it. It's a stiff subject. Shaw +just gets his chance for a smart thing or so.... +I'd rather you read a good novel."</p> + +<p>He really had the air of taking her reading in +hand.</p> + +<p>"You think I ought not to read an intelligent +book."</p> + +<p>"I think we ought to leave those things to the +people who understand."</p> + +<p>"But we ought to understand."</p> + +<p>He smiled wisely. "There's a lot of things <i>you</i> +have to understand," he said, "nearer home than +this."</p> + +<p>Marjorie was ablaze now. "What a silly thing to +say!" she cried, with an undergraduate's freedom. +"Really, you are talking nonsense! I read that book +because it interests me. If I didn't, I should read +something else. Do you mean to suggest that I'm +reading like a child, who holds a book upside down?"</p> + +<p>She was so plainly angry that he was taken aback. +"I don't mean to suggest—" he began, and turned +to greet the welcome presence, the interrogative eye +of Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Here we are!" he said, "having a quarrel!"</p> + +<p>"Marjorie!" said Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it's serious!" said Mr. Magnet, and added<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">-114-</a></span> +with a gleam: "It's about Municipal Trading!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope knew the wicked little flicker in Marjorie's +eye better than Mr. Magnet. She had known +it from the nursery, and yet she had never quite mastered +its meaning. She had never yet realized it was +Marjorie, she had always regarded it as something +Marjorie, some other Marjorie, ought to keep under +control. So now she adopted a pacificatory tone.</p> + +<p>"Oh! lovers' quarrels," she said, floating over the +occasion. "Lovers' quarrels. You mustn't ask <i>me</i> +to interfere!"</p> + +<p>Marjorie, already a little ashamed of her heat, +thought for an instant she ought to stand that, and +then decided abruptly with a return to choler that she +would not do so. She stood up, and held out her hand +for her book.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Magnet," she said to her mother with remarkable +force and freedom as she took it, "has been +talking unutterable nonsense. I don't call that a +lovers' quarrel—anyhow."</p> + +<p>Then, confronted with a double astonishment, and +having no more to say, she picked up her skirt quite +unnecessarily, and walked with a heavenward chin +indoors.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid," explained Mr. Magnet, "I was a +little too free with one of Magsy's favourite authors."</p> + +<p>"Which is the favourite author now?" asked Mrs. +Pope, after a reflective pause, with a mother's indulgent +smile.</p> + +<p>"Shaw." He raised amused eyebrows. "It's +just the age, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"She's frightfully loyal while it lasts," said Mrs. +Pope. "No one dare say a word against them."</p> + +<p>"I think it's adorable of her," said Mr. Magnet—with +an answering loyalty and gusto.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">-115-</a></span></p> + +<p>The aviation accident occurred while Mrs. Pope, +her two eldest daughters, and Mr. Magnet were playing +golf-croquet upon the vicarage lawn. It was a +serene, hot afternoon, a little too hot to take a game +seriously, and the four little figures moved slowly +over the green and grouped and dispersed as the game +required. Mr. Magnet was very fond of golf-croquet, +he displayed a whimsical humour and much invention +at this game, it was not too exacting physically; and +he could make his ball jump into the air in the absurdest +manner. Occasionally he won a laugh from Marjorie +or Daffy. No one else was in sight; the pseudo-twins +and Theodore and Toupee were in the barn, and +Mr. Pope was six miles away at Wamping, lying +prone, nibbling grass blades and watching a county +cricket match, as every good Englishman, who knows +what is expected of him, loves to do.... Click +went ball and mallet, and then after a long interval, +click. It seemed incredible that anything could possibly +happen before tea.</p> + +<p>But this is no longer the world it was. Suddenly +this tranquil scene was slashed and rent by the sound +and vision of a monoplane tearing across the heavens.</p> + +<p>A purring and popping arrested Mr. Magnet in +mid jest, and the monster came sliding up the sky +over the trees beside the church to the east, already +near enough to look big, a great stiff shape, big buff +sails stayed with glittering wire, and with two odd +little wheels beneath its body. It drove up the sky, +rising with a sort of upward heaving, until the croquet +players could see the driver and a passenger +perched behind him quite clearly. It passed a little +to the right of the church tower and only a few yards +above the level of the flagstaff, there wasn't fifty feet +of clearance altogether, and as it did so Marjorie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">-116-</a></span> +could see both driver and passenger making hasty +movements. It became immense and over-shadowing, +and every one stood rigid as it swept across the sun +above the vicarage chimneys. Then it seemed to drop +twenty feet or so abruptly, and then both the men +cried out as it drove straight for the line of poplars +between the shrubbery and the meadow. "Oh, oh, +OH!" cried Mrs. Pope and Daffy. Evidently the +aviator was trying to turn sharply; the huge thing +banked, but not enough, and came about and slipped +away until its wing was slashing into the tree tops +with a thrilling swish of leaves and the snapping of +branches and stays.</p> + +<p>"Run!" cried Magnet, and danced about the lawn, +and the three ladies rushed sideways as the whole +affair slouched down on them. It came on its edge, +hesitated whether to turn over as a whole, then crumpled, +and amidst a volley of smashing and snapping +came to rest amidst ploughed-up turf, a clamorous +stench of petrol, and a cloud of dust and blue smoke +within twenty yards of them. The two men had +jumped to clear the engine, had fallen headlong, and +were now both covered by the fabric of the shattered +wing.</p> + +<p>It was all too spectacular for word or speech until +the thing lay still. Even then the croquet players +stood passive for awhile waiting for something to +happen. It took some seconds to reconcile their minds +to this sudden loss of initiative in a monster that had +been so recently and threateningly full of go. It +seemed quite a long time before it came into Marjorie's +head that she ought perhaps to act in some +way. She saw a tall young man wriggling on all +fours from underneath the wreckage of fabric. He +stared at her rather blankly. She went forward +with a vague idea of helping him. He stood up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">-117-</a></span> +swayed doubtfully on his legs, turned, and became +energetic, struggling mysteriously with the edge of +the left wing. He gasped and turned fierce blue eyes +over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Help me to hold the confounded thing up!" he +cried, with a touch of irritation in his voice at her +attitude.</p> + +<p>Marjorie at once seized the edge of the plane and +pushed. The second man, in a peculiar button-shaped +head-dress, was lying crumpled up underneath, +his ear and cheek were bright with blood, and +there was a streak of blood on the ground near his +head.</p> + +<p>"That's right. Can you hold it if I use only one +hand?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie gasped "Yes," with a terrific weight as +it seemed suddenly on her wrists.</p> + +<p>"Right O," and the tall young man had thrust +himself backwards under the plane until it rested on +his back, and collared the prostrate man. "Keep it +up!" he said fiercely when Marjorie threatened to +give way. He seemed to assume that she was there +to obey orders, and with much grunting and effort +he had dragged his companion clear of the wreckage.</p> + +<p>The man's face was a mass of blood, and he was +sickeningly inert to his companion's lugging.</p> + +<p>"Let it go," said the tall young man, and Marjorie +thanked heaven as the broken wing flapped +down again.</p> + +<p>She came helpfully to his side, and became aware +of Daffy and her mother a few paces off. Magnet—it +astonished her—was retreating hastily. But he +had to go away because the sight of blood upset him—so +much that it was always wiser for him to go +away.</p> + +<p>"Is he hurt?" cried Mrs. Pope.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">-118-</a></span></p> + +<p>"We both are," said the tall young man, and +then as though these other people didn't matter and +he and Marjorie were old friends, he said: "Can we +turn him over?"</p> + +<p>"I think so." Marjorie grasped the damaged +man's shoulder and got him over skilfully.</p> + +<p>"Will you get some water?" said the tall young +man to Daffy and Mrs. Pope, in a way that sent +Daffy off at once for a pail.</p> + +<p>"He wants water," she said to the parlourmaid +who was hurrying out of the house.</p> + +<p>The tall young man had gone down on his knees +by his companion, releasing his neck, and making a +hasty first examination of his condition. "The pneumatic +cap must have saved his head," he said, throwing +the thing aside. "Lucky he had it. He can't be +badly hurt. Just rubbed his face along the ground. +Silly thing to have come as we did."</p> + +<p>He felt the heart, and tried the flexibility of an +arm.</p> + +<p>"<i>That's</i> all right," he said.</p> + +<p>He became judicial and absorbed over the problems +of his friend's side. "Um," he remarked. He +knelt back and regarded Marjorie for the first time. +"Thundering smash," he said. His face relaxed into +an agreeable smile. "He only bought it last week."</p> + +<p>"Is he hurt?"</p> + +<p>"Rib, I think—or two ribs perhaps. Stunned +rather. All <i>this</i>—just his nose."</p> + +<p>He regarded Marjorie and Marjorie him for a +brief space. He became aware of Mrs. Pope on his +right hand. Then at a clank behind, he turned round +to see Daphne advancing with a pail of water. The +two servants were now on the spot, and the odd-job +man, and the old lady who did out the church, and +Magnet hovered doubtfully in the distance. Suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">-119-</a></span> +with shouts and barks of sympathetic glee the +pseudo-twins, Theodore and Toupee shot out of the +house. New thoughts were stirring in the young +aviator. He rose, wincing a little as he did so. "I'm +afraid I'm a little rude," he said.</p> + +<p>"I do hope your friend isn't hurt," said Mrs. +Pope, feeling the duty of a hostess.</p> + +<p>"He's not hurt <i>much</i>—so far as I can see. +Haven't we made rather a mess of your lawn?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, not at all!" said Mrs. Pope.</p> + +<p>"We have. If that is your gardener over there, +it would be nice if he kept back the people who seem +to be hesitating beyond those trees. There will be +more presently. I'm afraid I must throw myself on +your hands." He broke into a chuckle for a moment. +"I have, you know. Is it possible to get a doctor? +My friend's not hurt so very much, but still he wants +expert handling. He's Sir Rupert Solomonson, +from"—he jerked his head back—"over beyond +Tunbridge Wells. My name's Trafford."</p> + +<p>"I'm Mrs. Pope and these are my daughters."</p> + +<p>Trafford bowed. "We just took the thing out +for a lark," he said.</p> + +<p>Marjorie had been regarding the prostrate man. +His mouth was a little open, and he showed beautiful +teeth. Apart from the dry blood upon him he was +not an ill-looking man. He was manifestly a Jew, a +square-rigged Jew (you have remarked of course that +there are square-rigged Jews, whose noses are within +bounds, and fore-and-aft Jews, whose noses aren't), +with not so much a bullet-head as a round-shot, +cropped like the head of a Capuchin monkey. Suddenly +she was down and had his head on her knee, +with a quick movement that caught Trafford's eye. +"He's better," she said. "His eyelids flickered. +Daffy, bring the water."</p> + +<p>She had felt a queer little repugnance at first with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">-120-</a></span> +this helpless man, but now that professional nurse +who lurks in the composition of so many women, was +uppermost. "Give me your handkerchief," she said +to Trafford, and with Daffy kneeling beside her and +also interested, and Mrs. Pope a belated but more +experienced and authoritative third, Sir Rupert was +soon getting the best of attention.</p> + +<p>"Wathall..." said Sir Rupert suddenly, +and tried again: "Wathall." A third effort gave +"Wathall about, eh?"</p> + +<p>"If we could get him into the shade," said +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Woosh," cried Sir Rupert. "Weeeooo!"</p> + +<p>"That's all right," said Trafford. "It's only a +rib or two."</p> + +<p>"Eeeeeyoooo!" said Sir Rupert.</p> + +<p>"Exactly. We're going to carry you out of the +glare."</p> + +<p>"Don't touch me," said Sir Rupert. "Gooo."</p> + +<p>It took some little persuasion before Sir Rupert +would consent to be moved, and even then he was for +a time—oh! crusty. But presently Trafford and the +two girls had got him into the shade of a large bush +close to where in a circle of rugs and cushions the tea +things lay prepared. There they camped. The helpful +odd-job man was ordered to stave off intruders +from the village; water, towels, pillows were forthcoming. +Mr. Magnet reappeared as tentative assistance, +and Solomonson became articulate and brave +and said he'd nothing but a stitch in his side. In his +present position he wasn't at all uncomfortable. Only +he didn't want any one near him. He enforced that +by an appealing smile. The twins, invited to fetch +the doctor, declined, proffering Theodore. They +had conceived juvenile passions for the tall young +man, and did not want to leave him. He certainly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">-121-</a></span> +had a very nice face. So Theodore after walking +twice round the wreckage, tore himself away and +departed on Rom's bicycle. Enquiry centred on +Solomonson for a time. His face, hair and neck +were wet but no longer bloody, and he professed +perfect comfort so long as he wasn't moved, and no +one came too near him. He was very clear about +that though perfectly polite, and scrutinized their +faces to see if they were equally clear. Satisfied upon +this point he closed his eyes and spoke no more. He +looked then like a Capuchin monkey lost in pride. +There came a pause. Every one was conscious of +having risen to an emergency and behaved well under +unusual circumstances. The young man's eye rested +on the adjacent tea-things, lacking nothing but the +coronation of the teapot.</p> + +<p>"Why not," he remarked, "have tea?"</p> + +<p>"If you think your friend——" began Mrs. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>he's</i> all right. Aren't you, Solomonson? +There's nothing more now until the doctor."</p> + +<p>"Only want to be left alone," said Solomonson, +and closed his heavy eyelids again.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope told the maids, with an air of dismissal, +to get tea.</p> + +<p>"We can keep an eye on him," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>Marjorie surveyed her first patient with a pretty +unconscious mixture of maternal gravity and girlish +interest, and the twins to avoid too openly gloating +upon the good looks of Trafford, chose places and +secured cushions round the tea-things, calculating +to the best of their ability how they might secure +the closest proximity to him. Mr. Magnet and +Toupee had gone to stare at the monoplane; they +were presently joined by the odd-job man in an +interrogative mood. "Pretty complete smash, sir!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">-122-</a></span> +said the odd-job man, and then perceiving heads over +the hedge by the churchyard, turned back to his duty +of sentinel. Daffy thought of the need of more cups +and plates and went in to get them, and Mrs. Pope +remarked that she did hope Sir Rupert was not badly +hurt....</p> + +<p>"Extraordinary all this is," remarked Mr. Trafford. +"Now, here we were after lunch, twenty miles +away—smoking cigars and with no more idea of having +tea with you than—I was going to say—flying. +But that's out of date now. Then we just thought +we'd try the thing.... Like a dream."</p> + +<p>He addressed himself to Marjorie: "I never feel +that life is quite real until about three days after +things have happened. Never. Two hours ago I had +not the slightest intention of ever flying again."</p> + +<p>"But haven't you flown before?" asked Mrs. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"Not much. I did a little at Sheppey, but it's so +hard for a poor man to get his hands on a machine. +And here was Solomonson, with this thing in his +hangar, eating its head off. Let's take it out," I +said, "and go once round the park. And here we +are.... I thought it wasn't wise for him to +come...."</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert, without opening his eyes, was understood +to assent.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said Trafford, "The sight of +your tea makes me feel frightfully hungry."</p> + +<p>"I don't think the engine's damaged?" he said +cheerfully, "do you?" as Magnet joined them. "The +ailerons are in splinters, and the left wing's not much +better. But that's about all except the wheels. One +falls so much lighter than you might suppose—from +the smash.... Lucky it didn't turn over. Then, +you know, the engine comes on the top of you, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">-123-</a></span> +you're done."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>The doctor arrived after tea, with a bag and a +stethoscope in a small coffin-like box, and the Popes +and Mr. Magnet withdrew while Sir Rupert was +carefully sounded, tested, scrutinized, questioned, +watched and examined in every way known to medical +science. The outcome of the conference was presently +communicated to the Popes by Mr. Trafford +and the doctor. Sir Rupert was not very seriously +injured, but he was suffering from concussion and +shock, two of his ribs were broken and his wrist +sprained, unless perhaps one of the small bones was +displaced. He ought to be bandaged up and put to +bed....</p> + +<p>"Couldn't we—" said Mrs. Pope, but the doctor +assured her his own house was quite the best place. +There Sir Rupert could stay for some days. At +present the cross-country journey over the Downs +or by the South Eastern Railway would be needlessly +trying and painful. He would with the Popes' +permission lie quietly where he was for an hour or so, +and then the doctor would come with a couple of men +and a carrying bed he had, and take him off to his +own house. There he would be, as Mr. Trafford said, +"as right as ninepence," and Mr. Trafford could put +up either at the Red Lion with Mr. Magnet or in the +little cottage next door to the doctor. (Mr. Trafford +elected for the latter as closer to his friend.) +As for the smashed aeroplane, telegrams would be +sent at once to Sir Rupert's engineers at Chesilbury, +and they would have all that cleared away by mid-day +to-morrow....</p> + +<p>The doctor departed; Sir Rupert, after stimulants,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">-124-</a></span> +closed his eyes, and Mr. Trafford seated himself +at the tea-things for some more cake, as though +introduction by aeroplane was the most regular thing +in the world.</p> + +<p>He had very pleasant and easy manners, an entire +absence of self-consciousness, and a quick talkative +disposition that made him very rapidly at home with +everybody. He described all the sensations of flight, +his early lessons and experiments, and in the utmost +detail the events of the afternoon that had led to this +disastrous adventure. He made his suggestion of +"trying the thing" seem the most natural impulse +in the world. The bulk of the conversation fell on +him; Mr. Magnet, save for the intervention of one +or two jests, was quietly observant; the rest were well +disposed to listen. And as Mr. Trafford talked his +eye rested ever and again on Marjorie with the +faintest touch of scrutiny and perplexity, and she, +too, found a curious little persuasion growing up in +her mind that somewhere, somehow, she and he had +met and had talked rather earnestly. But how and +where eluded her altogether....</p> + +<p>They had sat for an hour—the men from the +doctor's seemed never coming—when Mr. Pope returned +unexpectedly from his cricket match, which +had ended a little prematurely in a rot on an over-dry +wicket. He was full of particulars of the day's +play, and how Wiper had got a most amazing catch +and held it, though he fell; how Jenks had deliberately +bowled at a man's head, he believed, and little +Gibbs thrown a man out from slip. He was burning +to tell all this in the utmost detail to Magnet and his +family, so that they might at least share the retrospect +of his pleasure. He had thought out rather a +good pun on Wiper, and he was naturally a little +thwarted to find all this good, rich talk crowded out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">-125-</a></span> +by a more engrossing topic.</p> + +<p>At the sight of a stranger grouped in a popular +manner beside the tea-things, he displayed a slight +acerbity, which was if anything increased by the discovery +of a prostrate person with large brown eyes +and an expression of Oriental patience and disdain, +in the shade of a bush near by. At first he seemed +scarcely to grasp Mrs. Pope's explanations, and regarded +Sir Rupert with an expression that bordered +on malevolence. Then, when his attention was directed +to the smashed machine upon the lawn, he broke +out into a loud indignant: "Good God! What next?"</p> + +<p>He walked towards the wreckage, disregarding +Mr. Trafford beside him. "A man can't go away +from his house for an hour!" he complained.</p> + +<p>"I can assure you we did all we could to prevent +it," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Ought never to have had it to prevent," said +Mr. Pope. "Is your friend hurt?"</p> + +<p>"A rib—and shock," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Well—he deserves it," said Mr. Pope. "Rather +than launch myself into the air in one of those infernal +things, I'd be stood against a wall and shot."</p> + +<p>"Tastes differ, of course," said Trafford, with +unruffled urbanity.</p> + +<p>"You'll have all this cleared away," said Mr. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"Mechanics—oh! a complete break-down party—are +speeding to us in fast motors," said Trafford. +"Thanks to the kindness of your domestic in taking +a telegram for me."</p> + +<p>"Hope they won't kill any one," said Mr. Pope, +and just for a moment the conversation hung fire. +"And your friend?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"He goes in the next ten minutes—well, whenever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">-126-</a></span> +the litter comes from the doctor's. Poor old Solomonson!"</p> + +<p>"Solomonson?"</p> + +<p>"Sir Rupert."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Mr. Pope. "Is that the Pigmentation +Solomonson?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he does do some beastly company of +that sort," said Trafford. "Isn't it amazing we +didn't smash our engine?"</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert Solomonson was indeed a familiar +name to Mr. Pope. He had organized the exploitation +of a number of pigment and bye-product patents, +and the ordinary and deferred shares of his syndicate +has risen to so high a price as to fill Mr. Pope +with the utmost confidence in their future; indeed he +had bought considerably, withdrawing capital to do +so from an Argentine railway whose stock had awakened +his distaste and a sort of moral aversion by +slumping heavily after a bad wheat and linseed harvest. +This discovery did much to mitigate his first +asperity, his next remark to Trafford was almost +neutral, and he was even asking Sir Rupert whether +he could do anything to make him comfortable, when +the doctor returned with a litter, borne by four hastily +compiled bearers.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>Some brightness seemed to vanish when the buoyant +Mr. Trafford, still undauntedly cheerful, limped +off after his more injured friend, and disappeared +through the gate. Marjorie found herself in a world +whose remaining manhood declined to see anything +but extreme annoyance in this gay, exciting rupture +of the afternoon. "Good God!" said Mr. Pope. +"What next? What next?"</p> + +<p>"Registration, I hope," said Mr. Magnet,—"and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">-127-</a></span> +relegation to the desert of Sahara."</p> + +<p>"One good thing about it," said Mr. Pope—"it +all wastes petrol. And when the petrol supply gives +out—they're done."</p> + +<p>"Certainly we might all have been killed!" said +Mrs. Pope, feeling she had to bear her witness against +their visitors, and added: "If we hadn't moved out +of the way, that is."</p> + +<p>There was a simultaneous movement towards the +shattered apparatus, about which a small contingent +of villagers, who had availed themselves of the withdrawal +of the sentinel, had now assembled.</p> + +<p>"Look at it!" said Mr. Pope, with bitter hostility. +"Look at it!"</p> + +<p>Everyone had anticipated his command.</p> + +<p>"They'll never come to anything," said Mr. +Pope, after a pause of silent hatred.</p> + +<p>"But they <i>have</i> to come to something," said +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"They've come to smash!" said Mr. Magnet, +with the true humorist's air.</p> + +<p>"But consider the impudence of this invasion, the +wild—objectionableness of it!"</p> + +<p>"They're nasty things," said Mr. Magnet. +"Nasty things!"</p> + +<p>A curious spirit of opposition stirred in Marjorie. +It seemed to her that men who play golf-croquet +and watch cricket matches have no business to +contemn men who risk their lives in the air. She +sought for some controversial opening.</p> + +<p>"Isn't the engine rather wonderful?" she remarked.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet regarded the engine with his head a +little on one side. "It's the usual sort," he said.</p> + +<p>"There weren't engines like that twenty years +ago."</p> + +<p>"There weren't people like <i>you</i> twenty years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">-128-</a></span> +ago," said Mr. Magnet, smiling wisely and kindly, +and turned his back on the thing.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope followed suit. He was filled with the +bitter thought that he would never now be able to tell +the history of the remarkable match he had witnessed. +It was all spoilt for him—spoilt for ever. Everything +was disturbed and put out.</p> + +<p>"They've left us our tennis lawn," he said, with +a not unnatural resentment passing to invitation. +"What do you say, Magnet? Now you've begun +the game you must keep it up?"</p> + +<p>"If Marjorie, or Mrs. Pope, or Daffy...?" +said Magnet.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope declared the house required her. And +so with the gravest apprehensions, and an insincere +compliment to their father's energy, Daffy and Marjorie +made up a foursome for that healthy and invigorating +game. But that evening Mr. Pope got +his serve well into the bay of the sagging net almost +at once, and with Marjorie in the background taking +anything he left her, he won quite easily, and everything +became pleasant again. Magnet gloated upon +Marjorie and served her like a missionary giving +Bibles to heathen children, he seemed always looking +at her instead of the ball, and except for a slight +disposition on the part of Daffy to slash, nothing +could have been more delightful. And at supper Mr. +Pope, rather crushing his wife's attempt to recapitulate +the more characteristic sayings and doings of +Sir Rupert and his friend, did after all succeed in +giving every one a very good idea indeed of the more +remarkable incidents of the cricket match at Wamping, +and made the pun he had been accustomed to +use upon the name of Wiper in a new and improved +form. A general talk about cricket and the Immense +Good of cricket followed. Mr. Pope said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">-129-</a></span> +he would make cricket-playing compulsory for every +English boy.</p> + +<p>Everyone it seemed to Marjorie was forgetting +that dark shape athwart the lawn, and all the immense +implication of its presence, with a deliberate +and irrational skill, and she noted that the usual +move towards the garden at the end of the evening +was not made.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>In the night time Marjorie had a dream that she +was flying about in the world on a monoplane with +Mr. Trafford as a passenger.</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Trafford disappeared, and she was flying +about alone with a curious uneasy feeling that in +a minute or so she would be unable any longer to +manage the machine.</p> + +<p>Then her father and Mr. Magnet appeared very +far below, walking about and disapproving of her. +Mr. Magnet was shaking his head very, very sagely, +and saying: "Rather a stiff job for little Marjorie," +and her father was saying she would be steadier when +she married. And then, she wasn't clear how, the +engine refused to work until her bills were paid, and +she began to fall, and fall, and fall towards Mr. +Magnet. She tried frantically to pay her bills. She +was falling down the fronts of skyscrapers and precipices—and +Mr. Magnet was waiting for her below +with a quiet kindly smile that grew wider and wider +and wider....</p> + +<p>She woke up palpitating.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Next morning a curious restlessness came upon +Marjorie. Conceivably it was due to the absence of +Magnet, who had gone to London to deliver his long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">-130-</a></span> +promised address on The Characteristics of English +Humour to the <i>Literati</i> Club. Conceivably she missed +his attentions. But it crystallized out in the early +afternoon into the oddest form, a powerful craving +to go to the little town of Pensting, five miles off, on +the other side of Buryhamstreet, to buy silk shoelaces.</p> + +<p>She decided to go in the donkey cart. She communicated +her intention to her mother, but she did +not communicate an equally definite intention to be +reminded suddenly of Sir Rupert Solomonson as she +was passing the surgery, and make an inquiry on the +spur of the moment—it wouldn't surely be anything +but a kindly and justifiable impulse to do that. She +might see Mr. Trafford perhaps, but there was no +particular harm in that.</p> + +<p>It is also to be remarked that finding Theodore a +little disposed to encumber her vehicle with his presence +she expressed her delight at being released from +the need of going, and abandoned the whole expedition +to him—knowing as she did perfectly well that if +Theodore hated anything more than navigating the +donkey cart alone, it was going unprotected into a +shop to buy articles of feminine apparel—until he +chucked the whole project and went fishing—if one +can call it fishing when there are no fish and the +fisherman knows it—in the decadent ornamental +water.</p> + +<p>And it is also to be remarked that as Marjorie +approached the surgery she was seized with an absurd +and powerful shyness, so that not only did she +not call at the surgery, she did not even look at the +surgery, she gazed almost rigidly straight ahead, +telling herself, however, that she merely deferred that +kindly impulse until she had bought her laces. And +so it happened that about half a mile beyond the end +of Buryhamstreet she came round a corner upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">-131-</a></span> +Trafford, and by a singular fatality he also was +driving a donkey, or, rather, was tracing a fan-like +pattern on the road with a donkey's hoofs. It was a +very similar donkey to Marjorie's, but the vehicle +was a governess cart, and much smarter than Marjorie's +turn-out. His ingenuous face displayed great +animation at the sight of her, and as she drew alongside +he hailed her with an almost unnatural ease of +manner.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" he cried. "I'm taking the air. You +seem to be able to drive donkeys forward. How do +you do it? I can't. Never done anything so dangerous +in my life before. I've just been missed by two +motor cars, and hung for a terrible minute with my +left wheel on the very verge of an unfathomable +ditch. I could hear the little ducklings far, far below, +and bits of mould dropping. I tried to count before +the splash. Aren't you—<i>white?</i>"</p> + +<p>"But why are you doing it?"</p> + +<p>"One must do something. I'm bandaged up and +can't walk. It hurt my leg more than I knew—your +doctor says. Solomonson won't talk of anything but +how he feels, and <i>I</i> don't care a rap how he feels. So +I got this thing and came out with it."</p> + +<p>Marjorie made her inquiries. There came a little +pause.</p> + +<p>"Some day no one will believe that men were ever +so foolish as to trust themselves to draught animals," +he remarked. "Hullo! Look out! The horror of +it!"</p> + +<p>A large oil van—a huge drum on wheels—motor-driven, +had come round the corner, and after a preliminary +and quite insufficient hoot, bore down upon +them, and missing Trafford as it seemed by a miracle, +swept past. Both drivers did wonderful things with +whips and reins, and found themselves alone in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">-132-</a></span> +road again, with their wheels locked and an indefinite +future.</p> + +<p>"I leave the situation to you," said Trafford. +"Or shall we just sit and talk until the next motor +car kills us?"</p> + +<p>"We ought to make an effort," said Marjorie, +cheerfully, and descended to lead the two beasts.</p> + +<p>Assisted by an elderly hedger, who had been taking +a disregarded interest in them for some time, she +separated the wheels and got the two donkeys abreast. +The old hedger's opinion of their safety on the king's +highway was expressed by his action rather than his +words; he directed the beasts towards a shady lane +that opened at right angles to the road. He stood by +their bridles while Marjorie resumed her seat.</p> + +<p>"It seems to me clearly a case for compromise," +said Trafford. "You want to go that way, I want +to go that way. Let us both go <i>this</i> way. It is by +such arrangements that civilization becomes possible."</p> + +<p>He dismissed the hedger generously and resumed +his reins.</p> + +<p>"Shall we race?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"With your leg?" she inquired.</p> + +<p>"No; with the donkeys. I say, this <i>is</i> rather a +lark. At first I thought it was both dangerous and +dull. But things have changed. I am in beastly high +spirits. I feel there will be a cry before night; but +still, I am——I wanted the companionship of an +unbroken person. It's so jolly to meet you again."</p> + +<p>"Again?"</p> + +<p>"After the year before last."</p> + +<p>"After the year before last?"</p> + +<p>"You didn't know," said Trafford, "I had met +you before? How aggressive I must have seemed! +Well, <i>I</i> wasn't quite clear. I spent the greater part +of last night—my ankle being foolish in the small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">-133-</a></span> +hours—in trying to remember how and where."</p> + +<p>"I don't remember," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"I remembered you very distinctly, and some +things I thought about you, but not where it had +happened. Then in the night I got it. It <i>is</i> a puzzle, +isn't it? You see, I was wearing a black gown, +and I had been out of the sunlight for some months—and +my eye, I remember it acutely, was bandaged. +I'm usually bandaged somewhere.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'I was a King in Babylon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And you were a Christian slave'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—I mean a candidate."</p> + +<p>Marjorie remembered suddenly. "You're Professor +Trafford."</p> + +<p>"Not in this atmosphere. But I am at the Romeike +College. And as soon as I recalled examining +you I remembered it—minutely. You were intelligent, +though unsound—about cryo-hydrates it was. +Ah, you remember me now. As most young women +are correct by rote and unintelligent in such questions, +and as it doesn't matter a rap about anything +of that sort, whether you are correct or not, as long +as the mental gesture is right——" He paused for a +moment, as though tired of his sentence. "I remembered +you."</p> + +<p>He proceeded in his easy and detached manner, +that seemed to make every topic possible, to tell her +his first impressions of her, and show how very distinctly +indeed he remembered her.</p> + +<p>"You set me philosophizing. I'd never examined +a girls' school before, and I was suddenly struck by +the spectacle of the fifty of you. What's going to +become of them all?"</p> + +<p>"I thought," he went on, "how bright you were, +and how keen and eager you were—<i>you</i>, I mean, in +particular—and just how certain it was your brightness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">-134-</a></span> +and eagerness would be swallowed up by some +silly ordinariness or other—stuffy marriage or stuffy +domestic duties. The old, old story—done over again +with a sort of threadbare badness. (Nothing to say +against it if it's done well.) I got quite sentimental +and pathetic about life's breach of faith with women. +Odd, isn't it, how one's mind runs on. But that's +what I thought. It's all come back to me."</p> + +<p>Marjorie's bright, clear eye came round to him. +"I don't see very much wrong with the lot of women," +she reflected. "Things are different nowadays. +Anyhow——"</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"You don't want to be a man?"</p> + +<p>"<i>No!</i>"</p> + +<p>She was emphatic.</p> + +<p>"Some of us cut more sharply at life than you +think," he said, plumbing her unspoken sense.</p> + +<p>She had never met a man before who understood +just how a girl can feel the slow obtuseness of his sex. +It was almost as if he had found her out at something.</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "perhaps you do," and looked +at him with an increased interest.</p> + +<p>"I'm half-feminine, I believe," he said. "For +instance, I've got just a woman's joy in textures and +little significant shapes. I know how you feel about +that. I can spend hours, even now, in crystal gazing—I +don't mean to see some silly revelation of some +silly person's proceedings somewhere, but just for the +things themselves. I wonder if you have ever been in +the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, +and looked at Ruskin's crystal collection? I saw it +when I was a boy, and it became—I can't help the +word—an obsession. The inclusions like moss and +like trees, and all sorts of fantastic things, and the +cleavages and enclosures with little bubbles, and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">-135-</a></span> +lights and shimmer—What were we talking about? +Oh, about the keen way your feminine perceptions +cut into things. And yet somehow I was throwing +contempt on the feminine intelligence. I don't do +justice to the order of my thoughts. Never mind. +We've lost the thread. But I wish you knew my +mother."</p> + +<p>He went on while Marjorie was still considering +the proper response to this.</p> + +<p>"You see, I'm her only son and she brought me +up, and we know each other—oh! very well. She +helps with my work. She understands nearly all of it. +She makes suggestions. And to this day I don't +know if she's the most original or the most parasitic +of creatures. And that's the way with all women and +girls, it seems to me. You're as critical as light, and +as undiscriminating.... I say, do I strike you as +talking nonsense?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," said Marjorie. "But you do go +rather fast."</p> + +<p>"I know," he admitted. "But somehow you +excite me. I've been with Solomonson a week, and +he's dull at all times. It was that made me take out +that monoplane of his. But it did him no good."</p> + +<p>He paused.</p> + +<p>"They told me after the exam.," said Marjorie, +"you knew more about crystallography—than anyone."</p> + +<p>"Does that strike you as a dull subject?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Marjorie, in a tone that invited justifications.</p> + +<p>"It isn't. I think—naturally, that the world one +goes into when one studies molecular physics is quite +the most beautiful of Wonderlands.... I can +assure you I work sometimes like a man who is exploring +a magic palace.... Do you know anything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">-136-</a></span> +of molecular physics?"</p> + +<p>"You examined me," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"The sense one has of exquisite and wonderful +rhythms—just beyond sound and sight! And there's +a taunting suggestion of its being all there, displayed +and confessed, if only one were quick enough to see +it. Why, for instance, when you change the composition +of a felspar almost imperceptibly, do the +angles change? What's the correspondence between +the altered angle and the substituted atom? Why +does this bit of clear stuff swing the ray of light so +much out of its path, and that swing it more? Then +what happens when crystals gutter down, and go +into solution. The endless launching of innumerable +little craft. Think what a clear solution must be if +only one had ultra-microscopic eyes and could see +into it, see the extraordinary patternings, the swimming +circling constellations. And then the path of +a ray of polarized light beating through it! It takes +me like music. Do you know anything of the effects +of polarized light, the sight of a slice of olivine-gabbro +for instance between crossed Nicols?"</p> + +<p>"I've seen some rock sections," said Marjorie. +"I forget the names of the rocks."</p> + +<p>"The colours?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, the colours."</p> + +<p>"Is there anything else so rich and beautiful in +all the world? And every different mineral and every +variety of that mineral has a different palette of +colours, a different scheme of harmonies—and is +telling you something."</p> + +<p>"If only you understood."</p> + +<p>"Exactly. All the ordinary stuff of life—you +know—the carts and motor cars and dusty roads and—cinder +sifting, seems so blank to me—with that +persuasion of swing and subtlety beneath it all. As<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">-137-</a></span> +if the whole world was fire and crystal and aquiver—with +some sort of cotton wrappers thrown over +it...."</p> + +<p>"Dust sheets," said Marjorie. "I know."</p> + +<p>"Or like a diamond painted over!"</p> + +<p>"With that sort of grey paint, very full of body—that +lasts."</p> + +<p>"Yes." He smiled at her. "I can't help apologetics. +Most people think a professor of science is +just——"</p> + +<p>"A professor of science."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Something all pedantries and phrases. I +want to clear my character. As though it is foolish +to follow a vortex ring into a vacuum, and wise to +whack at a dirty golf ball on a suburban railway +bank. Oh, their golf! Under high heaven!... +You don't play golf, do you, by any chance?"</p> + +<p>"Only the woman's part," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"And they despise us," he said. "Solomonson +can hardly hide how he despises us. Nothing is more +wonderful than the way these people go on despising +us who do research, who have this fever of curiosity, +who won't be content with—what did you call those +wrappers?"</p> + +<p>"Dust sheets."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dust sheets. What a life! Swaddling +bands, dust sheets and a shroud! You know, research +and discovery aren't nearly so difficult as +people think—if only you have the courage to say +a thing or try a thing now and then that it isn't +usual to say or try. And after all——" he went off +at a tangent, "these confounded ordinary people +aren't justified in their contempt. We keep on +throwing them things over our shoulders, electric +bells, telephones, Marconigrams. Look at the beautiful +electric trains that come towering down the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">-138-</a></span> +London streets at nightfall, ships of light in full +sail! Twenty years ago they were as impossible as +immortality. We conquer the seas for these—golfers, +puts arms in their hands that will certainly +blow them all to bits if ever the idiots go to war +with them, come sailing out of the air on them——"</p> + +<p>He caught Marjorie's eye and stopped.</p> + +<p>"<i>Falling</i> out of the air on them," corrected Marjorie +very softly.</p> + +<p>"That was only an accident," said Mr. Trafford....</p> + +<p>So they began a conversation in the lane where +the trees met overhead that went on and went on like +a devious path in a shady wood, and touched upon +all manner of things....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>In the end quite a number of people were aggrieved +by this dialogue, in the lane that led nowhither....</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert Solomonson was the first to complain. +Trafford had been away "three mortal hours." No +one had come near him, not a soul, and there hadn't +been even a passing car to cheer his ear.</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert admitted he had to be quiet. "But +not so <i>damned</i> quiet."</p> + +<p>"I'd have been glad," said Sir Rupert, "if a hen +had laid an egg and clucked a bit. You might have +thought there had been a Resurrection or somethin', +and cleared off everybody. Lord! it was deadly. I'd +have sung out myself if it hadn't been for these infernal +ribs...."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope came upon the affair quite by accident.</p> + +<p>"Well, Marjorie," she said as she poured tea for +the family, "did you get your laces?"</p> + +<p>"Never got there, Mummy," said Marjorie, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">-139-</a></span> +paused fatally.</p> + +<p>"Didn't get there!" said Mrs. Pope. "That's +worse than Theodore! Wouldn't the donkey go, +poor dear?"</p> + +<p>There was nothing to colour about, and yet Marjorie +felt the warm flow in neck and cheek and brow. +She threw extraordinary quantities of candour into +her manner. "I had a romantic adventure," she +said rather quietly. "I was going to tell you."</p> + +<p>(Sensation.)</p> + +<p>"You see it was like this," said Marjorie. "I +ran against Mr. Trafford...."</p> + +<p>She drank tea, and pulled herself together for a +lively description of the wheel-locking and the subsequent +conversation, a bright ridiculous account +which made the affair happen by implication on the +high road and not in a byeway, and was adorned +with every facetious ornament that seemed likely to +get a laugh from the children. But she talked rather +fast, and she felt she forced the fun a little. However, +it amused the children all right, and Theodore +created a diversion by choking with his tea. From +first to last Marjorie was extremely careful to avoid +the affectionate scrutiny of her mother's eye. And +had this lasted the <i>whole</i> afternoon? asked Mrs. +Pope. "Oh, they'd talked for half-an-hour," said +Marjorie, or more, and had driven back very slowly +together. "He did all the talking. You saw what +he was yesterday. And the donkeys seemed too +happy together to tear them away."</p> + +<p>"But what was it all about?" asked Daffy +curious.</p> + +<p>"He asked after you, Daffy, most affectionately," +said Marjorie, and added, "several times." (Though +Trafford had as a matter of fact displayed a quite +remarkable disregard of all her family.)</p> + +<p>"And," she went on, getting a plausible idea at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">-140-</a></span> +last, "he explained all about aeroplanes. And all +that sort of thing. Has Daddy gone to Wamping +for some more cricket?..."</p> + +<p>(But none of this was lost on Mrs. Pope.)</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet's return next day was heralded by +nearly two-thirds of a column in the <i>Times</i>.</p> + +<p>The Lecture on the Characteristics of Humour +had evidently been quite a serious affair, and a very +imposing list of humorists and of prominent people +associated with their industry had accepted the hospitality +of the <i>Literati</i>.</p> + +<p>Marjorie ran her eyes over the Chairman's flattering +introduction, then with a queer faint flavour +of hostility she reached her destined husband's utterance. +She seemed to hear the flat full tones of his +voice as she read, and automatically the desiccated +sentences of the reporter filled out again into those +rich quietly deliberate unfoldings of sound that were +already too familiar to her ear.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet had begun with modest disavowals. +"There was a story, he said,"—so the report began—"whose +hallowed antiquity ought to protect it +from further exploitation, but he was tempted to +repeat it because it offered certain analogies to the +present situation. There were three characters in +the story, a bluebottle and two Scotsmen. (Laughter.) +The bluebottle buzzed on the pane, otherwise a +profound silence reigned. This was broken by one +of the Scotsmen trying to locate the bluebottle with +zoölogical exactitude. Said this Scotsman: 'Sandy, +I am thinking if yon fly is a birdie or a beastie.' The +other replied: 'Man, don't spoil good whiskey with +religious conversation.' (Laughter.) He was +tempted, Mr. Magnet resumed, to ask himself and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">-141-</a></span> +them why it was that they should spoil the aftereffects +of a most excellent and admirably served dinner +by an academic discussion on British humour. +At first he was pained by the thought that they +proposed to temper their hospitality with a demand +for a speech. A closer inspection showed that he +was to introduce a debate and that others were to +speak, and that was a new element in their hospitality. +Further, he was permitted to choose the subject +so that he could bring their speeches within the +range of his comprehension. (Laughter.) His was +an easy task. He could make it easier; the best +thing to do would be to say nothing at all. (Laughter.)"</p> + +<p>For a space the reporter seemed to have omitted +largely—perhaps he was changing places with his +relief—and the next sentence showed Mr. Magnet +engaged as it were in revising a <i>hortus siccus</i> of +jokes. "There was the humour of facts and situations," +he was saying, "or that humour of expression +for which there was no human responsibility, +as in the case of Irish humour; he spoke of the humour +of the soil which found its noblest utterance in +the bull. Humour depended largely on contrast. +There was a humour of form and expression which +had many local varieties. American humour had +been characterized by exaggeration, the suppression +of some link in the chain of argument or narrative, +and a wealth of simile and metaphor which had been +justly defined as the poetry of a pioneer race."...</p> + +<p>Marjorie's attention slipped its anchor, and +caught lower down upon: "In England there was a +near kinship between laughter and tears; their mental +relations were as close as their physical. Abroad +this did not appear to be the case. It was different +in France. But perhaps on the whole it would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">-142-</a></span> +better to leave the humour of France and what some +people still unhappily chose to regard as matters +open to controversy—he referred to choice of subject—out +of their discussion altogether. ('Hear, +hear,' and cheers.)"...</p> + +<p>Attention wandered again. Then she remarked:—it +reminded her in some mysterious way of a dropped +hairpin—"It was noticeable that the pun to a +great extent had become démodé...."</p> + +<p>At this point the flight of Marjorie's eyes down +the column was arrested by her father's hand gently +but firmly taking possession of the <i>Times</i>. She yielded +it without reluctance, turned to the breakfast +table, and never resumed her study of the social +relaxations of humorists....</p> + +<p>Indeed she forgot it. Her mind was in a state of +extreme perplexity. She didn't know what to make +of herself or anything or anybody. Her mind was +full of Trafford and all that he had said and done +and all that he might have said and done, and it was +entirely characteristic that she could not think of +Magnet in any way at all except as a bar-like shadow +that lay across all her memories and all the bright +possibilities of this engaging person.</p> + +<p>She thought particularly of the mobile animation +of his face, the keen flash of enthusiasm in his +thoughts and expressions....</p> + +<p>It was perhaps more characteristic of her time +than of her that she did not think she was dealing +so much with a moral problem as an embarrassment, +and that she hadn't as yet felt the first stirrings of +self-reproach for the series of disingenuous proceedings +that had rendered the yesterday's encounter +possible. But she was restless, wildly restless as a +bird whose nest is taken. She could abide nowhere. +She fretted through the morning, avoided Daffy in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">-143-</a></span> +marked manner, and inflicted a stinging and only +partially merited rebuke upon Theodore for slouching, +humping and—of all trite grievances!—not +washing behind his ears. As if any chap washed +behind his ears! She thought tennis with the pseudo-twins +might assuage her, but she broke off after losing +two sets; and then she went into the garden to +get fresh flowers, and picked a large bunch and left +them on the piano until her mother reminded her of +them. She tried a little Shaw. She struggled with +an insane wish to walk through the wood behind the +village and have an accidental meeting with someone +who couldn't possibly appear but whom it would +be quite adorable to meet. Anyhow she conquered +that.</p> + +<p>She had a curious and rather morbid indisposition +to go after lunch to the station and meet Mr. +Magnet as her mother wished her to do, in order to +bring him straight to the vicarage to early tea, but +here again reason prevailed and she went.</p> + +<p>Mr. Magnet arrived by the 2.27, and to Marjorie's +eye his alighting presence had an effect of +being not so much covered with laurels as distended +by them. His face seemed whiter and larger than +ever. He waved a great handful of newspapers.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Magsy!" he said. "They've given me a +thumping Press. I'm nearer swelled head than I've +ever been, so mind how you touch me!"</p> + +<p>"We'll take it down at croquet," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"They've cleared that thing away?"</p> + +<p>"And made up the lawn like a billiard table," +she said.</p> + +<p>"That makes for skill," he said waggishly. "I +shall save my head after all."</p> + +<p>For a moment he seemed to loom towards kissing +her, but she averted this danger by a business-like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">-144-</a></span> +concern for his bag. He entrusted this to a porter, +and reverted to the triumph of overnight so soon as +they were clear of the station. He was overflowing +with kindliness towards his fellow humorists, who had +appeared in force and very generously at the banquet, +and had said the most charming things—some +of which were in one report and some in another, and +some the reporters had missed altogether—some of +the kindliest.</p> + +<p>"It's a pleasant feeling to think that a lot of +good fellows think you are a good fellow," said Mr. +Magnet.</p> + +<p>He became solicitous for her. How had she got +on while he was away? She asked him how one was +likely to get on at Buryhamstreet; monoplanes didn't +fall every day, and as she said that it occurred to her +she was behaving meanly. But he was going on to his +next topic before she could qualify.</p> + +<p>"I've got something in my pocket," he remarked, +and playfully: "Guess."</p> + +<p>She did, but she wouldn't. She had a curious +sinking of the heart.</p> + +<p>"I want you to see it before anyone else," he +said. "Then if you don't like it, it can go back. It's +a sapphire."</p> + +<p>He was feeling nervously in his pockets and then +the little box was in her hand.</p> + +<p>She hesitated to open it. It made everything so +dreadfully concrete. And this time the sense of +meanness was altogether acuter. He'd bought this in +London; he'd brought it down, hoping for her approval. +Yes, it was—horrid. But what was she +to do?</p> + +<p>"It's—awfully pretty," she said with the glittering +symbol in her hand, and indeed he had gone to +one of those artistic women who are reviving and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">-145-</a></span> +improving upon the rich old Roman designs. "It's +so beautifully made."</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad you like it. You really <i>do</i> like it?"</p> + +<p>"I don't deserve it."</p> + +<p>"Oh! But you <i>do</i> like it?"</p> + +<p>"Enormously."</p> + +<p>"Ah! I spent an hour in choosing it."</p> + +<p>She could see him. She felt as though she had +picked his pocket.</p> + +<p>"Only I don't deserve it, Mr. Magnet. Indeed +I don't. I feel I am taking it on false pretences."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Magsy. Nonsense! Slip it on your +finger, girl."</p> + +<p>"But I don't," she insisted.</p> + +<p>He took the box from her, pocketed it and seized +her hand. She drew it away from him.</p> + +<p>"No!" she said. "I feel like a cheat. You know, +I don't—I'm sure I don't love——"</p> + +<p>"I'll love enough for two," he said, and got her +hand again. "No!" he said at her gesture, "you'll +wear it. Why shouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>And so Marjorie came back along the vicarage +avenue with his ring upon her hand. And Mr. Pope +was evidently very glad to see him....</p> + +<p>The family was still seated at tea upon rugs +and wraps, and still discussing humorists at play, +when Professor Trafford appeared, leaning on a +large stick and limping, but resolute, by the church +gate. "Pish!" said Mr. Pope. Marjorie tried not +to reveal a certain dismay, there was dumb, rich approval +in Daphne's eyes, and the pleasure of Theodore +and the pseudo-twins was only too scandalously +evident. "Hoo-Ray!" said Theodore, with ill-concealed +relief.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope was the incarnate invocation of tact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">-146-</a></span> +as Trafford drew near.</p> + +<p>"I hope," he said, with obvious insincerity, "I +don't invade you. But Solomonson is frightfully +concerned and anxious about your lawn, and whether +his men cleared it up properly and put things right." +His eye went about the party and rested on Marjorie. +"How are you?" he said, in a friendly voice.</p> + +<p>"Well, we seem to have got our croquet lawn +back," said Mr. Pope. "And our nerves are recovering. +How is Sir Rupert?"</p> + +<p>"A little fractious," said Trafford, with the +ghost of a smile.</p> + +<p>"You'll take some tea?" said Mrs. Pope in the +pause that followed.</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Trafford and sat down instantly.</p> + +<p>"I saw your jolly address in the <i>Standard</i>," he +said to Magnet. "I haven't read anything so amusing +for some time."</p> + +<p>"Rom dear," said Mrs. Pope, "will you take the +pot in and get some fresh tea?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford addressed himself to the flattery of +Magnet with considerable skill. He had detected a +lurking hostility in the eyes of the two gentlemen +that counselled him to propitiate them if he meant +to maintain his footing in the vicarage, and now he +talked to them almost exclusively and ignored the +ladies modestly but politely in the way that seems +natural and proper in a British middle-class house +of the better sort. But as he talked chiefly of the +improvement of motor machinery that had recently +been shown at the Engineering Exhibition, he did +not make that headway with Marjorie's father that +he had perhaps anticipated. Mr. Pope fumed quietly +for a time, and then suddenly spoke out.</p> + +<p>"I'm no lover of machines," he said abruptly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">-147-</a></span> +slashing across Mr. Trafford's description. "All +our troubles began with villainous saltpetre. I'm +an old-fashioned man with a nose—and a neck, and +I don't want the one offended or the other broken. +No, don't ask me to be interested in your valves and +cylinders. What do you say, Magnet? It starts +machinery in my head to hear about them...."</p> + +<p>On such occasions as this when Mr. Pope spoke +out, his horror of an anti-climax or any sort of contradiction +was apt to bring the utterance to a culmination +not always to be distinguished from a +flight. And now he rose to his feet as he delivered +himself.</p> + +<p>"Who's for a game of tennis?" he said, "in +this last uncontaminated patch of air? I and Marjorie +will give you a match, Daffy—if Magnet isn't +too tired to join you."</p> + +<p>Daffy looked at Marjorie for an instant.</p> + +<p>"We'll want you, Theodore, to look after the +balls in the potatoes," said Mr. Pope lest that ingenuous +mind should be corrupted behind his back....</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope found herself left to entertain a +slightly disgruntled Trafford. Rom and Syd hovered +on the off chance of notice, at the corner of the +croquet lawn nearest the tea things. Mrs. Pope had +already determined to make certain little matters +clearer than they appeared to be to this agreeable +but superfluous person, and she was greatly assisted +by his opening upon the subject of her daughters. +"Jolly tennis looks," he said.</p> + +<p>"Don't they?" said Mrs. Pope. "I think it is +such a graceful game for a girl."</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford glanced at Mrs. Pope's face, but +her expression was impenetrable.</p> + +<p>"They both like it and play it so well," she +said. "Their father is so skillful and interested in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">-148-</a></span> +games. Marjorie tells me you were her examiner +a year or so ago."</p> + +<p>"Yes. She struck my memory—her work stood +out."</p> + +<p>"Of course she is clever," said Mrs. Pope. "Or +we shouldn't have sent her to Oxbridge. There she's +doing quite well—quite well. Everyone says so. I +don't know, of course, if Mr. Magnet will let her +finish there."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Magnet?"</p> + +<p>"She's just engaged to him. Of course she's +frightfully excited about it, and naturally he wants +her to come away and marry. There's very little +excuse for a long engagement. No."</p> + +<p>Her voice died in a musical little note, and she +seemed to be scrutinizing the tennis with an absorbed +interest. "They've got new balls," she said, as if to +herself.</p> + +<p>Trafford had rolled over, and she fancied she +detected a change in his voice when it came. "Isn't +it rather a waste not to finish a university career?" +he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wouldn't be wasted. Of course a girl +like that will be hand and glove with her husband. +She'll be able to help him with the scientific side of +his jokes and all that. I sometimes wish it had been +Daffy who had gone to college though. I sometimes +think we've sacrificed Daffy a little. She's not the +bright quickness of Marjorie, but there's something +quietly solid about her mind—something <i>stable</i>. Perhaps +I didn't want her to go away from me.... +Mr. Magnet is doing wonders at the net. He's just +begun to play—to please Marjorie. Don't you +think he's a dreadfully amusing man, Mr. Trafford? +He says such <i>quiet</i> things."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>The effect of this <i>éclaircissement</i> upon Mr. Trafford<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">-149-</a></span> +was not what it should have been. Properly he +ought to have realized at once that Marjorie was +for ever beyond his aspirations, and if he found it +too difficult to regard her with equanimity, then he +ought to have shunned her presence. But instead, +after his first shock of incredulous astonishment, his +spirit rose in a rebellion against arranged facts +that was as un-English as it was ungentlemanly. He +went back to Solomonson with a mood of thoughtful +depression giving place to a growing passion of +indignation. He presented it to himself in a generalized +and altruistic form. "What the deuce is the +good of all this talk of Eugenics," he asked himself +aloud, "if they are going to hand over that shining +girl to that beastly little area sneak?"</p> + +<p>He called Mr. Magnet a "beastly little area +sneak!"</p> + +<p>Nothing could show more clearly just how much +he had contrived to fall in love with Marjorie during +his brief sojourn in Buryhamstreet and the acuteness +of his disappointment, and nothing could be +more eloquent of his forcible and undisciplined temperament. +And out of ten thousand possible abusive +epithets with which his mind was no doubt stored, +this one, I think, had come into his head because of +the alert watchfulness with which Mr. Magnet followed +a conversation, as he waited his chance for +some neat but brilliant flash of comment....</p> + +<p>Trafford, like Marjorie, was another of those undisciplined +young people our age has produced in +such significant quantity. He was just six-and-twenty, +but the facts that he was big of build, had +as an only child associated much with grown-up people, +and was already a conspicuous success in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">-150-</a></span> +world of micro-chemical research, had given him the +self-reliance and assurance of a much older man. He +had still to come his croppers and learn most of the +important lessons in life, and, so far, he wasn't +aware of it. He was naturally clean-minded, very +busy and interested in his work, and on remarkably +friendly and confidential terms with his mother who +kept house for him, and though he had had several +small love disturbances, this was the first occasion +that anything of the kind had ploughed deep into +his feelings and desires.</p> + +<p>Trafford's father had died early in life. He had +been a brilliant pathologist, one of that splendid +group of scientific investigators in the middle Victorian +period which shines ever more brightly as our +criticism dims their associated splendours, and he +had died before he was thirty through a momentary +slip of the scalpel. His wife—she had been his wife +for five years—found his child and his memory and +the quality of the life he had made about her too +satisfying for the risks of a second marriage, and she +had brought up her son with a passionate belief in +the high mission of research and the supreme duty +of seeking out and expressing truth finely. And +here he was, calling Mr. Magnet a "beastly little +area sneak."</p> + +<p>The situation perplexed him. Marjorie perplexed +him. It was, had he known it, the beginning for +him of a lifetime of problems and perplexities. He +was absolutely certain she didn't love Magnet. Why, +then, had she agreed to marry him? Such pressures +and temptations as he could see about her seemed +light to him in comparison with such an undertaking.</p> + +<p>Were they greater than he supposed?</p> + +<p>His method of coming to the issue of that problem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">-151-</a></span> +was entirely original. He presented himself +next afternoon with the air of an invited guest, +drove Mr. Pope who was suffering from liver, to expostulatory +sulking in the study, and expressed a +passionate craving for golf-croquet, in spite of Mrs. +Pope's extreme solicitude for his still bandaged +ankle. He was partnered with Daffy, and for a +long time he sought speech with Marjorie in vain. +At last he was isolated in a corner of the lawn, and +with the thinnest pretence of inadvertence, in spite +of Daffy's despairing cry of "She plays next!" he +laid up within two yards of her. He walked across +to her as she addressed herself to her ball, and +speaking in an incredulous tone and with the air of +a comment on the game, he said: "I say, are you +engaged to that chap Magnet?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie was amazed, but remarkably not offended. +Something in his tone set her trembling. +She forgot to play, and stood with her mallet hanging +in her hand.</p> + +<p>"Punish him!" came the voice of Magnet from +afar.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said faintly.</p> + +<p>His remark came low and clear. It had a note of +angry protest. "<i>Why?</i>"</p> + +<p>Marjorie, by the way of answer, hit her ball so +that it jumped and missed his, ricochetted across the +lawn and out of the ground on the further side.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry if I've annoyed you," said Trafford, +as Marjorie went after her ball, and Daffy thanked +heaven aloud for the respite.</p> + +<p>They came together no more for a time, and +Trafford, observant with every sense, found no clue +to the riddle of her grave, intent bearing. She played +very badly, and with unusual care and deliberation. +He felt he had made a mess of things altogether,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">-152-</a></span> +and suddenly found his leg was too painful +to go on. "Partner," he asked, "will you play out +my ball for me? I can't go on. I shall have to go."</p> + +<p>Marjorie surveyed him, while Daffy and Magnet +expressed solicitude. He turned to go, mallet in hand, +and found Marjorie following him.</p> + +<p>"Is that the heavier mallet?" she asked, and stood +before him looking into his eyes and weighing a mallet +in either hand.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Trafford, you're one of the worst examiners +I've ever met," she said.</p> + +<p>He looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I don't know <i>why</i>," said Marjorie, "I wonder +as much as you. But I am"; and seeing the light +dawning in his eyes, she turned about, and went +back to the debacle of her game.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>After that Mr. Trafford had one clear desire in +his being which ruled all his other desires. He wanted +a long, frank, unembarrassed and uninterrupted conversation +with Marjorie. He had a very strong impression +that Marjorie wanted exactly the same +thing. For a week he besieged the situation in vain. +After the fourth day Solomonson was only kept in +Buryhamstreet by sheer will-power, exerted with a +brutality that threatened to end that friendship +abruptly. He went home on the sixth day in his +largest car, but Trafford stayed on beyond the limits +of decency to perform some incomprehensible service +that he spoke of as "clearing up."</p> + +<p>"I want," he said, "to clear up."</p> + +<p>"But what <i>is</i> there to clear up, my dear boy?"</p> + +<p>"Solomonson, you're a pampered plutocrat," +said Trafford, as though everything was explained.</p> + +<p>"I don't see any sense in it at all," said Solomonson,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">-153-</a></span> +and regarded his friend aslant with thick, black +eyebrows raised.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to stay," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>And Solomonson said one of those unhappy and +entirely disregarded things that ought never to be +said.</p> + +<p>"There's some girl in this," said Solomonson.</p> + +<p>"Your bedroom's always waiting for you at Riplings," +he said, when at last he was going off....</p> + +<p>Trafford's conviction that Marjorie also wanted, +with an almost equal eagerness, the same opportunity +for speech and explanations that he desired, sustained +him in a series of unjustifiable intrusions upon +the seclusion of the Popes. But although the manner +of Mr. and Mrs. Pope did change considerably for +the better after his next visit, it was extraordinary +how impossible it seemed for him and Marjorie to +achieve their common end of an encounter.</p> + +<p>Always something intervened.</p> + +<p>In the first place, Mrs. Pope's disposition to optimism +had got the better of her earlier discretions, +and a casual glance at Daphne's face when their +visitor reappeared started quite a new thread of +interpretations in her mind. She had taken the +opportunity of hinting at this when Mr. Pope asked +over his shirt-stud that night, "What the devil that—that +chauffeur chap meant by always calling in +the afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Now that Will Magnet monopolizes Marjorie," +she said, after a little pause and a rustle or so, "I +don't see why Daffy shouldn't have a little company +of her own age."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope turned round and stared at her. "I +didn't think of that," he said. "But, anyhow, I +don't like the fellow."</p> + +<p>"He seems to be rather clever," said Mrs. Pope,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">-154-</a></span> +"though he certainly talks too much. And after all +it was Sir Rupert's aeroplane. <i>He</i> was only driving +it to oblige."</p> + +<p>"He'll think twice before he drives another," said +Mr. Pope, wrenching off his collar....</p> + +<p>Once Mrs. Pope had turned her imagination in +this more and more agreeable direction, she was +rather disposed, I am afraid, to let it bolt with her. +And it was a deflection that certainly fell in very +harmoniously with certain secret speculations of +Daphne's. Trafford, too, being quite unused to any +sort of social furtiveness, did perhaps, in order to +divert attention from his preoccupation with Marjorie, +attend more markedly to Daphne than he +would otherwise have done. And so presently he +found Daphne almost continuously on his hands. So +far as she was concerned, he might have told her the +entire history of his life, and every secret he had in +the world, without let or hindrance. Mrs. Pope, too, +showed a growing appreciation of his company, became +sympathetic and confidential in a way that +invited confidence, and threw a lot of light on her +family history and Daffy's character. She had found +Daffy a wonderful study, she said. Mr. Pope, too, +seemed partly reconciled to him. The idea that, +after all, both motor cars and monoplane were Sir +Rupert's, and not Trafford's, had produced a reaction +in the latter gentleman's favour. Moreover, it +had occurred to him that Trafford's accident had +perhaps disposed him towards a more thoughtful +view of mechanical traction, and that this tendency +would be greatly helped by a little genial chaff. So +that he ceased to go indoors when Trafford was +there, and hung about, meditating and delivering sly +digs at this new victim of his ripe, old-fashioned +humour.</p> + +<p>Nor did it help Trafford in his quest for Marjorie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">-155-</a></span> +and a free, outspoken delivery that the pseudo-twins +considered him a person of very considerable +charm, and that Theodore, though indisposed to +"suck up" to him publicly—I write here in Theodorese—did +so desire intimate and solitary communion +with him, more particularly in view of the chances +of an adventitious aeroplane ride that seemed to +hang about him—as to stalk him persistently—hovering +on the verge of groups, playing a waiting game +with a tennis ball and an old racquet, strolling artlessly +towards the gate of the avenue when the time +seemed ripening for his appearance or departure.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Marjorie was greatly entangled +by Magnet.</p> + +<p>Magnet was naturally an attentive lover; he was +full of small encumbering services, and it made him +none the less assiduous to perceive that Marjorie +seemed to find no sort of pleasure in all the little +things he did. He seemed to think that if picking +the very best rose he could find for her did not cause +a very perceptible brightening in her, then it was +all the more necessary quietly to force her racquet +from her hand and carry it for her, or help her +ineffectually to cross a foot-wide ditch, or offer to +read her in a rich, abundant, well modulated voice, +some choice passage from "The Forest Lovers" of +Mr. Maurice Hewlett. And behind these devotions +there was a streak of jealousy. He knew as if by +instinct that it was not wise to leave these two handsome +young people together; he had a queer little +disagreeable sensation whenever they spoke to one +another or looked at one another. Whenever Trafford +and Marjorie found themselves in a group, +there was Magnet in the midst of them. He knew +the value of his Marjorie, and did not mean to lose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">-156-</a></span> +her....</p> + +<p>Being jointly baffled in this way was oddly stimulating +to Marjorie's and Trafford's mutual predisposition. +If you really want to throw people +together, the thing to do—thank God for Ireland!—is +to keep them apart. By the fourth day of this +emotional incubation, Marjorie was thinking of +Trafford to the exclusion of all her reading; and +Trafford was lying awake at nights—oh, for half an +hour and more—thinking of bold, decisive ways of +getting at Marjorie, and bold, decisive things to say +to her when he did.</p> + +<p>(But why she should be engaged to Magnet continued, +nevertheless, to puzzle him extremely. It was +a puzzle to which no complete solution was ever to +be forthcoming....)</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>At last that opportunity came. Marjorie had +come with her mother into the village, and while Mrs. +Pope made some purchases at the general shop she +walked on to speak to Mrs. Blythe the washerwoman. +Trafford suddenly emerged from the Red Lion with +a soda syphon under each arm. She came forward +smiling.</p> + +<p>"I say," he said forthwith, "I want to talk with +you—badly."</p> + +<p>"And I," she said unhesitatingly, "with you."</p> + +<p>"How can we?"</p> + +<p>"There's always people about. It's absurd."</p> + +<p>"We'll have to meet."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I have to go away to-morrow. I ought to have +gone two days ago. Where <i>can</i> we meet?"</p> + +<p>She had it all prepared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">-157-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Listen," she said. "There is a path runs from +our shrubbery through a little wood to a stile on +the main road." He nodded. "Either I will be there +at three or about half-past five or—there's one more +chance. While father and Mr. Magnet are smoking +at nine.... I might get away."</p> + +<p>"Couldn't I write?"</p> + +<p>"No. Impossible."</p> + +<p>"I've no end of things to say...."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope appeared outside her shop, and Trafford +gesticulated a greeting with the syphons. "All +right," he said to Marjorie. "I'm shopping," he +cried as Mrs. Pope approached.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 12</p> + +<p>All through the day Marjorie desired to go to +Trafford and could not do so. It was some minutes +past nine when at last with a swift rustle of skirts +that sounded louder than all the world to her, she +crossed the dimly lit hall between dining-room and +drawing-room and came into the dreamland of moonlight +upon the lawn. She had told her mother she +was going upstairs; at any moment she might be +missed, but she would have fled now to Trafford if +an army pursued her. Her heart seemed beating in +her throat, and every fibre of her being was aquiver. +She flitted past the dining-room window like a ghost, +she did not dare to glance aside at the smokers within, +and round the lawn to the shrubbery, and so under a +blackness of trees to the gate where he stood waiting. +And there he was, dim and mysterious and wonderful, +holding the gate open for her, and she was breathless, +and speechless, and near sobbing. She stood +before him for a moment, her face moonlit and laced +with the shadows of little twigs, and then his arms<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">-158-</a></span> +came out to her.</p> + +<p>"My darling," he said, "Oh, my darling!"</p> + +<p>They had no doubt of one another or of anything +in the world. They clung together; their lips came +together fresh and untainted as those first lovers' in +the garden.</p> + +<p>"I will die for you," he said, "I will give all the +world for you...."</p> + +<p>They had thought all through the day of a hundred +statements and explanations they would make +when this moment came, and never a word of it all +was uttered. All their anticipations of a highly +strung eventful conversation vanished, phrases of the +most striking sort went like phantom leaves before a +gale. He held her and she clung to him between +laughing and sobbing, and both were swiftly and +conclusively assured their lives must never separate +again.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 13</p> + +<p>Marjorie never knew whether it was a moment or +an age before her father came upon them. He had +decided to take a turn in the garden when Magnet +could no longer restrain himself from joining the +ladies, and he chanced to be stick in hand because +that was his habit after twilight. So it was he found +them. She heard his voice falling through love and +moonlight like something that comes out of an immense +distance.</p> + +<p>"Good God!" he cried, "what next!"</p> + +<p>But he still hadn't realized the worst.</p> + +<p>"Daffy," he said, "what in the name of goodness——?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie put her hands before her face too late.</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!" he cried with a rising inflection,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">-159-</a></span> +"it's Madge!"</p> + +<p>Trafford found the situation difficult. "I should +explain——"</p> + +<p>But Mr. Pope was giving himself up to a towering +rage. "You damned scoundrel!" he said. "What +the devil are you doing?" He seized Marjorie by +the arm and drew her towards him. "My poor misguided +girl!" he said, and suddenly she was tensely +alive, a little cry of horror in her throat, for her +father, at a loss for words and full of heroic rage, +had suddenly swung his stick with passionate force, +and struck at Trafford's face. She heard the thud, +saw Trafford wince and stiffen. For a perfectly +horrible moment it seemed to her these men, their +faces queerly distorted by the shadows of the branches +in the slanting moonlight, might fight. Then she +heard Trafford's voice, sounding cool and hard, and +she knew that he would do nothing of the kind. In +that instant if there had remained anything to win +in Marjorie it was altogether won. "I asked your +daughter to meet me here," he said.</p> + +<p>"Be off with you, sir!" cried Mr. Pope. "Don't +tempt me further, sir," and swung his stick again. +But now the force had gone out of him. Trafford +stood with a hand out ready for him, and watched his +face.</p> + +<p>"I asked your daughter to meet me here, and she +came. I am prepared to give you any explanation——"</p> + +<p>"If you come near this place again——"</p> + +<p>For some moments Marjorie's heart had been held +still, now it was beating violently. She felt this scene +must end. "Mr. Trafford," she said, "will you go. +Go now. Nothing shall keep us apart!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope turned on her. "Silence, girl!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I shall come to you to-morrow," said Trafford.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">-160-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marjorie, "to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Marjorie!" said Mr. Pope, "<i>will</i> you go indoors."</p> + +<p>"I have done nothing——"</p> + +<p>"Be off, sir."</p> + +<p>"I have done nothing——"</p> + +<p>"Will you be off, sir? And you, Marjorie—will +you go indoors?"</p> + +<p>He came round upon her, and after one still +moment of regard for Trafford—and she looked very +beautiful in the moonlight with her hair a little disordered +and her face alight—she turned to precede +her father through the shrubbery.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope hesitated whether he should remain +with Trafford.</p> + +<p>A perfectly motionless man is very disconcerting.</p> + +<p>"Be off, sir," he said over his shoulder, lowered +through a threatening second, and followed her.</p> + +<p>But Trafford remained stiffly with a tingling temple +down which a little thread of blood was running, +until their retreating footsteps had died down into +that confused stirring of little sounds which makes +the stillness of an English wood at night.</p> + +<p>Then he roused himself with a profound sigh, and +put a hand to his cut and bruised cheek.</p> + +<p>"<i>Well!</i>" he said.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FOURTH</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Crisis</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>Crisis prevailed in Buryhamstreet that night. On<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">-161-</a></span> +half a dozen sleepless pillows souls communed with +the darkness, and two at least of those pillows were +wet with tears.</p> + +<p>Not one of those wakeful heads was perfectly +clear about the origins and bearings of the trouble; +not even Mr. Pope felt absolutely sure of himself. +It had come as things come to people nowadays, because +they will not think things out, much less talk +things out, and are therefore in a hopeless tangle of +values that tightens sooner or later to a knot....</p> + +<p>What an uncharted perplexity, for example, +was the mind of that excellent woman Mrs. Pope!</p> + +<p>Poor lady! she hadn't a stable thing in her head. +It is remarkable that some queer streak in her composition +sympathized with Marjorie's passion for +Trafford. But she thought it such a pity! She +fought that sympathy down as if it were a wicked +thing. And she fought too against other ideas that +rose out of the deeps and did not so much come into +her mind as cluster at the threshold, the idea that +Marjorie was in effect grown up, a dozen queer +criticisms of Magnet, and a dozen subtle doubts +whether after all Marjorie was going to be happy +with him as she assured herself the girl would be. +(So far as any one knew Trafford might be an excellent +match!) And behind these would-be invaders +of her guarded mind prowled even worse ones, doubts, +horrible disloyal doubts, about the wisdom and +kindness of Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Quite early in life Mrs. Pope had realized that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">-162-</a></span> +is necessary to be very careful with one's thoughts. +They lead to trouble. She had clipped the wings of +her own mind therefore so successfully that all her +conclusions had become evasions, all her decisions +compromises. Her profoundest working conviction +was a belief that nothing in the world was of value +but "tact," and that the art of living was to "tide +things over." But here it seemed almost beyond +her strength to achieve any sort of tiding over....</p> + +<p>(Why <i>couldn't</i> Mr. Pope lie quiet?)</p> + +<p>Whatever she said or did had to be fitted to the +exigencies of Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Availing himself of the privileges of matrimony, +her husband so soon as Mr. Magnet had gone and +they were upstairs together, had explained the situation +with vivid simplicity, and had gone on at considerable +length and with great vivacity to enlarge +upon his daughter's behaviour. He ascribed this +moral disaster,—he presented it as a moral disaster +of absolutely calamitous dimensions—entirely to +Mrs. Pope's faults and negligences. Warming with +his theme he had employed a number of homely expressions +rarely heard by decent women except in +these sacred intimacies, to express the deep indignation +of a strong man moved to unbridled speech by +the wickedness of those near and dear to him. Still +warming, he raised his voice and at last shouted out +his more forcible meanings, until she feared the servants +and children might hear, waved a clenched fist +at imaginary Traffords and scoundrels generally, +and giving way completely to his outraged virtue, +smote and kicked blameless articles of furniture in +a manner deeply impressive to the feminine intelligence.</p> + +<p>Finally he sat down in the little arm-chair between<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">-163-</a></span> +her and the cupboard where she was accustomed +to hang up her clothes, stuck out his legs very +stiffly across the room, and despaired of his family +in an obtrusive and impregnable silence for an +enormous time.</p> + +<p>All of which awakened a deep sense of guilt and +unworthiness in Mrs. Pope's mind, and prevented her +going to bed, but did not help her in the slightest +degree to grasp the difficulties of the situation....</p> + +<p>She would have lain awake anyhow, but she was +greatly helped in this by Mr. Pope's restlessness. He +was now turning over from left to right or from right +to left at intervals of from four to seven minutes, +and such remarks as "Damned scoundrel! Get out +of this!" or "<i>My</i> daughter and degrade yourself in +this way!" or "Never let me see your face again!" +"Plight your troth to one man, and fling yourself +shamelessly—I repeat it, Marjorie, shamelessly—into +the arms of another!" kept Mrs. Pope closely +in touch with the general trend of his thoughts.</p> + +<p>She tried to get together her plans and perceptions +rather as though she swept up dead leaves on a +gusty day. She knew that the management of the +whole situation rested finally on her, and that whatever +she did or did not do, or whatever arose to +thwart her arrangements, its entire tale of responsibility +would ultimately fall upon her shoulders. She +wondered what was to be done with Marjorie, with +Mr. Magnet? Need he know? Could that situation +be saved? Everything at present was raw in her mind. +Except for her husband's informal communications +she did not even know what had appeared, what +Daffy had seen, what Magnet thought of Marjorie's +failure to bid him good-night. For example, had +Mr. Magnet noticed Mr. Pope's profound disturbance? +She had to be ready to put a face on things<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">-164-</a></span> +before morning, and it seemed impossible she could +do so. In times of crisis, as every woman knows, it +is always necessary to misrepresent everything to +everybody, but how she was to dovetail her misrepresentations, +get the best effect from them, extract +a working system of rights and wrongs from them, +she could not imagine....</p> + +<p>(Oh! she did so wish Mr. Pope would lie quiet.)</p> + +<p>But he had no doubts of what became <i>him</i>. He +had to maintain a splendid and irrational rage—at +any cost—to anybody.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>A few yards away, a wakeful Marjorie confronted +a joyless universe. She had a baffling realization +that her life was in a hopeless mess, that she +really had behaved disgracefully, and that she +couldn't for a moment understand how it had happened. +She had intended to make quite sure of +Trafford—and then put things straight.</p> + +<p>Only her father had spoilt everything.</p> + +<p>She regarded her father that night with a want +of natural affection terrible to record. Why had he +come just when he had, just as he had? Why had +he been so violent, so impossible?</p> + +<p>Of course, she had no business to be there....</p> + +<p>She examined her character with a new unprecedented +detachment. Wasn't she, after all, rather +a mean human being? It had never occurred to her +before to ask such a question. Now she asked it with +only too clear a sense of the answer. She tried to +trace how these multiplying threads of meanness had +first come into the fabric of a life she had supposed +herself to be weaving in extremely bright, honourable, +and adventurous colours. She ought, of course,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">-165-</a></span> +never to have accepted Magnet....</p> + +<p>She faced the disagreeable word; was she a liar?</p> + +<p>At any rate, she told lies.</p> + +<p>And she'd behaved with extraordinary meanness +to Daphne. She realized that now. She had known, +as precisely as if she had been told, how Daphne +felt about Trafford, and she'd never given her an +inkling of her own relations. She hadn't for a moment +thought of Daphne. No wonder Daffy was +sombre and bitter. Whatever she knew, she knew +enough. She had heard Trafford's name in urgent +whispers on the landing. "I suppose you couldn't +leave him alone," Daffy had said, after a long hostile +silence. That was all. Just a sentence without prelude +or answer flung across the bedroom, revealing +a perfect understanding—deeps of angry disillusionment. +Marjorie had stared and gasped, and +made no answer.</p> + +<p>Would she ever see him again? After this horror +of rowdy intervention? She didn't deserve to; she +didn't deserve anything.... Oh, the tangle of it +all! The tangle of it all! And those bills at Oxbridge! +She was just dragging Trafford down into +her own miserable morass of a life.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts would take a new turn. "I love +him," she whispered soundlessly. "I would die for +him. I would like to lie under his feet—and him not +know it."</p> + +<p>Her mind hung on that for a long time. "Not +know it until afterwards," she corrected.</p> + +<p>She liked to be exact, even in despair....</p> + +<p>And then in her memory he was struck again, and +stood stiff and still. She wanted to kneel to him, +imagined herself kneeling....</p> + +<p>And so on, quite inconclusively, round and round +through the interminable night hours.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>The young man in the village was, if possible,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">-166-</a></span> +more perplexed, round-eyed and generally inconclusive +than anyone else in this series of nocturnal +disturbances. He spent long intervals sitting on his +window-sill regarding a world that was scented +with nightstock, and seemed to be woven of moonshine +and gossamer. Being an inexpert and infrequent +soliloquist, his only audible comment on his +difficulties was the repetition in varying intonations +of his fervent, unalterable conviction that he was +damned. But behind this simple verbal mask was +a great fury of mental activity.</p> + +<p>He had something of Marjorie's amazement at +the position of affairs.</p> + +<p>He had never properly realized that it was +possible for any one to regard Marjorie as a +daughter, to order her about and resent the research +for her society as criminal. It was a new light in his +world. Some day he was to learn the meaning of +fatherhood, but in these night watches he regarded +it as a hideous survival of mediæval darknesses.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he said, entirely ignoring the actual +quality of their conversation, "she had to explain +about the Magnet affair. Can't one—converse?"</p> + +<p>He reflected through great intervals.</p> + +<p>"I <i>will</i> see her! Why on earth shouldn't I see +her?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose they can't lock her up!"</p> + +<p>For a time he contemplated a writ of Habeas +Corpus. He saw reason to regret the gaps in his +legal knowledge.</p> + +<p>"Can any one get a writ of Habeas Corpus for +any one—it doesn't matter whom"—more especially +if you are a young man of six-and-twenty, anxious +to exchange a few richly charged words with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">-167-</a></span> +a girl of twenty who is engaged to someone else?</p> + +<p>The night had no answer.</p> + +<p>It was nearly dawn when he came to the entirely +inadvisable conclusion—I use his own word's—to go +and have it out with the old ruffian. He would sit +down and ask him what he meant by it all—and +reason with him. If he started flourishing that stick +again, it would have to be taken away.</p> + +<p>And having composed a peroration upon the +institution of the family of a character which he +fondly supposed to be extraordinarily tolerant, +reasonable and convincing, but which was indeed calculated +to madden Mr. Pope to frenzy, Mr. Trafford +went very peacefully to sleep.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>Came dawn, with a noise of birds and afterwards +a little sleep, and then day, and heavy eyes +opened again, and the sound of frying and the smell +of coffee recalled our actors to the stage. Mrs. +Pope was past her worst despair; always the morning +brings courage and a clearer grasp of things, +and she could face the world with plans shaped subconsciously +during those last healing moments of +slumber.</p> + +<p>Breakfast was difficult, but not impossible. Mr. +Pope loomed like a thundercloud, but Marjorie +pleaded a headache very wisely, and was taken a +sympathetic cup of tea. The pseudo-twins scented +trouble, but Theodore was heedless and over-full of +an entertaining noise made by a moorhen as it dived +in the ornamental water that morning. You could +make it practically <i>sotto voce</i>, and it amused Syd. +He seemed to think the <i>Times</i> opaque to such small +sounds, and learnt better only to be dismissed underfed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">-168-</a></span> +and ignominiously from the table to meditate +upon the imperfections of his soul in the schoolroom. +There for a time he was silent, and then presently +became audible again, playing with a ball and, presumably, +Marjorie's tennis racquet.</p> + +<p>Directly she could disentangle herself from breakfast +Mrs. Pope, with all her plans acute, went up to +the girls' room. She found her daughter dressing in +a leisurely and meditative manner. She shut the door +almost confidentially. "Marjorie," she said, "I +want you to tell me all about this."</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard father telling you," said +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"He was too indignant," said Mrs. Pope, "to +explain clearly. You see, Marjorie"—she paused +before her effort—"he knows things—about this Professor +Trafford."</p> + +<p>"What things?" asked Marjorie, turning sharply.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, my dear—and I can't imagine."</p> + +<p>She looked out of the window, aware of Marjorie's +entirely distrustful scrutiny.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Don't believe what, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever he says."</p> + +<p>"I wish I didn't," said Mrs. Pope, and turned. +"Oh, Madge," she cried, "you cannot imagine how +all this distresses me! I cannot—I cannot conceive +how you came to be in such a position! Surely honour——! +Think of Mr. Magnet, how good and +patient he has been! You don't know that man. +You don't know all he is, and all that it means to a +girl. He is good and honourable and—pure. He is +kindness itself. It seemed to me that you were to be +so happy—rich, honoured."</p> + +<p>She was overcome by a rush of emotion; she turned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">-169-</a></span> +to the bed and sat down.</p> + +<p>"<i>There!</i>" she said desolately. "It's all ruined, +shattered, gone."</p> + +<p>Marjorie tried not to feel that her mother was +right.</p> + +<p>"If father hadn't interfered," she said weakly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't, my dear, speak so coldly of your +father! You don't know what he has to put up with. +You don't know his troubles and anxieties—all this +wretched business." She paused, and her face became +portentous. "Marjorie, do you know if these railways +go on as they are going he may have to <i>eat into +his capital</i> this year. Just think of that, and the +worry he has! And this last shame and anxiety!"</p> + +<p>Her voice broke again. Marjorie listened with +an expression that was almost sullen.</p> + +<p>"But what is it," she asked, "that father knows +about Mr. Trafford?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, dear. I don't know. But it's +something that matters—that makes it all different."</p> + +<p>"Well, may I speak to Mr. Trafford before he +leaves Buryhamstreet?"</p> + +<p>"My dear! Never see him, dear—never think of +him again! Your father would not dream——Some +day, Marjorie, you will rejoice—you will want to +thank your father on your bended knees that he +saved you from the clutches of this man...."</p> + +<p>"I won't believe anything about Mr. Trafford," +she said slowly, "until I know——"</p> + +<p>She left the sentence incomplete.</p> + +<p>She made her declaration abruptly. "I love Mr. +Trafford," she said, with a catch in her voice, "and I +don't love Mr. Magnet."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope received this like one who is suddenly +stabbed. She sat still as if overwhelmed, one hand +pressed to her side and her eyes closed. Then she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">-170-</a></span> +said, as if she gasped involuntarily—</p> + +<p>"It's too dreadful! Marjorie," she said, "I want +to ask you to do something. After all, a mother has +<i>some</i> claim. Will you wait just a little. Will you +promise me to do nothing—nothing, I mean, to commit +you—until your father has been able to make +inquiries. Don't <i>see</i> him for a little while. Very soon +you'll be one-and-twenty, and then perhaps things +may be different. If he cares for you, and you for +him, a little separation won't matter.... Until +your father has inquired...."</p> + +<p>"Mother," said Marjorie, "I can't——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope drew in the air sharply between her +teeth, as if in agony.</p> + +<p>"But, mother——Mother, I <i>must</i> let Mr. Trafford +know that I'm not to see him. I <i>can't</i> suddenly +cease.... If I could see him once——"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" said Mrs. Pope, in a hollow voice.</p> + +<p>Marjorie began weeping. "He'd not understand," +she said. "If I might just speak to him!"</p> + +<p>"Not alone, Marjorie."</p> + +<p>Marjorie stood still. "Well—before you."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope conceded the point. "And then, Marjorie——" +she said.</p> + +<p>"I'd keep my word, mother," said Marjorie, and +began to sob in a manner she felt to be absurdly +childish—"until—until I am one-and-twenty. I'd +promise that."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope did a brief calculation. "Marjorie," +she said, "it's only your happiness I think of."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Marjorie, and added in a low +voice, "and father."</p> + +<p>"My dear, you don't understand your father.... +I believe—I do firmly believe—if anything happened +to any of you girls—anything bad—he would kill +himself.... And I know he means that you aren't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">-171-</a></span> +to go about so much as you used to do, unless we have +the most definite promises. Of course, your father's +ideas aren't always my ideas, Marjorie; but it's your +duty—You know how hasty he is and—quick. +Just as you know how good and generous and kind +he is"—she caught Marjorie's eye, and added a little +lamely—"at bottom." ... She thought. "I +think I could get him to let you say just one word +with Mr. Trafford. It would be very difficult, +but——"</p> + +<p>She paused for a few seconds, and seemed to be +thinking deeply.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," she said, "Mr. Magnet must never +know anything of this."</p> + +<p>"But, mother——!"</p> + +<p>"Nothing!"</p> + +<p>"I can't go on with my engagement!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope shook her head inscrutably.</p> + +<p>"But how <i>can</i> I, mother?"</p> + +<p>"You need not tell him <i>why</i>, Marjorie."</p> + +<p>"But——"</p> + +<p>"Just think how it would humiliate and distress +him! You <i>can't</i>, Marjorie. You must find some +excuse—oh, any excuse! But not the truth—not the +truth, Marjorie. It would be too dreadful."</p> + +<p>Marjorie thought. "Look here, mother, I <i>may</i> +see Mr. Trafford again? I <i>may</i> really speak to him?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't I promised?"</p> + +<p>"Then, I'll do as you say," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope found her husband seated at the desk +in the ultra-Protestant study, meditating gloomily.</p> + +<p>"I've been talking to her," she said, "She's in +a state of terrible distress."</p> + +<p>"She ought to be," said Mr. Pope.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">-172-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Philip, you don't understand Marjorie."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>"You think she was kissing that man."</p> + +<p>"Well, she was."</p> + +<p>"You can think <i>that</i> of her!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope turned his chair to her. "But I <i>saw!</i>"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope shook her head. "She wasn't; she +was struggling to get away from him. She told me +so herself. I've been into it with her. You don't +understand, Philip. A man like that has a sort of +fascination for a girl. He dazzles her. It's the way +with girls. But you're quite mistaken.... Quite. +It's a sort of hypnotism. She'll grow out of it. Of +course, she <i>loves</i> Mr. Magnet. She does indeed. I've +not a doubt of it. But——"</p> + +<p>"You're <i>sure</i> she wasn't kissing him?"</p> + +<p>"Positive."</p> + +<p>"Then why didn't you say so?"</p> + +<p>"A girl's so complex. You didn't give her a +chance. She's fearfully ashamed of herself—fearfully! +but it's just because she <i>is</i> ashamed that she +won't admit it."</p> + +<p>"I'll make her admit it."</p> + +<p>"You ought to have had all boys," said Mrs. +Pope. "Oh! she'll admit it some day—readily +enough. But I believe a girl of her spirit would +rather <i>die</i> than begin explaining. You can't expect +it of her. Really you can't."</p> + +<p>He grunted and shook his head slowly from side +to side.</p> + +<p>She sat down in the arm-chair beside the desk.</p> + +<p>"I want to know just exactly what we are to do +about the girl, Philip. I can't bear to think of her—up +there."</p> + +<p>"How?" he asked. "Up there?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">-173-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered with that skilful inconsecutiveness +of hers, and let a brief silence touch his +imagination. "Do you think that man means to +come here again?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Chuck him out if he does," said Mr. Pope, +grimly.</p> + +<p>She pressed her lips together firmly. She seemed +to be weighing things painfully. "I wouldn't," she +said at last.</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"I do not want you to make an open quarrel +with Mr. Trafford."</p> + +<p>"<i>Not</i> quarrel!"</p> + +<p>"Not an open one," said Mrs. Pope. "Of course +I know how nice it would be if you <i>could</i> use a horsewhip, +dear. There's such a lot of things—if we +only just slash. But—it won't help. Get him to go +away. She's consented never to see him again—practically. +She's ready to tell him so herself. Part +them against their will—oh! and the thing may go on +for no end of time. But treat it as it ought to be +treated—She'll be very tragic for a week or so, +and then she'll forget him like a dream. He <i>is</i> a +dream—a girl's dream.... If only we leave it +alone, she'll leave it alone."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Things were getting straight, Mrs. Pope felt. She +had now merely to add a few touches to the tranquillization +of Daphne, and the misdirection of the twin's +curiosity. These touches accomplished, it seemed that +everything was done. After a brief reflection, she +dismissed the idea of putting things to Theodore. +She ran over the possibilities of the servants eavesdropping, +and found them negligible. Yes, everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">-174-</a></span> +was done—everything. And yet....</p> + +<p>The queer string in her nature between religiosity +and superstition began to vibrate. She hesitated. +Then she slipped upstairs, fastened the door, fell on +her knees beside the bed and put the whole thing as +acceptably as possible to Heaven in a silent, simple, +but lucidly explanatory prayer....</p> + +<p>She came out of her chamber brighter and braver +than she had been for eighteen long hours. She could +now, she felt, await the developments that threatened +with the serenity of one who is prepared at every +point. She went almost happily to the kitchen, only +about forty-five minutes behind her usual time, to +order the day's meals and see with her own eyes that +economies prevailed. And it seemed to her, on the +whole, consoling, and at any rate a distraction, when +the cook informed her that after all she <i>had</i> meant to +give notice on the day of aunt Plessington's visit.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>The unsuspecting Magnet, fatigued but happy—for +three hours of solid humorous writing (omitting +every unpleasant suggestion and mingling in the most +acceptable and saleable proportions smiles and tears) +had added its quota to the intellectual heritage of +England, made a simple light lunch cooked in homely +village-inn fashion, lit a well merited cigar, and turned +his steps towards the vicarage. He was preceded +at some distance along the avenuesque drive by the +back of Mr. Trafford, which he made no attempt to +overtake.</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford was admitted and disappeared, and +a minute afterwards Magnet reached the door.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope appeared radiant—about the weather. +A rather tiresome man had just called upon Mr. +Pope about business matters, she said, and he might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">-175-</a></span> +be detained five or ten minutes. Marjorie and Daffy +were upstairs—resting. They had been disturbed +by bats in the night.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it charmingly rural?" said Mrs. Pope. +"<i>Bats!</i>"</p> + +<p>She talked about bats and the fear she had of +their getting in her hair, and as she talked she led +the way brightly but firmly as far as possible out of +earshot of the windows of the ultra Protestant study +in which Mr. Pope was now (she did so hope temperately) +interviewing Mr. Trafford.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>Directly Mr. Trafford had reached the front door +it had opened for him, and closed behind him at once. +He had found himself with Mrs. Pope. "You wish +to see my husband?" she had said, and had led him +to the study forthwith. She had returned at once to +intercept Mr. Magnet....</p> + +<p>Trafford found Mr. Pope seated sternly at the +centre of the writing desk, regarding him with a +threatening brow.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," said Mr. Pope breaking the silence, +"you have come to offer some explanation——"</p> + +<p>While awaiting this encounter Mr. Pope had not +been insensitive to the tactical and scenic possibilities +of the occasion. In fact, he had spent the latter half +of the morning in intermittent preparations, arranging +desks, books, hassocks in advantageous positions, +and not even neglecting such small details as the +stamp tray, the articles of interest from Jerusalem, +and the rock-crystal cenotaph, which he had exhibited +in such a manner as was most calculated to damp, +chill and subjugate an antagonist in the exposed area<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">-176-</a></span> +towards the window. He had also arranged the chairs +in a highly favourable pattern.</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford was greatly taken aback by Mr. +Pope's juridical manner and by this form of address, +and he was further put out by Mr. Pope saying with +a regal gesture to the best illuminated and most isolated +chair: "Be seated, sir."</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford's exordium vanished from his mind, +he was at a loss for words until spurred to speech by +Mr. Pope's almost truculent: "Well?"</p> + +<p>"I am in love sir, with your daughter."</p> + +<p>"I am not aware of it," said Mr. Pope, and lifted +and dropped the paper-weight. "My daughter, sir, +is engaged to marry Mr. Magnet. If you had approached +me in a proper fashion before presuming +to attempt—to attempt——" His voice thickened +with indignation,—"Liberties with her, you would +have been duly informed of her position—and everyone +would have been saved"—he lifted the paper-weight. +"Everything that has happened." (Bump.)</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford had to adjust himself to the unexpected +elements in this encounter. "Oh!" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Pope, and there was a distinct +interval.</p> + +<p>"Is your daughter in love with Mr. Magnet?" +asked Mr. Trafford in an almost colloquial tone.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope smiled gravely. "I presume so, sir."</p> + +<p>"She never gave me that impression, anyhow," +said the young man.</p> + +<p>"It was neither her duty to give nor yours to +receive that impression," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Again Mr. Trafford was at a loss.</p> + +<p>"Have you come here, sir, merely to bandy +words?" asked Mr. Pope, drumming with ten fingers +on the table.</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford thrust his hands into his pockets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">-177-</a></span> +and assumed a fictitious pose of ease. He had never +found any one in his life before quite so provocative +of colloquialism as Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Look here, sir, this is all very well," he began, +"but why can't I fall in love with your daughter? +I'm a Doctor of Science and all that sort of thing. +I've a perfectly decent outlook. My father was rather +a swell in his science. I'm an entirely decent and +respectable person."</p> + +<p>"I beg to differ," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"But I am."</p> + +<p>"Again," said Mr. Pope, with great patience, and +a slight forward bowing of the head, "I beg to differ."</p> + +<p>"Well—differ. But all the same——"</p> + +<p>He paused and began again, and for a time they +argued to no purpose. They generalized about the +position of an engaged girl and the rights and privileges +of a father. Then Mr. Pope, "to cut all this +short," told him frankly he wasn't wanted, his daughter +did not want him, nobody wanted him; he was an +invader, he had to be got rid of—"if possible by +peaceful means." Trafford disputed these propositions, +and asked to see Marjorie. Mr. Pope had been +leading up to this, and at once closed with that +request.</p> + +<p>"She is as anxious as any one to end this intolerable +siege," he said. He went to the door and +called for Marjorie, who appeared with conspicuous +promptitude. She was in a dress of green linen that +made her seem very cool as well as very dignified to +Trafford; she was tense with restrained excitement, +and either—for these things shade into each other—entirely +without a disposition to act her part or +acting with consummate ability. Trafford rose at +the sight of her, and remained standing. Mr. Pope +closed the door and walked back to the desk. "Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">-178-</a></span> +Trafford has to be told," he said, "that you don't +want him in Buryhamstreet." He arrested Marjorie's +forward movement towards Trafford by a +gesture of the hand, seated himself, and resumed his +drumming on the table. "Well?" he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you ought to stay in Buryhamstreet, +Mr. Trafford," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"You don't want me to?"</p> + +<p>"It will only cause trouble—and scenes."</p> + +<p>"You want me to go?"</p> + +<p>"Away from here."</p> + +<p>"You really mean that?"</p> + +<p>Marjorie did not answer for a little time; she +seemed to be weighing the exact force of all she was +going to say.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Trafford," she answered, "everything I've +ever said to you—everything—I've <i>meant</i>, more than +I've ever meant anything. Everything!"</p> + +<p>A little flush of colour came into Trafford's +cheeks. He regarded Marjorie with a brightening +eye.</p> + +<p>"Oh well," he said, "I don't understand. But +I'm entirely in your hands, of course."</p> + +<p>Marjorie's pose and expression altered. For an +instant she was a miracle of instinctive expression, +she shone at him, she conveyed herself to him, she +assured him. Her eyes met his, she stood warmly +flushed and quite unconquered—visibly, magnificently +<i>his</i>. She poured into him just that riotous pride and +admiration that gives a man altogether to a woman.... +Then it seemed as if a light passed, and she +was just an everyday Marjorie standing there.</p> + +<p>"I'll do anything you want me to," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Then I want you to go."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Trafford, with his eyes on her self-possession.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">-179-</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've promised not to write or send to you, or—think +more than I can help of you, until I'm twenty-one—nearly +two months from now."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. How can I?"</p> + +<p>"You hear, sir?" from Mr. Pope, in the pause +of mutual scrutiny that followed.</p> + +<p>"One question," said Mr. Trafford.</p> + +<p>"You've surely asked enough, sir," said Mr. +Pope.</p> + +<p>"Are you still engaged to Magnet?"</p> + +<p>"Sir!"</p> + +<p>"Please, father;" said Marjorie, with unusual +daring and in her mother's voice. "Mr. Trafford, +after what I've told you—you must leave that to +me."</p> + +<p>"She <i>is</i> engaged to Mr. Magnet," said Mr. +Pope. "Tell him outright, Marjorie. Make it +clear."</p> + +<p>"I think I understand," said Trafford, with his +eyes on Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"I've not seen Mr. Magnet since last night," said +Marjorie. "And so—naturally—I'm still engaged +to him."</p> + +<p>"Precisely!" said Mr. Pope, and turned with a +face of harsh interrogation to his importunate caller. +Mr. Trafford seemed disposed for further questions. +"I don't think we need detain you, Madge," said +Mr. Pope, over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>The two young people stood facing one another +for a moment, and I am afraid that they were both +extremely happy and satisfied with each other. It +was all right, they were quite sure—all right. Their +lips were almost smiling. Then Marjorie made an +entirely dignified exit. She closed the door very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">-180-</a></span> +softly, and Mr. Pope turned to his visitor again with +a bleak politeness. "I hope that satisfies you," he +said.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing more to be said at present, I +admit," said Mr. Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Nothing," said Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>Both gentlemen bowed. Mr. Pope rose ceremoniously, +and Mr. Trafford walked doorward. He had +a sense of latent absurdities in these tremendous +attitudes. They passed through the hall—processionally. +But just at the end some lower strain in +Mr. Trafford's nature touched the fine dignity of the +occasion with an inappropriate remark.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Pope, holding the +housedoor wide.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Trafford, and then +added with a note of untimely intimacy in his voice, +with an inexcusable levity upon his lips: "You know—there's +nobody—no man in the world—I'd sooner +have for a father-in-law than you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope, caught unprepared on the spur of the +moment, bowed in a cold and distant manner, and +then almost immediately closed the door to save himself +from violence....</p> + +<p>From first to last neither gentleman had made +the slightest allusion to a considerable bruise upon +Mr. Trafford's left cheek, and a large abrasion above +his ear.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>That afternoon Marjorie began her difficult task +of getting disengaged from Mr. Magnet. It was +difficult because she was pledged not to tell him of +the one thing that made this line of action not only +explicable, but necessary. Magnet, perplexed, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">-181-</a></span> +disconcerted, and secretly sustained by her mother's +glancing sidelights on the feminine character and the +instability of "girlish whims," remained at Buryhamstreet +until the family returned to Hartstone Square. +The engagement was ended—formally—but in such +a manner that Magnet was left a rather pathetic +and invincibly assiduous besieger. He lavished little +presents upon both sisters, he devised little treats for +the entire family, he enriched Theodore beyond the +dreams of avarice, and he discussed his love and admiration +for Marjorie, and the perplexities and +delicacies of the situation not only with Mrs. Pope, +but with Daphne. At first he had thought very little +of Daphne, but now he was beginning to experience +the subtle pleasures of a confidential friendship. She +understood, he felt; it was quite wonderful how she +understood. He found Daffy much richer in response +than Marjorie, and far less disconcerting in +reply....</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope, for all Marjorie's submission to his +wishes, developed a Grand Dudgeon of exceptionally +fine proportions when he heard of the breach of the +engagement. He ceased to speak to his daughter or +admit himself aware of her existence, and the Grand +Dudgeon's blighting shadow threw a chill over the +life of every one in the house. He made it clear that +the Grand Dudgeon would only be lifted by Marjorie's +re-engagement to Magnet, and that whatever +blight or inconvenience fell on the others was due +entirely to Marjorie's wicked obstinacy. Using Mrs. +Pope as an intermediary, he also conveyed to Marjorie +his decision to be no longer burthened with the +charges of her education at Oxbridge, and he made it +seem extremely doubtful whether he should remember +her approaching twenty-first birthday.</p> + +<p>Marjorie received the news of her severance from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">-182-</a></span> +Oxbridge, Mrs. Pope thought, with a certain hardness.</p> + +<p>"I thought he would do that," said Marjorie. +"He's always wanted to do that," and said no more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIFTH</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">A Telephone Call</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>Trafford went back to Solomonson for a day or so,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">-183-</a></span> +and then to London, to resume the experimental work +of the research he had in hand. But he was so much +in love with Marjorie that for some days it was a very +dazed mind that fumbled with the apparatus—arranged +it and rearranged it, and fell into daydreams +that gave the utmost concern to Durgan the +bottle-washer.</p> + +<p>"He's not going straight at things," said Durgan +the bottle-washer to his wife. "He usually goes so +straight at things it's a pleasure to watch it. He +told me he was going down into Kent to think everything +out." Mr. Durgan paused impressively, and +spoke with a sigh of perplexity. "He hasn't...."</p> + +<p>But later Durgan was able to report that Trafford +had pulled himself together. The work was +moving.</p> + +<p>"I was worried for a bit," said Mr. Durgan. +"But I <i>think</i> it's all right again. I <i>believe</i> it's all +right again."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>Trafford was one of those rare scientific men who +really ought to be engaged in scientific research.</p> + +<p>He could never leave an accepted formula alone. +His mind was like some insatiable corrosive, that ate +into all the hidden inequalities and plastered weaknesses +of accepted theories, and bit its way through +every plausibility of appearance. He was extraordinarily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">-184-</a></span> +fertile in exasperating alternative hypotheses. +His invention of destructive test experiments was as +happy as the respectful irony with which he brought +them into contact with the generalizations they +doomed. He was already, at six-and-twenty, hated, +abused, obstructed, and respected. He was still outside +the Royal Society, of course, and the editors of +the scientific periodicals admired his papers greatly, +and delayed publication; but it was fairly certain +that that pressure of foreign criticism and competition +which prevents English scientific men of good +family and social position from maintaining any +such national standards as we are able to do in art, +literature, and politics, would finally carry him in. +And since he had a small professorship worth three +hundred a year, which gave him the command of a +sufficient research laboratory and the services of Mr. +Durgan, a private income of nearly three hundred +more, a devoted mother to keep house for him, and +an invincible faith in Truth, he had every prospect +of winning in his particular struggle to inflict more +Truth, new lucidities, and fresh powers upon this +fractious and unreasonable universe.</p> + +<p>In the world of science now, even more than in the +world of literature and political thought, the thing +that is alive struggles, half-suffocated, amidst a +copious production of things born dead. The endowment +of research, the organization of scientific +progress, the creation of salaried posts, and the +assignment of honours, has attracted to this field +just that type of man which is least gifted to penetrate +and discover, and least able to admit its own +defect or the quality of a superior. Such men are +producing great, bulky masses of imitative research, +futile inquiries, and monstrous entanglements of +technicality about their subjects; and it is to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">-185-</a></span> +instinctive antagonism to the idea of a "gift" in +such things that we owe the preposterous conception +of a training for research, the manufacture of mental +blinkers that is to say, to avoid what is the very soul +of brilliant inquiry—applicable discursiveness. The +trained investigator is quite the absurdest figure in +the farce of contemporary intellectual life; he is like +a bath-chair perpetually starting to cross the Himalayas +by virtue of a licence to do so. For such enterprises +one must have wings. Organization and +genius are antipathetic. The vivid and creative +mind, by virtue of its qualities, is a spasmodic and +adventurous mind; it resents blinkers, and the mere +implication that it can be driven in harness to the +unexpected. It demands freedom. It resents regular +attendance from ten to four and punctualities in +general and all those paralyzing minor tests of conduct +that are vitally important to the imagination +of the authoritative dull. Consequently, it is being +eliminated from its legitimate field, and it is only +here and there among the younger men that such a +figure as Trafford gives any promise of a renewal of +that enthusiasm, that intellectual enterprise, which +were distinctive of the great age of scientific advance.</p> + +<p>Trafford was the only son of his parents. His +father had been a young surgeon, more attracted by +knowledge than practice, who had been killed by a +scratch of the scalpel in an investigation upon ulcerative +processes, at the age of twenty-nine. Trafford +at that time was three years old, so that he had not +the least memory of his father; but his mother, by a +thousand almost unpremeditated touches, had built +up a figure for him and a tradition that was shaping +his life. She had loved her husband passionately, and +when he died her love burnt up like a flame released, +and made a god of the good she had known with him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">-186-</a></span> +She was then a very beautiful and active-minded +woman of thirty, and she did her best to reconstruct +her life; but she could find nothing so living in the +world as the clear courage, the essential simplicity, +and tender memories of the man she had lost. And +she was the more devoted to him that he had had little +weaknesses of temper and bearing, and that an outrageous +campaign had been waged against him that +did not cease with his death. He had, in some medical +periodical, published drawings of a dead dog +clamped to display a deformity, and these had been +seized upon by a group of anti-vivisection fanatics +as the representation of a vivisection. A libel action +had been pending when he died; but there is no protection +of the dead from libel. That monstrous lie +met her on pamphlet cover, on hoardings, in sensational +appeals; it seemed immortal, and she would +have suffered the pains of a dozen suttees if she +could have done so, to show the world how the power +and tenderness of this alleged tormentor of helpless +beasts had gripped one woman's heart. It counted +enormously in her decision to remain a widow and +concentrate her life upon her son.</p> + +<p>She watched his growth with a care and passionate +subtlety that even at six-and-twenty he was still +far from suspecting. She dreaded his becoming a +mother's pet, she sent him away to school and fretted +through long terms alone, that he might be made +into a man. She interested herself in literary work +and social affairs lest she should press upon him unduly. +She listened for the crude expression of growing +thought in him with an intensity that was almost +anguish. She was too intelligent to dream of forming +his mind, he browsed on every doctrine to find his +own, but she did desire most passionately, she prayed, +she prayed in the darkness of sleepless nights, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">-187-</a></span> +the views, the breadths, the spacious emotions which +had ennobled her husband in her eyes should rise +again in him.</p> + +<p>There were years of doubt and waiting. He was +a good boy and a bad boy, now brilliant, now touching, +now disappointing, now gloriously reassuring, +and now heart-rending as only the children of our +blood can be. He had errors and bad moments, +lapses into sheer naughtiness, phases of indolence, +attacks of contagious vulgarity. But more and more +surely she saw him for his father's son; she traced +the same great curiosities, the same keen dauntless +questioning; whatever incidents might disturb and +perplex her, his intellectual growth went on strong +and clear and increasing like some sacred flame that +is carried in procession, halting perhaps and swaying +a little but keeping on, over the heads of a +tumultuous crowd.</p> + +<p>He went from his school to the Royal College of +Science, thence to successes at Cambridge, and thence +to Berlin. He travelled a little in Asia Minor and +Persia, had a journey to America, and then came back +to her and London, sunburnt, moustached, manly, +and a little strange. When he had been a boy she +had thought his very soul pellucid; it had clouded +opaquely against her scrutiny as he passed into adolescence. +Then through the period of visits and +departures, travel together, separations, he grew into +something detached and admirable, a man curiously +reminiscent of his father, unexpectedly different. She +ceased to feel what he was feeling in his mind, had +to watch him, infer, guess, speculate about him. She +desired for him and dreaded for him with an undying +tenderness, but she no longer had any assurance that +she could interfere to help him. He had his father's +trick of falling into thought. Her brown eyes would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">-188-</a></span> +watch him across the flowers and delicate glass and +silver of her dinner table when he dined at home +with her. Sometimes he seemed to forget she existed, +sometimes he delighted in her, talked to amuse her, +petted her; sometimes, and then it was she was +happiest, he talked of plays and books with her, +discussed general questions, spoke even of that +broadly conceived scheme of work which engaged so +much of his imagination. She knew that it was distinguished +and powerful work. Old friends of her +husband spoke of it to her, praised its inspired directness, +its beautiful simplicity. Since the days of Wollaston, +they said, no one had been so witty an experimenter, +no one had got more out of mere scraps of +apparatus or contrived more ingenious simplifications.</p> + +<p>When he had accepted the minor Professorship +which gave him a footing in the world of responsible +scientific men, she had taken a house in a quiet street +in Chelsea which necessitated a daily walk to his +laboratory. It was a little old Georgian house with +worn and graceful rooms, a dignified front door and +a fine gateway of Sussex ironwork much painted and +eaten away. She arranged it with great care; she +had kept most of her furniture, and his study had his +father's bureau, and the selfsame agate paper-weight +that had pressed the unfinished paper he left when +he died. She was a woman of persistent friendships, +and there came to her, old connections of those early +times trailing fresher and younger people in their +wake, sons, daughters, nephews, disciples; her son +brought home all sorts of interesting men, and it was +remarkable to her that amidst the talk and discussion +at her table, she discovered aspects of her son and +often quite intimate aspects she would never have +seen with him alone.</p> + +<p>She would not let herself believe that this Indian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">-189-</a></span> +summer of her life could last for ever. He was no +passionless devotee of research, for all his silence and +restraints. She had seen him kindle with anger at +obstacles and absurdities, and quicken in the presence +of beauty. She knew how readily and richly he +responded to beauty. Things happened to have run +smoothly with him so far, that was all. "Of course," +she said, "he must fall in love. It cannot be long +before he falls in love."</p> + +<p>Once or twice that had seemed to happen, and +then it had come to nothing....</p> + +<p>She knew that sooner or later this completion of +his possibilities must come, that the present steadfastness +of purpose was a phase in which forces gathered, +that love must sweep into his life as a deep and passionate +disturbance. She wondered where it would +take him, whether it would leave him enriched or +devastated. She saw at times how young he was; she +had, as I suppose most older people have about their +juniors, the profoundest doubt whether he was wise +enough yet to be trusted with a thing so good as +himself. He had flashes of high-spirited indiscretion, +and at times a wildfire of humour flared in his talk. +So far that had done no worse for him than make +an enemy or so in scientific circles. But she had no +idea of the limits of his excitability. She would +watch him and fear for him—she knew the wreckage +love can make—and also she desired that he should +lose nothing that life and his nature could give him.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>In the two months of separation that ensued +before Marjorie was one-and-twenty, Trafford's mind +went through some remarkable phases. At first the +excitement of his passion for Marjorie obscured +everything else, then with his return to London and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">-190-</a></span> +his laboratory the immense inertia of habit and +slowly developed purposes, the complex yet convergent +system of ideas and problems to which so much +of his life had been given, began to reassert itself. +His love was vivid and intense, a light in his imagination, +a fever in his blood; but it was a new thing; +it had not crept into the flesh and bones of his being, +it was away there in Surrey; the streets of London, +his home, the white-walled chamber with its skylight +and high windows and charts of constants, in which +his apparatus was arranged, had no suggestion of +her. She was outside—an adventure—a perplexing +incommensurable with all these things.</p> + +<p>He had left Buryhamstreet with Marjorie riotously +in possession of his mind. He could think of +nothing but Marjorie in the train, and how she had +shone at him in the study, and how her voice had +sounded when she spoke, and how she stood and +moved, and the shape and sensation of her hands, and +how it had felt to hold her for those brief moments +in the wood and press lips and body to his, and how +her face had gleamed in the laced shadows of the +moonlight, soft and wonderful.</p> + +<p>In fact, he thought of Marjorie.</p> + +<p>He thought she was splendid, courageous, wise by +instinct. He had no doubt of her or that she was to +be his—when the weeks of waiting had passed by. +She was his, and he was Marjorie's; that had been +settled from the beginning of the world. It didn't +occur to him that anything had happened to alter +his life or any of his arrangements in any way, except +that they were altogether altered—as the world is +altered without displacement when the sun pours up +in the east. He was glorified—and everything was +glorified.</p> + +<p>He wondered how they would meet again, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">-191-</a></span> +dreamt a thousand impossible and stirring dreams, +but he dreamt them as dreams.</p> + +<p>At first, to Durgan's infinite distress, he thought +of her all day, and then, as the old familiar interests +grappled him again, he thought of her in the morning +and the evening and as he walked between his +home and the laboratory and at all sorts of incidental +times—and even when the close-locked riddles of +his research held the foreground and focus of his +thoughts, he still seemed to be thinking of her as a +radiant background to ions and molecules and atoms +and interwoven systems of eddies and quivering oscillations +deep down in the very heart of matter.</p> + +<p>And always he thought of her as something of +the summer. The rich decays of autumn came, the +Chelsea roads were littered with variegated leaves +that were presently wet and dirty and slippery, the +twilight crept down into the day towards five o'clock +and four, but in his memory of her the leaves were +green, the evenings were long, the warm quiet of +rural Surrey in high August filled the air. So that +it was with a kind of amazement he found her in +London and in November close at hand. He was +called to the college telephone one day from a conversation +with a proposed research student. It was +a middle-aged woman bachelor anxious for the D.Sc., +who wished to occupy the further bench in the laboratory; +but she had no mental fire, and his mind +was busy with excuses and discouragements.</p> + +<p>He had no thought of Marjorie when she answered, +and for an instant he did not recognize her voice.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm Mr. Trafford."...</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" he reiterated with a note of irascibility. +"<i>Who?</i>"</p> + +<p>The little voice laughed. "Why! I'm Marjorie!" +it said.</p> + +<p>Then she was back in his life like a lantern suddenly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">-192-</a></span> +become visible in a wood at midnight.</p> + +<p>It was like meeting her as a china figure, neat +and perfect and two inches high. It was her voice, +very clear and very bright, and quite characteristic, +as though he was hearing it through the wrong end +of a telescope. It was her voice, clear as a bell; confident +without a shadow.</p> + +<p>"It's <i>me!</i> Marjorie! I'm twenty-one to-day!"</p> + +<p>It was like a little arrow of exquisite light shot +into the very heart of his life.</p> + +<p>He laughed back. "Are you for meeting me +then, Marjorie?"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>They met in Kensington Gardens with an air of +being clandestine and defiant. It was one of those +days of amber sunlight, soft air, and tender beauty +with which London relieves the tragic glooms of the +year's decline. There were still a residue of warm-tinted +leaves in puffs and clusters upon the tree +branches, a boat or two ruffled the blue Serpentine, +and the waterfowl gave colour and animation to the +selvage of the water. The sedges were still a greenish +yellow.</p> + +<p>The two met shyly. They were both a little unfamiliar +to each other. Trafford was black-coated, +silk-hatted, umbrella-d, a decorous young professor +in the place of the cheerful aeronaut who had fallen +so gaily out of the sky. Marjorie had a new tailor-made +dress of russet-green, and a little cloth toque +ruled and disciplined the hair he had known as a +ruddy confusion.... They had dreamt, I think, +of extended arms and a wild rush to embrace one +another. Instead, they shook hands.</p> + +<p>"And so," said Trafford, "we meet again!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">-193-</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't see why we shouldn't meet!" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>There was a slight pause.</p> + +<p>"Let's have two of those jolly little green +chairs," said Trafford....</p> + +<p>They walked across the grass towards the chairs +he had indicated, and both were full of the momentous +things they were finding it impossible to say.</p> + +<p>"There ought to be squirrels here, as there are +in New York," he said at last.</p> + +<p>They sat down. There was a moment's silence, +and then Trafford's spirit rose in rebellion and he +plunged at this—this stranger beside him.</p> + +<p>"Look here," he said, "do you still love me, +Marjorie?"</p> + +<p>She looked up into his face with eyes in which +surprise and scrutiny passed into something altogether +beautiful. "I love you—altogether," she +said in a steady, low voice.</p> + +<p>And suddenly she was no longer a stranger, but +the girl who had flitted to his arms breathless, unhesitating, +through the dusk. His blood quickened. +He made an awkward gesture as though he arrested +an impulse to touch her. "My sweetheart," he said. +"My dear one!"</p> + +<p>Marjorie's face flashed responses. "It's you," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Me," she answered.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"Everything!"</p> + +<p>"My dear!"</p> + +<p>"I want to tell you things," said Marjorie. +"What are we to do?"....</p> + +<p>He tried afterwards to retrace that conversation. +He was chiefly ashamed of his scientific preoccupations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">-194-</a></span> +during that London interval. He had thought +of a thousand things; Marjorie had thought of nothing +else but love and him. Her happy assurance, her +absolute confidence that his desires would march with +hers, reproached and confuted every adverse thought +in him as though it was a treachery to love. He had +that sense which I suppose comes at times to every +man, of entire unworthiness for the straight, unhesitating +decision, the clear simplicity of a woman's +passion. He had dreamt vaguely, unsubstantially, +the while he had arranged his pressures and temperatures +and infinitesimal ingredients, and worked with +goniometer and trial models and the new calculating +machine he had contrived for his research. But she +had thought clearly, definitely, fully—of nothing +but coming to him. She had thought out everything +that bore upon that; reasons for preciptance, reasons +for delay, she had weighed the rewards of conformity +against the glamour of romance. It became +more and more clear to him as they talked, that she +was determined to elope with him, to go to Italy, and +there have an extraordinarily picturesque and beautiful +time. Her definiteness shamed his poverty of +anticipation. Her enthusiasm carried him with her. +Of course it was so that things must be done....</p> + +<p>When at last they parted under the multiplying +lamps of the November twilight, he turned his face +eastward. He was afraid of his mother's eyes—he +scarcely knew why. He walked along Kensington +Gore, and the clustering confused lights of street and +house, white and golden and orange and pale lilac, +the moving lamps and shining glitter of the traffic, +the luminous interiors of omnibuses, the reflection of +carriage and hoarding, the fading daylight overhead, +the phantom trees to the left, the deepening shadows +and blacknesses among the houses on his right, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">-195-</a></span> +bobbing heads of wayfarers, were just for him the +stir and hue and texture of fairyland. All the world +was fairyland. He went to his club and dined there, +and divided the evening between geography, as it is +condensed in Baedeker and Murray on North Italy, +Italian Switzerland and the Italian Riviera, and a +study of the marriage laws as they are expounded in +"Whitaker's Almanac," the "Encyclopædia Britannica," +and other convenient works of reference. He +replaced the books as he used them, and went at last +from the library into the smoking-room, but seeing a +man who might talk to him there, he went out at once +into the streets, and fetched a wide compass by Baker +Street, Oxford Street, and Hyde Park, home.</p> + +<p>He was a little astonished at himself and everything.</p> + +<p>But it was going to be—splendid.</p> + +<p>(What poor things words can be!)</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>He found his mother still up. She had been re-reading +"The Old Wives' Tale," and she sat before +a ruddy fire in the shadow beyond the lit circle of a +green-shaded electric light thinking, with the book +put aside. In the dimness above was his father's +portrait. "Time you were in bed, mother," he said +reprovingly, and kissed her eyebrow and stood above +her. "What's the book?" he asked, and picked it up +and put it down, forgotten. Their eyes met. She +perceived he had something to say; she did not know +what. "Where have you been?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He told her, and they lapsed into silence. She +asked another question and he answered her, and the +indifferent conversation ended again. The silence +lengthened. Then he plunged: "I wonder, mother,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">-196-</a></span> +if it would put you out very much if I brought home +a wife to you?"</p> + +<p>So it had come to this—and she had not seen it +coming. She looked into the glowing recesses of the +fire before her and controlled her voice by an effort. +"I'd be glad for you to do it, dear—if you loved +her," she said very quietly. He stared down at her +for a moment; then he knelt down beside her and +took her hand and kissed it. "<i>My dear</i>," she whispered +softly, stroking his head, and her tears came +streaming. For a time they said no more.</p> + +<p>Presently he put coal on the fire, and then sitting +on the hearthrug at her feet and looking away from +her into the flames—in an attitude that took her back +to his boyhood—he began to tell her brokenly and +awkwardly of Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"It's so hard, mother, to explain these things," +he began. "One doesn't half understand the things +that are happening to one. I want to make you in +love with her, dear, just as I am. And I don't see +how I can."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I shall understand, my dear. Perhaps +I shall understand better than you think."</p> + +<p>"She's such a beautiful thing—with something +about her——. You know those steel blades you can +bend back to the hilt—and they're steel! And she's +tender. It's as if someone had taken tears, mother, +and made a spirit out of them——"</p> + +<p>She caressed and stroked his hand. "My dear," +she said, "I know."</p> + +<p>"And a sort of dancing daring in her eyes."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said. "But tell me where she comes +from, and how you met her—and all the circumstantial +things that a sensible old woman can understand."</p> + +<p>He kissed her hand and sat down beside her, with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">-197-</a></span> +his shoulder against the arm of her chair, his fingers +interlaced about his knee. She could not keep her +touch from his hair, and she tried to force back the +thought in her mind that all these talks must end, +that very soon indeed they would end. And she was +glad, full of pride and joy too that her son was a +lover after her heart, a clean and simple lover as his +father had been before him. He loved this unknown +Marjorie, finely, sweetly, bravely, even as she herself +could have desired to have been loved. She told herself +she did not care very greatly even if this Marjorie +should prove unworthy. So long as her son was +not unworthy.</p> + +<p>He pieced his story together. He gave her a +picture of the Popes, Marjorie in her family like a +jewel in an ugly setting, so it seemed to him, and the +queer dull rage of her father and all that they meant +to do. She tried to grasp his perplexities and advise, +but chiefly she was filled with the thought that he was +in love. If he wanted a girl he should have her, and +if he had to take her by force, well, wasn't it his +right? She set small store upon the Popes that night—or +any circumstances. And since she herself had +married on the slightest of security, she was concerned +very little that this great adventure was to be +attempted on an income of a few hundreds a year. +It was outside her philosophy that a wife should be +anything but glad to tramp the roads if need be with +the man who loved her. He sketched out valiant +plans, was for taking Marjorie away in the teeth of +all opposition and bringing her back to London. It +would have to be done decently, of course, but it +would have, he thought, to be done. Mrs. Trafford +found the prospect perfect; never before had he +sounded and looked so like that dim figure which hung +still and sympathetic above them. Ever and again<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">-198-</a></span> +she glanced up at her husband's quiet face....</p> + +<p>On one point she was very clear with him.</p> + +<p>"You'll live with us, mother?" he said abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Not with you. As near as you like. But one +house, one woman.... I'll have a little flat of my +own—for you both to come to me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense, mother! You'll have to be with +us. Living alone, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"My dear, I'd <i>prefer</i> a flat of my own. You +don't understand—everything. It will be better for +all of us like that."</p> + +<p>There came a little pause between them, and then +her hand was on his head again. "Oh, my dear," she +said, "I want you to be happy. And life can be difficult. +I won't give a chance—for things to go wrong. +You're hers, dear, and you've got to be hers—be each +other's altogether. I've watched so many people. +And that's the best, the very best you can have. +There's just the lovers—the real enduring lovers; and +the uncompleted people who've failed to find it."...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Trafford's second meeting with Marjorie, which, +by the by, happened on the afternoon of the following +day, brought them near to conclusive decisions. The +stiffness of their first encounter in London had altogether +vanished. She was at her prettiest and in the +highest spirits—and she didn't care for anything else +in the world. A gauzy silk scarf which she had +bought and not paid for that day floated atmospherically +about her straight trim body; her hair had +caught the infection of insurrection and was waving +rebelliously about her ears. As he drew near her his +grave discretion passed from him as clouds pass from +a hillside. She smiled radiantly. He held out both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">-199-</a></span> +his hands for both of hers, and never did a maiden +come so near and yet not get a public and shameless +kissing.</p> + +<p>One could as soon describe music as tell their +conversation. It was a matter of tones and feelings. +But the idea of flight together, of the bright awakening +in unfamiliar sunshine with none to come between +them, had gripped them both. A certain sober gravity +of discussion only masked that deeper inebriety. +It would be easy for them to get away; he had no +lectures until February; he could, he said, make arrangements, +leave his research. She dreaded disputation. +She was for a simple disappearance, notes +on pincushions and defiantly apologetic letters from +Boulogne, but his mother's atmosphere had been a +gentler one than her home's, with a more powerful +disposition to dignity. He still couldn't understand +that the cantankerous egotism of Pope was indeed the +essential man; it seemed to him a crust of bad manners +that reason ought to pierce.</p> + +<p>The difference in their atmospheres came out in +their talk—in his desire for a handsome and dignified +wedding—though the very heavens protested—and +her resolve to cut clear of every one, to achieve a sort +of gaol delivery of her life, make a new beginning +altogether, with the minimum of friction and the +maximum of surprise. Unused to fighting, he was +magnificently prepared to fight; she, with her intimate +knowledge of chronic domestic conflict, was for +the evasion of all the bickerings, scoldings, and misrepresentations +his challenge would occasion. He +thought in his innocence a case could be stated and +discussed; but no family discussion she had ever +heard had even touched the realities of the issue that +occasioned it.</p> + +<p>"I don't like this underhand preparation," he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">-200-</a></span> +said.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," she echoed. "But what can one do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, oughtn't I to go to your father and give +him a chance? Why shouldn't I? It's—the dignified +way."</p> + +<p>"It won't be dignified for father," said Marjorie, +"anyhow."</p> + +<p>"But what right has he to object?"</p> + +<p>"He isn't going to discuss his rights with you. +He <i>will</i> object."</p> + +<p>"But <i>why?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Oh! because he's started that way. He hit you. +I haven't forgotten it. Well, if he goes back on that +now——He'd rather die than go back on it. You +see, he's ashamed in his heart. It would be like confessing +himself wrong not to keep it up that you're +the sort of man one hits. He just hates you because +he hit you. I haven't been his daughter for twenty-one +years for nothing."</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of us," said Trafford. "I don't +see we oughtn't to go to him just because he's likely +to be—unreasonable."</p> + +<p>"My dear, do as you please. He'll forbid and +shout, and hit tables until things break. Suppose he +locks me up!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Habeas Corpus, and my strong right arm! +He's much more likely to turn you out-of-doors."</p> + +<p>"Not if he thinks the other will annoy you more. +I'll have to bear a storm."</p> + +<p>"Not for long."</p> + +<p>"He'll bully mother till she cries over me. But +do as you please. She'll come and she'll beg me——Do +as you please. Perhaps I'm a coward. I'd far +rather I could slip away."</p> + +<p>Trafford thought for a moment. "I'd far rather +you could," he answered, in a voice that spoke of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">-201-</a></span> +inflexible determinations.</p> + +<p>They turned to the things they meant to do. +"<i>Italy!</i>" she whispered, "<i>Italy!</i>" Her face was +alight with her burning expectation of beauty, of +love, of the new heaven and the new earth that lay +before them. The intensity of that desire blazing +through her seemed to shame his dull discretions. He +had to cling to his resolution, lest it should vanish in +that contagious intoxication.</p> + +<p>"You understand I shall come to your father," +he said, as they drew near the gate where it seemed +discreet for them to part.</p> + +<p>"It will make it harder to get away," she said, +with no apparent despondency. "It won't stop us. +Oh! do as you please."</p> + +<p>She seemed to dismiss the question, and stood +hand-in-hand with him in a state of glowing gravity. +She wouldn't see him again for four-and-twenty hours. +Then a thought came into her head—a point of +great practical moment.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she said, "of course, you won't tell +father you've seen me."</p> + +<p>She met his eye. "Really you mustn't," she said. +"You see—he'll make a row with mother for not +having watched me better. I don't know what he +isn't likely to do. It isn't myself——This is a confidential +communication—all this. No one in this +world knows I am meeting you. If you <i>must</i> go to +him, go to him."</p> + +<p>"For myself?"</p> + +<p>She nodded, with her open eyes on his—eyes that +looked now very blue and very grave, and her lips a +little apart.</p> + +<p>She surprised him a little, but even this sudden +weakness seemed adorable.</p> + +<p>"All right," he said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">-202-</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't think that I'm shirking——?" she +asked, a little too eagerly.</p> + +<p>"You know your father best," he answered. +"I'll tell you all he says and all the terror of him here +to-morrow afternoon."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>In the stillness of the night Trafford found himself +thinking over Marjorie; it was a new form of +mental exercise, which was destined to play a large +part in his existence for many subsequent years. +There had come a shadow on his confidence in her. +She was a glorious person; she had a kind of fire +behind her and in her—shining through her, like +the lights in a fire-opal, but——He wished she had +not made him promise to conceal their meeting and +their close co-operation from her father. Why did +she do that? It would spoil his case with her father, +and it could forward things for them in no conceivable +way. And from that, in some manner too subtle +to trace, he found his mind wandering to another +problem, which was destined to reappear with a +slowly dwindling importance very often in this procedure +of thinking over Marjorie in the small hours. +It was the riddle—it never came to him in the daytime, +but only in those intercalary and detachedly +critical periods of thought—why exactly had she +engaged herself to Magnet? Why had she? He +couldn't imagine himself, in Marjorie's position, +doing anything of the sort. Marjorie had ways of +her own; she was different.... Well, anyhow, +she was splendid and loving and full of courage.... +He had got no further than this when at last +he fell asleep.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>Trafford's little attempt to regularise his position<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">-203-</a></span> +was as creditable to him as it was inevitably futile. +He sought out 29, Hartstone Square in the morning +on his way to his laboratory, and he found it one of +a great row of stucco houses each with a portico and +a dining-room window on the ground floor, and each +with a railed area from which troglodytic servants +peeped. Collectively the terrace might claim a certain +ugly dignity of restraint, there was none of your +Queen Anne nonsense of art or beauty about it, and +the narrow height, the subterranean kitchens of each +constituent house, told of a steep relentless staircase +and the days before the pampering of the lower classes +began. The houses formed a square, as if the +British square so famous at Waterloo for its dogged +resistance to all the forces of the universe had immortalized +itself in buildings, and they stared upon a +severely railed garden of hardy shrubs and gravel to +which the tenants had the inestimable privilege of +access. They did not use it much, that was their +affair, but at any rate they had keys and a nice +sense of rights assured, and at least it kept other +people out.</p> + +<p>Trafford turned out of a busy high road full of +the mixed exhilarating traffic of our time, and came +along a quiet street into this place, and it seemed to +him he had come into a corner of defence and retreat, +into an atmosphere of obstinate and unteachable +resistances. But this illusion of conservativism in its +last ditch was dispelled altogether in Mr. Pope's portico. +Youth flashed out of these solemnities like a +dart shot from a cave. Trafford was raising his +hand to the solid brass knocker when abruptly it was +snatched from his fingers, the door was flung open +and a small boy with a number of dirty books in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">-204-</a></span> +strap flew out and hit him with projectile violence.</p> + +<p>"Blow!" said the young gentleman recoiling, and +Trafford recovering said: "Hullo, Theodore!"</p> + +<p>"Lord!" said Theodore breathless, "It's you! +<i>What</i> a lark! Your name's never mentioned—no +how. What <i>did</i> you do?... Wish I could stop +and see it! I'm ten minutes late. <i>Ave atque vale</i>. +So long!"</p> + +<p>He vanished with incredible velocity. And Mr. +Trafford was alone in possession of the open doorway +except for Toupee, who after a violent outbreak of +hostility altered his mind and cringed to his feet in +abject and affectionate propitiation. A pseudo-twin +appeared, said "Hello!" and vanished, and then he +had an instant's vision of Mr. Pope, newspaper in +hand, appearing from the dining-room. His expression +of surprise changed to malevolence, and he darted +back into the room from which he had emerged. +Trafford decided to take the advice of a small brass +plate on his left hand, and "ring also."</p> + +<p>A housemaid came out of the bowels of the earth +very promptly and ushered him up two flights of +stairs into what was manifestly Mr. Pope's study.</p> + +<p>It was a narrow, rather dark room lit by two +crimson-curtained windows, and with a gas fire before +which Mr. Pope's walking boots were warming for +the day. The apartment revealed to Trafford's cursory +inspection many of the stigmata of an Englishman +of active intelligence and literary tastes. There +in the bookcase were the collected works of Scott, a +good large illustrated Shakespeare in numerous volumes, +and a complete set of bound <i>Punches</i> from the +beginning. A pile of back numbers of the <i>Times</i> +stood on a cane stool in a corner, and in a little bookcase +handy for the occupier of the desk were Whitaker, +Wisden and an old peerage. The desk bore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">-205-</a></span> +traces of recent epistolary activity, and was littered +with the printed matter of Aunt Plessington's movements. +Two or three recent issues of <i>The Financial +Review of Reviews</i> were also visible. About the room +hung steel engravings apparently of defunct judges +or at any rate of exceedingly grim individuals, and +over the mantel were trophies of athletic prowess, a +bat witnessing that Mr. Pope had once captained the +second eleven at Harrogby.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope entered with a stern expression and a +sentence prepared. "Well, sir," he said with a note +of ironical affability, "to what may I ascribe this—intrusion?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Trafford was about to reply when Mr. Pope +interrupted. "Will you be seated," he said, and +turned his desk chair about for himself, and occupying +it, crossed his legs and pressed the finger tips of +his two hands together. "Well, sir?" he said.</p> + +<p>Trafford remained standing astraddle over the +boots before the gas fire.</p> + +<p>"Look here, sir," he said; "I am in love with your +daughter. She's one and twenty, and I want to see +her—and in fact——" He found it hard to express +himself. He could think only of a phrase that sounded +ridiculous. "I want—in fact—to pay my addresses +to her."</p> + +<p>"Well, sir, I don't want you to do so. That is +too mild. I object strongly—very strongly. My +daughter has been engaged to a very distinguished +and able man, and I hope very shortly to hear that +that engagement—— Practically it is still going on. +I don't want you to intrude upon my daughter further."</p> + +<p>"But look here, sir. There's a certain justice—I +mean a certain reasonableness——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope held out an arresting hand. "I don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">-206-</a></span> +wish it. Let that be enough."</p> + +<p>"Of course it isn't enough. I'm in love with her—and +she with me. I'm an entirely reputable and +decent person——"</p> + +<p>"May I be allowed to judge what is or is not +suitable companionship for my daughter—and what +may or may not be the present state of her affections?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's rather the point we are discussing. +After all, Marjorie isn't a baby. I want to do all +this—this affair, openly and properly if I can, but, +you know, I mean to marry Marjorie—anyhow."</p> + +<p>"There are two people to consult in that matter."</p> + +<p>"I'll take the risk of that."</p> + +<p>"Permit me to differ."</p> + +<p>A feeling of helplessness came over Trafford. The +curious irritation Mr. Pope always roused in him +began to get the better of him. His face flushed +hotly. "Oh really! really! this is—this is nonsense!" +he cried. "I never heard anything so childish +and pointless as your objection——"</p> + +<p>"Be careful, sir!" cried Mr. Pope, "be careful!"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to marry Marjorie."</p> + +<p>"If she marries you, sir, she shall never darken +my doors again!"</p> + +<p>"If you had a thing against me!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Haven't</i> I!"</p> + +<p>"What have you?"</p> + +<p>There was a quite perceptible pause before Pope +fired his shot.</p> + +<p>"Does any decent man want the name of Trafford +associated with his daughter. Trafford! Look +at the hoardings, sir!"</p> + +<p>A sudden blaze of anger lit Trafford. "My +God!" he cried and clenched his fists and seemed for +a moment ready to fall upon the man before him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">-207-</a></span> +Then he controlled himself by a violent effort. "You +believe in that libel on my dead father?" he said, +with white lips.</p> + +<p>"Has it ever been answered?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred times. And anyhow!—Confound it! +I don't believe—<i>you</i> believe it. You've raked it up—as +an excuse! You want an excuse for your infernal +domestic tyranny! That's the truth of it. You can't +bear a creature in your household to have a will or +preference of her own. I tell you, sir, you are +intolerable—intolerable!"</p> + +<p>He was shouting, and Pope was standing now and +shouting too. "Leave my house, sir. Get out of +my house, sir. You come here to insult me, sir!"</p> + +<p>A sudden horror of himself and Pope seized the +younger man. He stiffened and became silent. Never +in his life before had he been in a bawling quarrel. +He was amazed and ashamed.</p> + +<p>"Leave my house!" cried Pope with an imperious +gesture towards the door.</p> + +<p>Trafford made an absurd effort to save the situation. +"I am sorry, sir, I lost my temper. I had no +business to abuse you——"</p> + +<p>"You've said enough."</p> + +<p>"I apologise for that. I've done what I could to +manage things decently."</p> + +<p>"Will you go, sir?" threatened Mr. Pope.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry I came," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pope took his stand with folded arms and an +expression of weary patience.</p> + +<p>"I did what I could," said Trafford at the door.</p> + +<p>The staircase and passage were deserted. The +whole house seemed to have caught from Mr. Pope +that same quality of seeing him out....</p> + +<p>"Confound it!" said Trafford in the street.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">-208-</a></span> +"How on earth did all this happen?"...</p> + +<p>He turned eastward, and then realized that work +would be impossible that day. He changed his direction +for Kensington Gardens, and in the flower-bordered +walk near the Albert Memorial he sat down +on a chair, and lugged at his moustache and wondered. +He was extraordinarily perplexed, as well as +ashamed and enraged by this uproar. How had it +begun? Of course, he had been stupidly abusive, but +the insult to his father had been unendurable. Did a +man of Pope's sort quite honestly believe that stuff? +If he didn't, he deserved kicking. If he did, of course +he was entitled to have it cleared up. But then he +wouldn't listen! Was there any case for the man at +all? Had he, Trafford, really put the thing so that +Pope would listen? He couldn't remember. What +was it he had said in reply to Pope? What was it +exactly that Pope had said?</p> + +<p>It was already vague; it was a confused memory +of headlong words and answers; what wasn't vague, +what rang in his ears still, was the hoarse discord of +two shouting voices.</p> + +<p>Could Marjorie have heard?</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>So Marjorie carried her point. She wasn't to be +married tamely after the common fashion which trails +home and all one's beginnings into the new life. She +was to be eloped with, romantically and splendidly, +into a glorious new world. She walked on shining +clouds, and if she felt some remorse, it was a very +tender and satisfactory remorse, and with a clear +conviction below it that in the end she would be +forgiven.</p> + +<p>They made all their arrangements elaborately and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">-209-</a></span> +carefully. Trafford got a license to marry her; she +was to have a new outfit from top to toe to go away +with on that eventful day. It accumulated in the +shop, and they marked the clothes <i>M.T.</i> She was +watched, she imagined, but as her father did not +know she had seen Trafford, nothing had been said to +her, and no attempt was made to prohibit her going +out and coming in. Trafford entered into the conspiracy +with a keen interest, a certain amusement, +and a queer little feeling of distaste. He hated to +hide any act of his from any human being. The very +soul of scientific work, you see, is publication. But +Marjorie seemed to justify all things, and when his +soul turned against furtiveness, he reminded it that +the alternative was bawling.</p> + +<p>One eventful afternoon he went to the college, and +Marjorie slipped round by his arrangement to have +tea with Mrs. Trafford....</p> + +<p>He returned about seven in a state of nervous +apprehension; came upstairs two steps at a time, and +stopped breathless on the landing. He gulped as he +came in, and his eyes were painfully eager. "She's +been?" he asked.</p> + +<p>But Marjorie had won Mrs. Trafford.</p> + +<p>"She's been," she answered. "Yes, she's all right, +my dear."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother!" he said.</p> + +<p>"She's a beautiful creature, dear—and such a +child! Oh! such a child! And God bless you, dear, +God bless you....</p> + +<p>"I think all young people are children. I want to +take you both in my arms and save you.... I'm +talking nonsense, dear."</p> + +<p>He kissed her, and she clung to him as if he were +something too precious to release.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>The elopement was a little complicated by a surprise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">-210-</a></span> +manœuvre of Mrs. Pope's. She was more alive +to the quality of the situation, poor lady! than her +daughter suspected; she was watching, dreading, +perhaps even furtively sympathizing and trying to +arrange—oh! trying dreadfully to arrange. She had +an instinctive understanding of the deep blue quiet in +Marjorie's eyes, and the girl's unusual tenderness +with Daffy and the children. She peeped under the +blind as Marjorie went out, noted the care in her +dress, watched her face as she returned, never plumbed +her with a question for fear of the answer. She +did not dare to breathe a hint of her suspicions to +her husband, but she felt things were adrift in swift, +smooth water, and all her soul cried out for delay. +So presently there came a letter from Cousin Susan +Pendexter at Plymouth. The weather was beautiful, +Marjorie must come at once, pack up and come and +snatch the last best glow of the dying autumn away +there in the west. Marjorie's jerry-built excuses, +her manifest chagrin and reluctance, confirmed her +mother's worst suspicions.</p> + +<p>She submitted and went, and Mrs. Pope and Syd +saw her off.</p> + +<p>I do not like to tell how a week later Marjorie +explained herself and her dressing-bag and a few +small articles back to London from Plymouth. Suffice +it that she lied desperately and elaborately. Her +mother had never achieved such miracles of mis-statement, +and she added a vigour that was all her own. +It is easier to sympathize with her than exonerate +her. She was in a state of intense impatience, and—what +is strange—extraordinarily afraid that something +would separate her from her lover if she did +not secure him. She was in a fever of determination.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">-211-</a></span> +She could not eat or sleep or attend to anything whatever; +she was occupied altogether with the thought of +assuring herself to Trafford. He towered in her +waking vision over town and land and sea.</p> + +<p>He didn't hear the lies she told; he only knew she +was magnificently coming back to him. He met her at +Paddington, a white-faced, tired, splendidly resolute +girl, and they went to the waiting registrar's forthwith.</p> + +<p>She bore herself with the intentness and dignity of +one who is taking the cardinal step in life. They +kissed as though it was a symbol, and were keenly +business-like about cabs and luggage and trains. At +last they were alone in the train together. They +stared at one another.</p> + +<p>"We've done it, Mrs. Trafford!" said Trafford.</p> + +<p>She snapped like an over-taut string, crumpled, +clung to him, and without a word was weeping passionately +in his arms.</p> + +<p>It surprised him that she could weep as she did, +and still more to see her as she walked by his side +along the Folkestone pier, altogether recovered, +erect, a little flushed and excited like a child. She +seemed to miss nothing. "Oh, smell the sea!" she +said, "Look at the lights! Listen to the swish of the +water below." She watched the luggage spinning on +the wire rope of the giant crane, and he watched her +face and thought how beautiful she was. He wondered +why her eyes could sometimes be so blue and +sometimes dark as night.</p> + +<p>The boat cleared the pier and turned about and +headed for France. They walked the upper deck +together and stood side by side, she very close to him.</p> + +<p>"I've never crossed the sea before," she said.</p> + +<p>"Old England," she whispered. "It's like leaving +a nest. A little row of lights and that's all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">-212-</a></span> +world I've ever known, shrunken to that already."</p> + +<p>Presently they went forward and peered into the +night.</p> + +<p>"Look!" she said. "<i>Italy!</i> There's sunshine +and all sorts of beautiful things ahead. Warm sunshine, +wonderful old ruins, green lizards...." +She paused and whispered almost noiselessly: +"<i>love</i>——"</p> + +<p>They pressed against each other.</p> + +<p>"And yet isn't it strange? All you can see is +darkness, and clouds—and big waves that hiss as they +come near...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>Italy gave all her best to welcome them. It was a +late year, a golden autumn, with skies of such blue as +Marjorie had never seen before. They stayed at first +in a pretty little Italian hotel with a garden on the +lake, and later they walked over Salvator to Morcote +and by boat to Ponte Tresa, and thence they had the +most wonderful and beautiful tramp in the world to +Luino, over the hills by Castelrotto. To the left of +them all day was a broad valley with low-lying villages +swimming in a luminous mist, to the right were +purple mountains. They passed through paved +streets with houses the colour of flesh and ivory, with +balconies hung with corn and gourds, with tall church +campaniles rising high, and great archways giving +upon the blue lowlands; they tramped along avenues +of sweet chestnut and between stretches of exuberant +vineyard, in which men and women were gathering +grapes—purple grapes, a hatful for a soldo, that +rasped the tongue. Everything was strange and +wonderful to Marjorie's eyes; now it would be a wayside +shrine and now a yoke of soft-going, dewlapped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">-213-</a></span> +oxen, now a chapel hung about with <i>ex votos</i>, and +now some unfamiliar cultivation—or a gipsy-eyed +child—or a scorpion that scuttled in the dust. The +very names of the villages were like jewels to her, +Varasca, Croglio, Ronca, Sesia, Monteggio. They +walked, or sat by the wayside and talked, or rested at +the friendly table of some kindly albergo. A woman +as beautiful as Ceres, with a white neck all open, +made them an omelette, and then fetched her baby +from its cradle to nurse it while she talked to them +as they made their meal. And afterwards she filled +their pockets with roasted chestnuts, and sent them +with melodious good wishes upon their way. And +always high over all against the translucent blue +hung the white shape of Monte Rosa, that warmed +in colour as the evening came.</p> + +<p>Marjorie's head was swimming with happiness +and beauty, and with every fresh delight she recurred +again to the crowning marvel of this clean-limbed +man beside her, who smiled and carried all her luggage +in a huge rucksack that did not seem to exist for +him, and watched her and caressed her—and was +hers, <i>hers!</i></p> + +<p>At Baveno there were letters. They sat at a little +table outside a café and read them, suddenly mindful +of England again. Incipient forgiveness showed +through Mrs. Pope's reproaches, and there was also a +simple, tender love-letter (there is no other word for +it) from old Mrs. Trafford to her son.</p> + +<p>From Baveno they set off up Monte Mottarone—whence +one may see the Alps from Visto to Ortler +Spitz—trusting to find the inn still open, and if it was +closed to get down to Orta somehow before night. Or +at the worst sleep upon the mountain side.</p> + +<p>(Monte Mottarone! Just for a moment taste the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">-214-</a></span> +sweet Italian name upon your lips.) These were the +days before the funicular from Stresa, when one +trudged up a rude path through the chestnuts and +walnuts.</p> + +<p>As they ascended the long windings through the +woods, they met an old poet and his wife, coming down +from sunset and sunrise. There was a word or two +about the inn, and they went upon their way. The +old man turned ever and again to look at them.</p> + +<p>"Adorable young people," he said. "Adorable +happy young people....</p> + +<p>"Did you notice, dear, how she held that dainty +little chin of hers?...</p> + +<p>"Pride is such a good thing, my dear, clear, +straight pride like theirs—and they were both so +proud!...</p> + +<p>"Isn't it good, dear, to think that once you and I +may have looked like that to some passer-by. I wish +I could bless them—sweet, swift young things! I +wish, dear, it was possible for old men to bless young +people without seeming to set up for saints...."</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"><br /> +<span class="smcap">BOOK THE SECOND</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>MARJORIE MARRIED</big></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Settling Down</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>It was in a boat among reeds upon the lake of Orta<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">-217-</a></span> +that Trafford first became familiarized with the idea +that Marjorie was capable of debt.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I ought to have told you," she began, +apropos of nothing.</p> + +<p>Her explanation was airy; she had let the thing +slip out of her mind for a time. But there were +various debts to Oxbridge tradespeople. How much? +Well, rather a lot. Of course, the tradespeople were +rather enticing when first one went up——How much, +anyhow?</p> + +<p>"Oh, about fifty pounds," said Marjorie, after +her manner. "Not <i>more</i>. I've not kept all the bills; +and some haven't come in. You know how slow they +are."</p> + +<p>"These things <i>will</i> happen," said Trafford, +though, as a matter of fact, nothing of the sort had +happened in his case. "However, you'll be able to +pay as soon as you get home, and get them all off +your mind."</p> + +<p>"I think fifty pounds will clear me," said Marjorie, +clinging to her long-established total, "if you'll +let me have that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we don't do things like that," said Trafford. +"I'm arranging that my current account will be a +sort of joint account, and your signature will be as +good as mine—for the purpose of drawing, at least. +You'll have your own cheque-book——"</p> + +<p>"I don't understand, quite," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"You'll have your own cheque-book and write<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">-218-</a></span> +cheques as you want them. That seems the simplest +way to me."</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Marjorie. "But isn't this—rather +unusual? Father always used to allowance +mother."</p> + +<p>"It's the only decent way according to my ideas," +said Trafford. "A man shouldn't marry when he +can't trust."</p> + +<p>"Of course not," said Marjorie. Something between +fear and compunction wrung her. "Do you +think you'd better?" she asked, very earnestly.</p> + +<p>"Better?"</p> + +<p>"Do this."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"It's—it's so generous."</p> + +<p>He didn't answer. He took up an oar and began +to push out from among the reeds with something of +the shy awkwardness of a boy who becomes apprehensive +of thanks. He stole a glance at her presently and +caught her expression—there was something very +solemn and intent in her eyes—and he thought what a +grave, fine thing his Marjorie could be.</p> + +<p>But, indeed, her state of mind was quite exceptionally +confused. She was disconcerted—and horribly +afraid of herself.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean that I can spend what I like?" +asked Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Just as I may," he said.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Marjorie again, "if I'd better."</p> + +<p>She was tingling with delight at this freedom, and +she knew she was not fit for its responsibility. She +just came short of a passionate refusal of his proposal. +He was still so new to her, and things were +so wonderful, or I think she would have made that +refusal.</p> + +<p>"You've got to," said Trafford, and ended the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">-219-</a></span> +matter.</p> + +<p>So Marjorie was silent—making good resolutions.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>Perhaps some day it may be possible to tell in +English again, in the language of Shakspeare and +Herrick, of the passion, the tenderness, the beauty, +and the delightful familiarizations of a happy honeymoon; +suffice it now, in this delicate period, to record +only how our two young lovers found one day that +neither had a name for the other. He said she could +be nothing better than Marjorie to him; and she, +after a number of unsuccessful experiments, settled +down to the old school-boy nickname made out of his +initials, R. A. G.</p> + +<p>"Dick," she said, "is too bird-like and boy-like. +Andrew I can't abide. Goodwin gives one no chances +for current use. Rag you must be. Mag and Rag—poor +innocents! Old rag!"</p> + +<p>"Mag," he said, "has its drawbacks! The street-boy +in London says, 'Shut your mag.' No, I think I +shall stick to Marjorie...."</p> + +<p>All honeymoons must end at last, so back they +came to London, still very bright and happy. And +then, Marjorie, whose eyes had changed from flashing +stones to darkly shining pools of blue, but whose +soul had still perhaps to finds its depths, set herself +to the business of decorating and furnishing the little +house Mrs. Trafford had found for them within +ten minutes of her own. Meanwhile they lived in +lodgings.</p> + +<p>There can be no denying that Marjorie began her +furnishing with severely virtuous intentions. She was +very particular to ask Trafford several times what he +thought she might spend upon the enterprise. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">-220-</a></span> +already a bedroom and a study equipped, and he +threw out three hundred pounds as his conception of +an acceptable figure. "Very well," said Marjorie, +with a note of great precision, "now I shall know," +and straightway that sum took a place in her imagination +that was at once definitive and protective, just +as her estimate of fifty pounds for her Oxbridge debts +had always been. She assured herself she was going +to do things, and she assured herself she was doing +things, on three hundred pounds. At times the astonishment +of two or three school friends, who joined +her in her shopping, stirred her to a momentary surprise +at the way she was managing to keep things +within that limit, and following a financial method +that had, after all, in spite of some momentary and +already nearly forgotten distresses, worked very well +at Oxbridge, she refrained from any additions until +all the accounts had come to hand.</p> + +<p>It was an immense excitement shopping to make a +home. There was in her composition a strain of constructive +artistry with such concrete things, a strain +that had hitherto famished. She was making a beautiful, +secure little home for Trafford, for herself, for +possibilities—remote perhaps, but already touching +her imagination with the anticipation of warm, new, +wonderful delights. There should be simplicity indeed +in this home, but no bareness, no harshness, +never an ugliness nor a discord. She had always +loved colour in the skies, in the landscapes, in the +texture of stuffs and garments; now out of the chaotic +skein of countless shops she could choose and pick +and mingle her threads in a glow of feminine self-expression.</p> + +<p>On three hundred pounds, that is to say—as a +maximum.</p> + +<p>The house she had to deal with was, like Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">-221-</a></span> +Trafford's, old and rather small; it was partly to +its lack of bedroom accommodation, but much more +to the invasion of the street by the back premises of +Messrs. Siddons & Thrale, the great Chelsea outfitters, +that the lowness of the rent was due, a lowness +which brought it within the means of Trafford. Marjorie +knew very clearly that her father would say her +husband had taken her to live in a noisy slum, and +that made her all the keener to ensure that every +good point in the interior told to its utmost, and that +whatever was to be accessible to her family should +glow with a refined but warm prosperity. The room +downstairs was shapely, and by ripping off the papered +canvas of the previous occupier, some very +dilapidated but admirably proportioned panelling +was brought to light. The dining-room and study +door on the ground floor, by a happy accident, were +of mahogany, with really very beautiful brass furnishings; +and the dining-room window upon the minute +but by no means offensive paved garden behind, +was curved and had a little shallow balcony of ironwork, +half covered by a devitalized but leafy grapevine. +Moreover, the previous occupier had equipped +the place with electric light and a bathroom of almost +American splendour on the landing, glass-shelved, +white-tiled, and white painted, so that it was a delight +to go into.</p> + +<p>Marjorie's mind leapt very rapidly to the possibilities +of this little establishment. The panelling must +be done and done well, anyhow; that would be no more +than a wise economy, seeing it might at any time help +them to re-let; it would be painted white, of course, +and thus set the key for a clean brightness of colour +throughout. The furniture would stand out against +the softly shining white, and its line and proportions +must be therefore the primary qualities to consider as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">-222-</a></span> +she bought it. The study was much narrower than the +dining-room, and so the passage, which the agent +called the hall, was much broader and more commodious +behind the happily wide staircase than in +front, and she was able to banish out of the sight of +the chance visitor all that litter of hat-stand and +umbrella-stand, letters, boxes arriving and parcels +to post, which had always offended her eye at home. +At home there had been often the most unsightly +things visible, one of Theo's awful caps, or his school +books, and not infrequently her father's well-worn +and all too fatally comfortable house slippers. A +good effect at first is half the victory of a well done +house, and Marjorie accomplished another of her +real economies here by carpeting hall and staircase +with a fine-toned, rich-feeling and rather high-priced +blue carpet, held down by very thick brass stair-rods. +She hung up four well-chosen steel engravings, put a +single Chippendale chair in the hall, and a dark old +Dutch clock that had turned out to be only five pounds +when she had expected the shopman to say eleven or +twelve, on the half-landing. That was all. Round the +corner by the study door was a mahogany slab, and +the litter all went upon a capacious but very simple +dark-stained hat-stand and table that were out of the +picture entirely until you reached the stairs.</p> + +<p>Her dining-room was difficult for some time. She +had equipped that with a dark oak Welsh dresser +made very bright with a dessert service that was, in +view of its extremely decorative quality, remarkably +cheap, and with some very pretty silver-topped glass +bottles and flasks. This dresser and a number of +simple but shapely facsimiles of old chairs, stood out +against a nearly primrose paper, very faintly patterned, +and a dark blue carpet with a margin of dead +black-stained wood. Over the mantel was a German<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">-223-</a></span> +colour-print of waves full of sunlight breaking under +cliffs, and between this and the window were dark +bookshelves and a few bright-coloured books. On the +wall, black-framed, were four very good Japanese +prints, rich in greenish-blues and blueish-greys that +answered the floor, and the window curtains took up +some of the colours of the German print. But something +was needed towards the window, she felt, to +balance the warmly shining plates upon the dresser. +The deep rose-red of the cherries that adorned them +was too isolated, usurped too dominating a value. +And while this was weighing upon her mind she saw +in a window in Regent Street a number of Bokhara +hangings very nobly displayed. They were splendid +pieces of needlework, particularly glorious in their +crimsons and reds, and suddenly it came to her that +it was just one of these, one that had great ruby +flowers upon it with dead-blue interlacings, that was +needed to weld her gay-coloured scheme together. She +hesitated, went half-way to Piccadilly Circus, turned +back and asked the prices. The prices were towering +prices, ten, fifteen, eighteen guineas, and when at last +the shopman produced one with all the charm of +colour she sought at eight, it seemed like ten guineas +snatched back as they dropped from her hands. And +still hesitating, she had three that pleased her most +sent home, "on approval," before she decided finally +to purchase one of them. But the trial was conclusive. +And then, struck with a sudden idea, she +carried off a long narrow one she had had no idea of +buying before into the little study behind. Suppose, +she thought, instead of hanging two curtains as anybody +else would do in that window, she ran this glory +of rich colour across from one side on a great rod of +brass.</p> + +<p>She was giving the study the very best of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">-224-</a></span> +attention. After she had lapsed in some other part +of the house from the standards of rigid economy she +had set up, she would as it were restore the balance by +adding something to the gracefully dignified arrangement +of this den he was to use. And the brass rod +of the Bokhara hanging that was to do instead of +curtains released her mind somehow to the purchase of +certain old candlesticks she had hitherto resisted. +They were to stand, bored to carry candle electric +lights, on either corner of the low bookcase that faced +the window. They were very heavy, very shapely +candlesticks, and they cost thirty-five shillings. They +looked remarkably well when they were put up, except +that a sort of hollowness appeared between them and +clamoured for a delightful old brass-footed workbox +she had seen in a shop in Baker Street. Enquiry +confirmed her quick impression that this was a genuine +piece (of quite exceptional genuineness) and that +the price—they asked five pounds ten and came down +to five guineas—was in accordance with this. It was +a little difficult (in spite of the silent hunger between +the candlesticks) to reconcile this particular article +with her dominating idea of an austerely restrained +expenditure, until she hit upon the device of calling +it a <i>hors d'œuvre</i>, and regarding it not as furniture +but as a present from herself to Trafford that happened +to fall in very agreeably with the process of +house furnishing. She decided she would some day +economise its cost out of her dress allowance. The +bookcase on which it stood was a happy discovery +in Kensington, just five feet high, and with beautiful +oval glass fronts, and its capacity was supplemented +and any excess in its price at least morally compensated +by a very tall, narrow, distinguished-looking +set of open shelves that had been made for some +special corner in another house, and which anyhow<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">-225-</a></span> +were really and truly dirt cheap. The desk combined +grace and good proportions to an admirable extent, +the fender of pierced brass looked as if it had always +lived in immediate contact with the shapely old white +marble fireplace, and the two arm-chairs were marvels +of dignified comfort. By the fireplace were a +banner-shaped needlework firescreen, a white sheepskin +hearthrug, a little patch and powder table +adapted to carry books, and a green-shaded lamp, +grouped in a common inaudible demand for a reader +in slippers. Trafford, when at last the apartment +was ready for his inspection, surveyed these arrangements +with a kind of dazzled admiration.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said. "How little people know +of the homes of the Poor!"</p> + +<p>Marjorie was so delighted with his approval that +she determined to show Mrs. Trafford next day how +prettily at least her son was going to live. The good +lady came and admired everything, and particularly +the Bokhara hangings. She did not seem to appraise, +but something set Marjorie talking rather nervously +of a bargain-hunter's good fortune. Mrs. Trafford +glanced at the candlesticks and the low bookcase, and +returned to the glowing piece of needlework that +formed the symmetrical window curtain in the study. +She took it in her hand, and whispered, "beautiful!"</p> + +<p>"But aren't these rather good?" asked Mrs. +Trafford.</p> + +<p>Marjorie answered, after a little pause. "They're +not too good for <i>him</i>," she said.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>And now these young people had to resume life in +London in earnest. The orchestral accompaniment +of the world at large began to mingle with their hitherto<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">-226-</a></span> +unsustained duet. It had been inaudible in Italy. +In Chelsea it had sounded, faintly perhaps but distinctly, +from their very first inspection of the little +house. A drawing-room speaks of callers, a dining-room +of lunch-parties and dinners. It had swayed +Marjorie from the front door inward.</p> + +<p>During their honeymoon they had been gloriously +unconscious of comment. Now Marjorie began to +show herself keenly sensitive to the advent of a score +of personalities, and very anxious to show just how +completely successful in every sense her romantic disobedience +had been. She knew she had been approved +of, admired, condemned, sneered at, thoroughly discussed. +She felt it her first duty to Trafford, to all +who had approved of her flight, to every one, herself +included, to make this marriage obviously, indisputably, +a success, a success not only by her own standards +but by the standards of anyonesoever who chose +to sit in judgment on her.</p> + +<p>There was Trafford. She felt she had to extort +the admission from every one that he was the handsomest, +finest, ablest, most promising and most +delightful man a prominent humorist was ever jilted +for. She wanted them to understand clearly just all +that Trafford was—and that involved, she speedily +found in practice, making them believe a very great +deal that as yet Trafford wasn't. She found it practically +impossible not to anticipate his election to the +Royal Society and the probability of a more important +professorship. She felt that anyhow he was an +F.R.S. in the sight of God....</p> + +<p>It was almost equally difficult not to indicate a +larger income than facts justified.</p> + +<p>It was entirely in Marjorie's vein in those early +days that she would want to win on every score and +by every standard of reckoning. If Marjorie had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">-227-</a></span> +been a general she would have counted no victory +complete if the struggle was not sustained and desperate, +and if it left the enemy with a single gun or +flag, or herself with so much as a man killed or +wounded. The people she wanted to impress varied +very widely. She wanted to impress the Carmel girls, +and the Carmel girls, she knew, with their racial +trick of acute appraisement, were only to be won by +the very highest quality all round. They had, she +knew, two standards of quality, cost and distinction. +As far as possible, she would give them distinction. +But whenever she hesitated over something on the +verge of cheapness the thought of those impending +judgments tipped the balance. The Carmel girls +were just two influential representatives of a host. +She wanted to impress quite a number of other school +and college friends. There were various shy, plastic-spirited, +emotional creatures, of course, for the most +part with no confidence in their own appearance, +who would be impressed quite adequately enough by +Trafford's good looks and witty manner and easy +temper. They might perhaps fall in love with him +and become slavish to her after the way of their +kind, and anyhow they would be provided for, but +there were plenty of others of a harder texture whose +tests would be more difficult to satisfy. There were +girls who were the daughters of prominent men, who +must be made to understand that Trafford was prominent, +girls who were well connected, who must be +made to realize the subtle excellence of Trafford's +blood. As she thought of Constance Graham, for +example, or Ottiline Winchelsea, she felt the strongest +disposition to thicken the by no means well +authenticated strands that linked Trafford with the +Traffords of Trafford-over-Lea. She went about the +house dreaming a little apprehensively of these coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">-228-</a></span> +calls, and the pitiless light of criticism they would +bring to bear, not indeed upon her happiness—that +was assured—but upon her success.</p> + +<p>The social side of the position would have to be +strained to the utmost, Marjorie felt, with Aunt +Plessington. The thought of Aunt Plessington made +her peculiarly apprehensive. Aunt Plessington had +to the fullest extent that contempt for merely artistic +or scientific people which sits so gracefully upon the +administrative English. You see people of that sort +do not get on in the sense that a young lawyer or +barrister gets on. They do not make steps; they +boast and quarrel and are jealous perhaps, but that +steady patient shove upward seems beyond their intelligence. +The energies God manifestly gave them +for shoving, they dissipate in the creation of weak +beautiful things and unremunerative theories, or in +the establishment of views sometimes diametrically +opposed to the ideas of influential people. And they +are "queer"—socially. They just moon about +doing this so-called "work" of theirs, and even +when the judgment of eccentric people forces a kind +of reputation upon them—Heaven knows why?—they +make no public or social use of it. It seemed to +Aunt Plessington that the artist and the scientific +man were dealt with very neatly and justly in the +Parable of the Buried Talent. Moreover their +private lives were often scandalous, they married for +love instead of interest, often quite disadvantageously, +and their relationships had all the instability +that is natural upon such a foundation. And, after +all, what good were they? She had never met an +artist or a prominent imaginative writer or scientific +man that she had not been able to subdue in a minute +or so by flat contradiction, and if necessary slightly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">-229-</a></span> +raising her voice. They had little or no influence +even upon their own public appointments....</p> + +<p>The thought of the invasion of her agreeable little +back street establishment by this Britannic system of +judgments filled Marjorie's heart with secret terrors. +She felt she had to grapple with and overcome Aunt +Plessington, or be for ever fallen—at least, so far as +that amiable lady's report went, and she knew it went +pretty far. She wandered about the house trying to +imagine herself Aunt Plessington.</p> + +<p>Immediately she felt the gravest doubts whether +the whole thing wasn't too graceful and pretty. A +rich and rather massive ugliness, of course, would +have been the thing to fetch Aunt Plessington. Happily, +it was Aunt Plessington's habit to veil her eyes +with her voice. She might not see very much.</p> + +<p>The subjugation of Aunt Plessington was difficult, +but not altogether hopeless, Marjorie felt, provided +her rejection of Magnet had not been taken as an act +of personal ingratitude. There was a case on her +side. She was discovering, for example, that Trafford +had a really very considerable range of acquaintance +among quite distinguished people; big figures +like Evesham and MacHaldo, for example, were intelligently +interested in the trend of his work. She +felt this gave her a basis for Plessingtonian justifications. +She could produce those people—as one shows +one's loot. She could imply, "Oh, Love and all that +nonsense! Certainly not! <i>This</i> is what I did it for." +With skill and care and good luck, and a word here +and there in edgeways, she believed she might be able +to represent the whole adventure as the well-calculated +opening of a campaign on soundly Plessingtonian +lines. Her marriage to Trafford, she tried to +persuade herself, might be presented as something +almost as brilliant and startling as her aunt's swoop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">-230-</a></span> +upon her undistinguished uncle.</p> + +<p>She might pretend that all along she had seen her +way to things, to coveted dinner-tables and the familiarity +of coveted guests, to bringing people together +and contriving arrangements, to influence and prominence, +to culminations and intrigues impossible in +the comparatively specialized world of a successful +humorist and playwright, and so at last to those +high freedoms of authoritative and if necessary offensive +utterance in a strangulated contralto, and +from a position of secure eminence, which is the goal +of all virtuously ambitious Englishwomen of the governing +classes—that is to say, of all virtuously ambitious +Englishwomen....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>And while such turbid solicitudes as these were +flowing in again from the London world to which she +had returned, and fouling the bright, romantic clearness +of Marjorie's life, Trafford, in his ampler, less +detailed way was also troubled about their coming +re-entry into society. He, too, had his old associations.</p> + +<p>For example, he was by no means confident of the +favourable judgments of his mother upon Marjorie's +circle of school and college friends, whom he gathered +from Marjorie's talk were destined to play a large +part in this new phase of his life. She had given him +very ample particulars of some of them; and he found +them interesting rather than richly attractive personalities. +It is to be noted that while he thought +always of Marjorie as a beautiful, grown-up woman, +and his mate and equal, he was still disposed to regard +her intimate friends as schoolgirls of an advanced and +aggressive type....</p> + +<p>Then that large circle of distinguished acquaintances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">-231-</a></span> +which Marjorie saw so easily and amply utilized +for the subjugation of Aunt Plessington didn't +present itself quite in that service to Trafford's private +thoughts. He hadn't that certitude of command +over them, nor that confidence in their unhesitating +approval of all he said and did. Just as Marjorie +wished him to shine in the heavens over all her people, +so, in regard to his associates, he was extraordinarily +anxious that they should realize, and realize from the +outset without qualification or hesitation, how beautiful, +brave and delightful she was. And you know +he had already begun to be aware of an evasive feeling +in his mind that at times she did not altogether +do herself justice—he scarcely knew as yet how or +why....</p> + +<p>She was very young....</p> + +<p>One or two individuals stood out in his imagination, +representatives and symbols of the rest. Particularly +there was that old giant, Sir Roderick +Dover, who had been, until recently, the Professor of +Physics in the great Oxford laboratories. Dover +and Trafford had one of those warm friendships +which spring up at times between a rich-minded man +whose greatness is assured and a young man of brilliant +promise. It was all the more affectionate +because Dover had been a friend of Trafford's father. +These two and a group of other careless-minded, able, +distinguished, and uninfluential men at the Winton +Club affected the end of the smoking-room near the +conservatory in the hours after lunch, and shared the +joys of good talk and fine jesting about the big fireplace +there. Under Dover's broad influence they +talked more ideas and less gossip than is usual with +English club men. Twaddle about appointments, +about reputations, topics from the morning's papers, +London architecture, and the commerce in "good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">-232-</a></span> +stories" took refuge at the other end in the window +bays or by the further fireplace. Trafford only began +to realize on his return to London how large a share +this intermittent perennial conversation had contributed +to the atmosphere of his existence. Amidst the +romantic circumstances of his flight with Marjorie he +had forgotten the part these men played in his life +and thoughts. Now he was enormously exercised in +the search for a reconciliation between these, he felt, +incommensurable factors.</p> + +<p>He was afraid of what might be Sir Roderick's +unspoken judgment on Marjorie and the house she +had made—though what was there to be afraid of? +He was still more afraid—and this was even more +remarkable—of the clear little judgments—hard as +loose, small diamonds in a bed—that he thought Marjorie +might pronounce on Sir Roderick. He had +never disguised from himself that Sir Roderick was +fat—nobody who came within a hundred yards of +him could be under any illusion about that—and that +he drank a good deal, ate with a cosmic spaciousness, +loved a cigar, and talked and laughed with a freedom +that sometimes drove delicate-minded new members +into the corners remotest from the historical fireplace. +Trafford knew himself quite definitely that +there was a joy in Dover's laugh and voice, a beauty +in his face (that was somehow mixed up with his +healthy corpulence), and a breadth, a charity, a +leonine courage in his mind (that was somehow mixed +up with his careless freedom of speech) that made +him an altogether satisfactory person.</p> + +<p>But supposing Marjorie didn't see any of that!</p> + +<p>Still, he was on the verge of bringing Sir Roderick +home when a talk at the club one day postponed +that introduction of the two extremes of Trafford's +existence for quite a considerable time.</p> + +<p>Those were the days of the first enthusiasms of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">-233-</a></span> +the militant suffrage movement, and the occasional +smashing of a Downing Street window or an assault +upon a minister kept the question of woman's distinctive +intelligence and character persistently before +the public. Godley Buzard, the feminist novelist, +had been the guest of some member to lunch, and the +occasion was too provocative for any one about +Dover's fireplace to avoid the topic. Buzard's presence, +perhaps, drove Dover into an extreme position +on the other side; he forgot Trafford's new-wedded +condition, and handled this great argument, an argument +which has scarcely progressed since its beginning +in the days of Plato and Aristophanes, with +the freedoms of an ancient Greek and the explicitness +of a modern scientific man.</p> + +<p>He opened almost apropos of nothing. "Women," +he said, "are inferior—and you can't get away from +it."</p> + +<p>"You can deny it," said Buzard.</p> + +<p>"In the face of the facts," said Sir Roderick. +"To begin with, they're several inches shorter, several +pounds lighter; they've less physical strength in +footpounds."</p> + +<p>"More endurance," said Buzard.</p> + +<p>"Less sensitiveness merely. All those are demonstrable +things—amenable to figures and apparatus. +Then they stand nervous tensions worse, the +breaking-point comes sooner. They have weaker inhibitions, +and inhibition is the test of a creature's +position in the mental scale."</p> + +<p>He maintained that in the face of Buzard's animated +protest. Buzard glanced at their moral +qualities. "More moral!" cried Dover, "more self-restraint! +Not a bit of it! Their desires and passions +are weaker even than their controls; that's all. +Weaken restraints and they show their quality. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">-234-</a></span> +drunken woman is far worse than a drunken man. +And as for their biological significance——"</p> + +<p>"They are the species," said Buzard, "and we +are the accidents."</p> + +<p>"They are the stolon and we are the individualized +branches. They are the stem and we are the +fruits. Surely it's better to exist than just transmit +existence. And that's a woman's business, though +we've fooled and petted most of 'em into forgetting +it...."</p> + +<p>He proceeded to an attack on the intellectual +quality of women. He scoffed at the woman artist, at +feminine research, at what he called the joke of feminine +philosophy. Buzard broke in with some sentences +of reply. He alleged the lack of feminine +opportunity, inferior education.</p> + +<p>"You don't or won't understand me," said Dover. +"It isn't a matter of education or opportunity, or +simply that they're of inferior capacity; it lies deeper +than that. They don't <i>want</i> to do these things. +They're different."</p> + +<p>"Precisely," ejaculated Buzard, as if he claimed +a score.</p> + +<p>"They don't care for these things. They don't +care for art or philosophy, or literature or anything +except the things that touch them directly. That's +their peculiar difference. Hunger they understand, +and comfort, and personal vanity and desire, furs +and chocolate and husbands, and the extreme importance +conferred upon them by having babies at infrequent +intervals. But philosophy or beauty for its +own sake, or dreams! Lord! no! The Mahometans +know they haven't souls, and they say it. We know, +and keep it up that they have. Haven't all we +scientific men had 'em in our laboratories working; +don't we know the papers they turn out? Every sane<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">-235-</a></span> +man of five and forty knows something of the disillusionment +of the feminine dream, but we who've had +the beautiful creatures under us, weighing rather +badly, handling rather weakly, invariably missing +every fine detail and all the implications of our researches, +never flashing, never leaping, never being +even thoroughly bad,—we're specialists in the subject. +At the present time there are far more educated +young women than educated young men available +for research work—and who wants them? Oh, +the young professors who've still got ideals perhaps. +And in they come, and if they're dull, they just +voluminously do nothing, and if they're bright, they +either marry your demonstrator or get him into a +mess. And the work——? It's nothing to them. No +woman ever painted for the love of painting, or sang +for the sounds she made, or philosophized for the +sake of wisdom as men do——"</p> + +<p>Buzard intervened with instances. Dover would +have none of them. He displayed astonishing and +distinctive knowledge. "Madame Curie," clamoured +Buzard, "Madame Curie."</p> + +<p>"There was Curie," said Dover. "No woman +alone has done such things. I don't say women aren't +clever," he insisted. "They're too clever. Give them +a man's track or a man's intention marked and defined, +they'll ape him to the life——"</p> + +<p>Buzard renewed his protests, talking at the same +time as Dover, and was understood to say that women +had to care for something greater than art or philosophy. +They were custodians of life, the future +of the race——</p> + +<p>"And that's my crowning disappointment," cried +Dover. "If there was one thing in which you might +think women would show a sense of some divine purpose +in life, it is in the matter of children—and they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">-236-</a></span> +show about as much care in that matter, oh!—as rabbits. +Yes, rabbits! I stick to it. Look at the things +a nice girl will marry; look at the men's children +she'll consent to bring into the world. Cheerfully! +Proudly! For the sake of the home and the clothes. +Nasty little beasts they'll breed without turning a +hair. All about us we see girls and women marrying +ugly men, dull and stupid men, ill-tempered dyspeptic +wrecks, sickly young fools, human rats—<i>rats!</i>"</p> + +<p>"No, no!" cried Trafford to Dover.</p> + +<p>Buzard's voice clamoured that all would be different +when women had the vote.</p> + +<p>"If ever we get a decent care for Eugenics, it will +come from men," said a white-faced little man on the +sofa beside Trafford, in the confidential tone of one +who tells a secret.</p> + +<p>"Doing it cheerfully!" insisted Dover.</p> + +<p>Trafford in mid-protest was suddenly stricken +into silence by a memory. It was as if the past had +thrown a stone at the back of his head and hit it +smartly. He nipped his sentence in the bud. He left +the case for women to Buzard....</p> + +<p>He revived that memory again on his way home. +It had been in his mind overlaid by a multitude of +newer, fresher things, but now he took it out and +looked at it. It was queer, it was really very queer, +to think that once upon a time, not so very long ago, +Marjorie had been prepared to marry Magnet. Of +course she had hated it, but still——....</p> + +<p>There is much to be discovered about life, even by +a brilliant and rising young Professor of Physics....</p> + +<p>Presently Dover, fingering the little glass of yellow +chartreuse he had hitherto forgotten in the heat +of controversy, took a more personal turn.</p> + +<p>"Don't we know," he said, and made the limpid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">-237-</a></span> +amber vanish in his pause. "Don't we know we've +got to manage and control 'em—just as we've got to +keep 'em and stand the racket of their misbehaviour? +Don't our instincts tell us? Doesn't something tell +us all that if we let a woman loose with our honour +and trust, some other man will get hold of her? +We've tried it long enough now, this theory that a +woman's a partner and an equal; we've tried it long +enough to see some of the results, and does it work? +Does it? A woman's a prize, a possession, a responsibility, +something to take care of and be careful +about.... You chaps, if you'll forgive me, you +advanced chaps, seem to want to have the women take +care of you. You seem always to want to force +decisions on them, make them answerable for things +that you ought to decide and answer for.... If +one could, if one could! If!... But they're not +helps—that's a dream—they're distractions, gratifications, +anxieties, dangers, undertakings...."</p> + +<p>Buzard got in his one effective blow at this point. +"That's why you've never married, Sir Roderick?" +he threw out.</p> + +<p>The big man was checked for a moment. Trafford +wondered what memory lit that instant's pause. +"I've had my science," said Dover.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope was of course among the first to visit +the new home so soon as it was open to inspection. +She arrived, looking very bright and neat in a new +bonnet and some new black furs that suited her, bearing +up bravely but obviously in a state of dispersed +and miscellaneous emotion....</p> + +<p>In many ways Marjorie's marriage had been a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">-238-</a></span> +great relief to her mother. Particularly it had been +a financial relief. Marjorie had been the most expensive +child of her family, and her cessation had led +to increments both of Mrs. Pope's and Daphne's all +too restricted allowances. Mrs. Pope had been able +therefore to relapse from the orthodox Anglicanism +into which poverty had driven her, and indulge for +an hour weekly in the consolations of Higher +Thought. These exercises in emancipated religiosity +occurred at the house of Mr. Silas Root, and were +greatly valued by a large circle of clients. Essentially +they were orgies of vacuity, and they cost six +guineas for seven hours. They did her no end of +good. All through the precious weekly hour she sat +with him in a silent twilight, very, very still and +feeling—oh! "higher" than anything, and when she +came out she wore an inane smile on her face and was +prepared not to worry, to lie with facility, and to +take the easiest way in every eventuality in an entirely +satisfactory and exalted manner. Moreover +he was "treating" her investments. Acting upon +his advice, and doing the whole thing quietly with the +idea of preparing a pleasant surprise for her husband, +she had sold out of certain Home Railway +debentures and invested in a company for working the +auriferous waste which is so abundant in the drainage +of Philadelphia, a company whose shareholders were +chiefly higher thought disciples and whose profits +therefore would inevitably be greatly enhanced by +their concerted mental action. It was to the prospective +profits in this that she owed the new black +furs she was wearing.</p> + +<p>The furs and the bonnet and the previous day's +treatment she had had, all helped to brace her up on +Marjorie's doorstep for a complex and difficult situation, +and to carry her through the first tensions of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">-239-</a></span> +her call. She was so much to pieces as it was that +she could not help feeling how much more to pieces +she might have been—but for the grace of Silas Root. +She knew she ought to have very strong feelings +about Trafford, though it was not really clear to her +what feelings she ought to have. On the whole she +was inclined to believe she was experiencing moral +disapproval mixed up with a pathetic and rather +hopeless appeal for the welfare of the tender life that +had entrusted itself so recklessly to these brutal and +discreditable hands, though indeed if she had really +dared to look inside her mind her chief discovery +would have been a keenly jealous appreciation of +Trafford's good looks and generous temper, and a +feeling of injustice as between her own lot and Marjorie's. +However, going on her assumed basis she +managed to be very pale, concise and tight-lipped at +any mention of her son-in-law, and to put a fervour +of helpless devotion into her embraces of her daughter. +She surveyed the house with a pained constrained +expression, as though she tried in vain to conceal +from herself that it was all slightly improper, and +even such objects as the Bokhara hangings failed to +extort more than an insincere, "Oh, very nice, dear—<i>very</i> +nice."</p> + +<p>In the bedroom, she spoke about Mr. Pope. "He +was dreadfully upset," she said. "His first thought +was to come after you both with a pistol. If—if <i>he</i> +hadn't married you——"</p> + +<p>"But dear Mummy, of <i>course</i> we meant to marry! +We married right away."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, of course. But if he hadn't——"</p> + +<p>She paused, and Marjorie, with a momentary +flush of indignation in her cheeks, did not urge her to +conclude her explanation.</p> + +<p>"He's <i>wounded</i>," said Mrs. Pope. "Some day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">-240-</a></span> +perhaps he'll come round—you were always his favourite +daughter."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Marjorie concisely, with a faint +flavour of cynicism in her voice.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid dear, at present—he will do nothing +for you."</p> + +<p>"I don't think Rag would like him to," said Marjorie +with an unreal serenity; "<i>ever</i>."</p> + +<p>"For a time I'm afraid he'll refuse to see you. +He just wants to forget——. Everything."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Dad! I wish he wouldn't put himself +out like this. Still, I won't bother him, Mummy, if +you mean that."</p> + +<p>Then suddenly into Mrs. Pope's unsystematic, +unstable mind, started perhaps by the ring in her +daughter's voice, there came a wave of affectionate +feeling. That she had somehow to be hostile and +unsympathetic to Marjorie, that she had to pretend +that Trafford was wicked and disgusting, and not be +happy in the jolly hope and happiness of this bright +little house, cut her with a keen swift pain. She didn't +know clearly why she was taking this coldly hostile +attitude, or why she went on doing so, but the sense +of that necessity hurt her none the less. She put out +her hands upon her daughter's shoulders and whimpered: +"Oh my dear! I do wish things weren't so +difficult—so very difficult."</p> + +<p>The whimper changed by some inner force of its +own to honest sobs and tears.</p> + +<p>Marjorie passed through a flash of amazement +to a sudden understanding of her mother's case. +"Poor dear Mummy," she said. "Oh! poor dear +Mummy. It's a shame of us!"</p> + +<p>She put her arms about her mother and held her +for awhile.</p> + +<p>"It <i>is</i> a shame," said her mother in a muffled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">-241-</a></span> +voice, trying to keep hold of this elusive thing that +had somehow both wounded her and won her daughter +back. But her poor grasp slipped again. "I +knew you'd come to see it," she said, dabbing with her +handkerchief at her eyes. "I knew you would." And +then with the habitual loyalty of years resuming its +sway: "He's always been so good to you."...</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Pope had something more definite to +say to Marjorie, and came to it at last with a tactful +offhandedness. Marjorie communicated it to Trafford +about an hour later on his return from the +laboratory. "I say," she said, "old Daffy's engaged +to Magnet!"</p> + +<p>She paused, and added with just the faintest +trace of resentment in her voice: "She can have him, +as far as I'm concerned."</p> + +<p>"He didn't wait long," said Trafford tactlessly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Marjorie; "he didn't wait long.... +Of course she got him on the rebound."...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope was only a day or so ahead of a cloud +of callers. The Carmel girls followed close upon her, +tall figures of black fur, with costly-looking muffs +and a rich glitter at neck and wrist. Marjorie displayed +her house, talking fluently about other things, +and watching for effects. The Carmel girls ran their +swift dark eyes over her appointments, glanced +quickly from side to side of her rooms, saw only too +certainly that the house was narrow and small——. +But did they see that it was clever? They saw at any +rate that she meant it to be clever, and with true +Oriental politeness said as much urgently and extravagantly. +Then there were the Rambord girls<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">-242-</a></span> +and their mother, an unobservant lot who chattered +about the ice at Prince's; then Constance Graham +came with a thoroughbred but very dirty aunt, and +then Ottiline Winchelsea with an American minor poet, +who wanted a view of mountains from the windows at +the back, and said the bathroom ought to be done in +pink. Then Lady Solomonson came; an extremely +expensive-looking fair lady with an affectation of +cynicism, a keen intelligence, acutely apt conversation, +and a queer effect of thinking of something else +all the time she was talking. She missed nothing....</p> + +<p>Hardly anybody failed to appreciate the charm +and decision of Marjorie's use of those Bokhara +embroideries.</p> + +<p>They would have been cheap at double the price.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>And then our two young people went out to their +first dinner-parties together. They began with Trafford's +rich friend Solomonson, who had played so +large and so passive a part in their first meeting. He +had behaved with a sort of magnanimous triumph +over the marriage. He made it almost his personal +affair, as though he had brought it about. "I knew +there was a girl in it," he insisted, "and you told me +there wasn't. O-a-ah! And you kept me in that +smell of disinfectant and things—what a chap that +doctor was for spilling stuff!—for six blessed days!..."</p> + +<p>Marjorie achieved a dress at once simple and +good with great facility by not asking the price until +it was all over. (There is no half-success with dinner-dresses, +either the thing is a success and inestimable, +or not worth having at any price at all.) It +was blue with a thread of gold, and she had a necklace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">-243-</a></span> +of blueish moonstones, gold-set, and her hair +ceased to be copper and became golden, and her eyes +unfathomable blue. She was radiant with health and +happiness, no one else there had her clear freshness, +and her manner was as restrained and dignified +and ready as a proud young wife's can be. Everyone +seemed to like her and respect her and be interested +in her, and Trafford kissed her flushed cheek in the +hansom as they came home again and crowned her +happiness. It had been quite a large party, and +really much more splendid and brilliant than anything +she had ever seen before. There had been one +old gentleman with a coloured button and another +with a ribbon; there had been a countess with historical +pearls, and half-a-dozen other people one +might fairly call distinguished. The house was tremendous +in its way, spacious, rich, glowing with +lights, abounding in vistas and fine remote backgrounds. +In the midst of it all she had a sudden +thrill at the memory that less than a year ago she +had been ignominiously dismissed from the dinner-table +by her father for a hiccup....</p> + +<p>A few days after Aunt Plessington suddenly asked +the Traffords to one of her less important but still +interesting gatherings; not one of those that swayed +the world perhaps, but one which Marjorie was given +to understand achieved important subordinate wagging. +Aunt Plessington had not called, she explained +in her note, because of the urgent demands the Movement +made upon her time; it was her wonderful hard-breathing +way never to call on anyone, and it added +tremendously to her reputation; none the less it appeared—though +here the scrawl became illegible—she +meant to shove and steer her dear niece upward at a +tremendous pace. They were even asked to come a +little early so that she might make Trafford's acquaintance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">-244-</a></span></p> + +<p>The dress was duly admired, and then Aunt Plessington—assuming +the hearthrug and forgetting the +little matter of their career—explained quite Napoleonic +and wonderful things she was going to do +with her Movement, fresh principles, fresh applications, +a big committee of all the "names"—they were +easy to get if you didn't bother them to do things—a +new and more attractive title, "Payment in Kind" +was to give way to "Reality of Reward," and she +herself was going to have her hair bleached bright +white (which would set off her eyes and colour and +the general geniality of appearance due to her projecting +teeth), and so greatly increase her "platform +efficiency." Hubert, she said, was toiling away hard +at the detail of these new endeavours. He would be +down in a few minutes' time. Marjorie, she said, +ought to speak at their meetings. It would help both +the Traffords to get on if Marjorie cut a dash at the +outset, and there was no such dash to be cut as speaking +at Aunt Plessington's meetings. It was catching +on; all next season it was sure to be the thing. So +many promising girls allowed themselves to be submerged +altogether in marriage for a time, and when +they emerged everyone had forgotten the promise of +their début. She had an air of rescuing Marjorie +from an impending fate by disabusing Trafford from +injurious prepossessions....</p> + +<p>Presently the guests began to drop in, a vegetarian +health specialist, a rising young woman factory +inspector, a phrenologist who was being induced to +put great talents to better uses under Aunt Plessington's +influence, his dumb, obscure, but inevitable wife, +a colonial bishop, a baroness with a taste rather than +a capacity for intellectual society, a wealthy jam +and pickle manufacturer and his wife, who had subscribed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">-245-</a></span> +largely to the funds of the Movement and +wanted to meet the lady of title, and the editor of +the Movement's organ, <i>Upward and On</i>, a young +gentleman of abundant hair and cadaverous silences, +whom Aunt Plessington patted on the shoulder and +spoke of as "one of our discoveries." And then +Uncle Hubert came down, looking ruffled and overworked, +with his ready-made dress-tie—he was one +of those men who can never master the art of tying +a bow—very much askew. The conversation turned +chiefly on the Movement; if it strayed Aunt Plessington +reached out her voice after it and brought it +back in a masterful manner.</p> + +<p>Through soup and fish Marjorie occupied herself +with the inflexible rigour of the young editor, who had +brought her down. When she could give her attention +to the general conversation she discovered her +husband a little flushed and tackling her aunt with +an expression of quiet determination. The phrenologist +and the vegetarian health specialist were regarding +him with amazement, the jam and pickle manufacturer's +wife was evidently deeply shocked. He +was refusing to believe in the value of the Movement, +and Aunt Plessington was manifestly losing her +temper.</p> + +<p>"I don't see, Mrs. Plessington," he was saying, +"that all this amounts to more than a kind of Glorious +District Visiting. That is how I see it. You +want to attack people in their homes—before they +cry out to you. You want to compel them by this +Payment in Kind of yours to do what you want them +to do instead of trying to make them want to do it. +Now, I think your business is to make them want to +do it. You may perhaps increase the amount of +milk in babies, and the amount of whitewash in cottages +and slums by your methods—I don't dispute<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">-246-</a></span> +the promise of your statistics—but you're going to +do it at a cost of human self-respect that's out of all +proportion——"</p> + +<p>Uncle Hubert's voice, with that thick utterance +that always suggested a mouthful of plums, came +booming down the table. "All these arguments," he +said, "have been answered long ago."</p> + +<p>"No doubt," said Trafford with a faint asperity. +"But tell me the answers."</p> + +<p>"It's ridiculous," said Aunt Plessington, "to talk +of the self-respect of the kind of people—oh! the +very dregs!"</p> + +<p>"It's just because the plant is delicate that you've +got to handle it carefully," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Here's Miss Gant," said Aunt Plessington, +"<i>she</i> knows the strata we are discussing. She'll tell +you they have positively <i>no</i> self-respect—none at +all."</p> + +<p>"<i>My</i> people," said Miss Gant, as if in conclusive +testimony, "actually conspire with their employers +to defeat me."</p> + +<p>"I don't see the absence of self-respect in that," +said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"But all their interests——"</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of their pride."...</p> + +<p>The discussion lasted to the end of dinner and +made no headway. As soon as the ladies were in the +drawing-room, Aunt Plessington, a little flushed from +the conflict, turned on Marjorie and said, "I <i>like</i> +your husband. He's wrong-headed, but he's young, +and he's certainly spirited. He <i>ought</i> to get on if +he wants to. Does he do nothing but his researches?"</p> + +<p>"He lectures in the spring term," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Aunt Plessington with a triumphant +note, "you must alter all that. You must interest +him in wider things. You must bring him out of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">-247-</a></span> +shell, and let him see what it is to deal with Affairs. +Then he wouldn't talk such nonsense about our +Work."</p> + +<p>Marjory was at a momentary loss for a reply, +and in the instant's respite Aunt Plessington turned +to the jam and pickle lady and asked in a bright, +encouraging note: "Well! And how's the Village +Club getting on?"...</p> + +<p>She had another lunge at Trafford as he took +his leave. "You must come again soon," she said. +"I <i>love</i> a good wrangle, and Hubert and I never +want to talk about our Movement to any one but unbelievers. +You don't know the beginnings of it yet. +Only I warn you they have a way of getting converted. +I warn you."...</p> + +<p>On this occasion there was no kissing in the cab. +Trafford was exasperated.</p> + +<p>"Of all the intolerable women!" he said, and was +silent for a time.</p> + +<p>"The astounding part of it is," he burst out, +"that this sort of thing, this Movement and all the +rest of it, does really give the quality of English +public affairs. It's like a sample—dredged. The—the +<i>cheapness</i> of it! Raised voices, rash assertions, +sham investigations, meetings and committees and +meetings, that's the stuff of it, and politicians really +have to attend to it, and silly, ineffective, irritating +bills really get drafted and messed about with and +passed on the strength of it. Public affairs are still +in the Dark Ages. Nobody now would think of +getting together a scratch committee of rich old +women and miscellaneous conspicuous people to design +an electric tram, and jabbering and jabbering +and jabbering, and if any one objects"—a note of +personal bitterness came into his voice—"jabbering +faster; but nobody thinks it ridiculous to attempt the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">-248-</a></span> +organization of poor people's affairs in that sort of +way. This project of the supersession of Wages by +Payment in Kind—oh! it's childish. If it wasn't it +would be outrageous and indecent. Your uncle and +aunt haven't thought for a moment of any single one +of the necessary consequences of these things they +say their confounded Movement aims at, effects upon +the race, upon public spirit, upon people's habits and +motives. They've just a queer craving to feel powerful +and influential, which they think they can best +satisfy by upsetting the lives of no end of harmless +poor people—the only people they dare upset—and +that's about as far as they go.... Your aunt's +detestable, Marjorie."</p> + +<p>Marjorie had never seen him so deeply affected by +anything but herself. It seemed to her he was needlessly +disturbed by a trivial matter. He sulked for +a space, and then broke out again.</p> + +<p>"That confounded woman talks of my physical +science," he said, "as if research were an amiable +weakness, like collecting postage stamps. And it's +changed human conditions more in the last ten years +than all the parliamentary wire-pullers and legislators +and administrative experts have done in two centuries. +And for all that, there's more clerks in Whitehall +than professors of physics in the whole of England."...</p> + +<p>"I suppose it's the way that sort of thing gets +done," said Marjorie, after an interval.</p> + +<p>"That sort of thing doesn't get done," snapped +Trafford. "All these people burble about with their +movements and jobs, and lectures and stuff—and +<i>things happen</i>. Like some one getting squashed to +death in a crowd. Nobody did it, but anybody in +the muddle can claim to have done it—if only they've<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">-249-</a></span> +got the cheek of your Aunt Plessington."</p> + +<p>He seemed to have finished.</p> + +<p>"<i>Done!</i>" he suddenly broke out again. "Why! +people like your Aunt Plessington don't even know +where the handle is. If they ventured to look for it, +they'd give the whole show away! Done, indeed!"</p> + +<p>"Here we are!" said Marjorie, a little relieved to +find the hansom turning out of King's Road into +their own side street....</p> + +<p>And then Marjorie wore the blue dress with great +success at the Carmels'. The girls came and looked +at it and admired it—it was no mere politeness. +They admitted there was style about it, a quality—there +was no explaining. "You're <i>wonderful</i>, +Madge!" cried the younger Carmel girl.</p> + +<p>The Carmel boy, seizing the opportunity of a +momentary seclusion in a corner, ended a short but +rather portentous silence with "I say, you <i>do</i> look +ripping," in a voice that implied the keenest regret +for the slacknesses of a summer that was now infinitely +remote to Marjorie. It was ridiculous that the +Carmel boy should have such emotions—he was six +years younger than Trafford and only a year older +than Marjorie, and yet she was pleased by his +manifest wound....</p> + +<p>There was only one little thing at the back of +her mind that alloyed her sense of happy and complete +living that night, and that was the ghost of an +addition sum. At home, in her pretty bureau, a little +gathering pile of bills, as yet unpaid, and an empty +cheque-book with appealing counterfoils, awaited her +attention.</p> + +<p>Marjorie had still to master the fact that all the +fine braveries and interests and delights of life that +offer themselves so amply to the favoured children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">-250-</a></span> +of civilization, trail and, since the fall of man at +any rate, have trailed after them something—something, +the justification of morality, the despair of +all easy, happy souls, the unavoidable drop of bitterness +in the cup of pleasure—the Reckoning.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Child of the Ages</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>When the intellectual history of this time comes to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">-251-</a></span> +be written, nothing I think will stand out more +strikingly than the empty gulf in quality between the +superb and richly fruitful scientific investigations +that are going on and the general thought of other +educated sections of the community. I do not mean +that the scientific men are as a whole a class of supermen, +dealing with and thinking about everything in +a way altogether better than the common run of +humanity, but that in their own field, they think and +work with an intensity, an integrity, a breadth, boldness, +patience, thoroughness and faithfulness that +(excepting only a few artists) puts their work out +of all comparison with any other human activity. +Often the field in which the work is done is very +narrow, and almost universally the underlying philosophy +is felt rather than apprehended. A scientific +man may be large and deep-minded, deliberate and +personally detached in his work, and hasty, commonplace +and superficial in every other relation of life. +Nevertheless it is true that in these particular directions +the human mind has achieved a new and higher +quality of attitude and gesture, a veracity, self-detachment +and self-abnegating vigour of criticism +that tend to spread out and must ultimately spread +out to every other human affair. In these uncontroversial +issues at least mankind has learnt the rich +rewards that ensue from patience and infinite pains.</p> + +<p>The peculiar circumstances of Trafford's birth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">-252-</a></span> +and upbringing had accentuated his natural disposition +toward this new thoroughness of intellectual +treatment which has always distinguished the great +artist, and which to-day is also the essential quality +of the scientific method. He had lived apart from +any urgency to produce and compete in the common +business of the world; his natural curiosities, fed and +encouraged by his natural gifts, had grown into a +steady passion for clarity and knowledge. But with +him there was no specialization. He brought out +from his laboratory into the everyday affairs of the +world the same sceptical restraint of judgment which +is the touchstone of scientific truth. This made him +a tepid and indeed rather a scornful spectator of +political and social life. Party formulae, international +rivalries, social customs, and very much of the +ordinary law of our state impressed him as a kind of +fungoid growth out of a fundamental intellectual +muddle. It all maintained itself hazardously, changing +and adapting itself unintelligently to unseen conditions. +He saw no ultimate truth in this seething +welter of human efforts, no tragedy as yet in its +defeats, no value in its victories. It had to go on, he +believed, until the spreading certitudes of the scientific +method pierced its unsubstantial thickets, burst +its delusive films, drained away its folly. Aunt Plessington's +talk of order and progress and the influence +of her Movement impressed his mind very much as the +cackle of some larger kind of hen—which cackles +because it must. Only Aunt Plessington being human +simply imagined the egg. She laid—on the +plane of the ideal. When the great nonsensical issues +between liberal and conservative, between socialist +and individualist, between "Anglo-Saxon" and +"Teuton," between the "white race" and the "yellow +race" arose in Trafford's company, he would if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">-253-</a></span> +he felt cheerful take one side or the other as chance +or his amusement with his interlocutors determined, +and jest and gibe at the opponent's inconsistencies, +and if on the other hand he chanced to be irritable he +would lose his temper at this "chewing of mesembryanthemum" +and sulk into silence. "Chewing mesembryanthemum" +was one of Trafford's favourite +images,—no doubt the reader knows that abundant +fleshy Mediterranean weed and the weakly unpleasant +wateriness of its substance. He went back to his +laboratory and his proper work after such discussions +with a feeling of escape, as if he shut a door +upon a dirty and undisciplined market-place crowded +with mental defectives. Yet even before he met and +married Marjorie, there was a queer little undertow +of thought in his mind which insisted that this business +could not end with door-slamming, that he didn't +altogether leave the social confusion outside his +panels when he stood alone before his apparatus, and +that sooner or later that babble of voices would force +his defences and overcome his disdain.</p> + +<p>His particular work upon the intimate constitution +of matter had broadened very rapidly in his +hands. The drift of his work had been to identify +all colloids as liquid solutions of variable degrees of +viscosity, and to treat crystalline bodies as the only +solids. He had dealt with oscillating processes in +colloid bodies with especial reference to living matter. +He had passed from a study of the melting and toughening +of glass to the molecular structure of a number +of elastic bodies, and so, by a characteristic leap +into botanical physiology, to the states of resinous +and gummy substances at the moment of secretion. +He worked at first upon a false start, and then resumed +to discover a growing illumination. He found +himself in the presence of phenomena that seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">-254-</a></span> +him to lie near the still undiscovered threshold to the +secret processes of living protoplasm. He was, as it +were, breaking into biology by way of molecular +physics. He spent many long nights of deep excitement, +calculating and arranging the development of +these seductive intimations. It was this work which +his marriage had interrupted, and to which he was +now returning.</p> + +<p>He was surprised to find how difficult it was to +take it up again. He had been only two months +away from it, and yet already it had not a little of +the feeling of a relic taken from a drawer. Something +had faded. It was at first as if a film had +come over his eyes, so that he could no longer see +these things clearly and subtly and closely. His +senses, his emotions, had been living in a stirring and +vivid illumination. Now in this cool quietude bright +clouds of coloured memory-stuff swam distractingly +before his eyes. Phantom kisses on his lips, the memory +of touches and the echoing vibrations of an +adorable voice, the thought of a gay delightful fireside +and the fresh recollection of a companion +intensely felt beside him, effaced the delicate profundities +of this dim place. Durgan hovered about +him, helpful and a mute reproach. Trafford had to +force his attention daily for the better part of two +weeks before he had fully recovered the fine enchanting +interest of that suspended work.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>At last one day he had the happiness of possession +again. He had exactly the sensation one gets +when some hitherto intractable piece of a machine +one is putting together, clicks neatly and beyond all +hoping, into its place. He found himself working in +the old style, with the hours slipping by disregarded.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">-255-</a></span> +He sent out Durgan to get him tobacco and tea and +smoked-salmon sandwiches, and he stayed in the +laboratory all night. He went home about half-past +five, and found a white-faced, red-eyed Marjorie still +dressed, wrapped in a travelling-rug, and crumpled +and asleep in his study arm-chair beside the grey +ashes of an extinct fire.</p> + +<p>In the instant before she awoke he could see what +a fragile and pitiful being a healthy and happy +young wife can appear. Her pose revealed an unsuspected +slender weakness of body, her face something +infantile and wistful he had still to reckon +with. She awoke with a start and stared at him for +a moment, and at the room about her. "Oh, where +have you been?" she asked almost querulously. +"Where <i>have</i> you been?"</p> + +<p>"But my dear!" he said, as one might speak to +a child, "why aren't you in bed? It's just dawn."</p> + +<p>"Oh," she said, "I waited and I waited. It +seemed you <i>must</i> come. I read a book. And then I +fell asleep." And then with a sob of feeble self-pity, +"And here I am!" She rubbed the back of her hand +into one eye and shivered. "I'm cold," she said, +"and I want some tea."</p> + +<p>"Let's make some," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"It's been horrible waiting," said Marjorie without +moving; "horrible! Where have you been?"</p> + +<p>"I've been working. I got excited by my work. +I've been at the laboratory. I've had the best spell +of work I've ever had since our marriage."</p> + +<p>"But I have been up all night!" she cried with +her face and voice softening to tears. "How <i>could</i> +you? How <i>could</i> you?"</p> + +<p>He was surprised by her weeping. He was still +more surprised by the self-abandonment that allowed +her to continue. "I've been working," he repeated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">-256-</a></span> +and then looked about with a man's helplessness for +the tea apparatus. One must have hot water and a +teapot and a kettle; he would find those in the +kitchen. He strolled thoughtfully out of the room, +thinking out the further details of tea-making all +mixed up with amazement at Marjorie, while she sat +wiping her eyes with a crumpled pocket-handkerchief. +Presently she followed him down with the rug +about her like a shawl, and stood watching him as he +lit a fire of wood and paper among the ashes in the +kitchen fireplace. "It's been dreadful," she said, not +offering to help.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, on his knees, "I'd really got +hold of my work at last."</p> + +<p>"But you should have sent——"</p> + +<p>"I was thinking of my work. I clean forgot."</p> + +<p>"Forgot?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely."</p> + +<p>"Forgot—<i>me!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Trafford, with a slightly +puzzled air, "you don't see it as I do."</p> + +<p>The kettle engaged him for a time. Then he +threw out a suggestion. "We'll have to have a +telephone."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't imagine where you were. I thought +of all sorts of things. I almost came round—but I +was so horribly afraid I mightn't find you."</p> + +<p>He renewed his suggestion of a telephone.</p> + +<p>"So that if I really want you——" said Marjorie. +"Or if I just want to feel you're there."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Trafford slowly, jabbing a piece of +firewood into the glow; but it was chiefly present in +his mind that much of that elaborate experimenting +of his wasn't at all a thing to be cut athwart by the +exasperating gusts of a telephone bell clamouring +for attention. Hitherto the laboratory telephone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">-257-</a></span> +had been in the habit of disconnecting itself early in +the afternoon.</p> + +<p>And yet after all it was this instrument, the same +twisted wire and little quivering tympanum, that had +brought back Marjorie into his life.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>And now Trafford fell into a great perplexity of +mind. His banker had called his attention to the fact +that his account was overdrawn to the extent of +three hundred and thirteen pounds, and he had been +under that vague sort of impression one always has +about one's current account that he was a hundred +and fifty or so to the good. His first impression was +that those hitherto infallible beings, those unseen +gnomes of the pass-book whose lucid figures, neat +tickings, and unrelenting additions constituted banks +to his imagination, must have made a mistake; his +second that some one had tampered with a cheque. +His third thought pointed to Marjorie and the easy +circumstances of his home. For a fortnight now +she had been obviously ailing, oddly irritable; he did +not understand the change in her, but it sufficed to +prevent his taking the thing to her at once and going +into it with her as he would have done earlier. +Instead he had sent for his pass-book, and in the +presence of its neat columns realized for the first +time the meaning of Marjorie's "three hundred +pounds." Including half-a-dozen cheques to Oxbridge +tradesmen for her old debts, she had spent, +he discovered, nearly seven hundred and fifty.</p> + +<p>He sat before the little bundle of crumpled strips +of pink and white, perforated, purple stamped and +effaced, in a state of extreme astonishment. It was no +small factor in his amazement to note how very carelessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">-258-</a></span> +some of those cheques of Marjorie's had been +written. Several she had not even crossed. The effect +of it all was that she'd just spent his money—freely—with +an utter disregard of the consequences.</p> + +<p>Up to that moment it had never occurred to +Trafford that anybody one really cared for, could be +anything but punctilious about money. Now here, +with an arithmetical exactitude of demonstration, he +perceived that Marjorie wasn't.</p> + +<p>It was so tremendous a discovery for him, so disconcerting +and startling, that he didn't for two days +say a word to her about it. He couldn't think of a +word to say. He felt that even to put these facts +before her amounted to an accusation of disloyalty +and selfishness that he hadn't the courage to make. +His work stopped altogether. He struggled hourly +with that accusation. Did she realize——? There +seemed no escape from his dilemma; either she didn't +care or she didn't understand!</p> + +<p>His thoughts went back to the lake of Orta, when +he had put all his money at her disposal. She had +been surprised, and now he perceived she had also +been a little frightened. The chief excuse he could +find for her was that she was inexperienced—absolutely +inexperienced.</p> + +<p>Even now, of course, she was drawing fresh +cheques....</p> + +<p>He would have to pull himself together, and go +into the whole thing—for all its infinite disagreeableness—with +her....</p> + +<p>But it was Marjorie who broached the subject.</p> + +<p>He had found work at the laboratory unsatisfactory, +and after lunching at his club he had come +home and gone to his study in order to think out the +discussion he contemplated with her. She came in to +him as he sat at his desk. "Busy?" she said. "Not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">-259-</a></span> +very," he answered, and she came up to him, kissed +his head, and stood beside him with her hand on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Pass-book?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"I've been overrunning."</p> + +<p>"No end."</p> + +<p>The matter was opened. What would she say?</p> + +<p>She bent to his ear and whispered. "I'm going +to overrun some more."</p> + +<p>His voice was resentful. "You <i>can't</i>," he said +compactly without looking at her. "You've spent—enough."</p> + +<p>"There's—things."</p> + +<p>"What things?"</p> + +<p>Her answer took some time in coming. "We'll +have to give a wedding present to Daffy.... I shall +want—some more furniture."</p> + +<p>Well, he had to go into it now. "I don't think +you can have it," he said, and then as she remained +silent, "Marjorie, do you know how much money +I've got?"</p> + +<p>"Six thousand."</p> + +<p>"I <i>had</i>. But we've spent nearly a thousand +pounds. Yes—one thousand pounds—over and +above income. We meant to spend four hundred. +And now, we've got—hardly anything over five."</p> + +<p>"Five thousand," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Five thousand."</p> + +<p>"And there's your salary."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but at this pace——"</p> + +<p>"Dear," said Marjorie, and her hands came +about his neck, "dear—there's something——"</p> + +<p>She broke off. An unfamiliar quality in her voice +struck into him. He turned his head to see her face,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">-260-</a></span> +rose to his feet staring at her.</p> + +<p>This remarkable young woman had become soft +and wonderful as April hills across which clouds are +sweeping. Her face was as if he had never seen it +before; her eyes bright with tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh! don't let's spoil things by thinking of +money," she said. "I've got something——" Her +voice fell to a whisper. "Don't let's spoil things by +thinking of money.... It's too good, dear, to be +true. It's too good to be true. It makes everything +perfect.... We'll have to furnish that +little room. I didn't dare to hope it—somehow. +I've been so excited and afraid. But we've got to +furnish that little room there—that empty little +room upstairs, dear, that we left over.... Oh +my <i>dear!</i> my <i>dear!</i>"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>The world of Trafford and Marjorie was filled +and transfigured by the advent of their child.</p> + +<p>For two days of abundant silences he had been +preparing a statement of his case for her, he had been +full of the danger to his research and all the waste of +his life that her extravagance threatened. He wanted +to tell her just all that his science meant to him, +explain how his income and life had all been arranged +to leave him, mind and time and energy, free for these +commanding investigations. His life was to him the +service of knowledge—or futility. He had perceived +that she did not understand this in him; that for her, +life was a blaze of eagerly sought experiences and +gratifications. So far he had thought out things +and had them ready for her. But now all this impending +discussion vanished out of his world. Their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">-261-</a></span> +love was to be crowned by the miracle of parentage. +This fact flooded his outlook and submerged every +other consideration.</p> + +<p>This manifest probability came to him as if it were +an unforeseen marvel. It was as if he had never +thought of such a thing before, as though a fact +entirely novel in the order of the universe had come +into existence. Marjorie became again magical and +wonderful for him, but in a manner new and strange, +she was grave, solemn, significant. He was filled with +a passionate solicitude for her welfare, and a passionate +desire to serve her. It seemed impossible to +him that only a day or so ago he should have been +accusing her in his heart of disloyalty, and searching +for excuses and mitigations....</p> + +<p>All the freshness of his first love for Marjorie +returned, his keen sense of the sweet gallantry of her +voice and bearing, his admiration for the swift, falconlike +swoop of her decisions, for the grace and poise +of her body, and the steady frankness of her eyes; but +now it was all charged with his sense of this new joint +life germinating at the heart of her slender vigour, +spreading throughout her being to change it altogether +into womanhood for ever. In this new light +his passion for research and all the scheme of his life +appeared faded and unworthy, as much egotism as if +he had been devoted to hunting or golf or any such +aimless preoccupation. Fatherhood gripped him and +faced him about. It was manifestly a monstrous +thing that he should ever have expected Marjorie to +become a mere undisturbing accessory to the selfish +intellectualism of his career, to shave and limit herself +to a mere bachelor income, and play no part of +her own in the movement of the world. He knew better +now. Research must fall into its proper place, +and for his immediate business he must set to work to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">-262-</a></span> +supplement his manifestly inadequate resources.</p> + +<p>At first he could form no plan at all for doing +that. He determined that research must still have +his morning hours until lunch-time, and, he privately +resolved, some part of the night. The rest of his +day, he thought, he would set aside for a time to +money-making. But he was altogether inexperienced +in the methods of money-making; it was a new problem, +and a new sort of problem to him altogether. He +discovered himself helpless and rather silly in the +matter. The more obvious possibilities seemed to be +that he might lecture upon his science or write. He +communicated with a couple of lecture agencies, and +was amazed at their scepticism; no doubt he knew his +science, on that point they were complimentary in a +profuse, unconvincing manner, but could he interest +like X—and here they named a notorious quack—could +he <i>draw</i>? He offered Science Notes to a weekly +periodical; the editor answered that for the purposes +of his publication he preferred, as between professors +and journalists, journalists. "You real +scientific men," he said, "are no doubt a thousand +times more accurate and novel and all that, but as +no one seems able to understand you——" He went +to his old fellow-student, Gwenn, who was editing +<i>The Scientific Review</i>, and through him he secured +some semi-popular lectures, which involved, he found, +travelling about twenty-nine miles weekly at the rate +of four-and-sixpence a mile—counting nothing for +the lectures. Afterwards Gwenn arranged for some +regular notes on physics and micro-chemistry. Trafford +made out a weekly time-table, on whose white +of dignity, leisure, and the honourable pursuit of +knowledge, a diaper of red marked the claims of +domestic necessity.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>It was astonishing how completely this coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">-263-</a></span> +child dominated the whole atmosphere and all the +circumstances of the Traffords. It became their +central fact, to which everything else turned and +pointed. Its effect on Marjorie's circle of school and +college friends was prodigious. She was the first of +their company to cross the mysterious boundaries of +a woman's life. She became to them a heroine mingled +with something of the priestess. They called +upon her more abundantly and sat with her, noted +the change in her eyes and voice and bearing, talking +with a kind of awe and a faint diffidence of the promised +new life.</p> + +<p>Many of them had been deeply tinged by the +women's suffrage movement, the feminist note was +strong among them, and when one afternoon Ottiline +Winchelsea brought round Agatha Alimony, the +novelist, and Agatha said in that deep-ringing voice +of hers: "I hope it will be a girl, so that presently she +may fight the battle of her sex," there was the profoundest +emotion. But when Marjorie conveyed that +to Trafford he was lacking in response.</p> + +<p>"I want a boy," he said, and, being pressed for a +reason, explained: "Oh, one likes to have a boy. I +want him with just your quick eyes and ears, my +dear, and just my own safe and certain hands."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pope received the news with that depth and +aimless complexity of emotion which had now become +her habitual method with Marjorie. She kissed and +clasped her daughter, and thought confusedly over +her shoulder, and said: "Of course, dear——. Oh, I +<i>do</i> so hope it won't annoy your father." Daffy was +"nice," but vague, and sufficiently feminist to wish it +a daughter, and the pseudo-twins said "<i>Hoo</i>-ray!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">-264-</a></span> +and changed the subject at the earliest possible opportunity. +But Theodore was deeply moved at the +prospect of becoming an uncle, and went apart and +mused deeply and darkly thereon for some time. It +was difficult to tell just what Trafford's mother +thought, she was complex and subtle, and evidently +did not show Marjorie all that was in her mind; but +at any rate it was clear the prospect of a grandchild +pleased and interested her. And about Aunt Plessington's +views there was no manner of doubt at all. +She thought, and remarked judicially, as one might +criticize a game of billiards, that on the whole it was +just a little bit too soon.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Marjorie kept well throughout March and April, +and then suddenly she grew unutterably weary and +uncomfortable in London. The end of April came +hot and close and dry—it might have been July for +the heat—the scrap of garden wilted, and the streets +were irritating with fine dust and blown scraps of +paper and drifting straws. She could think of nothing +but the shade of trees, and cornfields under sunlight +and the shadows of passing clouds. So Trafford +took out an old bicycle and wandered over the +home counties for three days, and at last hit upon a +little country cottage near Great Missenden, a cottage +a couple of girl artists had furnished and now +wanted to let. It had a long, untidy vegetable garden +and a small orchard and drying-ground, with an +old, superannuated humbug of a pear-tree near the +centre surrounded by a green seat, and high hedges +with the promise of honeysuckle and dog-roses, and +gaps that opened into hospitable beechwoods—woods +not so thick but that there were glades of bluebells,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">-265-</a></span> +bracken and, to be exact, in places embattled stinging-nettles. +He took it and engaged a minute, active, +interested, philoprogenitive servant girl for it, and +took Marjorie thither in a taxi-cab. She went out, +wrapped in a shawl, and sat under the pear-tree and +cried quietly with weakness and sentiment and the +tenderness of afternoon sunshine, and forthwith +began to pick up wonderfully, and was presently +writing to Trafford to buy her a dog to go for walks +with, while he was away in London.</p> + +<p>Trafford was still struggling along with his research +in spite of a constant gravitation to the +cottage and Marjorie's side, but he was also doing +his best to grapple with the difficulties of his financial +situation. His science notes, which were very uncongenial +and difficult to do, and his lecturing, still left +his income far behind his expenditure, and the problem +of minimising the inevitable fresh inroads on his +capital was insistent and distracting. He discovered +that he could manage his notes more easily and write +a more popular article if he dictated to a typist +instead of writing out the stuff in his own manuscript. +Dictating made his sentences more copious and open, +and the effect of the young lady's by no means acquiescent +back was to make him far more explicit than he +tended to be pen in hand. With a pen and alone he +felt the boredom of the job unendurably, and, to be +through with it, became more and more terse, allusive, +and compactly technical, after the style of his original +papers. One or two articles by him were accepted +and published by the monthly magazines, but +as he took what the editors sent him, he did not find +this led to any excessive opulence....</p> + +<p>But his heart was very much with Marjorie +through all this time. Hitherto he had taken her +health and vigour and companionship for granted,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">-266-</a></span> +and it changed his attitudes profoundly to find her +now an ailing thing, making an invincible appeal for +restraint and consideration and help. She changed +marvellously, she gained a new dignity, and her complexion +took upon itself a fresh, soft beauty. He +would spend three or four days out of a week at the +cottage, and long hours of that would be at her side, +paper and notes of some forthcoming lecture at hand +neglected, talking to her consolingly and dreamingly. +His thoughts were full of ideas about education; he +was obsessed, as are most intelligent young parents of +the modern type, by the enormous possibilities of human +improvement that might be achieved—if only +one could begin with a baby from the outset, on the +best lines, with the best methods, training and preparing +it—presumably for a cleaned and chastened +world. Indeed he made all the usual discoveries of +intelligent modern young parents very rapidly, fully +and completely, and overlooked most of those practical +difficulties that finally reduce them to human +dimensions again in quite the normal fashion.</p> + +<p>"I sit and muse sometimes when I ought to be +computing," he said. "Old Durgan watches me and +grunts. But think, if we take reasonable care, watch +its phases, stand ready with a kindergarten toy directly +it stretches out its hand—think what we can +make of it!"...</p> + +<p>"We will make it the most wonderful child in the +world," said Marjorie. "Indeed! what else can it +be?"</p> + +<p>"Your eyes," said Trafford, "and my hands."</p> + +<p>"A girl."</p> + +<p>"A boy."</p> + +<p>He kissed her white and passive wrist.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>The child was born a little before expectation at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">-267-</a></span> +the cottage throughout a long summer's night and +day in early September. Its coming into the world +was a long and painful struggle; the general practitioner +who had seemed two days before a competent +and worthy person enough, revealed himself as hesitating, +old-fashioned, and ill-equipped. He had a +lingering theological objection to the use of chloroform, +and the nurse from London sulked under his +directions and came and discussed his methods scornfully +with Trafford. From sundown until daylight +Trafford chafed in the little sitting-room and tried +to sleep, and hovered listening at the foot of the narrow +staircase to the room above. He lived through +interminable hours of moaning and suspense....</p> + +<p>The dawn and sunrise came with a quality of +beautiful horror. For years afterwards that memory +stood out among other memories as something peculiarly +strange and dreadful. Day followed an interminable +night and broke slowly. Things crept out of +darkness, awoke as it were out of mysteries and +reclothed themselves in unsubstantial shadows and +faint-hued forms. All through that slow infiltration +of the world with light and then with colour, the +universe it seemed was moaning and endeavouring, +and a weak and terrible struggle went on and kept on +in that forbidden room whose windows opened upon +the lightening world, dying to a sobbing silence, rising +again to agonizing cries, fluctuating, a perpetual +obstinate failure to achieve a tormenting end. He +went out, and behold the sky was a wonder of pink +flushed level clouds and golden hope, and nearly +every star except the morning star had gone, the +supine moon was pale and half-dissolved in blue, and +the grass which had been grey and wet, was green<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">-268-</a></span> +again, and the bushes and trees were green. He +returned and hovered in the passage, washed his face, +listened outside the door for age-long moments, and +then went out again to listen under the window....</p> + +<p>He went to his room and shaved, sat for a long +time thinking, and then suddenly knelt by his bed and +prayed. He had never prayed before in all his +life....</p> + +<p>He returned to the garden, and there neglected +and wet with dew was the camp chair Marjorie had +sat on the evening before, the shawl she had been +wearing, the novel she had been reading. He brought +these things in as if they were precious treasures....</p> + +<p>Light was pouring into the world again now. He +noticed with an extreme particularity the detailed +dewy delicacy of grass and twig, the silver edges to +the leaves of briar and nettle, the soft clearness of the +moss on bank and wall. He noted the woods with +the first warmth of autumn tinting their green, the +clear, calm sky, with just a wisp or so of purple +cloud waning to a luminous pink on the brightening +east, the exquisite freshness of the air. And still +through the open window, incessant, unbearable, +came this sound of Marjorie moaning, now dying +away, now reviving, now weakening again....</p> + +<p>Was she dying? Were they murdering her? It +was incredible this torture could go on. Somehow it +must end. Chiefly he wanted to go in and kill the +doctor. But it would do no good to kill the doctor!</p> + +<p>At last the nurse came out, looking a little scared, +to ask him to cycle three miles away and borrow some +special sort of needle that the fool of a doctor had +forgotten. He went, outwardly meek, and returning +was met by the little interested servant, very alert and +excited and rather superior—for here was something +no man can do—with the news that he had a beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">-269-</a></span> +little daughter, and that all was well with +Marjorie.</p> + +<p>He said "Thank God, thank God!" several times, +and then went out into the kitchen and began to eat +some flabby toast and drink some lukewarm tea he +found there. He was horribly fatigued. "Is she +all right?" he asked over his shoulder, hearing the +doctor's footsteps on the stairs....</p> + +<p>They were very pontifical and official with him.</p> + +<p>Presently they brought out a strange, wizened +little animal, wailing very stoutly, with a face like a +very, very old woman, and reddish skin and hair—it +had quite a lot of wet blackish hair of an incredible +delicacy of texture. It kicked with a stumpy monkey's +legs and inturned feet. He held it: his heart +went out to it. He pitied it beyond measure, it was +so weak and ugly. He was astonished and distressed +by the fact of its extreme endearing ugliness. He +had expected something strikingly pretty. It clenched +a fist, and he perceived it had all its complement +of fingers and ridiculous, pretentious little finger +nails. Inside that fist it squeezed his heart.... +He did not want to give it back to them. He wanted +to protect it. He felt they could not understand it +or forgive, as he could forgive, its unjustifiable +feebleness....</p> + +<p>Later, for just a little while, he was permitted to +see Marjorie—Marjorie so spent, so unspeakably +weary, and yet so reassuringly vital and living, so +full of gentle pride and gentler courage amidst the +litter of surgical precaution, that the tears came +streaming down his face and he sobbed shamelessly as +he kissed her. "Little daughter," she whispered and +smiled—just as she had always smiled—that sweet, +dear smile of hers!—and closed her eyes and said no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">-270-</a></span> +more....</p> + +<p>Afterwards as he walked up and down the garden +he remembered their former dispute and thought how +characteristic of Marjorie it was to have a daughter +in spite of all his wishes.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>For weeks and weeks this astonishing and unprecedented +being filled the Traffords' earth and sky. +Very speedily its minute quaintness passed, and it +became a vigorous delightful baby that was, as the +nurse explained repeatedly and very explicitly, not +only quite exceptional and distinguished, but exactly +everything that a baby should be. Its weight became +of supreme importance; there was a splendid week +when it put on nine ounces, and an indifferent one +when it added only one. And then came a terrible +crisis. It was ill; some sort of infection had reached +it, an infantile cholera. Its temperature mounted to +a hundred and three and a half. It became a flushed +misery, wailing with a pathetic feeble voice. Then it +ceased to wail. Marjorie became white-lipped and +heavy-eyed from want of sleep, and it seemed to +Trafford that perhaps his child might die. It seemed +to him that the spirit of the universe must be a monstrous +calivan since children had to die. He +went for a long walk through the October beechwoods, +under a windy sky, and in a drift of falling +leaves, wondering with a renewed freshness at the +haunting futilities of life.... Life was not futile—anything +but that, but futility seemed to be stalking it, +waiting for it.... When he returned the child +was already better, and in a few days it was well +again—but very light and thin.</p> + +<p>When they were sure of its safety, Marjorie and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">-271-</a></span> +he confessed the extremity of their fears to one another. +They had not dared to speak before, and +even now they spoke in undertones of the shadow +that had hovered and passed over the dearest thing +in their lives.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The New Phase</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>In the course of the next six months the child of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">-272-</a></span> +ages became an almost ordinary healthy baby, and +Trafford began to think consecutively about his +scientific work again—in the intervals of effort of a +more immediately practical sort.</p> + +<p>The recall of molecular physics and particularly +of the internal condition of colloids to something like +their old importance in his life was greatly accelerated +by the fact that a young Oxford don named +Behrens was showing extraordinary energy in what +had been for a time Trafford's distinctive and undisputed +field. Behrens was one of those vividly clever +energetic people who are the despair of originative +men. He had begun as Trafford's pupil and sedulous +ape; he had gone on to work that imitated Trafford's +in everything except its continual freshness, and +now he was ransacking every scrap of suggestion to +be found in Trafford's work, and developing it with +an intensity of uninspired intelligence that most +marvellously simulated originality. He was already +being noted as an authority; sometimes in an article +his name would be quoted and Trafford's omitted in +relation to Trafford's ideas, and in every way his +emergence and the manner of his emergence threatened +and stimulated his model and master. A great +effort had to be made. Trafford revived the drooping +spirits of Durgan by a renewed punctuality in +the laboratory. He began to stay away from home +at night and work late again, now, however, under +no imperative inspiration, but simply because it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">-273-</a></span> +only by such an invasion of the evening and night +that it would be possible to make headway against +Behren's unremitting industry. And this new demand +upon Trafford's already strained mental and nervous +equipment began very speedily to have its effect +upon his domestic life.</p> + +<p>It is only in romantic fiction that a man can work +strenuously to the limit of his power and come home +to be sweet, sunny and entertaining. Trafford's preoccupation +involved a certain negligence of Marjorie, +a certain indisposition to be amused or interested by +trifling things, a certain irritability....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>And now, indeed, the Traffords were coming to the +most difficult and fatal phase in marriage. They had +had that taste of defiant adventure which is the +crown of a spirited love affair, they had known the +sweetness of a maiden passion for a maid, and they +had felt all those rich and solemn emotions, those +splendid fears and terrible hopes that weave themselves +about the great partnership in parentage. +And now, so far as sex was concerned, there might be +much joy and delight still, but no more wonder, no +fresh discoveries of incredible new worlds and unsuspected +stars. Love, which had been a new garden, an +unknown land, a sunlit sea to launch upon, was now a +rich treasure-house of memories. And memories, although +they afford a perpetually increasing enrichment +to emotion, are not sufficient in themselves for +the daily needs of life.</p> + +<p>For this, indeed, is the truth of passionate love, +that it works outs its purpose and comes to an end. +A day arrives in every marriage when the lovers must +face each other, disillusioned, stripped of the last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">-274-</a></span> +shred of excitement—undisguisedly themselves. And +our two were married; they had bound themselves +together under a penalty of scandalous disgrace, to +take the life-long consequences of their passionate +association.</p> + +<p>It was upon Trafford that this exhaustion of the +sustaining magic of love pressed most severely, because +it was he who had made the greatest adaptations +to the exigencies of their union. He had +crippled, he perceived more and more clearly, the +research work upon which his whole being had once +been set, and his hours were full of tiresome and +trivial duties and his mind engaged and worried by +growing financial anxieties. He had made these +abandonments in a phase of exalted passion for the +one woman in the world and her unprecedented child, +and now he saw, in spite of all his desire not to see, +that she was just a weak human being among human +beings, and neither she nor little Margharita so very +marvellous.</p> + +<p>But while Marjorie shrank to the dimensions of +reality, research remained still a luminous and commanding +dream. In love one fails or one wins home, +but the lure of research is for ever beyond the hills, +every victory is a new desire. Science has inexhaustibly +fresh worlds to conquer....</p> + +<p>He was beginning now to realize the dilemma of +his life, the reality of the opposition between Marjorie +and child and home on the one hand and on the +other this big wider thing, this remoter, severer +demand upon his being. He had long perceived these +were distinct and different things, but now it appeared +more and more inevitable that they should be +antagonistic and mutually disregardful things. Each +claimed him altogether, it seemed, and suffered compromise +impatiently. And this is where the particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">-275-</a></span> +stress of his situation came in. Hitherto he had +believed that nothing of any importance was secret +or inexplicable between himself and Marjorie. His +ideal of his relationship had assumed a complete +sympathy of feeling, an almost instinctive identity of +outlook. And now it was manifest they were living +in a state of inadequate understanding, that she +knew only in the most general and opaque forms, the +things that interested him so profoundly, and had +but the most superficial interest in his impassioned +curiosities. And missing as she did the strength of +his intellectual purpose she missed too, she had no +inkling of, the way in which her careless expansiveness +pressed upon him. She was unaware that she +was destroying an essential thing in his life.</p> + +<p>He could not tell how far this antagonism was +due to inalterable discords of character, how far it +might not be an ineradicable sex difference, a necessary +aspect of marriage. The talk of old Sir Roderick +Dover at the Winton Club germinated in his +mind, a branching and permeating suggestion. And +then would come a phase of keen sympathy with +Marjorie; she would say brilliant and penetrating +things, display a swift cleverness that drove all these +intimations of incurable divergence clean out of his +head again. Then he would find explanations in the +differences between his and Marjorie's training and +early associations. He perceived his own upbringing +had had a steadfastness and consistency that had +been altogether lacking in hers. He had had the +rare advantage of perfect honesty in the teaching +and tradition of his home. There had never been +any shams or sentimentalities for him to find out and +abandon. From boyhood his mother's hand had +pointed steadily to the search for truth as the +supreme ennobling fact in life. She had never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">-276-</a></span> +preached this to him, never delivered discourses upon +his father's virtues, but all her conversation and life +was saturated with this idea. Compared with this +atmosphere of high and sustained direction, the +intellectual and moral quality of the Popes, he saw, +was the quality of an agitated rag bag. They had +thought nothing out, joined nothing together, they +seemed to believe everything and nothing, they were +neither religious nor irreligious, neither moral nor +adventurous. In the place of a religion, and tainting +their entire atmosphere, they had the decaying remains +of a dead Anglicanism; it was clear they did +not believe in its creed, and as clear that they did +not want to get rid of it; it afforded them no guidance, +but only vague pretensions, and the dismal +exercises of Silas Root flourished in its shadows, a +fungus, a post-mortem activity of the soul. None of +them had any idea of what they were for or what +their lives as a whole might mean; they had no standards, +but only instincts and an instinctive fear of +instincts; Pope wanted to be tremendously respected +and complimented by everybody and get six per cent. +for his money; Mrs. Pope wanted things to go +smoothly; the young people had a general indisposition +to do anything that might "look bad," and +otherwise "have a good time." But neither Marjorie +nor any of them had any test for a good time, +and so they fluctuated in their conceptions of what +they wanted from day to day. Now it was Plessingtonian +standards, now Carmel standards, now +the standards of Agatha Alimony; now it was a stimulating +novel, now a gleam of æsthetic imaginativeness +come, Heaven knows whence, that dominated her +mood. He was beginning to understand all this at +last, and to see the need of coherence in Marjorie's +mood.</p> + +<p>He realized the unfairness of keeping his thoughts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">-277-</a></span> +to himself, the need of putting his case before her, +and making her realize their fatal and widening +divergence. He wanted to infect her with his scientific +passion, to give her his sense of the gravity of +their practical difficulties. He would sit amidst his +neglected work in his laboratory framing explanatory +phrases. He would prepare the most lucid and +complete statements, and go about with these in his +mind for days waiting for an opportunity of saying +what he felt so urgently had to be said.</p> + +<p>But the things that seemed so luminous and effective +in the laboratory had a curious way of fading +and shrinking beside the bright colours of Marjorie's +Bokhara hangings, in the presence of little Margharita +pink and warm and entertaining in her bath, +or amidst the fluttering rustle of the afternoon tea-parties +that were now becoming frequent in his +house. And when he was alone with her he discovered +they didn't talk now any more—except in +terms of a constrained and formal affection.</p> + +<p>What had happened to them? What was the +matter between himself and Marjorie that he couldn't +even intimate his sense of their divergence? He +would have liked to discuss the whole thing with his +mother, but somehow that seemed disloyal to Marjorie....</p> + +<p>One day they quarrelled.</p> + +<p>He came in about six in the afternoon, jaded +from the delivery of a suburban lecture, and the +consequent tedium of suburban travel, and discovered +Marjorie examining the effect of a new picture +which had replaced the German print of sunlit waves +over the dining-room mantelpiece. It was a painting +in the post-impressionist manner, and it had arrived +after the close of the exhibition in Weldon Street, at +which Marjorie had bought it. She had bought it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">-278-</a></span> +in obedience to a sudden impulse, and its imminence +had long weighed upon her conscience. She had +gone to the show with Sydney Flor and old Mrs. +Flor, Sydney's mother, and a kind of excitement had +come upon them at the idea of possessing this particular +picture. Mrs. Flor had already bought three +Herbins, and her daughter wanted to dissuade her +from more. "But they're so delightful," said Mrs. +Flor. "You're overrunning your allowance," said +Sydney. Disputing the point, they made inquiries +for the price, and learnt that this bright epigram in +colour was going begging—was even offered at a +reduction from the catalogue price. A reduced +price always had a strong appeal nowadays to Marjorie's +mind. "If you don't get it," she said abruptly, +"I shall."</p> + +<p>The transition from that attitude to ownership +was amazingly rapid. Then nothing remained but +to wait for the picture. She had dreaded a mistake, +a blundering discord, but now with the thing hung +she could see her quick eye had not betrayed her. It +was a mass of reds, browns, purples, and vivid greens +and greys; an effect of roof and brick house facing +upon a Dutch canal, and it lit up the room and was +echoed and reflected by all the rest of her courageous +colour scheme, like a coal-fire amidst mahogany and +metal. It justified itself to her completely, and she +faced her husband with a certain confidence.</p> + +<p>"Hullo!" he cried.</p> + +<p>"A new picture," she said. "What do you think +of it?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>"A town or something—never mind. Look at +the colour. It heartens everything."</p> + +<p>Trafford looked at the painting with a reluctant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">-279-</a></span> +admiration.</p> + +<p>"It's brilliant—and impudent. He's an artist—whoever +he is. He hits the thing. But—I say—how +did you get it?"</p> + +<p>"I bought it."</p> + +<p>"Bought it! Good Lord! How much?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! ten guineas," said Marjorie, with an affectation +of ease; "it will be worth thirty in ten years' +time."</p> + +<p>Trafford's reply was to repeat: "Ten guineas!"</p> + +<p>Their eyes met, and there was singularly little +tenderness in their eyes.</p> + +<p>"It was priced at thirteen," said Marjorie, ending +a pause, and with a sinking heart.</p> + +<p>Trafford had left her side. He walked to the +window and sat down in a chair.</p> + +<p>"I think this is too much," he said, and his voice +had disagreeable notes in it she had never heard +before. "I have just been earning two guineas at +Croydon, of all places, administering comminuted +science to fools—and here I find—this exploit! Ten +guineas' worth of picture. To say we can't afford it +is just to waste a mild expression. It's—mad extravagance. +It's waste of money—it's—oh!—monstrous +disloyalty. Disloyalty!" He stared resentful at the +cheerful, unhesitating daubs of the picture for a +moment. Its affected carelessness goaded him to +fresh words. He spoke in a tone of absolute hostility. +"I think this winds me up to something," he said. +"You'll have to give up your cheque-book, Marjorie."</p> + +<p>"Give up my cheque-book!"</p> + +<p>He looked up at her and nodded. There was a +warm flush in her cheeks, her lips panted apart, and +tears of disappointment and vexation were shining +beautifully in her eyes. She mingled the quality of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">-280-</a></span> +indignant woman with the distress and unreasonable +resentment of a child.</p> + +<p>"Because I've bought this picture?"</p> + +<p>"Can we go on like this?" he asked, and felt how +miserably he had bungled in opening this question +that had been in his mind so long.</p> + +<p>"But it's <i>beautiful!</i>" she said.</p> + +<p>He disregarded that. He felt now that he had to +go on with these long-premeditated expostulations. +He was tired and dusty from his third-class carriage, +his spirit was tired and dusty, and he said what he +had to say without either breadth or power, an undignified +statement of personal grievances, a mere +complaint of the burthen of work that falls upon a +man. That she missed the high aim in him, and all +sense of the greatness they were losing had vanished +from his thoughts. He had too heavy a share of +the common burthen, and she pressed upon him unthinkingly; +that was all he could say. He girded at +her with a bitter and loveless truth; it was none the +less cruel that in her heart she knew these things he +said were true. But he went beyond justice—as +every quarrelling human being does; he called the +things she had bought and the harmonies she had +created, "this litter and rubbish for which I am +wasting my life." That stabbed into her pride +acutely and deeply. She knew anyhow that it wasn't +so simple and crude as that. It was not mere witlessness +she contributed to their trouble. She tried to +indicate her sense of that. But she had no power of +ordered reasoning, she made futile interruptions, she +was inexpressive of anything but emotion, she felt +gagged against his flow of indignant, hostile words. +They blistered her.</p> + +<p>Suddenly she went to her little desk in the corner,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">-281-</a></span> +unlocked it with trembling hands, snatched her +cheque-book out of a heap of still unsettled bills, and +having locked that anti-climax safe away again, +turned upon him. "Here it is," she said, and stood +poised for a moment. Then she flung down the little +narrow grey cover—nearly empty, it was, of cheques, +on the floor before him.</p> + +<p>"Take it," she cried, "take it. I never asked +you to give it me."</p> + +<p>A memory of Orta and its reeds and sunshine and +love rose like a luminous mist between them....</p> + +<p>She ran weeping from the room.</p> + +<p>He leapt to his feet as the door closed. "Marjorie!" +he cried.</p> + +<p>But she did not hear him....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>The disillusionment about marriage which had +discovered Trafford a thwarted, overworked, and +worried man, had revealed Marjorie with time on her +hands, superabundant imaginative energy, and no +clear intimation of any occupation. With them, as +with thousands of young couples in London to-day, +the breadwinner was overworked, and the spending +partner's duty was chiefly the negative one of not +spending. You cannot consume your energies merely +in not spending money. Do what she could, Marjorie +could not contrive to make house and child fill +the waking hours. She was far too active and irritable +a being to be beneficial company all day for +genial, bubble-blowing little Margharita; she could +play with that young lady and lead her into ecstasies +of excitement and delight, and she could see with an +almost instinctive certainty when anything was going +wrong; but for the rest that little life reposed far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">-282-</a></span> +more beneficially upon the passive acquiescence of +May, her pink and wholesome nurse. And the household +generally was in the hands of a trustworthy +cook-general, who maintained a tolerable routine. +Marjorie did not dare to have an idea about food or +domestic arrangements; if she touched that routine +so much as with her little finger it sent up the bills. +She could knock off butcher and greengrocer and do +every scrap of household work that she could touch, +in a couple of hours a day. She tried to find some +work to fill her leisure; she suggested to Trafford +that she might help him by writing up his Science +Notes from rough pencil memoranda, but when it +became clear that the first step to her doing this +would be the purchase of a Remington typewriter +and a special low table to carry it, he became bluntly +discouraging. She thought of literary work, and sat +down one day to write a short story and earn +guineas, and was surprised to find that she knew +nothing of any sort of human being about whom she +could invent a story. She tried a cheap subscription +at Mudie's and novels, and they filled her with a +thirst for events; she tried needlework, and found her +best efforts aesthetically feeble and despicable, and +that her mind prowled above the silks and colours +like a hungry wolf.</p> + +<p>The early afternoons were the worst time, from +two to four, before calling began. The devil was +given great power over Marjorie's early afternoon. +She could even envy her former home life then, and +reflect that there, at any rate, one had a chance of a +game or a quarrel with Daffy or Syd or Rom or +Theodore. She would pull herself together and go +out for a walk, and whichever way she went there +were shops and shops and shops, a glittering array +of tempting opportunities for spending money.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">-283-</a></span> +Sometimes she would give way to spending exactly +as a struggling drunkard decides to tipple. She +would fix on some object, some object trivial and a +little rare and not too costly, as being needed—when +she knew perfectly well it wasn't needed—and choose +the most remotest shops and display the exactest insistence +upon her requirements. Sometimes she would +get home from these raids without buying at all. +After four the worst of the day was over; one could +call on people or people might telephone and follow +up with a call; and there was a chance of Trafford +coming home....</p> + +<p>One day at the Carmels' she found herself engaged +in a vigorous flirtation with young Carmel. She +hadn't noticed it coming on, but there she was in a +windowseat talking quite closely to him. He said he +was writing a play, a wonderful passionate play +about St. Francis, and only she could inspire and +advise him. Wasn't there some afternoon in the week +when she sat and sewed, so that he might come and +sit by her and read to her and talk to her? He made +his request with a certain confidence, but it filled her +with a righteous panic; she pulled him up with an +abruptness that was almost inartistic. On her way +home she was acutely ashamed of herself; this was +the first time she had let any man but Trafford think +he might be interesting to her, but once or twice on +former occasions she had been on the verge of such +provocative intimations. This sort of thing anyhow +mustn't happen.</p> + +<p>But if she didn't dress with any distinction—because +of the cost—and didn't flirt and trail men in +her wake, what was she to do at the afternoon gatherings +which were now her chief form of social contact? +What was going to bring people to her house? +She knew that she was more than ordinarily beautiful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">-284-</a></span> +and that she could talk well, but that does not +count for much if you are rather dowdy, and quite +uneventfully virtuous.</p> + +<p>It became the refrain of all her thoughts that she +must find something to do.</p> + +<p>There remained "Movements."</p> + +<p>She might take up a movement. She was a rather +exceptionally good public speaker. Only her elopement +and marriage had prevented her being president +of her college Debating Society. If she devoted herself +to some movement she would be free to devise an +ostentatiously simple dress for herself and stick to it, +and she would be able to give her little house a significance +of her own, and present herself publicly +against what is perhaps quite the best of all backgrounds +for a good-looking, clear-voiced, self-possessed +woman, a platform. Yes; she had to go in +for a Movement.</p> + +<p>She reviewed the chief contemporary Movements +much as she might have turned over dress fabrics in a +draper's shop, weighing the advantages and disadvantages +of each....</p> + +<p>London, of course, is always full of Movements. +Essentially they are absorbents of superfluous feminine +energy. They have a common flavour of progress +and revolutionary purpose, and common features +in abundant meetings, officials, and organization +generally. Few are expensive, and still fewer produce +any tangible results in the world. They direct +themselves at the most various ends; the Poor, that +favourite butt, either as a whole or in such typical +sections as the indigent invalid or the indigent aged, +the young, public health, the woman's cause, the +prevention of animal food, anti-vivisection, the gratuitous +advertisement of Shakespear (that neglected +poet), novel but genteel modifications of medical or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">-285-</a></span> +religious practice, dress reform, the politer aspects +of socialism, the encouragement of æronautics, +universal military service, garden suburbs, domestic +arts, proportional representation, duodecimal arithmetic, +and the liberation of the drama. They range +in size and importance from campaigns on a Plessingtonian +scale to sober little intellectual Beckingham +things that arrange to meet half-yearly, and +die quietly before the second assembly. If Heaven +by some miracle suddenly gave every Movement in +London all it professed to want, our world would be +standing on its head and everything would be +extremely unfamiliar and disconcerting. But, as +Mr. Roosevelt once remarked, the justifying thing +about life is the effort and not the goal, and few +Movements involve any real and impassioned struggle +to get to the ostensible object. They exist as an +occupation; they exercise the intellectual and moral +activities without undue disturbance of the normal +routines of life. In the days when everybody was +bicycling an ingenious mechanism called Hacker's +Home Bicycle used to be advertised. Hacker's Home +Bicycle was a stand bearing small rubber wheels upon +which one placed one's bicycle (properly equipped +with a cyclometer) in such a way that it could be +mounted and ridden without any sensible forward +movement whatever. In bad weather, or when the +state of the roads made cycling abroad disagreeable +Hacker's Home Bicycle could be placed in front of +an open window and ridden furiously for any length +of time. Whenever the rider tired, he could descend—comfortably +at home again—and examine the +cyclometer to see how far he had been. In exactly +the same way the ordinary London Movement gives +scope for the restless and progressive impulse in +human nature without the risk of personal entanglements<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">-286-</a></span> +or any inconvenient disturbance of the milieu.</p> + +<p>Marjorie considered the Movements about her. +She surveyed the accessible aspects of socialism, but +that old treasure-house of constructive suggestion +had an effect like a rich château which had been +stormed and looted by a mob. For a time the +proposition that "we are all Socialists nowadays" +had prevailed. The blackened and discredited frame +remained, the contents were scattered; Aunt Plessington +had a few pieces, the Tory Democrats had +taken freely, the Liberals were in possession of a +hastily compiled collection. There wasn't, she perceived, +and there never had been a Socialist Movement; +the socialist idea which had now become part +of the general consciousness, had always been too big +for polite domestication. She weighed Aunt Plessington, +too, in the balance, and found her not so +much wanting indeed as excessive. She felt that a +Movement with Aunt Plessington in it couldn't +possibly offer even elbow-room for anybody else. +Philanthropy generally she shunned. The movements +that aim at getting poor people into rooms and shouting +at them in an improving, authoritative way, +aroused an instinctive dislike in her. Her sense of +humour, again, would not let her patronize Shakespear +or the stage, or raise the artistic level of the +country by means of green-dyed deal, and the influence +of Trafford on her mind debarred her from +attempting the physical and moral regeneration of +humanity by means of beans and nut butter. It was +indeed rather by the elimination of competing movements +than by any positive preference that she +found herself declining at last towards Agatha +Alimony's section of the suffrage movement.... +It was one of the less militant sections, but it held +more meetings and passed more resolutions than any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">-287-</a></span> +two others.</p> + +<p>One day Trafford, returning from an afternoon +of forced and disappointing work in his laboratory,—his +mind had been steadfastly sluggish and inelastic,—discovered +Marjorie's dining room crowded +with hats and all the rustle and colour which plays +so large a part in constituting contemporary feminine +personality. Buzard, the feminist writer, and a +young man just down from Cambridge who had +written a decadent poem, were the only men present. +The chairs were arranged meeting-fashion, but a +little irregularly to suggest informality; the post-impressionist +picture was a rosy benediction on the +gathering, and at a table in the window sat Mrs. +Pope in the chair, looking quietly tactful in an unusually +becoming bonnet, supported by her daughter +and Agatha Alimony. Marjorie was in a simple +gown of blueish-grey, hatless amidst a froth of foolish +bows and feathers, and she looked not only beautiful +and dignified but deliberately and conscientiously +patient until she perceived the new arrival. Then he +noted she was a little concerned for him, and made +some futile sign he did not comprehend. The meeting +was debating the behaviour of women at the +approaching census, and a small, earnest, pale-faced +lady with glasses was standing against the fireplace +with a crumpled envelope covered with pencil notes +in her hand, and making a speech. Trafford wanted +his tea badly, but he had not the wit to realize that +his study had been converted into a refreshment +room for the occasion; he hesitated, and seated himself +near the doorway, and so he was caught; he +couldn't, he felt, get away and seem to slight a +woman who was giving herself the pains of addressing +him.</p> + +<p>The small lady in glasses was giving a fancy picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">-288-</a></span> +of the mind of Mr. Asquith and its attitude to +the suffrage movement, and telling with a sort of +inspired intimacy just how Mr. Asquith had hoped to +"bully women down," and just how their various +attempts to bring home to him the eminent reasonableness +of their sex by breaking his windows, interrupting +his meetings, booing at him in the streets +and threatening his life, had time after time baffled +this arrogant hope. There had been many signs +lately that Mr. Asquith's heart was failing him. +Now here was a new thing to fill him with despair. +When Mr. Asquith learnt that women refused to be +counted in the census, then at least she was convinced +he must give in. When he gave in it would not be +long—she had her information upon good authority—before +they got the Vote. So what they had to do +was not to be counted in the census. That was their +paramount duty at the present time. The women of +England had to say quietly but firmly to the census +man when he came round: "No, we don't count in an +election, and we won't count now. Thank you." +No one could force a woman to fill in a census paper +she didn't want to, and for her own part, said the +little woman with the glasses, she'd starve first. (Applause.) +For her own part she was a householder +with a census paper of her own, and across that she +was going to write quite plainly and simply what she +thought of Mr. Asquith. Some of those present +wouldn't have census papers to fill up; they would be +sent to the man, the so-called Head of the House. +But the W.S.P.U. had foreseen that. Each householder +had to write down the particulars of the +people who slept in his house on Sunday night, or who +arrived home before mid-day on Monday; the reply +of the women of England must be not to sleep in a +house that night where census papers were properly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">-289-</a></span> +filled, and not to go home until the following afternoon. +All through that night the women of England +must be abroad. She herself was prepared, and her +house would be ready. There would be coffee and +refreshments enough for an unlimited number of +refugees, there would be twenty or thirty sofas and +mattresses and piles of blankets for those who chose +to sleep safe from all counting. In every quarter of +London there would be houses of refuge like hers. +And so they would make Mr. Asquith's census fail, +as it deserved to fail, as every census would fail until +women managed these affairs in a sensible way. For +she supposed they were all agreed that only women +could manage these things in a sensible way. That +was <i>her</i> contribution to this great and important +question. (Applause, amidst which the small lady +with the glasses resumed her seat.)</p> + +<p>Trafford glanced doorward, but before he could +move another speaker was in possession of the room. +This was a very young, tall, fair, round-shouldered +girl who held herself with an unnatural rigidity, fixed +her eyes on the floor just in front of the chairwoman, +and spoke with knitted brows and an effect of extreme +strain. She remarked that some people did +not approve of this proposed boycott of the census. +She hung silent for a moment, as if ransacking her +mind for something mislaid, and then proceeded to +remark that she proposed to occupy a few moments +in answering that objection—if it could be called an +objection. They said that spoiling the census was +an illegitimate extension of the woman movement. +Well, she objected—she objected fiercely—to every +word of that phrase. Nothing was an illegitimate +extension of the woman movement. Nothing could +be. (Applause.) That was the very principle they +had been fighting for all along. So that, examined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">-290-</a></span> +in this way, this so-called objection resolved itself +into a mere question begging phrase. Nothing more. +And her reply therefore to those who made it was +that they were begging the question, and however +well that might do for men, it would certainly not +do, they would find, for women. (Applause.) For +the freshly awakened consciousness of women. (Further +applause.) This was a war in which quarter +was neither asked nor given; if it were not so things +might be different. She remained silent after that +for the space of twenty seconds perhaps, and then +remarked that that seemed to be all she had to say, +and sat down amidst loud encouragement.</p> + +<p>Then with a certain dismay Trafford saw his wife +upon her feet. He was afraid of the effect upon himself +of what she was going to say, but he need have +had no reason for his fear. Marjorie was a seasoned +debater, self-possessed, with a voice very well controlled +and a complete mastery of that elaborate +appearance of reasonableness which is so essential to +good public speaking. She could speak far better +than she could talk. And she startled the meeting in +her opening sentence by declaring that she meant to +stay at home on the census night, and supply her +husband with every scrap of information he hadn't +got already that might be needed to make the return +an entirely perfect return. (Marked absence of applause.)</p> + +<p>She proceeded to avow her passionate interest in +the feminist movement of which this agitation for the +vote was merely the symbol. (A voice: "No!") No +one could be more aware of the falsity of woman's +position at the present time than she was—she seemed +to be speaking right across the room to Trafford—they +were neither pets nor partners, but something +between the two; now indulged like spoilt children,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">-291-</a></span> +now blamed like defaulting partners; constantly provoked +to use the arts of their sex, constantly mischievous +because of that provocation. She caught +her breath and stopped for a moment, as if she had +suddenly remembered the meeting intervening between +herself and Trafford. No, she said, there was no +more ardent feminist and suffragist than herself in +the room. She wanted the vote and everything it +implied with all her heart. With all her heart. But +every way to get a thing wasn't the right way, and +she felt with every fibre of her being that this petulant +hostility to the census was a wrong way and an +inconsistent way, and likely to be an unsuccessful +way—one that would lose them the sympathy and +help of just that class of men they should look to for +support, the cultivated and scientific men. (A voice: +"<i>Do</i> we want them?") What was the commonest +charge made by the man in the street against women?—that +they were unreasonable and unmanageable, +that it was their way to get things by crying and +making an irrelevant fuss. And here they were, as +a body, doing that very thing! Let them think what +the census and all that modern organization of vital +statistics of which it was the central feature stood +for. It stood for order, for the replacement of +guesses and emotional generalization by a clear +knowledge of facts, for the replacement of instinctive +and violent methods, by which women had everything +to lose (a voice: "No!") by reason and knowledge +and self-restraint, by which women had everything +to gain. To her the advancement of science, the +progress of civilization, and the emancipation of +womanhood were nearly synonymous terms. At any +rate, they were different phases of one thing. They +were different aspects of one wider purpose. When +they struck at the census, she felt, they struck at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">-292-</a></span> +themselves. She glanced at Trafford as if she would +convince him that this was the real voice of the suffrage +movement, and sat down amidst a brief, polite +applause, that warmed to rapture as Agatha Alimony, +the deep-voiced, stirring Agatha, rose to +reply.</p> + +<p>Miss Alimony, who was wearing an enormous hat +with three nodding ostrich feathers, a purple bow, a +gold buckle and numerous minor ornaments of various +origin and substance, said they had all of them +listened with the greatest appreciation and sympathy +to the speech of their hostess. Their hostess was a +newcomer to the movement, she knew she might say +this without offence, and was passing through a +phase, an early phase, through which many of them +had passed. This was the phase of trying to take a +reasonable view of an unreasonable situation. (Applause.) +Their hostess had spoken of science, and +no doubt science was a great thing; but there was +something greater than science, and that was the +ideal. It was woman's place to idealize. Sooner or +later their hostess would discover, as they had all +discovered, that it was not to science but the ideal +that women must look for freedom. Consider, she +said, the scientific men of to-day. Consider, for example, +Sir James Crichton-Browne, the physiologist. +Was he on their side? On the contrary, he said the +most unpleasant things about them on every occasion. +He went out of his way to say them. Or consider +Sir Almroth Wright, did he speak well of +women? Or Sir Ray Lankester, the biologist, who +was the chief ornament of the Anti-Suffrage Society. +Or Sir Roderick Dover, the physicist, who—forgetting +Madame Curie, a far more celebrated physicist +than himself, she ventured to say (Applause.) had +recently gone outside his province altogether to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">-293-</a></span> +abuse feminine research. There were your scientific +men. Mrs. Trafford had said their anti-census campaign +would annoy scientific men; well, under the +circumstances, she wanted to annoy scientific men. +(Applause.) She wanted to annoy everybody. Until +women got the vote (loud applause) the more +annoying they were the better. When the whole +world was impressed by the idea that voteless women +were an intolerable nuisance, then there would cease +to be voteless women. (Enthusiasm.) Mr. Asquith +had said—</p> + +<p>And so on for quite a long time....</p> + +<p>Buzard rose out of waves of subsiding emotion. +Buzard was a slender, long-necked, stalk-shaped man +with gilt glasses, uneasy movements and a hypersensitive +manner. He didn't so much speak as thrill with +thought vibrations; he spoke like an entranced but +still quite gentlemanly sibyl. After Agatha's deep +trumpet calls, he sounded like a solo on the piccolo. +He picked out all his more important words with a +little stress as though he gave them capitals. He said +their hostess's remarks had set him thinking. He +thought it was possible to stew the Scientific Argument +in its own Juice. There was something he might +call the Factuarial Estimate of Values. Well, it was +a High Factuarial Value on their side, in his opinion +at any rate, when Anthropologists came and told him +that the Primitive Human Society was a Matriarchate. +("But it wasn't!" said Trafford to himself.) +It had a High Factuarial Value when they assured +him that Every One of the Great Primitive Inventions +was made by a Woman, and that it was to +Women they owed Fire and the early Epics and +Sagas. ("Good Lord!" said Trafford.) It had a +High Factuarial Value when they not only asserted +but proved that for Thousands of Years, and perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">-294-</a></span> +for Hundreds of Thousands of Years, Women +had been in possession of Articulate Speech before +men rose to that Level of Intelligence....</p> + +<p>It occurred suddenly to Trafford that he could go +now; that it would be better to go; that indeed he +<i>must</i> go; it was no doubt necessary that his mind +should have to work in the same world as Buzard's +mental processes, but at any rate those two sets of +unsympathetic functions need not go on in the same +room. Something might give way. He got up, and +with those elaborate efforts to be silent that lead to +the violent upsetting of chairs, got himself out of the +room and into the passage, and was at once rescued +by the sympathetic cook-general, in her most generalized +form, and given fresh tea in his study—which +impressed him as being catastrophically disarranged....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>When Marjorie was at last alone with him she +found him in a state of extreme mental stimulation. +"Your speech," he said, "was all right. I didn't +know you could speak like that, Marjorie. But it +soared like the dove above the waters. Waters! I +never heard such a flood of rubbish.... You +know, it's a mistake to <i>mass</i> women. It brings out +something silly.... It affected Buzard as badly +as any one. The extraordinary thing is they have a +case, if only they'd be quiet. Why did you get them +together?"</p> + +<p>"It's our local branch."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but <i>why?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Well, if they talk about things—Discussions +like this clear up their minds."</p> + +<p>"Discussion! It wasn't discussion."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">-295-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh! it was a beginning."</p> + +<p>"Chatter of that sort isn't the beginning of discussion, +it's the end. It's the death-rattle. Nobody +was meeting the thoughts of any one. I admit Buzard, +who's a man, talked the worst rubbish of all. +That Primitive Matriarchate of his! So it isn't sex. +I've noticed before that the men in this movement of +yours are worse than the women. It isn't sex. It's +something else. It's a foolishness. It's a sort of +irresponsible looseness." He turned on her gravely. +"You ought not to get all these people here. It's +contagious. Before you know it you'll find your own +mind liquefy and become enthusiastic and slop about. +You'll begin to talk monomania about Mr. Asquith."</p> + +<p>"But it's a great movement, Rag, even if incidentally +they say and do silly things!"</p> + +<p>"My dear! aren't I feminist? Don't I want +women fine and sane and responsible? Don't I want +them to have education, to handle things, to vote like +men and bear themselves with the gravity of men? +And these meetings—all hat and flutter! These displays +of weak, untrained, hysterical vehemence! +These gatherings of open-mouthed impressionable +young girls to be trained in incoherence! You can't +go on with it!"</p> + +<p>Marjorie regarded him quietly for a moment. "I +must go on with something," she said.</p> + +<p>"Well, not this."</p> + +<p>"Then <i>what?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Something sane."</p> + +<p>"Tell me what."</p> + +<p>"It must come out of yourself."</p> + +<p>Marjorie thought sullenly for a moment. "Nothing +comes out of myself," she said.</p> + +<p>"I don't think you realize a bit what my life has +become," she went on; "how much I'm like some one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">-296-</a></span> +who's been put in a pleasant, high-class prison."</p> + +<p>"This house! It's your own!"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't give me an hour's mental occupation +in the day. It's all very well to say I might do more +in it. I can't—without absurdity. Or expenditure. +I can't send the girl away and start scrubbing. I +can't make jam or do ornamental needlework. The +shops do it better and cheaper, and I haven't been +trained to it. I've been trained <i>not</i> to do it. I've +been brought up on games and school-books, and fed +on mixed ideas. I can't sit down and pacify myself +with a needle as women used to do. Besides, I not +only detest doing needlework but I hate it—the sort +of thing a woman of my kind does anyhow—when +it's done. I'm no artist. I'm not sufficiently interested +in outside things to spend my time in serious +systematic reading, and after four or five novels—oh, +these meetings are better than that! You see, you've +got a life—too much of it—<i>I</i> haven't got enough. I +wish almost I could sleep away half the day. Oh! I +want something <i>real</i>, Rag; something more than I've +got." A sudden inspiration came to her. "Will you +let me come to your laboratory and work with you?"</p> + +<p>She stopped abruptly. She caught up her own +chance question and pointed it at him, a vitally important +challenge. "Will you let me come to your +laboratory and work?" she repeated.</p> + +<p>Trafford thought. "No," he said.</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because I'm in love with you. I can't think of +my work when you're about.... And you're too +much behind. Oh my dear! don't you see how you're +behind?" He paused. "I've been soaking in this +stuff of mine for ten long years."</p> + +<p>"Yes," assented Marjorie flatly.</p> + +<p>He watched her downcast face, and then it lifted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">-297-</a></span> +to him with a helpless appeal in her eyes, and lift in +her voice. "But look here, Rag!" she cried—"what +on earth am I to <i>DO?</i>"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>At least there came out of these discussions one +thing, a phrase, a purpose, which was to rule the lives +of the Traffords for some years. It expressed their +realization that instinct and impulse had so far +played them false, that life for all its rich gifts of +mutual happiness wasn't adjusted between them. +"We've got," they said, "to talk all this out between +us. We've got to work this out." They +didn't mean to leave things at a misfit, and that was +certainly their present relation. They were already +at the problem of their joint lives, like a tailor with +his pins and chalk. Marjorie hadn't rejected a +humorist and all his works in order to decline at last +to the humorous view of life, that rather stupid, +rather pathetic, grin-and-bear-it attitude compounded +in incalculable proportions of goodwill, evasion, +indolence, slovenliness, and (nevertheless) spite +(masquerading indeed as jesting comment), which +supplies the fabric of everyday life for untold thousands +of educated middle-class people. She hated +the misfit. She didn't for a moment propose to pretend +that the ungainly twisted sleeve, the puckered +back, was extremely jolly and funny. She had married +with a passionate anticipation of things fitting +and fine, and it was her nature, in great matters as in +small, to get what she wanted strenuously before she +counted the cost. About both their minds there was +something sharp and unrelenting, and if Marjorie +had been disposed to take refuge from facts in swathings +of aesthetic romanticism, whatever covering she +contrived would have been torn to rags very speedily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">-298-</a></span> +by that fierce and steely veracity which swung down +out of the laboratory into her home.</p> + +<p>One may want to talk things out long before one +hits upon the phrases that will open up the matter.</p> + +<p>There were two chief facts in the case between +them and so far they had looked only one in the face, +the fact that Marjorie was unemployed to a troublesome +and distressing extent, and that there was nothing +in her nature or training to supply, and something +in their circumstances and relations to prevent +any adequate use of her energies. With the second +fact neither of them cared to come to close quarters +as yet, and neither as yet saw very distinctly how it +was linked to the first, and that was the steady excess +of her expenditure over their restricted means. She +was secretly surprised at her own weakness. Week +by week and month by month, they were spending all +his income and eating into that little accumulation of +capital that had once seemed so sufficient against the +world....</p> + +<p>And here it has to be told that although Trafford +knew that Marjorie had been spending too much +money, he still had no idea of just how much money +she had spent. She was doing her utmost to come to +an understanding with him, and at the same time—I +don't explain it, I don't excuse it—she was keeping +back her bills from him, keeping back urgent second +and third and fourth demands, that she had no +cheque-book now to stave off even by the most partial +satisfaction. It kept her awake at nights, that +catastrophic explanation, that all unsuspected by +Trafford hung over their attempts at mutual elucidation; +it kept her awake but she could not bring it to +the speaking point, and she clung, in spite of her own +intelligence, to a persuasion that <i>after</i> they had got +something really settled and defined then it would be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">-299-</a></span> +time enough to broach the particulars of this second +divergence....</p> + +<p>Talking one's relations over isn't particularly +easy between husband and wife at any time; we are +none of us so sure of one another as to risk loose +phrases or make experiments in expression in matters +so vital; there is inevitably an excessive caution +on the one hand and an abnormal sensitiveness to +hints and implications on the other. Marjorie's bills +were only an extreme instance of these unavoidable +suppressions that always occur. Moreover, when +two people are continuously together, it is amazingly +hard to know when and where to begin; where intercourse +is unbroken it is as a matter of routine being +constantly interrupted. You cannot broach these +broad personalities while you are getting up in the +morning, or over the breakfast-table while you make +the coffee, or when you meet again after a multitude +of small events at tea, or in the evening when one is +rather tired and trivial after the work of the day. +Then Miss Margharita Trafford permitted no sustained +analysis of life in her presence. She synthesized +things fallaciously, but for the time convincingly; +she insisted that life wasn't a thing you discussed, +but pink and soft and jolly, which you crowed at and +laughed at and addressed as "Goo." Even without +Margharita there were occasions when the Traffords +were a forgetfulness to one another. After an ear +has been pinched or a hand has been run through a +man's hair, or a pretty bare shoulder kissed, all sorts +of broader interests lapse into a temporary oblivion. +They found discussion much more possible when they +walked together. A walk seemed to take them out of +the everyday sequence, isolate them from their household, +abstract them a little from one another. They +set out one extravagant spring Sunday to Great Missenden,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">-300-</a></span> +and once in spring also they discovered the +Waterlow Park. On each occasion they seemed to +get through an enormous amount of talking. But +the Great Missenden walk was all mixed up with a +sweet keen wind, and beechwoods just shot with +spring green and bursting hedges and the extreme +earliness of honeysuckle, which Trafford noted for the +first time, and a clamorous rejoicing of birds. And +in the Waterlow Park there was a great discussion of +why the yellow crocus comes before white and purple, +and the closest examination of the manner in which +daffodils and narcissi thrust their green noses out of +the garden beds. Also they found the ugly, ill-served, +aggressively propagandist non-alcoholic refreshment-room +in that gracious old house a scandal and +disappointment, and Trafford scolded at the stupidity +of officialdom that can control so fine a thing so +ill.</p> + +<p>Though they talked on these walks they were still +curiously evasive. Indeed, they were afraid of each +other. They kept falling away from their private +thoughts and intentions. They generalized, they discussed +Marriage and George Gissing and Bernard +Shaw and the suffrage movement and the agitation +for the reform of the divorce laws. They pursued +imaginary cases into distant thickets of contingency +remotely far from the personal issues between +them....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>One day came an incident that Marjorie found +wonderfully illuminating. Trafford had a fit of rage. +Stung by an unexpected irritation, he forgot himself, +as people say, and swore, and was almost physically +violent, and the curious thing was that so he lit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">-301-</a></span> +up things for her as no premeditated attempt of his +had ever done.</p> + +<p>A copy of the <i>Scientific Bulletin</i> fired the explosion. +He sat down at the breakfast-table with the +heaviness of a rather overworked and worried man, +tasted his coffee, tore open a letter and crumpled it +with his hand, turned to the <i>Bulletin</i>, regarded its +list of contents with a start, opened it, read for a +minute, and expressed himself with an extraordinary +heat of manner in these amazing and unprecedented +words:</p> + +<p>"Oh! Damnation and damnation!"</p> + +<p>Then he shied the paper into the corner of the +room and pushed his plate from him.</p> + +<p>"Damn the whole scheme of things!" he said, and +met the blank amazement of Marjorie's eye.</p> + +<p>"Behrens!" he said with an air of explanation.</p> + +<p>"Behrens?" she echoed with a note of inquiry.</p> + +<p>"He's doing my stuff!"</p> + +<p>He sat darkling for a time and then hit the table +with his fist so hard that the breakfast things seemed +to jump together—to Marjorie's infinite amazement. +"I can't <i>stand</i> it!" he said.</p> + +<p>She waited some moments. "I don't understand," +she began. "What has he done?"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" was Trafford's answer. He got up, recovered +the crumpled paper and stood reading. +"Fool and thief," he said.</p> + +<p>Marjorie was amazed beyond measure. She felt +as though she had been effaced from Trafford's life. +"Ugh!" he cried and slapped back the <i>Bulletin</i> into +the corner with quite needless violence. He became +aware of Marjorie again.</p> + +<p>"He's doing my work," he said.</p> + +<p>And then as if he completed the explanation:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">-302-</a></span> +"And I've got to be in Croydon by half-past ten to +lecture to a pack of spinsters and duffers, because +they're too stupid to get the stuff from books. It's +all in books,—every bit of it."</p> + +<p>He paused and went on in tones of unendurable +wrong. "It isn't as though he was doing it right. +He isn't. He can't. He's a fool. He's a clever, +greedy, dishonest fool with a twist. Oh! the pile, the +big Pile of silly muddled technicalities he's invented +already! The solemn mess he's making of it! And +there he is, I can't get ahead of him, I can't get at +him. I've got no time. I've got no room or leisure +to swing my mind in! Oh, curse these engagements, +curse all these silly fretting entanglements of lecture +and article! I never get the time, I can't get the +time, I can't get my mind clear! I'm worried! I'm +badgered! And meanwhile Behrens——!"</p> + +<p>"Is he discovering what you want to discover?"</p> + +<p>"Behrens! <i>No!</i> He's going through the breaches +I made. He's guessing out what I meant to do. And +he's getting it set out all wrong,—misleading +terminology,—distinctions made in the wrong place. +Oh, the fool he is!"</p> + +<p>"But afterwards——"</p> + +<p>"Afterwards I may spend my life—removing the +obstacles he's made. He'll be established and I +shan't. You don't know anything of these things. +You don't understand."</p> + +<p>She didn't. Her next question showed as much. +"Will it affect your F.R.S.?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh! <i>that's</i> safe enough, and it doesn't matter +anyhow. The F.R.S.! Confound the silly little F.R.S.! +As if that mattered. It's seeing all my great openings—misused. +It's seeing all I might be doing. This +brings it all home to me. Don't you understand, +Marjorie? Will you never understand? I'm getting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">-303-</a></span> +away from all <i>that!</i> I'm being hustled away by all +this work, this silly everyday work to get money. +Don't you see that unless I can have time for thought +and research, life is just darkness to me? I've made +myself master of that stuff. I had at any rate. No +one can do what I can do there. And when I find myself—oh, +shut out, shut out! I come near raving. As +I think of it I want to rave again." He paused. +Then with a swift transition: "I suppose I'd better +eat some breakfast. Is that egg boiled?"</p> + +<p>She gave him an egg, brought his coffee, put +things before him, seated herself at the table. For a +little while he ate in silence. Then he cursed Behrens.</p> + +<p>"Look here!" she said. "Bad as I am, you've +got to reason with me, Rag. I didn't know all this. I +didn't understand... I don't know what to do."</p> + +<p>"What <i>is</i> there to do?"</p> + +<p>"I've got to do something. I'm beginning to see +things. It's just as though everything had become +clear suddenly." She was weeping. "Oh, my dear! +I want to help you. I have so wanted to help you. +Always. And it's come to this!"</p> + +<p>"But it's not <i>your</i> fault. I didn't mean that. +It's—it's in the nature of things."</p> + +<p>"It's my fault."</p> + +<p>"It's not your fault."</p> + +<p>"It is."</p> + +<p>"Confound it, Marjorie. When I swear at Behrens +I'm not swearing at you."</p> + +<p>"It's my fault. All this is my fault. I'm eating +you up. What's the good of your pretending, Rag. +You know it is. Oh! When I married you I meant +to make you happy, I had no thought but to make +you happy, to give myself to you, my body, my +brains, everything, to make life beautiful for you——"</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>haven't</i> you?" He thrust out a hand she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">-304-</a></span> +did not take.</p> + +<p>"I've broken your back," she said.</p> + +<p>An unwonted resolution came into her face. Her +lips whitened. "Don't you know, Rag," she said, +forcing herself to speak——"Don't you guess? +You don't know half! In that bureau there——In +there! It's stuffed with bills. Unpaid bills."</p> + +<p>She was weeping, with no attempt to wipe the +streaming tears away; terror made the expression of +her wet face almost fierce. "Bills," she repeated. +"More than a hundred pounds still. Yes! Now. +<i>Now!</i>"</p> + +<p>He drew back, stared at her and with no trace of +personal animus, like one who hears of a common +disaster, remarked with a quiet emphasis: "Oh, +<i>damn!</i>"</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, "Damn!" and met his eyes. +There was a long silence between them. She produced +a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. "That's +what I amount to," she said.</p> + +<p>"It's your silly upbringing," he said after a +long pause.</p> + +<p>"And my silly self."</p> + +<p>She stood up, unlocked and opened her littered +desk, turned and held out the key to him.</p> + +<p>"Why?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Take it. You gave me a cheque-book of my +own and a corner of my own, and they—they are just +ambushes—against you."</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Take it," said Marjorie with quiet insistence.</p> + +<p>He obeyed. She stood with her eyes on the +crumpled heap of bills. They were not even tidily +arranged. That seemed to her now an extreme aggravation +of her offence.</p> + +<p>"I ought to be sent to the chemist's," she remarked,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">-305-</a></span> +"as one sends a worthless cat."</p> + +<p>Trafford weighed this proposition soberly for +some moments. "You're a bother, Marjorie," he +said with his eyes on the desk; "no end of a bother. +I'd better have those bills."</p> + +<p>He looked at her, stood up, put his hands on her +shoulders, drew her to him and kissed her forehead. +He did it without passion, without tenderness, with +something like resignation in his manner. She clung +to him tightly, as though by clinging she could warm +and soften him.</p> + +<p>"Rag," she whispered; "all my heart is yours.... +I want to help you.... And this is what I have +done."</p> + +<p>"I know," he said—almost grimly.</p> + +<p>He repeated his kiss.</p> + +<p>Then he seemed to explode again. "Gods!" he +cried, "look at the clock. I shall miss that Croydon +lecture!" He pushed her from him. "Where are my +boots?..."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>Marjorie spent the forenoon and the earlier part +of the afternoon repeating and reviewing this conversation. +Her mind was full of the long disregarded +problem of her husband's state of mind. She thought +with a sympathetic astonishment of his swearing, of +his startling blow upon the table. She hadn't so far +known he could swear. But this was the real thing, +the relief of vehement and destructive words. His +voice, saying "damnation and damnation," echoed +and re-echoed in her ears. Somehow she understood +that as she had never understood any sober +statement of his case. Such women as Marjorie, I +think, have an altogether keener understanding of +people who have lost control of themselves than they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">-306-</a></span> +have of reasoned cases. Perhaps that is because they +themselves always reserve something when they state +a reasoned case.</p> + +<p>She went on to the apprehension of a change in +him that hitherto she had not permitted herself to +see—a change in his attitude to her. There had been +a time when she had seemed able without an effort to +nestle inside his heart. Now she felt distinctly for the +first time that that hadn't happened. She had instead +a sense of her embrace sliding over a rather deliberately +contracted exterior.... Of course he had +been in a hurry....</p> + +<p>She tried to follow him on his journey to Croydon. +Now he'd have just passed out of London +Bridge. What was he thinking and feeling about her +in the train? Now he would be going into the place, +wherever it was, where he gave his lecture. Did he +think of Behrens and curse her under his breath as he +entered that tiresome room?...</p> + +<p>It seemed part of the prevailing inconvenience of +life that Daffy should see fit to pay an afternoon call.</p> + +<p>Marjorie heard the sobs and uproar of an arrested +motor, and glanced discreetly from the window +to discover the dark green car with its green-clad +chauffeur which now adorned her sister's life, and +which might under different circumstances, have +adorned her own. Wilkins—his name was Wilkins, his +hair was sandy and his expression discreet, and he +afforded material for much quiet humorous observation—descended +smartly and opened the door. Daffy +appeared in black velvet, with a huge black fur muff, +and an air of being unaware that there were such +things as windows in the world.</p> + +<p>It was just four, and the cook-general, who ought +to have been now in her housemaid's phase, was still +upstairs divesting herself of her more culinary characteristics.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">-307-</a></span> +Marjorie opened the door.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, old Daffy!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, old Madge!" and there was an exchange +of sisterly kisses and a mutual inspection.</p> + +<p>"Nothing wrong?" asked Daffy, surveying her.</p> + +<p>"<i>Wrong?</i>"</p> + +<p>"You look pale and—tired about the eyes," said +Daffy, leading the way into the drawing-room. +"Thought you might be a bit off it, that's all. No +offence, Madge."</p> + +<p>"I'm all right," said Marjorie, getting her back +to the light. "Want a holiday, perhaps. How's +every one?"</p> + +<p>"All right. <i>We're</i> off to Lake Garda next week. +This new play has taken it out of Will tremendously. +He wants a rest and fresh surroundings. It's to be the +biggest piece of work he's done—so far, and it's +straining him. And people worry him here; receptions, +first nights, dinners, speeches. He's so neat, +you know, in his speeches.... But it wastes him. He +wants to get away. How's Rag?"</p> + +<p>"Busy."</p> + +<p>"Lecturing?"</p> + +<p>"And his Research of course."</p> + +<p>"Oh! of course. How's the Babe?"</p> + +<p>"Just in. Come up and see the little beast, +Daffy! It is getting so pretty, and it talks——"</p> + +<p>Margharita dominated intercourse for a time. +She was one of those tactful infants who exactly resemble +their fathers and exactly resemble their +mothers, and have a charm and individuality quite +distinctly their own, and she was now beginning to +converse with startling enterprise and intelligence.</p> + +<p>"Big, big, bog," she said at the sight of Daffy.</p> + +<p>"Remembers you," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Bog! Go ta-ta!" said Margharita.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">-308-</a></span></p> + +<p>"There!" said Marjorie, and May, the nurse in +the background, smiled unlimited appreciation.</p> + +<p>"Bably," said Margharita.</p> + +<p>"That's herself!" said Marjorie, falling on her +knees. "She talks like this all day. Oh de sweetums, +den!" <i>Was</i> it?</p> + +<p>Daffy made amiable gestures and canary-like +noises with her lips, and Margharita responded +jovially.</p> + +<p>"You darling!" cried Marjorie, "you delight of +life," kneeling by the cot and giving the crowing, +healthy little mite a passionate hug.</p> + +<p>"It's really the nicest of babies," Daffy conceded, +and reflected....</p> + +<p>"I don't know what I should do with a kiddy," +said Daffy, as the infant worship came to an end; +"I'm really glad we haven't one—yet. He'd love +it, I know. But it would be a burthen in some ways. +They <i>are</i> a tie. As he says, the next few years means +so much for him. Of course, here his reputation is +immense, and he's known in Germany, and there are +translations into Russian; but he's still got to conquer +America, and he isn't really well known yet in France. +They read him, of course, and buy him in America, +but they're—<i>restive</i>. Oh! I do so wish they'd give +him the Nobel prize, Madge, and have done with it! +It would settle everything. Still, as he says, we mustn't +think of that—yet, anyhow. He isn't venerable +enough. It's doubtful, he thinks, that they would give +the Nobel prize to any humorist now that Mark +Twain is dead. Mark Twain was different, you see, +because of the German Emperor and all that white +hair and everything."</p> + +<p>At this point Margharita discovered that the conversation +had drifted away from herself, and it was +only when they got downstairs again that Daffy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">-309-</a></span> +could resume the thread of Magnet's career, which +had evidently become the predominant interest in her +life. She brought out all the worst elements of Marjorie's +nature and their sisterly relationship. There +were moments when it became nakedly apparent that +she was magnifying Magnet to belittle Trafford. +Marjorie did her best to counter-brag. She played +her chief card in the F. R. S.</p> + +<p>"They always ask Will to the Royal Society +Dinner," threw out Daffy; "but of course he can't +always go. He's asked to so many things."</p> + +<p>Five years earlier Marjorie would have kicked +her shins for that.</p> + +<p>Instead she asked pointedly, offensively, if Magnet +was any balder.</p> + +<p>"He's not really bald," said Daffy unruffled, and +went on to discuss the advisability of a second motor +car—purely for town use. "I tell him I don't want +it," said Daffy, "but he's frightfully keen upon getting +one."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>When Daffy had at last gone Marjorie went back +into Trafford's study and stood on the hearthrug +regarding its appointments, with something of the air +of one who awakens from a dream. She had developed +a new, appalling thought. Was Daffy really a +better wife than herself? It was dawning upon Marjorie +that she hadn't been doing the right thing by +her husband, and she was as surprised as if it had been +suddenly brought home to her that she was neglecting +Margharita. This was her husband's study—and +it showed just a little dusty in the afternoon sunshine, +and everything about it denied the pretensions +of serene sustained work that she had always made to +herself. Here were the crumpled galley proofs of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">-310-</a></span> +science notes; here were unanswered letters. There, +she dare not touch them, were computations, under a +glass paper-weight. What did they amount to now? +On the table under the window were back numbers of +the <i>Scientific Bulletin</i> in a rather untidy pile, and on +the footstool by the arm-chair she had been accustomed +to sit at his feet when he stayed at home to work, and +look into the fire, and watch him furtively, and sometimes +give way to an overmastering tenderness and +make love to him. The thought of Magnet, pampered, +fenced around, revered in his industrious tiresome +repetitions, variations, dramatizations and so +forth of the half-dozen dry little old jokes which the +British public accepted as his characteristic offering +and rewarded him for so highly, contrasted vividly +with her new realization of Trafford's thankless work +and worried face.</p> + +<p>And she loved him, she loved him—<i>so</i>. She told +herself in the presence of all these facts, and without +a shadow of doubt in her mind that all she wanted in +the world was to make him happy.</p> + +<p>It occurred to her as a rather drastic means to +this end that she might commit suicide.</p> + +<p>She had already gone some way in the composition +of a touching letter of farewell to him, containing +a luminous analysis of her own defects, before her +common-sense swept away this imaginative exercise.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, as if it had been working at her problem +all the time that this exciting farewell epistle had +occupied the foreground of her thoughts, her natural +lucidity emerged with the manifest conclusion that she +had to alter her way of living. She had been extraordinarily +regardless of him, she only began to see +that, and now she had to take up the problem of his +necessities. Her self-examination now that it had +begun was thorough. She had always told herself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">-311-</a></span> +before that she had made a most wonderful and beautiful +little home for him. But had she made it for +him? Had he as a matter of fact ever wanted it, except +that he was glad to have it through her? No +doubt it had given him delight and happiness, it had +been a marvellous little casket of love for them, but +how far did that outweigh the burthen and limitation +it had imposed upon him? She had always assumed +he was beyond measure grateful to her for his home, +in spite of all her bills, but was he? It was like sticking +a knife into herself to ask that, but she was now in +a phase heroic enough for the task—was he? She +had always seen herself as the giver of bounties; greatest +bounty of all was Margharita. She had faced +pains and terrors and the shadow of death to give +him Margharita. Now with Daffy's illuminating +conversation in her mind, she could turn the light +upon a haunting doubt that had been lurking in the +darkness for a long time. Had he really so greatly +wanted Margharita? Had she ever troubled to get +to the bottom of that before? Hadn't she as a matter +of fact wanted Margharita ten thousand times +more than he had done? Hadn't she in effect imposed +Margharita upon him, as she had imposed her distinctive +and delightful home upon him, regardlessly, +because these things were the natural and legitimate +developments of herself?</p> + +<p>These things were not his ends.</p> + +<p>Had she hitherto ever really cared what his ends +might be?</p> + +<p>A phrase she had heard abundantly enough in +current feminist discussion recurred to her mind, +"the economic dependence of women," and now for +the first time it was charged with meaning. She had +imposed these things upon him not because she loved +him, but because these things that were the expansions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">-312-</a></span> +and consequences of her love for him were only +obtainable through him. A woman gives herself to a +man out of love, and remains clinging parasitically to +him out of necessity. Was there no way of evading +that necessity?</p> + +<p>For a time she entertained dreams of marvellous +social reconstructions. Suppose the community kept +all its women, suppose all property in homes and +furnishings and children vested in them! That was +Marjorie's version of that idea of the Endowment of +Womanhood which has been creeping into contemporary +thought during the last two decades. Then +every woman would be a Princess to the man she +loved.... He became more definitely personal. Suppose +she herself was rich, then she could play the +Princess to Trafford; she could have him free, unencumbered, +happy and her lover! Then, indeed, her +gifts would be gifts, and all her instincts and motives +would but crown his unhampered life! She could not +go on from that idea, she lapsed into a golden reverie, +from which she was roused by the clock striking five.</p> + +<p>In half an hour perhaps Trafford would be home +again. She could at least be so much of a princess as +to make his home sweet for his home-coming. There +should be tea in here, where callers did not trouble. +She glanced at an empty copper vase. It ached. +There was no light in the room. There would be just +time to dash out into High Street and buy some +flowers for it before he came....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>Spring and a renewed and deepened love for her +husband were in Marjorie's blood. Her mind worked +rapidly during the next few days, and presently she +found herself clearly decided upon her course of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">-313-</a></span> +action. She had to pull herself together and help +him, and if that meant a Spartan and strenuous way +of living, then manifestly she must be Spartan and +strenuous. She must put an end once for all to her +recurrent domestic deficits, and since this could only +be done by getting rid of May, she must get rid of +May and mind the child herself. (Every day, thank +Heaven! Margharita became more intelligent, more +manageable, and more interesting.) Then she must +also make a far more systematic and thorough study +of domestic economy than she had hitherto done, and +run the shopping and housekeeping on severer lines; +she bought fruit carelessly, they had far too many +joints; she never seemed able to restrain herself when +it came to flowers. And in the evenings, which would +necessarily be very frequently lonely evenings if +Trafford's researches were to go on, she would typewrite, +and either acquire great speed at that or learn +shorthand, and so save Trafford's present expenditure +on a typist. That unfortunately would mean buying +a typewriter.</p> + +<p>She found one afternoon in a twopenny book-box, +with which she was trying to allay her craving for +purchases, a tattered little pamphlet entitled: "Proposals +for the Establishment of an Order of Samurai," +which fell in very exactly with her mood. +The title "dated"; it carried her mind back to her +middle girlhood and the defeats of Kuropatki and the +futile earnest phase in English thought which followed +the Boer War. The order was to be a sort of +self-appointed nobility serving the world. It shone +with the light of a generous dawn, but cast, I fear, +the shadow of the prig. Its end was the Agenda +Club.... She read and ceased to read—and dreamt.</p> + +<p>The project unfolded the picture of a new method<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">-314-</a></span> +of conduct to her, austere, yet picturesque and richly +noble. These Samurai, it was intimated, were to lead +lives of hard discipline and high effort, under self-imposed +rule and restraint. They were to stand a +little apart from the excitements and temptations of +everyday life, to eat sparingly, drink water, resort +greatly to self-criticism and self-examination, and +harden their spirits by severe and dangerous exercises. +They were to dress simply, work hard, and be the +conscious and deliberate salt of the world. They +were to walk among mountains. Incidentally, great +power was to be given them. Such systematic effort +and self-control as this, seemed to Marjorie to give +just all she wasn't and needed to be, to save her life +and Trafford's from a common disaster....</p> + +<p>It particularly appealed to her that they were to +walk among mountains....</p> + +<p>But it is hard to make a change in the colour of +one's life amidst the routine one has already established +about oneself, in the house that is grooved by +one's weaknesses, amidst hangings and ornaments +living and breathing with the life of an antagonistic +and yet insidiously congenial ideal. A great desire +came upon Marjorie to go away with Trafford for a +time, out of their everyday life into strange and cool +and spacious surroundings. She wanted to leave +London and its shops, and the home and the movements +and the callers and rivalries, and even dimpled +little Margharita's insistent claims, and get free and +think. It was the first invasion of their lives by this +conception, a conception that was ever afterwards to +leave them altogether, of retreat and reconstruction. +She knelt upon the white sheepskin hearthrug at +Trafford's feet one night, and told him of her desire. +He, too, was tired of his work and his vexations, and +ripe for this suggestion of an altered life. The Easter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">-315-</a></span> +holiday was approaching, and nearly twenty unencumbered +days. Mrs. Trafford, they knew, would +come into the house, meanwhile, and care for Margharita. +They would go away somewhere together +and walk, no luggage but a couple of knapsacks, no +hotel but some homely village inn. They would be in +the air all day, until they were saturated with sweet +air and spirit of clean restraints. They would plan +out their new rule, concentrate their aims. "And I +could think," said Trafford, "of this new work I +can't begin here. I might make some notes." +Presently came the question of where the great walk +should be. Manifestly, it must be among mountains, +manifestly, and Marjorie's eye saw those mountains +with snow upon their summits and cold glaciers on +their flanks. Could they get to Switzerland? If they +travelled second class throughout, and took the +cheaper way, as Samurai should?...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>That holiday seemed to Marjorie as if they had +found a lost and forgotten piece of honeymoon. She +had that same sense of fresh beginnings that had made +their first walk in Italian Switzerland so unforgettable. +She was filled with the happiness of recovering +Trafford when he had seemed to be slipping from her. +All day they talked of their outlook, and how they +might economise away the need of his extra work, +and so release him for his search again. For the first +time he talked of his work to her, and gave her some +intimation of its scope and quality. He became enthusiastic +with the sudden invention of experimental +devices, so that it seemed to her almost worth while if +instead of going on they bolted back, he to his laboratory +and she to her nursery, and so at once inaugurated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">-316-</a></span> +the new régime. But they went on, to finish +the holiday out. And the delight of being together +again with unfettered hours of association! They rediscovered +each other, the same—and a little changed. +If their emotions were less bright and intense, their +interest was far wider and deeper.</p> + +<p>The season was too early for high passes, and the +weather was changeable. They started from Fribourg +and walked to Thun and then back to Bulle, +and so to Bultigen, Saanen, Montbovon and the Lake +of Geneva. They had rain several days, the sweet, +soft, windless mountain rain that seemed so tolerable +to those who are accustomed to the hard and driven +downpours of England, and in places they found +mud and receding snow; the inns were at their homeliest, +and none the worse for that, and there were days +of spring sunshine when a multitude of minute and +delightful flowers came out as it seemed to meet them—it +was impossible to suppose so great a concourse +universal—and spread in a scented carpet before +their straying feet. The fruit trees in the valleys were +powdered with blossom, and the new grass seemed +rather green-tinted sunlight than merely green. And +they walked with a sort of stout leisureliness, knapsacks +well-hung and cloaks about them, with their +faces fresh and bright under the bracing weather, +and their lungs deep charged with mountain air, +talking of the new austerer life that was now beginning. +With great snow-capped mountains in the background, +streaming precipices overhead, and a sward +of flowers to go upon, that strenuous prospect was +altogether delightful. They went as it pleased them, +making detours into valleys, coming back upon their +steps. The interludes of hot, bright April sunshine +made them indolent, and they would loiter and halt +where some rock or wall invited, and sit basking like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">-317-</a></span> +happy, animals, talking very little, for long hours together. +Trafford seemed to have forgotten all the +strain and disappointment of the past two years, to +be amazed but in no wise incredulous at this enormous +change in her and in their outlook; it filled her with +a passion of pride and high resolve to think that so +she could recover and uplift him.</p> + +<p>He was now very deeply in love with her again. +He talked indeed of his research, but so that it might +interest her, and when he thought alone, he thought, +not of it, but of her, making again the old discoveries, +his intense delight in the quality of her voice, his joy +in a certain indescribable gallantry in her bearing. +He pitied all men whose wives could not carry themselves, +and whose voices failed and broke under the +things they had to say. And then again there was +the way she moved her arms, the way her hands took +hold of things, the alert lucidity of her eyes, and then +that faint, soft shadow of a smile upon her lips when +she walked thinking or observant, all unaware that he +was watching her.</p> + +<p>It rained in the morning of their eleventh day and +then gave way to warmth and sunshine, so that they +arrived at Les Avants in the afternoon a little muddy +and rather hot. At one of the tables under the trees +outside the Grand Hotel was a small group of people +dressed in the remarkable and imposing costume +which still in those days distinguished the motorist. +They turned from their tea to a more or less frank inspection +of the Traffords, and suddenly broke out +into cries of recognition and welcome. Solomonson—for +the most part brown leather—emerged with +extended hands, and behind him, nestling in the midst +of immense and costly furs, appeared the kindly salience +and brightness of his Lady's face. "Good luck!" +cried Solomonson. "Good luck! Come and have tea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">-318-</a></span> +with us! But this is a happy encounter!"</p> + +<p>"We're dirty—but so healthy!" cried Marjorie, +saluting Lady Solomonson.</p> + +<p>"You look, oh!—splendidly well," that Lady responded.</p> + +<p>"We've been walking."</p> + +<p>"With just that knapsack!"</p> + +<p>"It's been glorious."</p> + +<p>"But the courage!" said Lady Solomonson, and +did not add, "the tragic hardship!" though her tone +conveyed it. She had all the unquestioning belief of +her race in the sanity of comfort. She had ingrained +in her the most definite ideas of man's position and +woman's, and that any one, man or woman, should +walk in mud except under dire necessity, was outside +the range of her philosophy. She thought Marjorie's +thick boots and short skirts quite the most appalling +feminine costume she had ever seen. She saw only a +ruined complexion and damaged womanhood in Marjorie's +rain-washed, sun-bit cheek. Her benevolent +heart rebelled at the spectacle. It was dreadful, she +thought, that nice young people like the Traffords +should have come to this.</p> + +<p>The rest of the party were now informally introduced. +They were all very splendid and disconcertingly +free from mud. One was Christabel Morrison, +the actress, a graceful figure in a green baize coat +and brown fur, who looked ever so much more charming +than her innumerable postcards and illustrated-paper +portraits would have led one to expect; her +neighbour was Solomonson's cousin Lee, the organizer +of the Theatre Syndicate, a brown-eyed, attenuated, +quick-minded little man with an accent that struck +Trafford as being on the whole rather Dutch, and the +third lady was Lady Solomonson's sister, Mrs. Lee. +It appeared they were all staying at Lee's villa above<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">-319-</a></span> +Vevey, part of an amusing assembly of people who +were either vividly rich or even more vividly clever, +an accumulation which the Traffords in the course of +the next twenty minutes were three times invited, with +an increasing appreciation and earnestness, to join.</p> + +<p>From the first our two young people were not indisposed +to do so. For eleven days they had maintained +their duologue at the very highest level; seven +days remained to them before they must go back to +begin the hard new life in England, and there was +something very attractive—they did not for a moment +seek to discover the elements of that attractiveness—in +this proposal of five or six days of luxurious indolence +above the lake, a sort of farewell to the worldly +side of worldly things, before they set forth upon +the high and narrow path they had resolved to tread.</p> + +<p>"But we've got no clothes," cried Marjorie, "no +clothes at all! We've these hobnail boots and a pair +each of heelless slippers."</p> + +<p>"My dear!" cried Lady Solomonson in real distress, +and as much aside as circumstances permitted, +"my dear! My sister can manage all that!" Her +voice fell to earnest undertones. "We can really +manage all that. The house is packed with things. +We'll come to dinner in fancy dress. And Scott, my +maid, is so clever."</p> + +<p>"But really!" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"My dear!" said Lady Solomonson. "Everything." +And she changed places with Lee in order to +be perfectly confidential and explicit. "Rachel!" +she cried, and summoned her sister for confirmatory +assurances....</p> + +<p>"But my husband!" Marjorie became audible.</p> + +<p>"We've long Persian robes," said Mrs. Lee, with +a glance of undisguised appraisement. "He'll be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">-320-</a></span> +splendid. He'll look like a Soldan...."</p> + +<p>The rest of the company forced a hectic conversation +in order not to seem to listen, and presently Lady +Solomonson and her sister were triumphant. They +packed Marjorie into the motor car, and Trafford +and Solomonson returned to Vevey by train and +thence up to the villa by a hired automobile.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>They didn't go outside the magic confines of the +Lees' villa for three days, and when they did they were +still surrounded by their host's service and possessions; +they made an excursion to Chillon in his motor-cars, +and went in his motor-boat to lunch with the Maynards +in their lake-side villa close to Geneva. During +all that time they seemed lifted off the common earth +into a world of fine fabrics, agreeable sounds, +noiseless unlimited service, and ample untroubled +living. It had an effect of enchantment, and the long +healthy arduous journey thither seemed a tale of incredible +effort amidst these sunny excesses. The +weather had the whim to be serenely fine, sunshine +like summer and the bluest of skies shone above the +white wall and the ilex thickets and cypresses that +bounded them in from the great world of crowded +homes and sous and small necessities. And through +the texture of it all for Trafford ran a thread of +curious new suggestion. An intermittent discussion +of economics and socialism was going on between +himself and Solomonson and an agreeable little stammering +man in brown named Minter, who walked up +in the afternoon from Vevey,—he professed to be +writing a novel—during the earlier half of the day. +Minter displayed the keenest appreciation of everything +in his entertainment, and blinked cheerfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">-321-</a></span> +and expressed opinions of the extremest socialistic and +anarchistic flavour to an accompaniment of grateful +self-indulgence. "Your port-wine is wonderful, Lee," +he would say, sipping it. "A terrible retribution will +fall upon you some day for all this."</p> + +<p>The villa had been designed by Lee to please his +wife, and if it was neither very beautiful nor very dignified, +it was at any rate very pretty and amusing. +It might have been built by a Parisian dressmaker—in +the châteauesque style. It was of greyish-white +stone, with a roof of tiles. It had little balconies and +acutely roofed turrets, and almost burlesque buttresses, +pierced by doors and gates; and sun-trap loggias, +as pleasantly casual as the bows and embroideries +of a woman's dress; and its central hall, with an +impluvium that had nothing to do with rain-water, +and its dining-room, to which one ascended from this +hall between pillars up five broad steps, were entirely +irrelevant to all its exterior features. Unobtrusive +men-servants in grey with scarlet facings hovered +serviceably.</p> + +<p>From the little terrace, all set with orange-trees +in tubs, one could see, through the branches and stems +of evergreens and over a foreground of budding, starting +vineyard, the clustering roofs of Vevey below, an +agglomeration veiled ever so thinly in the morning +by a cobweb of wood smoke, against the blue background +of lake with its winged sailing-boats, and sombre +Alpine distances. Minter made it all significant +by a wave of the hand. "All this," he said, and of +the crowded work-a-day life below, "all that."</p> + +<p>"All this," with its rich litter of stuffs and ornaments, +its fine profusion, its delicacies of flower and +food and furniture, its frequent inconsecutive pleasures, +its noiseless, ready service, was remarkably +novel and yet remarkably familiar to Trafford. For<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">-322-</a></span> +a time he could not understand this undertone of familiarity, +and then a sunlit group of hangings in one +of the small rooms that looked out upon the lake took +his mind back to his own dining-room, and the little +inadequate, but decidedly good, Bokhara embroidery +that dominated it like a flag, that lit it, and now lit +his understanding, like a confessed desire. Of course, +Mrs. Lee—happy woman!—was doing just everything +that Marjorie would have loved to do. Marjorie +had never confessed as much, perhaps she had +never understood as much, but now in the presence +of Mrs. Lee's æsthetic exuberances, Trafford at +least understood. He surveyed the little room, whose +harmonies he had at first simply taken for granted, +noted the lustre-ware that answered to the gleaming +Persian tiles, the inspiration of a metallic thread in +the hangings, and the exquisite choice of the deadened +paint upon the woodwork, and realized for the +first time how little aimless extravagance can be, and +all the timid, obstinately insurgent artistry that +troubled his wife. He stepped through the open window +into a little loggia, and stared unseeingly over +glittering, dark-green leaves to the mysteries of distance +in the great masses above St. Gingolph, and it +seemed for the first time that perhaps in his thoughts +he had done his wife a wrong. He had judged her +fickle, impulsive, erratic, perhaps merely because +her mind followed a different process from his, because +while he went upon the lines of constructive +truth, her guide was a more immediate and instinctive +sense of beauty.</p> + +<p>He was very much alive to her now, and deeply in +love with her. He had reached Les Avants with all +his sense of their discordance clean washed and +walked out of his mind, by rain and sun and a flow of +high resolutions, and the brotherly swing of their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">-323-</a></span> +strides together. They had come to the Lee's villa, +mud-splashed, air-sweet comrades, all unaware of the +subtle differences of atmosphere they had to encounter. +They had no suspicion that it was only +about half of each other that had fraternized. Now +here they were in a company that was not only +altogether alien to their former mood, but extremely +interesting and exciting and closely akin to the latent +factors in Marjorie's composition. Their hostess +and her sister had the keen, quick æsthetic sensibilities +of their race, with all that freedom of reading +and enfranchisement of mind which is the lot of the +Western women. Lee had an immense indulgent +affection for his wife, he regarded her arrangements +and exploits with an admiration that was almost +American. And Mrs. Lee's imagination had run +loose in pursuit of beautiful and remarkable people +and splendours rather than harmonies of line and +colour. Lee, like Solomonson, had that inexplicable +alchemy of mind which distils gold from +the commerce of the world ("All this," said Minter +to Trafford, "is an exhalation from all that"); he +accumulated wealth as one grows a beard, and found +his interest in his uxorious satisfactions, and so Mrs. +Lee, with her bright watchful eyes, quick impulsive +movements and instinctive command had the utmost +freedom to realize her ideals.</p> + +<p>In the world at large Lee and Solomonson seemed +both a little short and a little stout, and a little too +black and bright for their entirely conventional clothing, +but for the dinner and evening of the villa they +were now, out of consideration for Trafford, at their +ease, and far more dignified in Oriental robes. Trafford +was accommodated with a long, black, delicately +embroidered garment that reached to his feet, and +suited something upstanding and fine in his bearing;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">-324-</a></span> +Minter, who had stayed on from an afternoon call, +was gorgeous in Chinese embroidery. The rest of the +men clung boldly or bashfully to evening dress....</p> + +<p>On the evening of his arrival Trafford, bathed and +robed, found the rest of the men assembling about an +open wood fire in the smaller hall at the foot of the +main staircase. Lee was still upstairs, and Solomonson, +with a new grace of gesture begotten by his costume, +made the necessary introductions; a little man +with fine-cut features and a Galway accent was Rex +the playwright; a tall, grey-haired, clean-shaven man +was Bright from the New York Central Museum; and +a bearded giant with a roof of red hair and a remote +eye was Radlett Barns, the great portrait-painter, +who consents to paint your portrait for posterity as +the King confers a knighthood. These were presently +joined by Lee and Pacey, the blond-haired musician, +and Mottersham, whose patents and inventions control +electric lighting and heating all over the world, +and then, with the men duly gathered and expectant, +the women came down the wide staircase.</p> + +<p>The staircase had been planned and lit for these +effects, and Mrs. Lee meant to make the most of her +new discovery. Her voice could be heard in the unseen +corridor above arranging the descent: "You go +first, dear. Will you go with Christabel?" The conversation +about the fire checked and ceased with the +sound of voices above and the faint rustle of skirts. +Then came Christabel Morrison, her slender grace +beautifully contrasted with the fuller beauties of that +great lady of the stage, Marion Rufus. Lady Solomonson +descended confidently in a group of three, +with Lady Mottersham and sharp-tongued little Mrs. +Rex, all very rich and splendid. After a brief interval +their hostess preceded Marjorie, and was so much of +an artist that she had dressed herself merely as a foil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">-325-</a></span> +to this new creation. She wore black and scarlet, +that made the white face and bright eyes under her +sombre hair seem the face of an inspiring spirit. A +step behind her and to the right of her came Marjorie, +tall and wonderful, as if she were the queen of +earth and sunshine, swathed barbarically in gold and +ruddy brown, and with her abundant hair bound back +by a fillet of bloodstones and gold. Radlett Barns +exclaimed at the sight of her. She was full of the +manifest consciousness of dignity as she descended, +quite conscious and quite unembarrassed; two borrowed +golden circlets glittered on her shining arm, +and a thin chain of gold and garnets broke the contrast +of the warm, sun-touched neck above, with the +unsullied skin below.</p> + +<p>She sought and met her husband's astonishment +with the faintest, remotest of smiles. It seemed to him +that never before had he appreciated her beauty. +His daily companion had become this splendour in +the sky. She came close by him with hand extended to +greet Sir Philip Mottersham. He was sensible of +the glow of her, as it were of a scented aura about +her. He had a first full intimation of the cult and +worship of woman and the magnificence of women, +old as the Mediterranean and its goddesses, and altogether +novel to his mind....</p> + +<p>Christabel Morrison found him a pleasant but not +very entertaining or exciting neighbor at the dinner-table, +and was relieved when the time came for her to +turn an ear to the artistic compliments of Radlett +Barns. But Trafford was too interested and amused +by the general effect of the dinner to devote himself +to the rather heavy business of really exhilarating +Christabel. He didn't give his mind to her. He found +the transformation of Sir Rupert into a turbanned +Oriental who might have come out of a picture by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">-326-</a></span> +Carpaccio, gently stimulating and altogether delightful. +His attention returned again and again to that +genial swarthiness. Mrs. Lee on his left lived in her +eyes, and didn't so much talk to him as rattle her mind +at him almost absent-mindedly, as one might dangle +keys at a baby while one talked to its mother. Yet it +was evident she liked the look of him. Her glance +went from his face to his robe, and up and down the +table, at the bright dresses, the shining arms, the +glass and light and silver. She asked him to tell her +just where he had tramped and just what he had seen, +and he had scarcely begun answering her question +before her thoughts flew off to three trophies of china +and silver, struggling groups of china boys bearing +up great silver shells of fruit and flowers that stood +down the centre of the table. "What do you think +of my chubby boys?" she asked. "They're German +work. They came from a show at Düsseldorf last +week. Ben saw I liked them, and sent back for them +secretly, and here they, are! I thought they might +be too colourless. But are they?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Trafford, "they're just cool. Under +that glow of fruit. Is this salt-cellar English cut +glass?"</p> + +<p>"Old Dutch," said Mrs. Lee. "Isn't it jolly?" +She embarked with a roving eye upon the story of +her Dutch glass, which was abundant and admirable, +and broke off abruptly to say, "Your wife is wonderful."</p> + +<p>"Her hair goes back," she said, "like music. +You know what I mean—a sort of easy rhythm. You +don't mind my praising your wife?"</p> + +<p>Trafford said he didn't.</p> + +<p>"And there's a sort of dignity about her. All my +life, Mr. Trafford, I've wanted to be tall. It stopped +my growth."</p> + +<p>She glanced off at a tangent. "Tell me, Mr.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">-327-</a></span> +Trafford," she asked, "was your wife beautiful like +this when you married her? I mean—of course she +was a beautiful girl and adorable and all that; but +wasn't she just a slender thing?"</p> + +<p>She paused, but if she had a habit of asking disconcerting +questions she did not at any rate insist +upon answers, and she went on to confess that she believed +she would be a happier woman poor than rich—"not +that Ben isn't all he should be"—but that then +she would have been a fashionable dressmaker. +"People want help," she said, "so much more help +than they get. They go about with themselves—what +was it Mr. Radlett Barns said the other night—oh!—like +people leading horses they daren't ride. +I think he says such good things at times, don't you? +So wonderful to be clever in two ways like that. +Just look <i>now</i> at your wife—now I mean, that they've +drawn that peacock-coloured curtain behind her. +My brother-in-law has been telling me you keep +the most wonderful and precious secrets locked up in +your breast, that you know how to make gold and +diamonds and all sorts of things. If I did,—I should +make them."</p> + +<p>She pounced suddenly upon Rex at her left with +questions about the Keltic Renascence, was it still +going on—or what? and Trafford was at liberty for +a time to enjoy the bright effects about him, the +shadowed profile and black hair of Christabel to the +right of him, and the coruscating refractions and +reflections of Lady Solomonson across the white and +silver and ivory and blossom of the table. Then Mrs. +Lee dragged him into a sudden conflict with Rex, by +saying abruptly—</p> + +<p>"Of course, Mr. Trafford wouldn't believe that."</p> + +<p>He looked perhaps a little lost.</p> + +<p>"I was telling Mrs. Lee," said Rex, "that I don't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">-328-</a></span> +believe there's any economy of human toil in +machinery whatever. I mean that the machine itself +really embodies all the toil it seems to save, toil that +went to the making of it and preparing it and getting +coal for it...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 12</p> + +<p>Next morning they found their hostess at breakfast +in the dining-room and now the sun was streaming +through a high triple window that had been curtained +overnight, and they looked out through clean, +bright plate-glass upon mountains half-dissolved in a +luminous mist, and a mist-veiled lake below. Great +stone jars upon the terrace bore a blaze of urged and +early blossom, and beyond were cypresses. Their +hostess presided at one of two round tables, at a side +table various breakfast dishes kept warm over spirit +lamps, and two men servants dispensed tea and coffee. +In the bay of the window was a fruit table, +with piled fruit-plates and finger-bowls.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lee waved a welcoming hand, and drew +Marjorie to a seat beside her. Rex was consuming +trout and Christabel peaches, and Solomonson, all +his overnight Orientalism abandoned, was in outspoken +tweeds and quite under the impression that he +was interested in golf. Trafford got frizzled bacon +for Marjorie and himself, and dropped into a desultory +conversation, chiefly sustained by Christabel, +about the peculiarly exalting effect of beautiful scenery +on Christabel's mind. Mrs. Lee was as usual +distraught, and kept glancing towards the steps that +led up from the hall. Lady Solomonson appeared +with a rustle in a wrapper of pink Chinese silk. "I +came down after all," she said. "I lay in bed weighing +rolls and coffee and relaxed muscles against your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">-329-</a></span> +English breakfast downstairs. And suddenly I remembered +your little sausages!"</p> + +<p>She sat down with a distribution of handkerchief, +bag, letters, a gold fountain pen and suchlike +equipments, and Trafford got her some of the coveted +delicacies. Mrs. Lee suddenly cried out, "<i>Here</i> +they come! <i>Here</i> they come!" and simultaneously +the hall resonated with children's voices and the yapping +of a Skye terrier.</p> + +<p>Then a gay little procession appeared ascending +the steps. First came a small but princely little boy +of three, with a ruddy face and curly black hair, +behind him was a slender, rather awkward girl of +perhaps eleven, and a sturdier daughter of Israel of +nine. A nurse in artistic purple followed, listening +inattentively to some private whisperings of a +knickerbockered young man of five, and then came +another purple-robed nurse against contingencies, +and then a nurse of a different, white-clad, and +more elaborately costumed sort, carrying a sumptuous +baby of eight or nine months. "Ah! the <i>darlings!</i>" +cried Christabel, springing up quite beautifully, +and Lady Solomonson echoed the cry. The +procession broke against the tables and split about +the breakfast party. The small boy in petticoats +made a confident rush for Marjorie, Christabel set +herself to fascinate his elder brother, the young +woman of eleven scrutinized Trafford with speculative +interest and edged towards him coyly, and Mrs. +Lee interviewed her youngest born. The amiable +inanities suitable to the occasion had scarcely begun +before a violent clapping of hands announced the +appearance of Lee.</p> + +<p>It was Lee's custom, Mrs. Lee told Marjorie over +her massively robed baby, to get up very early and +work on rolls and coffee; he never breakfasted nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">-330-</a></span> +joined them until the children came. All of them +rushed to him for their morning kiss, and it seemed +to Trafford that Lee at least was an altogether +happy creature as he accepted the demonstrative +salutations of this struggling, elbowing armful of +offspring, and emerged at last like a man from a +dive, flushed and ruffled and smiling, to wish his adult +guests good morning.</p> + +<p>"Come upstairs with us, daddy," cried the children, +tugging at him. "Come upstairs!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lee ran her eye about her table and rose. +"It's the children's hour," she said to Marjorie. +"You don't I hope, mind children?"</p> + +<p>"But," said Trafford incredulous, and with a +friendly arm about his admirer, "is this tall young +woman yours?"</p> + +<p>The child shot him a glance of passionate appreciation +for this scrap of flattery.</p> + +<p>"We began young," said Mrs. Lee, with eyes of +uncritical pride for the ungainly one, and smiled at +her husband.</p> + +<p>"Upstairs," cried the boy of five and the girl of +nine. "Upstairs."</p> + +<p>"May we come?" asked Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"May we all come?" asked Christabel, determined +to be in the movement.</p> + +<p>Rex strolled towards the cigars, with disentanglement +obviously in his mind.</p> + +<p>"Do you really care?" asked Mrs. Lee. "You +know, I'm so proud of their nursery. Would you +care——? Always I go up at this time."</p> + +<p>"I've my little nursery, too," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Of course!" cried Mrs. Lee, "I forgot. Of +course;" and overwhelmed Marjorie with inquiries as +she followed her husband. Every one joined the +nurseryward procession except Rex, who left himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">-331-</a></span> +behind with an air of inadvertency, and escaped to +the terrace and a cigar....</p> + +<p>It was a wonderful nursery, a suite of three bedrooms, +a green and white, well-lit schoolroom and a +vast playroom, and hovering about the passage Trafford +remarked a third purple nurse and a very +efficient and serious-looking Swiss governess. The +schoolroom and the nursery displayed a triumph of +judicious shopping and arrangement, the best of +German and French and English things had been +blended into a harmony at once hygienic and pedagogic +and humanly charming. For once Marjorie +had to admire the spending of another woman, and +admit to herself that even she could not have done +better with the money.</p> + +<p>There were clever little desks for the elder children +to work at, adjustable desks scientifically lit so that +they benefited hands and shoulders and eyes; there +were artistically coloured and artistically arranged +pictures, and a little library held all the best of Lang +and Lucas, rare good things like "Uncle Lubin," +Maurice Baring's story of "Forget-me-not," "Johnny +Crow's Garden," "The Bad Child's Book of +Beasts," animal books and bird books, costume books +and story books, colour books and rhyme books, +abundant, yet every one intelligently chosen, no costly +meretricious printed rubbish such as silly Gentile +mothers buy. Then in the great nursery, with its +cork carpet on which any toy would stand or run, +was an abundance of admirable possessions and shelving +for everything, and great fat cloth elephants +to ride, and go-carts, and hooks for a swing. Marjorie's +quick eye saw, and she admired effusively and +envied secretly, and Mrs. Lee appreciated her appreciation. +A skirmishing romp of the middle children +and Lee went on about the two of them, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">-332-</a></span> +Trafford was led off by his admirer into a cubby-house +in one corner (with real glass windows made +to open) and the muslin curtains were drawn while +he was shown a secret under vows. Lady Solomonson +discovered some soldiers, and was presently on her +knees in a corner with the five-year old boy.</p> + +<p>"These are like my Teddy's," she was saying. +"My Billy has some of these."</p> + +<p>Trafford emerged from the cubby-house, which +was perhaps a little cramped for him, and surveyed +the room, with his admirer lugging at his arm unheeded, +and whispering: "Come back with me."</p> + +<p>Of course this was the clue to Lee and Solomonson. +How extremely happy Lee appeared to be! +Enormous vistas of dark philoprogenitive parents +and healthy little Jews and Jewesses seemed to open +out to Trafford, hygienically reared, exquisitely +trained and educated. And he and Marjorie had +just one little daughter—with a much poorer educational +outlook. She had no cloth elephant to ride, +no elaborate cubby-house to get into, only a half-dozen +picture books or so, and later she wouldn't +when she needed it get that linguistic Swiss.</p> + +<p>He wasn't above the normal human vanity of +esteeming his own race and type the best, and certain +vulgar aspects of what nowadays one calls Eugenics +crossed his mind.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 13</p> + +<p>During those few crowded days of unfamiliar +living Trafford accumulated a vast confused mass +of thoughts and impressions. He realized acutely +the enormous gulf between his attitudes towards +women and those of his host and Solomonson—and +indeed of all the other men. It had never occurred to +him before that there was any other relationship<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">-333-</a></span> +possible between a modern woman and a modern man +but a frank comradeship and perfect knowledge, helpfulness, +and honesty. That had been the continual +implication of his mother's life, and of all that he +had respected in the thought and writing of his time. +But not one of these men in their place—with the +possible exception of Minter, who remained brilliant +but ambiguous—believed anything of the sort. It +necessarily involved in practice a share of hardship +for women, and it seemed fundamental to them that +women should have no hardship. He sought for a +word, and hung between chivalry and orientalism. He +inclined towards chivalry. Their women were lifted +a little off the cold ground of responsibility. Charm +was their obligation. "A beautiful woman should +be beautifully dressed," said Radlett Barns in the +course of the discussion of a contemporary portrait +painter. Lee nodded to endorse an obvious +truth. "But she ought to dress herself," said Barns. +"It ought to be herself to the points of the old lace—chosen +and assimilated. It's just through not being +that, that so many rich women are—detestable. +Heaps of acquisition. Caddis-women...."</p> + +<p>Trafford ceased to listen, he helped himself to a +cigar and pinched its end and lit it, while his mind +went off to gnaw at: "A beautiful woman should be +beautifully dressed," as a dog retires with a bone. +He couldn't escape from its shining truth, and withal +it was devastating to all the purposes of his life.</p> + +<p>He rejected the word orientalism; what he was +dealing with here was chivalry. "All this," was indeed, +under the thinnest of disguises, the castle and +the pavilion, and Lee and Solomonson were valiant +knights, who entered the lists not indeed with spear +and shield but with prospectus and ingenious enterprise, +who drew cheques instead of swords for their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">-334-</a></span> +ladies' honour, who held "all that" in fee and subjection +that these exquisite and wonderful beings +should flower in rich perfection. All these women +lived in a magic security and abundance, far above +the mire and adventure of the world; their knights +went upon quests for them and returned with villas +and pictures and diamonds and historical pearls. +And not one of them all was so beautiful a being as +his Marjorie, whom he made his squaw, whom he expected +to aid and follow him, and suffer uncomplainingly +the rough services of the common life. +Not one was half so beautiful as Marjorie, nor half +so sweet and wonderful....</p> + +<p>If such thoughts came in Lee's villa, they returned +with redoubled force when Trafford found himself +packed painfully with Marjorie in the night train to +Paris. His head ached with the rattle and suffocation +of the train, and he knew hers must ache more. +The windows of the compartment and the door were +all closed, the litigious little commercial traveller in +shiny grey had insisted upon that, there was no corner +seat either for Marjorie or himself, the dim big +package over her head swayed threateningly. The +green shade over the light kept opening with the +vibration of the train, the pallid old gentleman +with the beard had twisted himself into a ghastly +resemblance to a broken-necked corpse, and pressed +his knees hard and stiffly against Trafford, and the +small, sniffing, bow-legged little boy beside the rusty +widow woman in the corner smelt mysteriously and +penetratingly of Roquefort cheese. For the seventeenth +time the little commercial traveller jumped +up with an unbecoming expletive, and pulled the +shade over the light, and the silent young man in the +fourth corner stirred and readjusted his legs.</p> + +<p>For a time until the crack of light overhead had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">-335-</a></span> +widened again every one became a dark head-dangling +outline....</p> + +<p>He watched the dim shape before him and noted +the weary droop of her pose. He wished he had +brought water. He was intolerably thirsty, and his +thirst gave him the measure of hers. This jolting +fœtid compartment was a horrible place for her, an +intolerably horrible place. And she was standing it, +for all her manifest suffering, with infinite gallantry +and patience. What a gallant soul indeed she was! +Whatever else she did she never failed to rise to a +challenge. Her very extravagance that had tried +their lives so sorely was perhaps just one aspect of +that same quality. It is so easy to be saving if one is +timid; so hard if one is unaccustomed to fear. How +beautiful she had shone at times in the lights and +glitter of that house behind there, and now she was +back in her weather-stained tweeds again, like a shining +sword thrust back into a rusty old sheath.</p> + +<p>Was it fair that she should come back into the +sheath because of this passion of his for a vast +inexhaustible research?</p> + +<p>He had never asked himself before if it was fair +to assume she would follow his purpose and his fortunes. +He had taken that for granted. And she +too had taken that for granted, which was so generously +splendid of her. All her disloyalties had been +unintentional, indeed almost instinctive, breaches of +her subordination to this aim which was his alone. +These breaches he realized had been the reality of +her nature fighting against her profoundest resolutions.</p> + +<p>He wondered what Lee must think of this sort of +married life. How ugly and selfish it must seem from +that point of view.</p> + +<p>He perceived for the first time the fundamental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">-336-</a></span> +incongruity of Marjorie's position, she was made to +shine, elaborately prepared and trained to shine, +desiring keenly to shine, and then imprisoned and +hidden in the faded obscurity of a small, poor home. +How conspicuously, how extremely he must be wanting +in just that sort of chivalry in which Lee excelled! +Those business men lived for their women to +an extent he had hitherto scarcely dreamt of doing....</p> + +<p>His want of chivalry was beyond dispute. And +was there not also an extraordinary egotism in this +concentration upon his own purposes, a self-esteem, +a vanity? Had her life no rights? Suppose now he +were to give her—two years, three years perhaps of +his life—altogether. Or even four. Was it too much +to grudge her four? Solomonson had been at his +old theme with him, a theme the little man had never +relinquished since their friendship first began years +ago, possibilities of a business alliance and the application +of a mind of exceptional freshness and penetration +to industrial development. Why shouldn't +that be tried? Why not "make money" for a brief +strenuous time, and then come back, when Marjorie's +pride and comfort were secure?...</p> + +<p>(Poor dear, how weary she looked!)</p> + +<p>He wondered how much more remained of this +appalling night. It would have made so little difference +if they had taken the day train and travelled +first-class. Wasn't she indeed entitled to travel first-class? +Pictures of the immense spaciousness, the +softness, cleanliness and dignity of first-class compartments +appeared in his mind....</p> + +<p>He would have looked at his watch, but to get at +it would mean disturbing the silent young man on +his left.</p> + +<p>Outside in the corridor there broke out a noisy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">-337-</a></span> +dispute about a missing coupon, a dispute in that +wonderful language that is known to the facetious as +<i>entente cordiale</i>, between an Englishman and the +conductor of the train....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 14</p> + +<p>In Paris there was a dispute with an extortionate +cabman, and the crossing from Dieppe to Newhaven +was rough and bitterly cold. They were both ill. +They reached home very dirty and weary, and among +the pile of letters and papers on Trafford's desk +was a big bundle of Science Note proofs, and two +letters from Croydon and Pinner to alter the hours +of his lectures for various plausible and irritating +reasons.</p> + +<p>The little passage looked very small and rather +bare as the door shut behind them, and the worn +places that had begun to be conspicuous during the +last six months, and which they had forgotten during +the Swiss holiday, reasserted themselves. The dining-room, +after spacious rooms flooded with sunshine, +betrayed how dark it was, and how small. Those +Bokhara embroideries that had once shone so splendid, +now, after Mrs. Lee's rich and unlimited harmonies, +seemed skimpy and insufficient, mere loin-cloths +for the artistic nakedness of the home. They felt, +too, they were beginning to find out their post-impressionist +picture. They had not remembered it as +nearly so crude as it now appeared. The hole a +flying coal had burnt in the unevenly faded dark-blue +carpet looked larger than it had ever done before, +and was indeed the only thing that didn't appear +faded and shrunken.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 15</p> + +<p>The atmosphere of the Lees' villa had disturbed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">-338-</a></span> +Marjorie's feelings and ideas even more than it had +Trafford's. She came back struggling to recover +those high resolves that had seemed so secure when +they had walked down to Les Avantes. There was a +curiously tormenting memory of that vast, admirable +nursery, and the princely procession of children that +would not leave her mind. No effort of her reason +could reconcile her to the inferiority of Margharita's +equipment. She had a detestable craving for a uniform +for May. But May was going....</p> + +<p>But indeed she was not so sure that May was +going.</p> + +<p>She was no longer buoyantly well, she was full of +indefinable apprehensions of weakness and failure. +She struggled to control an insurgence of emotions +that rose out of the deeps of her being. She had now, +she knew, to take on her share of the burden, to +become one of the Samurai, to show her love no longer +as a demand but as a service. Yet from day to day +she procrastinated under the shadow of apprehended +things; she forebore to dismiss May, to buy that +second-hand typewriter she needed, to take any irrevocable +step towards the realization of the new way +of living. She tried to think away her fears, but they +would not leave her. She felt that Trafford watched +her pale face with a furtive solicitude and wondered +at her hesitations; she tried in vain to seem cheerful +and careless in his presence, with an anxiety, with +premonitions that grew daily.</p> + +<p>There was no need to worry him unduly....</p> + +<p>But soon the matter was beyond all doubting. +One night she gathered her courage together suddenly +and came down into his study in her dressing-gown +with her hair about her shoulders. She opened<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">-339-</a></span> +the door and her heart failed her.</p> + +<p>"Rag," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said busily from his desk, without +looking round.</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to you," she answered, and came +slowly, and stood beside him silently.</p> + +<p>"Well, old Marjorie?" he said presently, drawing +a little intricate pattern in the corner of his blotting paper, +and wondering whether this was a matter +of five pounds or ten.</p> + +<p>"I meant so well," she said and caught herself +back into silence again.</p> + +<p>He started at the thought, at a depth and meaning +in her voice, turned his chair about to look +at her, and discovered she was weeping and choking +noiselessly. He stood up close to her, moving +very slowly and silently, his eyes full of this new surmise, +and now without word or gesture from her he +knew his thought was right. "My dear," he +whispered.</p> + +<p>She turned her face from him. "I meant so +well," she sobbed. "My dear! I meant so well." +Still with an averted face her arms came out to him +in a desperate, unreasoning appeal for love. He +took her and held her close to him. "Never mind, +dear," he said. "Don't mind." Her passion now was +unconstrained. "I thought—" he began, and left +the thing unsaid.</p> + +<p>"But your work," she said; "your research?"</p> + +<p>"I must give up research," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dearest!"</p> + +<p>"I must give up research," he repeated. "I've +been seeing it for days. Clearer and clearer. <i>This</i> +dear, just settles things. Even—as we were coming +home in the train—I was making up my mind. At<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">-340-</a></span> +Vevey I was talking to Solomonson."</p> + +<p>"My dear," she whispered, clinging to him.</p> + +<p>"I talked to Solomonson. He had ideas—a +proposal."</p> + +<p>"No," she said.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said. "I've left the thing too long."</p> + +<p>He repeated. "I must give up research—for +years. I ought to have done it long before."</p> + +<p>"I had meant so well," she said. "I meant to +work. I meant to deny myself...."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad," he whispered. "Glad! Why should +you weep?" It seemed nothing to him then, that so +he should take a long farewell to the rare, sweet air +of that wonderland his mind had loved so dearly. All +he remembered was that Marjorie was very dear to +him, very dear to him, and that all her being was now +calling out for him and his strength. "I had thought +anyhow of giving up research," he repeated. "This +merely decides. It happens to decide. I love you, +dear. I put my research at your feet. Gladly. This +is the end, and I do not care, my dear, at all. I +do not care at all—seeing I have you...."</p> + +<p>He stood beside her for a moment, and then sat +down again, sideways, upon his chair.</p> + +<p>"It isn't you, my dear, or me," he said, "but life +that beats us—that beautiful, irrational mother.... +Life does not care for research or knowledge, but +only for life. Oh! the world has to go on yet for tens +of thousands of years before—before we are free for +that. I've got to fight—as other men fight...."</p> + +<p>He thought in silence for a time, oddly regardless +of her. "But if it was not you," he said, staring at +the fireplace with knitted brows, "if I did not love +you.... Thank God, I love you, dear! Thank God, +our children are love children! I want to live—to my +finger-tips, but if I didn't love you—oh! love you!<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">-341-</a></span> +then I think now—I'd be glad—I'd be glad, I think, +to cheat life of her victory."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" she cried, and clung weeping to +him, and caught at him and sat herself upon his +knees, and put her arms about his head, and kissed +him passionately with tear-salt lips, with her hair +falling upon his face.</p> + +<p>"My dear," she whispered....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 16</p> + +<p>So soon as Trafford could spare an afternoon +amidst his crowded engagements he went to talk to +Solomonson, who was now back in London. "Solomonson," +he said, "you were talking about rubber at +Vevey."</p> + +<p>"I remember," said Solomonson with a note of +welcome.</p> + +<p>"I've thought it over."</p> + +<p>"I <i>thought</i> you would."</p> + +<p>"I've thought things over. I'm going to give up +my professorship—and science generally, and come +into business—if that is what you are meaning."</p> + +<p>Solomonson turned his paper-weight round very +carefully before replying. Then he said: "You +mustn't give up your professorship yet, Trafford. +For the rest—I'm glad."</p> + +<p>He reflected, and then his bright eyes glanced up +at Trafford. "I knew," he said, "you would."</p> + +<p>"I didn't," said Trafford. "Things have happened +since."</p> + +<p>"Something was bound to happen. You're too +good—for what it gave you. I didn't talk to you +out there for nothing. I saw things.... Let's go +into the other room, and smoke and talk it over." He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">-342-</a></span> +stood up as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would," he repeated, leading the +way. "I knew you would. You see,—one <i>has</i> to. +You can't get out of it."</p> + +<p>"It was all very well before you were married," +said Solomonson, stopping short to say it, "but +when a man's married he's got to think. He can't +go on devoting himself to his art and his science and +all that—not if he's married anything worth having. +No. Oh, I understand. He's got to look about him, +and forget the distant prospect for a bit. I saw +you'd come to it. <i>I</i> came to it. Had to. I had +ambitions—just as you have. I've always had an +inclination to do a bit of research on my own. I +<i>like</i> it, you know. Oh! I could have done things. +I'm sure I could have done things. I'm not a born +money-maker. But——." He became very close +and confidential. "It's——<i>them</i>. +You said good-bye to science for a bit when you +flopped me down on that old croquet-lawn, Trafford." +He went off to reminiscences. "Lord, how we went +over! No more aviation for me, Trafford!"</p> + +<p>He arranged chairs, and produced cigars. "After +all—this of course—it's interesting. Once you get +into the movement of it, it takes hold of you. It's a +game."</p> + +<p>"I've thought over all you said," Trafford began, +using premeditated phrases. "Bluntly—I want +three thousand a year, and I don't make eight hundred. +It's come home to me. I'm going to have +another child."</p> + +<p>Solomonson gesticulated a congratulation.</p> + +<p>"All the same, I hate dropping research. It's +stuff I'm made to do. About that, Solomonson, I'm +almost superstitious. I could say I had a call.... +It's the maddest state of affairs! Now that I'm doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">-343-</a></span> +absolutely my best work for mankind, work I +firmly believe no one else can do, I just manage to +get six hundred—nearly two hundred of my eight +hundred is my own. What does the world think I +could do better—that would be worth four times as +much."</p> + +<p>"The world doesn't think anything at all about +it," said Solomonson.</p> + +<p>"Suppose it did!"</p> + +<p>The thought struck Sir Rupert. He knitted his +brows and looked hard obliquely at the smoke of his +cigar. "Oh, it won't," he said, rejecting a disagreeable +idea. "There isn't any world—not in that sense. +That's the mistake you make, Trafford."</p> + +<p>"It's not what your work is worth," he explained. +"It's what your advantages can get for you. People +are always going about supposing—just what +you suppose—that people ought to get paid in proportion +to the good they do. It's forgetting what +the world is, to do that. Very likely some day civilization +will get to that, but it hasn't got to it yet. It +isn't going to get to it for hundreds and hundreds of +years."</p> + +<p>His manner became confidential. "Civilization's +just a fight, Trafford—just as savagery is a fight, +and being a wild beast is a fight,—only you have +paddeder gloves on and there's more rules. We aren't +out for everybody, we're out for ourselves—and a few +friends perhaps—within limits. It's no good hurrying +ahead and pretending civilization's something +else, when it isn't. That's where all these socialists +and people come a howler. Oh, <i>I</i> know the Socialists. +I see 'em at my wife's At Homes. They come along +with the literary people and the artists' wives and the +actors and actresses, and none of them take much +account of me because I'm just a business man and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">-344-</a></span> +rather dark and short, and so I get a chance of looking +at them from the side that isn't on show while +the other's turned to the women, and they're just as +fighting as the rest of us, only they humbug more and +they don't seem to me to have a decent respect for +any of the common rules. And that's about what it +all comes to, Trafford."</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert paused, and Trafford was about to +speak when the former resumed again, his voice very +earnest, his eyes shining with purpose. He liked +Trafford, and he was doing his utmost to make a +convincing confession of the faith that was in him. +"It's when it comes to the women," said Sir Rupert, +"that one finds it out. That's where <i>you've</i> found it +out. You say, I'm going to devote my life to the +service of Humanity in general. You'll find Humanity +in particular, in the shape of all the fine, beautiful, +delightful and desirable women you come across, +preferring a narrower turn of devotion. See? That's +all. <i>Caeteris paribus</i>, of course. That's what I +found out, and that's what you've found out, and +that's what everybody with any sense in his head +finds out, and there you are."</p> + +<p>"You put it—graphically," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"I feel it graphically. I may be all sorts of +things, but I do know a fact when I see it. I'm here +with a few things I want and a woman or so I have +and want to keep, and the kids upstairs, bless 'em! +and I'm in league with all the others who want the +same sort of things. Against any one or anything +that upsets us. We stand by the law and each other, +and that's what it all amounts to. That's as far +as my patch of Humanity goes. Humanity at large! +Humanity be blowed! <i>Look</i> at it! It isn't that I'm +hostile to Humanity, mind you, but that I'm not disposed +to go under as I should do if I didn't say that.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">-345-</a></span> +So I say it. And that's about all it is, and there you +are."</p> + +<p>He regarded Trafford over his cigar, drawing +fiercely at it for some moments. Then seeing Trafford +on the point of speaking, he snatched it from +his lips, demanded silence by waving it at his hearer, +and went on.</p> + +<p>"I say all this in order to dispose of any idea +that you can keep up the open-minded tell-everybody-every-thing +scientific attitude if you come into +business. You can't. Put business in two words +and what is it? Keeping something from somebody +else, and making him pay for it—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, look here!" protested Trafford. "That's +not the whole of business."</p> + +<p>"There's making him want it, of course, advertisement +and all that, but that falls under making +him pay for it, really."</p> + +<p>"But a business man organizes public services, +consolidates, economizes."</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert made his mouth look very wide by +sucking in the corners. "Incidentally," he said, +and added after a judicious pause: "Sometimes... +I thought we were talking of making money."</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"You set me thinking," said Solomonson. "It's +the thing I always like about you. I tell you, +Trafford, I don't believe that the majority of people +who make money help civilization forward any more +than the smoke that comes out of the engine helps +the train forward. If you put it to me, I don't. I've +got no illusions of that sort. They're about as much +help as—fat. They accumulate because things happen +to be arranged so."</p> + +<p>"Things will be arranged better some day."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">-346-</a></span></p> + +<p>"They aren't arranged better now. Grip that! +<i>Now</i>, it's a sort of paradox. If you've got big gifts +and you choose to help forward the world, if you +choose to tell all you know and give away everything +you can do in the way of work, you've got to give up +the ideas of wealth and security, and that means fine +women and children. You've got to be a <i>deprived</i> +sort of man. 'All right,' you say, 'That's me!' But +how about your wife being a deprived sort of woman? +Eh? That's where it gets you! And meanwhile, +you know, while <i>you</i> make your sacrifices and do your +researches, there'll be little mean sharp active beasts +making money all over you like maggots on a cheese. +And if everybody who'd got gifts and altruistic ideas +gave themselves up to it, then evidently only the +mean and greedy lot would breed and have the glory. +They'd get everything. Every blessed thing. +There wouldn't be an option they didn't hold. And the +other chaps would produce the art and the science +and the literature, as far as the men who'd got hold +of things would let 'em, and perish out of the +earth altogether.... +There you are! Still, that's how things are made...."</p> + +<p>"But it isn't worth it. It isn't worth extinguishing +oneself in order to make a world for those others, +anyhow. Them and their children. Is it? Eh? +It's like building a temple for flies to buzz in.... +There is such a thing as a personal side to Eugenics, +you know."</p> + +<p>Solomonson reflected over the end of his cigar. +"It isn't good enough," he concluded.</p> + +<p>"You're infernally right," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Solomonson, "and now we can +get to business."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 17</p> + +<p>The immediate business was the systematic exploitation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">-347-</a></span> +of the fact that Trafford had worked out the +problem of synthesizing indiarubber. He had done +so with an entire indifference to the commercial possibilities +of the case, because he had been irritated by +the enormous publicity given to Behrens' assertion +that he had achieved this long-sought end. Of course +the production of artificial rubbers and rubber-like +substances had been one of the activities of the +synthetic chemist for many years, from the appearance +of Tilden's isoprene rubber onward, and there +was already a formidable list of collaterals, dimethybutadiene, +and so forth, by which the coveted goal +could be approached. Behrens had boldly added to +this list as his own a number of variations upon a +theme of Trafford's, originally designed to settle certain +curiosities about elasticity. Behrens' products +were not only more massively rubber-like than anything +that had gone before them, but also extremely +cheap to produce, and his bold announcement of success +had produced a check in rubber sales and widespread +depression in the quiveringly sensitive market +of plantation shares. Solomonson had consulted +Trafford about this matter at Vevey, and had heard +with infinite astonishment that Trafford had already +roughly prepared and was proposing to complete and +publish, unpatented and absolutely unprotected, first +a smashing demonstration of the unsoundness of +Behrens' claim and then a lucid exposition of just +what had to be done and what could be done to make +an indiarubber absolutely indistinguishable from the +natural product. The business man could not believe +his ears.</p> + +<p>"My dear chap, positively—you mustn't," Solomonson +had screamed, and he had opened his fingers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">-348-</a></span> +and humped his shoulders and for all his public +school and university training lapsed undisguisedly +into the Oriental. "Don't you <i>see</i> all you are throwing +away?" he squealed.</p> + +<p>"I suppose it's our quality to throw such things +away," said Trafford, when at last Solomonson's +point of view became clear to him. They had embarked +upon a long rambling discussion of that issue +of publication, a discussion they were now taking +up again. "When men dropped that idea of concealing +knowledge, alchemist gave place to chemist," +said Trafford, "and all that is worth having in modern +life, all that makes it better and safer and more +hopeful than the ancient life, began."</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow," said Solomonson, "I know, I +know. But to give away the synthesis of rubber! To +just shove it out of the window into the street! <i>Gare +l'eau!</i> O! And when you could do with so much +too!"....</p> + +<p>Now they resumed the divergent threads of that +Vevey talk.</p> + +<p>Solomonson had always entertained the warmest +friendship and admiration for Trafford, and it was +no new thing that he should desire a business co-operation. +He had been working for that in the old days +at Riplings; he had never altogether let the possibility +drop out of sight between them in spite of Trafford's +repudiations. He believed himself to be a +scientific man turned to business, but indeed his whole +passion was for organization and finance. He knew +he could do everything but originate, and in Trafford +he recognized just that rare combination of an +obstinate and penetrating simplicity with constructive +power which is the essential blend in the making +of great intellectual initiatives. To Trafford belonged +the secret of novel and unsuspected solutions;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">-349-</a></span> +what were fixed barriers and unsurmountable conditions +to trained investigators and commonplace minds, +would yield to his gift of magic inquiry. He could +startle the accepted error into self-betrayal. Other +men might play the game of business infinitely better +than he—Solomonson knew, indeed, quite well that +he himself could play the game infinitely better than +Trafford—but it rested with Trafford by right divine +of genius to alter the rules. If only he could be +induced to alter the rules secretly, unostentatiously, +on a business footing, instead of making catastrophic +plunges into publicity! And everything that had +made Trafford up to the day of his marriage was +antagonistic to such strategic reservations. The +servant of science has as such no concern with personal +consequences; his business is the steady, relentless +clarification of knowledge. The human affairs +he changes, the wealth he makes or destroys, are no +concern of his; once these things weigh with him, +become primary, he has lost his honour as a scientific +man.</p> + +<p>"But you <i>must</i> think of consequences," Solomonson +had cried during those intermittent talks at +Vevey. "Here you are, shying this cheap synthetic +rubber of yours into the world—for it's bound to be +cheap! any one can see that—like a bomb into a market-place. +What's the good of saying you don't care +about the market-place, that <i>your</i> business is just +to make bombs and drop them out of the window? +You smash up things just the same. Why! you'll +ruin hundreds and thousands of people, people living +on rubber shares, people working in plantations, old, +inadaptable workers in rubber works...."</p> + +<p>Sir Rupert was now still a little incredulous of +Trafford's change of purpose, and for a time argued +conceded points. Then slowly he came to the conditions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">-350-</a></span> +and methods of the new relationship. He +sketched out a scheme of co-operation and understandings +between his firm and Trafford, between +them both and his associated group in the city.</p> + +<p>Behrens was to have rope and produce his slump +in plantation shares, then Trafford was to publish +his criticism of Behrens, reserving only that catalytic +process which was his own originality, the process +that was to convert the inert, theoretically correct +synthetic rubber, with a mysterious difference in the +quality of its phases, into the real right thing. With +Behrens exploded, plantation shares would recover, +and while their friends in the city manipulated that, +Trafford would resign his professorship and engage +himself to an ostentatious promotion syndicate for +the investigation of synthetic rubber. His discovery +would follow immediately the group had cleared itself +of plantation shares; indeed he could begin planning +the necessary works forthwith; the large scale operations +in the process were to be protected as far as +possible by patents, but its essential feature, the +addition of a specific catalytic agent, could be safely +dealt with as a secret process.</p> + +<p>"I hate secrecy," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Business," interjected Solomonson, and went on +with his exposition of the relative advantages of +secrecy and patent rights. It was all a matter of +just how many people you had to trust. As that +number increased, the more and more advisable did +it become to put your cards on the table and risk the +complex uncertain protection of the patent law. +They went into elaborate calculations, clerks were +called upon to hunt up facts and prices, and the table +was presently littered with waste arithmetic.</p> + +<p>"I believe we can do the stuff at tenpence a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">-351-</a></span> +pound," said Solomonson, leaning back in his chair +at last, and rattling his fountain pen between his +teeth, "so soon, that is, as we deal in quantity. Tenpence! +We can lower the price and spread the market, +sixpence by sixpence. In the end—there won't +be any more plantations. Have to grow tea.... I +say, let's have an invalid dinner of chicken and champagne, +and go on with this. It's fascinating. You +can telephone."</p> + +<p>They dined together, and Solomonson on champagne +rather than chicken. His mind, which had +never shown an instant's fatigue, began to glow and +sparkle. This enterprise, he declared, was to be only +the first of a series of vigorous exploitations. The +whole thing warmed him. He would rather make ten +thousand by such developments, than a hundred +thousand by mere speculation. Trafford had but +scratched the surface of his mine of knowledge. +"Let's think of other things," said Sir Rupert Solomonson. +"Diamonds! No! They've got too many +tons stowed away already. A diamond now—it's an +absolutely artificial value. At any time a new discovery +and one wild proprietor might bust that show. +Lord!—diamonds! Metals? Of course you've worked +the colloids chiefly. I suppose there's been more +done in metals and alloys than anywhere. There's +a lot of other substances. Business has hardly begun +to touch substances yet, you know, Trafford—flexible +glass, for example, and things like that. So +far we've always taken substances for granted. On +our side, I mean. It's extraordinary how narrow the +outlook of business and finance is—still. It never +seems to lead to things, never thinks ahead. In this +case of rubber, for example——"</p> + +<p>"When men fight for their own hands and for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">-352-</a></span> +profit and position in the next ten years or so, I +suppose they tend to become narrow."</p> + +<p>"I suppose they must." Sir Rupert's face glowed +with a new idea, and his voice dropped a little lower. +"But what a pull they get, Trafford, if perhaps—they +don't, eh?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Trafford with a smile and a sigh, +"the other sort gets the pull."</p> + +<p>"Not <i>this</i> time," said Solomonson; "not with +you to spot processes and me to figure out the +cost—" he waved his hands to the litter that had +been removed to a side table—"and generally see +how the business end of things is going...." </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">BOOK THE THIRD</span><br /> +<br /> +<big>MARJORIE AT LONELY HUT</big></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIRST</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Successes</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>I find it hard to trace the accumulation of moods<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">-355-</a></span> +and feelings that led Trafford and Marjorie at last +to make their extraordinary raid upon Labrador. +In a week more things happen in the thoughts of +such a man as Trafford, changes, revocations, deflections, +than one can chronicle in the longest of +novels. I have already in an earlier passage of this +story sought to give an image of the confused content +of a modern human mind, but that pool was to +represent a girl of twenty, and Trafford now was +a man of nearly thirty-five, and touching life at a +hundred points for one of the undergraduate Marjorie's. +Perhaps that made him less confused, but it +certainly made him fuller. Let me attempt therefore +only the broad outline of his changes of purpose and +activity until I come to the crucial mood that made +these two lives a little worth telling about, amidst +the many thousands of such lives that people are living +to-day....</p> + +<p>It took him seven years from his conclusive agreement +with Solomonson to become a rich and influential +man. It took him only seven years, because already +by the mere accidents of intellectual interest +he was in possession of knowledge of the very greatest +economic importance, and because Solomonson +was full of that practical loyalty and honesty that +distinguishes his race. I think that in any case +Trafford's vigor and subtlety of mind would have +achieved the prosperity he had found necessary to +himself, but it might have been, under less favorable<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">-356-</a></span> +auspices, a much longer and more tortuous struggle. +Success and security were never so abundant nor so +easily attained by men with capacity and a sense of +proportion as they are in the varied and flexible +world of to-day. We live in an affluent age with a +nearly incredible continuous fresh increment of power +pouring in from mechanical invention, and compared +with our own, most other periods have been meagre +and anxious and hard-up times. Our problems are +constantly less the problems of submission and consolation +and continually more problems of opportunity....</p> + +<p>Trafford found the opening campaign, the operation +with the plantation shares and his explosion +of Behrens' pretensions extremely uncongenial. It +left upon his mind a confused series of memories of +interviews and talks in offices for the most part dingy +and slovenly, of bales of press-cuttings and blue-pencilled +financial publications, of unpleasing encounters +with a number of bright-eyed, flushed, excitable +and extremely cunning men, of having to be +reserved and limited in his talk upon all occasions, +and of all the worst aspects of Solomonson. All +that part of the new treatment of life that was to +make him rich gave him sensations as though he had +ceased to wash himself mentally, until he regretted +his old life in his laboratory as a traveller in a crowded +night train among filthy people might regret the +bathroom he had left behind him....</p> + +<p>But the development of his manufacture of rubber +was an entirely different business, and for a time +profoundly interesting. It took him into a new astonishing +world, the world of large-scale manufacture +and industrial organization. The actual planning +of the works was not in itself anything essentially +new to him. So far as all that went it was scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">-357-</a></span> +more than the problem of arranging an experiment +upon a huge and permanent scale, and all that quick +ingenuity, that freshness and directness of mind that +had made his purely scientific work so admirable had +ample and agreeable scope. Even the importance of +cost and economy at every point in the process involved +no system of considerations that was altogether +novel to him. The British investigator knows +only too well the necessity for husbanded material +and inexpensive substitutes. But strange factors +came in, a new region of interest was opened with +the fact that instead of one experimenter working +with the alert responsive assistance of Durgan, a multitude +of human beings—even in the first drafts of +his project they numbered already two hundred, before +the handling and packing could be considered—had +to watch, control, assist or perform every stage +in a long elaborate synthesis. For the first time in +his life Trafford encountered the reality of Labour, +as it is known to the modern producer.</p> + +<p>It will be difficult in the future, when things now +subtly or widely separated have been brought together +by the receding perspectives of time, for the +historian to realize just how completely out of the +thoughts of such a young man as Trafford the millions +of people who live and die in organized productive +industry had been. That vast world of toil and +weekly anxiety, ill-trained and stupidly directed +effort and mental and moral feebleness, had been as +much beyond the living circle of his experience as the +hosts of Genghis Khan or the social life of the Forbidden +City. Consider the limitations of his world. +In all his life hitherto he had never been beyond a +certain prescribed area of London's immensities, +except by the most casual and uninstructive straying. +He knew Chelsea and Kensington and the north bank<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">-358-</a></span> +and (as a boy) Battersea Park, and all the strip +between Kensington and Charing Cross, with some +scraps of the Strand as far as the Law Courts, a shop +or so in Tottenham Court Road and fragments about +the British Museum and Holborn and Regent's Park, +a range up Edgware Road to Maida Vale, the routes +west and south-west through Uxbridge and Putney +to the country, and Wimbledon Common and Putney +Heath. He had never been on Hampstead Heath nor +visited the Botanical Gardens nor gone down the +Thames below London Bridge, nor seen Sydenham +nor Epping Forest nor the Victoria Park. Take a +map and blot all he knew and see how vast is the area +left untouched. All industrial London, all wholesale +London, great oceans of human beings fall into +that excluded area. The homes he knew were comfortable +homes, the poor he knew were the parasitic +and dependent poor of the West, the shops, good +retail shops, the factories for the most part engaged +in dressmaking.</p> + +<p>Of course he had been informed about this vast +rest of London. He knew that as a matter of fact +it existed, was populous, portentous, puzzling. He +had heard of "slums," read "Tales of Mean Streets," +and marvelled in a shallow transitory way at such +wide wildernesses of life, apparently supported by +nothing at all in a state of grey, darkling but prolific +discomfort. Like the princess who wondered why +the people having no bread did not eat cake, he could +never clearly understand why the population remained +there, did not migrate to more attractive surroundings. +He had discussed the problems of those +wildernesses as young men do, rather confidently, +very ignorantly, had dismissed them, recurred to +them, and forgotten them amidst a press of other +interests, but now it all suddenly became real to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">-359-</a></span> +with the intensity of a startling and intimate contact. +He discovered this limitless, unknown, greater London, +this London of the majority, as if he had never +thought of it before. He went out to inspect favourable +sites in regions whose very names were unfamiliar +to him, travelled on dirty little intraurban railway +lines to hitherto unimagined railway stations, found +parks, churches, workhouses, institutions, public-houses, +canals, factories, gas-works, warehouses, +foundries and sidings, amidst a multitudinous +dinginess of mean houses, shabby back-yards, and +ill-kept streets. There seemed to be no limits to this +thread-bare side of London, it went on northward, +eastward, and over the Thames southward, for mile +after mile—endlessly. The factories and so forth +clustered in lines and banks upon the means of communication, +the homes stretched between, and infinitude +of parallelograms of grimy boxes with public-houses +at the corners and churches and chapels in +odd places, towering over which rose the council +schools, big, blunt, truncated-looking masses, the +means to an education as blunt and truncated, born +of tradition and confused purposes, achieving by accident +what they achieve at all.</p> + +<p>And about this sordid-looking wilderness went a +population that seemed at first as sordid. It was in +no sense a tragic population. But it saw little of +the sun, felt the wind but rarely, and so had a white, +dull skin that looked degenerate and ominous to a +West-end eye. It was not naked nor barefooted, but +it wore cheap clothes that were tawdry when new, +and speedily became faded, discoloured, dusty, and +draggled. It was slovenly and almost wilfully ugly +in its speech and gestures. And the food it ate was +rough and coarse if abundant, the eggs it consumed +"tasted"—everything "tasted"; its milk, its beer, its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">-360-</a></span> +bread was degraded by base adulterations, its meat +was hacked red stuff that hung in the dusty air until +it was sold; east of the city Trafford could find no +place where by his standards he could get a tolerable +meal tolerably served. The entertainment of this +eastern London was jingle, its religion clap-trap, its +reading feeble and sensational rubbish without kindliness +or breadth. And if this great industrial multitude +was neither tortured nor driven nor cruelly +treated—as the slaves and common people of other +days have been—yet it was universally anxious, perpetually +anxious about urgent small necessities and +petty dissatisfying things....</p> + +<p>That was the general effect of this new region in +which he had sought out and found the fortunate +site for his manufacture of rubber, and against this +background it was that he had now to encounter a +crowd of selected individuals, and weld them into a +harmonious and successful "process." They came out +from their millions to him, dingy, clumsy, and at +first it seemed without any individuality. Insensibly +they took on character, rounded off by unaccustomed +methods into persons as marked and distinctive as +any he had known.</p> + +<p>There was Dowd, for instance, the technical assistant, +whom he came to call in his private thoughts +Dowd the Disinherited. Dowd had seemed a rather +awkward, potentially insubordinate young man of +unaccountably extensive and curiously limited attainments. +He had begun his career in a crowded +home behind and above a baker's shop in Hoxton, he +had gone as a boy into the works of a Clerkenwell +electric engineer, and there he had developed that +craving for knowledge which is so common in poor +men of the energetic type. He had gone to classes, +read with a sort of fury, feeding his mind on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">-361-</a></span> +cheap and adulterated instruction of grant-earning +crammers and on stale, meretricious and ill-chosen +books; his mental food indeed was the exact parallel +of the rough, abundant, cheap and nasty groceries +and meat that gave the East-ender his spots +and dyspeptic complexion, the cheap text-books +were like canned meat and dangerous with intellectual +ptomaines, the rascally encyclopædias like +weak and whitened bread, and Dowd's mental +complexion, too, was leaden and spotted. Yet essentially +he wasn't, Trafford found, by any means +bad stuff; where his knowledge had had a chance of +touching reality it became admirable, and he was full +of energy in his work and a sort of honest zeal about +the things of the mind. The two men grew from an +acute mutual criticism into a mutual respect.</p> + +<p>At first it seemed to Trafford that when he met +Dowd he was only meeting Dowd, but a time came +when it seemed to him that in meeting Dowd he was +meeting all that vast new England outside the range +of ruling-class dreams, that multitudinous greater +England, cheaply treated, rather out of health, angry, +energetic and now becoming intelligent and +critical, that England which organized industrialism +has created. There were nights when he thought +for hours about Dowd. Other figures grouped themselves +round him—Markham, the head clerk, the +quintessence of East-end respectability, who saw to +the packing; Miss Peckover, an ex-telegraph operator, +a woman so entirely reliable and unobservant +that the most betraying phase of the secret process +could be confidently entrusted to her hands. Behind +them were clerks, workmen, motor-van men, work-girls, +a crowd of wage-earners, from amidst which +some individual would assume temporary importance +and interest by doing something wrong, getting into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">-362-</a></span> +trouble, becoming insubordinate, and having contributed +a little vivid story to Trafford's gathering +impressions of life, drop back again into undistinguished +subordination.</p> + +<p>Dowd became at last entirely representative.</p> + +<p>When first Trafford looked Dowd in the eye, he +met something of the hostile interest one might encounter +in a swordsman ready to begin a duel. There +was a watchfulness, an immense reserve. They discussed +the work and the terms of their relationship, +and all the while Trafford felt there was something +almost threateningly not mentioned.</p> + +<p>Presently he learnt from a Silvertown employer +what that concealed aspect was. Dowd was "that +sort of man who makes trouble," disposed to strike +rather than not upon a grievance, with a taste for +open-air meetings, a member, obstinately adherent +in spite of friendly remonstrance, of the Social Democratic +Party. This in spite of his clear duty to a +wife and two small white knobby children. For a +time he would not talk to Trafford of anything but +business—Trafford was so manifestly the enemy, not +to be trusted, the adventurous plutocrat, the exploiter—when +at last Dowd did open out he did so +defiantly, throwing opinions at Trafford as a mob +might hurl bricks at windows. At last they achieved +a sort of friendship and understanding, an amiability +as it were, in hostility, but never from first to last +would he talk to Trafford as one gentleman to another; +between them, and crossed only by flimsy, temporary +bridges, was his sense of incurable grievances +and fundamental injustice. He seemed incapable of +forgetting the disadvantages of his birth and upbringing, +the inferiority and disorder of the house that +sheltered him, the poor food that nourished him, the +deadened air he breathed, the limited leisure, the inadequate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">-363-</a></span> +books. Implicit in his every word and act +was the assurance that but for this handicap he +could have filled Trafford's place, while Trafford +would certainly have failed in his.</p> + +<p>For all these things Dowd made Trafford responsible; +he held him to that inexorably.</p> + +<p>"<i>You</i> sweat us," he said, speaking between his +teeth; "<i>you</i> limit us, <i>you</i> stifle us, and away there in +the West-end, <i>you</i> and the women you keep waste +the plunder."</p> + +<p>Trafford attempted palliation. "After all," he +said, "it's not me so particularly——"</p> + +<p>"But it is," said Dowd.</p> + +<p>"It's the system things go upon."</p> + +<p>"You're the responsible part of it. <i>You</i> have +freedom, <i>you</i> have power and endless opportunity—"</p> + +<p>Trafford shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p>"It's because your sort wants too much," said +Dowd, "that my sort hasn't enough."</p> + +<p>"Tell me how to organize things better."</p> + +<p>"Much you'd care. They'll organize themselves. +Everything is drifting to class separation, the +growing discontent, the growing hardship of the +masses.... Then you'll see."</p> + +<p>"Then what's going to happen?"</p> + +<p>"Overthrow. And social democracy."</p> + +<p>"How is that going to work?"</p> + +<p>Dowd had been cornered by that before. "I don't +care if it <i>doesn't</i> work," he snarled, "so long as we +smash up this. We're getting too sick to care what +comes after."</p> + +<p>"Dowd," said Trafford abruptly, "<i>I'm</i> not so +satisfied with things."</p> + +<p>Dowd looked at him askance. "You'll get reconciled +to it," he said. "It's ugly here—but it's all +right there—at the spending end.... Your sort<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">-364-</a></span> +has got to grab, your sort has got to spend—until +the thing works out and the social revolution makes +an end of you."</p> + +<p>"And then?"</p> + +<p>Dowd became busy with his work.</p> + +<p>Trafford stuck his hands in his pockets and stared +out of the dingy factory window.</p> + +<p>"I don't object so much to your diagnosis," he +said, "as to your remedy. It doesn't strike me as a +remedy."</p> + +<p>"It's an end," said Dowd, "anyhow. My God! +When I think of all the women and shirkers flaunting +and frittering away there in the West, while here men +and women toil and worry and starve...." He +stopped short like one who feels too full for controlled +speech.</p> + +<p>"Dowd," said Trafford after a fair pause, "What +would you do if you were me?"</p> + +<p>"Do?" said Dowd.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Trafford as one who reconsiders +it, "what would you do?"</p> + +<p>"Now that's a curious question, Mr. Trafford," +said Dowd, turning to regard him. "Meaning—if I +were in your place?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Trafford. "What would you do in +my place?"</p> + +<p>"I should sell out of this place jolly quick," he +said.</p> + +<p>"<i>Sell!</i>" said Trafford softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes—sell. And start a socialist daily right +off. An absolutely independent, unbiassed socialist +daily."</p> + +<p>"And what would that do?"</p> + +<p>"It would stir people up. Every day it would stir +people up."</p> + +<p>"But you see I can't edit. I haven't the money<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">-365-</a></span> +for half a year of a socialist daily.... And meanwhile +people want rubber."</p> + +<p>Dowd shook his head. "You mean that you and +your wife want to have the spending of six or eight +thousand a year," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't make half of that," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"Well—half of that," pressed Dowd. "It's all the +same to me."</p> + +<p>Trafford reflected. "The point where I don't +agree with you," he said, "is in supposing that my +scale of living—over there, is directly connected +with the scale of living—about here."</p> + +<p>"Well, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"'Directly,' I said. No. If we just stopped it—over +there—there'd be no improvement here. In +fact, for a time it would mean dislocations. It might +mean permanent, hopeless, catastrophic dislocation. +You know that as well as I do. Suppose the West-end +became—Tolstoyan; the East would become +chaos."</p> + +<p>"Not much likelihood," sneered Dowd.</p> + +<p>"That's another question. That we earn together +here and that I spend alone over there, it's +unjust and bad, but it isn't a thing that admits of +any simple remedy. Where we differ, Dowd, is about +that remedy. I admit the disease as fully as you do. +I, as much as you, want to see the dawn of a great +change in the ways of human living. But I don't +think the diagnosis is complete and satisfactory; our +problem is an intricate muddle of disorders, not one +simple disorder, and I don't see what treatment is +indicated."</p> + +<p>"Socialism," said Dowd, "is indicated."</p> + +<p>"You might as well say that health is indicated," +said Trafford with a note of impatience in his voice. +"Does any one question that if we could have this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">-366-</a></span> +socialist state in which every one is devoted and +every one is free, in which there is no waste and no +want, and beauty and brotherhood prevail universally, +we wouldn't? But——. You socialists have +no scheme of government, no scheme of economic organization, +no intelligible guarantees of personal +liberty, no method of progress, no ideas about marriage, +no plan—except those little pickpocket plans +of the Fabians that you despise as much as I do—for +making this order into that other order you've +never yet taken the trouble to work out even in principle. +Really you know, Dowd, what is the good of +pointing at my wife's dresses and waving the red flag +at me, and talking of human miseries——"</p> + +<p>"It seems to wake you up a bit," said Dowd with +characteristic irrelevance.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>The accusing finger of Dowd followed Trafford +into his dreams.</p> + +<p>Behind it was his grey-toned, intelligent, resentful +face, his smouldering eyes, his slightly frayed +collar and vivid, ill-chosen tie. At times Trafford +could almost hear his flat insistent voice, his measured +h-less speech. Dowd was so penetratingly right,—and +so ignorant of certain essentials, so wrong in his +forecasts and ultimates. It was true beyond disputing +that Trafford as compared with Dowd had opportunity, +power of a sort, the prospect and possibility +of leisure. He admitted the liability that followed +on that advantage. It expressed so entirely +the spirit of his training that with Trafford the noble +maxim of the older socialists; "from each according +to his ability, to each according to his need,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">-367-</a></span> +received an intuitive acquiescence. He had no more +doubt than Dowd that Dowd was the victim of a subtle +evasive injustice, innocently and helplessly underbred, +underfed, cramped and crippled, and that all +his own surplus made him in a sense Dowd's debtor.</p> + +<p>But Dowd's remedies!</p> + +<p>Trafford made himself familiar with the socialist +and labor newspapers, and he was as much impressed +by their honest resentments and their enthusiastic +hopefulness as he was repelled by their haste and ignorance, +their cocksure confidence in untried reforms +and impudent teachers, their indiscriminating progressiveness, +their impulsive lapses into hatred, misrepresentation +and vehement personal abuse. He +was in no mood for the humours of human character, +and he found the ill-masked feuds and jealousies of the +leaders, the sham statecraft of G. B. Magdeberg, +M.P., the sham Machiavellism of Dorvil, the sham +persistent good-heartedness of Will Pipes, discouraging +and irritating. Altogether it seemed to him the +conscious popular movement in politics, both in and +out of Parliament, was a mere formless and indeterminate +aspiration. It was a confused part of the +general confusion, symptomatic perhaps, but exercising +no controls and no direction.</p> + +<p>His attention passed from the consideration of +this completely revolutionary party to the general +field of social reform. With the naïve directness of +a scientific man, he got together the published literature +of half a dozen flourishing agitations and philanthropies, +interviewed prominent and rather embarrassed personages, +attended meetings, and when +he found the speeches too tiresome to follow watched +the audience about him. He even looked up Aunt +Plessington's Movement, and filled her with wild +hopes and premature boastings about a promising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">-368-</a></span> +convert. "Marjorie's brought him round at last!" +said Aunt Plessington. "I knew I could trust my +little Madge!" His impression was not the cynic's +impression of these wide shallows of activity. Progress +and social reform are not, he saw, mere cloaks +of hypocrisy; a wealth of good intention lies behind +them in spite of their manifest futility. There is +much dishonesty due to the blundering desire for consistency +in people of hasty intention, much artless +and a little calculated self-seeking, but far more vanity +and amiable feebleness of mind in their general +attainment of failure. The Plessingtons struck him +as being after all very typical of the publicist at +large, quite devoted, very industrious, extremely presumptuous +and essentially thin-witted. They would +cheat like ill-bred children for example, on some petty +point of reputation, but they could be trusted to expend, +ineffectually indeed, but with the extremest +technical integrity, whatever sums of money their adherents +could get together....</p> + +<p>He emerged from this inquiry into the proposed +remedies and palliatives for Dowd's wrongs with a +better opinion of people's hearts and a worse one of +their heads than he had hitherto entertained.</p> + +<p>Pursuing this line of thought he passed from the +politicians and practical workers to the economists +and sociologists. He spent the entire leisure of the +second summer after the establishment of the factory +upon sociological and economic literature. At the +end of that bout of reading he attained a vivid realization +of the garrulous badness that rules in this field +of work, and the prevailing slovenliness and negligence +in regard to it. He chanced one day to look +up the article on Socialism in the new Encyclopædia +Britannica, and found in its entire failure to state +the case for or against modern Socialism, to trace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">-369-</a></span> +its origins, or to indicate any rational development +in the movement, a symptom of the universal laxity +of interest in these matters. Indeed, the writer did +not appear to have heard of modern Socialism at all; +he discussed collective and individualist methods very +much as a rather ill-read schoolgirl in a hurry for her +college debating society might have done. Compared +with the treatment of engineering or biological science +in the same compilation, this article became almost +symbolical of the prevailing habitual incompetence +with which all this system of questions is still handled. +The sciences were done scantily and carelessly +enough, but they admitted at any rate the possibility +of completeness; this did not even pretend to +thoroughness.</p> + +<p>One might think such things had no practical +significance. And at the back of it all was Dowd, +remarkably more impatient each year, confessing the +failure of parliamentary methods, of trades unionism, +hinting more and more plainly at the advent of +a permanent guerilla war against capital, at the general +strike and sabotage.</p> + +<p>"It's coming to that," said Dowd; "it's coming to +that."</p> + +<p>"<i>What's the good of it?</i>" he said, echoing Trafford's +words. "It's a sort of relief to the feelings. +Why shouldn't we?"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>But you must not suppose that at any time these +huge grey problems of our social foundations and the +riddle of intellectual confusion one reaches through +them, and the yet broader riddles of human purpose +that open beyond, constitute the whole of Trafford's +life during this time. When he came back to Marjorie<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">-370-</a></span> +and his home, a curtain of unreality fell between him +and all these things. It was as if he stepped through +such boundaries as Alice passed to reach her Wonderland; +the other world became a dream again; as +if he closed the pages of a vivid book and turned to +things about him. Or again it was as if he drew +down the blind of a window that gave upon a landscape, +grave, darkling, ominous, and faced the warm +realities of a brightly illuminated room....</p> + +<p>In a year or so he had the works so smoothly +organized and Dowd so reconciled, trained and encouraged +that his own daily presence was unnecessary, +and he would go only three and then only two +mornings a week to conduct those secret phases in +the preparation of his catalytic that even Dowd could +not be trusted to know. He reverted more and more +completely to his own proper world.</p> + +<p>And the first shock of discovering that greater +London which "isn't in it" passed away by imperceptible +degrees. Things that had been as vivid and +startling as new wounds became unstimulating and +ineffective with repetition. He got used to the change +from Belgravia to East Ham, from East Ham to Belgravia. +He fell in with the unusual persuasion in +Belgravia, that, given a firm and prompt Home +Secretary, East Ham could be trusted to go on—for +quite a long time anyhow. One cannot sit down for +all one's life in the face of insoluble problems. He +had a motor-car now that far outshone Magnet's, +and he made the transit from west to east in the +minimum of time and with the minimum of friction. +It ceased to be more disconcerting that he should have +workers whom he could dismiss at a week's notice to +want or prostitution than that he should have a servant +waiting behind his chair. Things were so. The +main current of his life—and the main current of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">-371-</a></span> +life flowed through Marjorie and his home—carried +him on. Rubber was his, but there were still limitless +worlds to conquer. He began to take up, working +under circumstances of considerable secrecy at +Solomonson's laboratories at Riplings, to which he +would now go by motor-car for two or three days at +a time, the possibility of a cheap, resilient and very +tough substance, rubber glass, that was to be, Solomonson +was assured, the road surface of the future.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>The confidence of Solomonson had made it impossible +for Trafford to alter his style of living almost +directly upon the conclusion of their agreement. He +went back to Marjorie to broach a financially emancipated +phase. They took a furnished house at +Shackleford, near Godalming in Surrey, and there +they lived for nearly a year—using their Chelsea +home only as a town apartment for Trafford when +business held him in London. And there it was, in +the pretty Surrey country, with the sweet air of pine +and heather in Marjorie's blood, that their second +child was born. It was a sturdy little boy, whose +only danger in life seemed to be the superfluous +energy with which he resented its slightest disrespect +of his small but important requirements.</p> + +<p>When it was time for Marjorie to return to London, +spring had come round again, and Trafford's +conceptions of life were adapting themselves to the +new scale upon which they were now to do things. +While he was busy creating his factory in the East +End, Marjorie was displaying an equal if a less original +constructive energy in Sussex Square, near Lancaster +Gate, for there it was the new home was to be +established. She set herself to furnish and arrange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">-372-</a></span> +it so as to produce the maximum of surprise and chagrin +in Daphne, and she succeeded admirably. The +Magnets now occupied a flat in Whitehall Court, the +furniture Magnet had insisted upon buying himself +with all the occult cunning of the humorist in these +matters, and not even Daphne could blind herself to +the superiority both in arrangement and detail of +Marjorie's home. That was very satisfactory, and +so too was the inevitable exaggeration of Trafford's +financial importance. "He can do what he likes in +the rubber world," said Marjorie. "In Mincing +Lane, where they deal in rubber shares, they used to +call him and Sir Rupert the invaders; now they call +them the Conquering Heroes.... Of course, it's +mere child's play to Godwin, but, as he said, 'We +want money.' It won't really interfere with his more +important interests...."</p> + +<p>I do not know why both those sisters were more +vulgarly competitive with each other than with any +one else; I have merely to record the fact that they +were so.</p> + +<p>The effect upon the rest of Marjorie's family was +equally gratifying. Mr. Pope came to the house-warming +as though he had never had the slightest +objection to Trafford's antecedents, and told him +casually after dinner that Marjorie had always been +his favourite daughter, and that from the first he had +expected great things of her. He told Magnet, who +was the third man of the party, that he only hoped +Syd and Rom would do as well as their elder sisters. +Afterwards, in the drawing-room, he whacked Marjorie +suddenly and very startlingly on the shoulder-blade—it +was the first bruise he had given her since +Buryhamstreet days. "You've made a man of him, +Maggots," he said.</p> + +<p>The quiet smile of the Christian Scientist was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">-373-</a></span> +becoming now the fixed expression of Mrs. Pope's +face, and it scarcely relaxed for a moment as she +surveyed her daughter's splendours. She had triumphantly +refused to worry over a rather serious +speculative disappointment, but her faith in her prophet's +spiritual power had been strengthened rather +than weakened by the manifest insufficiency of his +financial prestidigitations, and she was getting +through life quite radiantly now, smiling at (but not, +of course, giving way to) beggars, smiling at toothaches +and headaches, both her own and other people's, +smiling away doubts, smiling away everything +that bows the spirit of those who are still in the bonds +of the flesh....</p> + +<p>Afterwards the children came round, Syd and +Rom now with skirts down and hair up, and rather +stiff in the fine big rooms, and Theodore in a high +collar and very anxious to get Trafford on his side +in his ambition to chuck a proposed bank clerkship +and go in for professional aviation....</p> + +<p>It was pleasant to be respected by her family +again, but the mind of Marjorie was soon reaching +out to the more novel possibilities of her changed +position. She need no longer confine herself to teas +and afternoons. She could now, delightful thought! +give dinners. Dinners are mere vulgarities for the +vulgar, but in the measure of your brains does a dinner +become a work of art. There is the happy blending +of a modern and distinguished simplicity with a +choice of items essentially good and delightful and +just a little bit not what was expected. There is the +still more interesting and difficult blending and arrangement +of the diners. From the first Marjorie +resolved on a round table, and the achievement of that +rare and wonderful thing, general conversation. She +had a clear centre, with a circle of silver bowls filled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">-374-</a></span> +with short cut flowers and low shaded, old silver +candlesticks adapted to the electric light. The first +dinner was a nervous experience for her, but happily +Trafford seemed unconscious of the importance of +the occasion and talked very easily and well; at last +she attained her old ambition to see Sir Roderick +Dover in her house, and there was Remington, the +editor of the <i>Blue Weekly</i> and his silent gracious +wife; Edward Crampton, the historian, full of surprising +new facts about Kosciusko; the Solomonsons +and Mrs. Millingham, and Mary Gasthorne the novelist. +It was a good talking lot. Remington sparred +agreeably with the old Toryism of Dover, flank attacks +upon them both were delivered by Mrs. Millingham +and Trafford, Crampton instanced Hungarian +parallels, and was happily averted by Mary Gasthorne +with travel experiences in the Carpathians; +the diamonds of Lady Solomonson and Mrs. Remington +flashed and winked across the shining table, as +their wearers listened with unmistakable intelligence, +and when the ladies had gone upstairs Sir Rupert +Solomonson told all the men exactly what he thought +of the policy of the <i>Blue Weekly</i>, a balanced, common-sense +judgment. Upstairs Lady Solomonson betrayed +a passion of admiration for Mrs. Remington, and +Mrs. Millingham mumbled depreciation of the same +lady's intelligence in Mary Gasthorne's unwilling +ear. "She's <i>passive</i>," said Mrs. Millingham. "She +bores him...."</p> + +<p>For a time Marjorie found dinner-giving delightful—it +is like picking and arranging posies of human +flowers—and fruits—and perhaps a little dried +grass, and it was not long before she learnt that she +was esteemed a success as a hostess. She gathered +her earlier bunches in the Carmel and Solomonson +circle, with a stiffening from among the literary and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">-375-</a></span> +scientific friends of Trafford and his mother, and one +or two casual and undervalued blossoms from Aunt +Plessington's active promiscuities. She had soon a +gaily flowering garden of her own to pick from. Its +strength and finest display lay in its increasing proportion +of political intellectuals, men in and about the +House who relaxed their minds from the tense detailed +alertness needed in political intrigues by conversation +that rose at times to the level of the smarter +sort of article in the half-crown reviews. The women +were more difficult than the men, and Marjorie found +herself wishing at times that girl novelists and playwrights +were more abundant, or women writers on +the average younger. These talked generally well, +and one or two capable women of her own type talked +and listened with an effect of talking; so many other +women either chattered disturbingly, or else did not +listen, with an effect of not talking at all, and so made +gaps about the table. Many of these latter had to be +asked because they belonged to the class of inevitable +wives, <i>sine-qua-nons</i>, and through them she learnt the +value of that priceless variety of kindly unselfish men +who can create the illusion of attentive conversation +in the most uncomfortable and suspicious natures +without producing backwater and eddy in the general +flow of talk.</p> + +<p>Indisputably Marjorie's dinners were successful. +Of course, the abundance and æsthetic achievements +of Mrs. Lee still seemed to her immeasurably out of +reach, but it was already possible to show Aunt +Plessington how the thing ought really to be done, +Aunt Plessington with her narrow, lank, austerely +served table, with a sort of quarter-deck at her own +end and a subjugated forecastle round Hubert. And +accordingly the Plessingtons were invited and shown, +and to a party, too, that restrained Aunt Plessington<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">-376-</a></span> +from her usual conversational prominence....</p> + +<p>These opening years of Trafford's commercial +phase were full of an engaging activity for Marjorie +as for him, and for her far more completely than for +him were the profounder solicitudes of life lost sight +of in the bright succession of immediate events.</p> + +<p>Marjorie did not let her social development interfere +with her duty to society in the larger sense. Two +years after the vigorous and resentful Godwin came +a second son, and a year and a half later a third. +"That's enough," said Marjorie, "now we've got to +rear them." The nursery at Sussex Square had always +been a show part of the house, but it became +her crowning achievement. She had never forgotten +the Lee display at Vevey, the shining splendours of +modern maternity, the books, the apparatus, the +space and light and air. The whole second floor was +altered to accommodate these four triumphant beings, +who absorbed the services of two nurses, a Swiss nursery +governess and two housemaids—not to mention +those several hundred obscure individuals who were +yielding a sustaining profit in the East End. At any +rate, they were very handsome and promising children, +and little Margharita could talk three languages +with a childish fluency, and invent and write a short +fable in either French or German—with only as much +misspelling as any child of eight may be permitted....</p> + +<p>Then there sprang up a competition between +Marjorie and the able, pretty wife of Halford Wallace, +most promising of under-secretaries. They gave +dinners against each other, they discovered young +artists against each other, they went to first-nights +and dressed against each other. Marjorie was ruddy +and tall, Mrs. Halford Wallace dark and animated; +Halford Wallace admired Marjorie, Trafford was insensible +to Mrs. Halford Wallace. They played for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">-377-</a></span> +points so vague that it was impossible for any one +to say which was winning, but none the less they +played like artists, for all they were worth....</p> + +<p>Trafford's rapid prosperity and his implicit +promise of still wider activities and successes brought +him innumerable acquaintances and many friends. +He joined two or three distinguished clubs, he derived +an uncertain interest from a series of week-end visits +to ample, good-mannered households, and for a time +he found a distraction in little flashes of travel to +countries that caught at his imagination, Morocco, +Montenegro, Southern Russia.</p> + +<p>I do not know whether Marjorie might not have +been altogether happy during this early Sussex +Square period, if it had not been for an unconquerable +uncertainty about Trafford. But ever and again +she became vaguely apprehensive of some perplexing +unreality in her position. She had never had any +such profundity of discontent as he experienced. It +was nothing clear, nothing that actually penetrated, +distressing her. It was at most an uneasiness. For +him the whole fabric of life was, as it were, torn and +pieced by a provocative sense of depths unplumbed +that robbed it of all its satisfactions. For her these +glimpses were as yet rare, mere moments of doubt +that passed again and left her active and assured.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>It was only after they had been married six or +seven years that Trafford began to realize how widely +his attitudes to Marjorie varied. He emerged +slowly from a naïve unconsciousness of his fluctuations,—a +naïve unconsciousness of inconsistency +that for most men and women remains throughout +life. His ruling idea that she and he were friends,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">-378-</a></span> +equals, confederates, knowing everything about each +other, co-operating in everything, was very fixed +and firm. But indeed that had become the remotest +rendering of their relationship. Their lives were lives +of intimate disengagement. They came nearest to +fellowship in relation to their children; there they +shared an immense common pride. Beyond that +was a less confident appreciation of their common +house and their joint effect. And then they liked +and loved each other tremendously. They could play +upon each other and please each other in a hundred +different ways, and they did so, quite consciously, +observing each other with the completest externality. +She was still in many ways for him the bright +girl he had admired in the examination, still the mysterious +dignified transfiguration of that delightful +creature on the tragically tender verge of motherhood; +these memories were of more power with him +than the present realities of her full-grown strength +and capacity. He petted and played with the girl +still; he was still tender and solicitous for that early +woman. He admired and co-operated also with the +capable, narrowly ambitious, beautiful lady into +which Marjorie had developed, but those remoter experiences +it was that gave the deeper emotions to +their relationship.</p> + +<p>The conflict of aims that had at last brought +Trafford from scientific investigation into business, +had left behind it a little scar of hostility. +He felt his sacrifice. He felt that he had given something +for her that she had had no right to exact, +that he had gone beyond the free mutualities of +honest love and paid a price for her; he had deflected +the whole course of his life for her and he was +entitled to repayments. Unconsciously he had become +a slightly jealous husband. He resented inattentions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">-379-</a></span> +and absences. He felt she ought to be with +him and orient all her proceedings towards him. He +did not like other people to show too marked an appreciation +of her. She had a healthy love of admiration, +and in addition her social ambitions made +it almost inevitable that at times she should use her +great personal charm to secure and retain adherents. +He was ashamed to betray the resentments thus +occasioned, and his silence widened the separation +more than any protest could have done....</p> + +<p>For his own part he gave her no cause for a reciprocal +jealousy. Other women did not excite his +imagination very greatly, and he had none of the +ready disposition to lapse to other comforters which +is so frequent a characteristic of the husband out of +touch with his life's companion. He was perhaps +an exceptional man in his steadfast loyalty to his +wife. He had come to her as new to love as she had +been. He had never in his life taken that one decisive +illicit step which changes all the aspects of +sexual life for a man even more than for a woman. +Love for him was a thing solemn, simple, and unspoilt. +He perceived that it was not so for most +other men, but that did little to modify his own private +attitude. In his curious scrutiny of the people +about him, he did not fail to note the drift of adventures +and infidelities that glimmers along beneath +the even surface of our social life. One or two of his +intimate friends, Solomonson was one of them, passed +through "affairs." Once or twice those dim proceedings +splashed upward to the surface in an open +scandal. There came Remington's startling elopement +with Isabel Rivers, the writer, which took two +brilliant and inspiring contemporaries suddenly and +distressingly out of Trafford's world. Trafford +felt none of that rage and forced and jealous contempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">-380-</a></span> +for the delinquents in these matters which is +common in the ill-regulated, virtuous mind. Indeed, +he was far more sympathetic with than hostile to the +offenders. He had brains and imagination to appreciate +the grim pathos of a process that begins as a +hopeful quest, full of the suggestion of noble possibilities, +full of the craving for missed intensities of +fellowship and realization, that loiters involuntarily +towards beauties and delights, and ends at last too +often after gratification of an appetite, in artificially +hideous exposures, and the pelting misrepresentations +of the timidly well-behaved vile. But the general effect +of pitiful evasions, of unavoidable meannesses, of +draggled heroics and tortuously insincere explanations +confirmed him in his aversion from this labyrinthine +trouble of extraneous love....</p> + +<p>But if Trafford was a faithful husband, he ceased +to be a happy and confident one. There grew up in +him a vast hinterland of thoughts and feelings, an accumulation +of unspoken and largely of unformulated +things in which his wife had no share. And it was in +that hinterland that his essential self had its abiding +place....</p> + +<p>It came as a discovery; it remained for ever after +a profoundly disturbing perplexity that he had talked +to Marjorie most carelessly, easily and seriously, +during their courtship and their honeymoon. He +remembered their early intercourse now as an immense +happy freedom in love. Then afterwards a +curtain had fallen. That almost delirious sense of +escaping from oneself, of having at last found some +one from whom there need be no concealment, some +one before whom one could stand naked-souled and assured +of love as one stands before one's God, faded so +that he scarce observed its passing, but only discovered +at last that it had gone. He misunderstood and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">-381-</a></span> +met misunderstanding. He found he could hurt her +by the things he said, and be exquisitely hurt by her +failure to apprehend the spirit of some ill-expressed +intention. And it was so vitally important not to +hurt, not to be hurt. At first he only perceived that +he reserved himself; then there came the intimation +of the question, was she also perhaps in such another +hinterland as his, keeping herself from him?</p> + +<p>He had perceived the cessation of that first bright +outbreak of self-revelation, this relapse into the secrecies +of individuality, quite early in their married +life. I have already told of his first efforts to bridge +their widening separation by walks and talks in the +country, and by the long pilgrimage among the Alps +that had ended so unexpectedly at Vevey. In the +retrospect the years seemed punctuated with phases +when "we must talk" dominated their intercourse, +and each time the impulse of that recognized need +passed away by insensible degrees again—with nothing +said.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Marjorie cherished an obstinate hope that Trafford +would take up political questions and go into +Parliament. It seemed to her that there was something +about him altogether graver and wider than +most of the active politicians she knew. She liked +to think of those gravities assuming a practical form, +of Trafford very rapidly and easily coming forward +into a position of cardinal significance. It gave her +general expenditure a quality of concentration without +involving any uncongenial limitation to suppose +it aimed at the preparation of a statesman's circle +whenever Trafford chose to adopt that assumption. +Little men in great positions came to her house and +talked with opaque self-confidence at her table; she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">-382-</a></span> +measured them against her husband while she played +the admiring female disciple to their half-confidential +talk. She felt that he could take up these questions +and measures that they reduced to trite twaddle, open +the wide relevancies behind them, and make them magically +significant, sweep away the encrusting pettiness, +the personalities and arbitrary prejudices. But +why didn't he begin to do it? She threw out hints he +seemed blind towards, she exercised miracles of +patience while he ignored her baits. She came near +intrigue in her endeavor to entangle him in political +affairs. For a time it seemed to her that she was succeeding—I +have already told of his phase of inquiry +and interest in socio-political work—and then he relapsed +into a scornful restlessness, and her hopes +weakened again.</p> + +<p>But he could not concentrate his mind, he could +not think where to begin. Day followed day, each +with its attacks upon his intention, its petty just +claims, its attractive novelties of aspect. The telephone +bell rang, the letters flopped into the hall, Malcom +the butler seemed always at hand with some distracting +oblong on his salver. Dowd was developing +ideas for a reconstructed organization of the factory, +Solomonson growing enthusiastic about rubber-glass, +his house seemed full of women, Marjorie +had an engagement for him to keep or the children +were coming in to say good-night. To his irritated +brain the whole scheme of his life presented itself at +last as a tissue of interruptions which prevented his +looking clearly at reality. More and more definitely +he realized he wanted to get away and think. His +former life of research became invested with an effect +of immense dignity and of a steadfast singleness +of purpose....</p> + +<p>But Trafford was following his own lights, upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">-383-</a></span> +his own lines. He was returning to that faith in the +supreme importance of thought and knowledge, upon +which he had turned his back when he left pure +research behind him. To that familiar end he came +by an unfamiliar route, after his long, unsatisfying +examination of social reform movements and social +and political theories. Immaturity, haste and presumption +vitiated all that region, and it seemed to +him less and less disputable that the only escape for +mankind from a continuing extravagant futility lay +through the attainment of a quite unprecedented +starkness and thoroughness of thinking about all +these questions. This conception of a needed Renascence +obsessed him more and more, and the persuasion, +deeply felt if indistinctly apprehended, that +somewhere in such an effort there was a part for him +to play....</p> + +<p>Life is too great for us or too petty. It gives us +no tolerable middle way between baseness and greatness. +We must die daily on the levels of ignoble compromise +or perish tragically among the precipices. +On the one hand is a life—unsatisfying and secure, +a plane of dulled gratifications, mean advantages, +petty triumphs, adaptations, acquiescences and submissions, +and on the other a steep and terrible climb, +set with sharp stones and bramble thickets and the +possibilities of grotesque dislocations, and the snares +of such temptation as comes only to those whose minds +have been quickened by high desire, and the challenge +of insoluble problems and the intimations of issues +so complex and great, demanding such a nobility of +purpose, such a steadfastness, alertness and openness +of mind, that they fill the heart of man with +despair....</p> + +<p>There were moods when Trafford would, as people say,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">-384-</a></span> +pull himself together, and struggle with his +gnawing discontent. He would compare his lot with +that of other men, reproach himself for a monstrous +greed and ingratitude. He remonstrated with himself +as one might remonstrate with a pampered child +refusing to be entertained by a whole handsome nursery +full of toys. Other men did their work in the +world methodically and decently, did their duty by +their friends and belongings, were manifestly patient +through dullness, steadfastly cheerful, ready to meet +vexations with a humorous smile, and grateful for +orderly pleasures. Was he abnormal? Or was he in +some unsuspected way unhealthy? Trafford neglected +no possible explanations. Did he want this great +Renascence of the human mind because he was suffering +from some subtle form of indigestion? He invoked, +independently of each other, the aid of two +distinguished specialists. They both told him in exactly +the same voice and with exactly the same air +of guineas well earned: "What you want, Mr. Trafford, +is a change."</p> + +<p>Trafford brought his mind to bear upon the instances +of contentment about him. He developed an +opinion that all men and many women were potentially +at least as restless as himself. A huge proportion +of the usage and education in modern life +struck upon him now as being a training in contentment. +Or rather in keeping quiet and not upsetting +things. The serious and responsible life of an ordinary +prosperous man fulfilling the requirements +of our social organization fatigues and neither completely +satisfies nor completely occupies. Still less +does the responsible part of the life of a woman of +the prosperous classes engage all her energies or +hold her imagination. And there has grown up a +great informal organization of employments, games,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">-385-</a></span> +ceremonies, social routines, travel, to consume these +surplus powers and excessive cravings, which might +otherwise change or shatter the whole order of human +living. He began to understand the forced preoccupation +with cricket and golf, the shooting, visiting, and +so forth, to which the young people of the economically +free classes in the community are trained. He +discovered a theory for hobbies and specialized interests. +He began to see why people go to Scotland to +get away from London, and come to London to get +away from Scotland, why they crowd to and fro +along the Riviera, swarm over Switzerland, shoot, +yacht, hunt, and maintain an immense apparatus of +racing and motoring. Because so they are able to remain +reasonably contented with the world as it is. He +perceived, too, that a man who has missed or broken +through the training to this kind of life, does not +again very readily subdue himself to the security of +these systematized distractions. His own upbringing +had been antipathetic to any such adaptations; his +years of research had given him the habit of naked +intimacy with truth, filled him with a craving for +reality and the destructive acids of a relentless critical +method.</p> + +<p>He began to understand something of the psychology +of vice, to comprehend how small a part mere +sensuality, how large a part the spirit of adventure +and the craving for illegality, may play, in the career +of those who are called evil livers. Mere animal impulses +and curiosities it had always seemed possible +to him to control, but now he was beginning to apprehend +the power of that passion for escape, at any +cost, in any way, from the petty, weakly stimulating, +competitive motives of low-grade and law-abiding +prosperity....</p> + +<p>For a time Trafford made an earnest effort to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">-386-</a></span> +adjust himself to the position in which he found himself, +and make a working compromise with his disturbing +forces. He tried to pick up the scientific preoccupation +of his earlier years. He made extensive +schemes, to Solomonson's great concern, whereby he +might to a large extent disentangle himself from business. +He began to hunt out forgotten note-books +and yellowing sheets of memoranda. He found the +resumption of research much more difficult than he +had ever supposed possible. He went so far as to +plan a laboratory, and to make some inquiries as to +site and the cost of building, to the great satisfaction +not only of Marjorie but of his mother. Old Mrs. +Trafford had never expressed her concern at his +abandonment of molecular physics for money-making, +but now in her appreciation of his return to +pure investigation she betrayed her sense of his departure.</p> + +<p>But in his heart he felt that this methodical establishment +of virtue by limitation would not suffice +for him. He said no word of this scepticism as it +grew in his mind. Marjorie was still under the impression +that he was returning to research, and that +she was free to contrive the steady preparation for +that happier day when he should assume his political +inheritance. And then presently a queer little dispute +sprang up between them. Suddenly, for the +first time since he took to business, Trafford found +himself limiting her again. She was disposed, partly +through the natural growth of her circle and her +setting and partly through a movement on the part +of Mrs. Halford Wallace, to move from Sussex Square +into a larger, more picturesquely built house in a +more central position. She particularly desired a +good staircase. He met her intimations of this development +with a curious and unusual irritation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">-387-</a></span> +The idea of moving bothered him. He felt that exaggerated +annoyance which is so often a concomitant +of overwrought nerves. They had a dispute that +was almost a quarrel, and though Marjorie dropped +the matter for a time, he could feel she was still at +work upon it.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE SECOND</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Trafford Decides to Go</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>A <span class="smcap">Haunting</span> desire to go away into solitude grew<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">-388-</a></span> +upon Trafford very steadily. He wanted intensely +to think, and London and Marjorie would not let him +think. He wanted therefore to go away out of London +and Marjorie's world. He wanted, he felt, to go +away alone and face God, and clear things up in his +mind. By imperceptible degrees this desire anticipated +its realization. His activities were affected +more and more by intimations of a determined crisis. +One eventful day it seemed to him that his mind +passed quite suddenly from desire to resolve. He found +himself with a project, already broadly definite. Hitherto +he hadn't been at all clear where he could go. +From the first almost he had felt that this change he +needed, the change by which he was to get out of the +thickets of work and perplexity and distraction that +held him captive, must be a physical as well as a +mental removal; he must go somewhere, still and isolated, +where sustained detached thinking was possible.... +His preference, if he had one, inclined +him to some solitude among the Himalaya Mountains. +That came perhaps from Kim and the precedent +of the Hindoo's religious retreat from the +world. But this retreat he contemplated was a retreat +that aimed at a return, a clarified and strengthened +resumption of the world. And then suddenly, +as if he had always intended it, Labrador flashed +through his thoughts, like a familiar name that had +been for a time quite unaccountably forgotten.</p> + +<p>The word "Labrador" drifted to him one day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">-389-</a></span> +from an adjacent table as he sat alone at lunch in +the Liberal Union Club. Some bore was reciting the +substance of a lecture to a fellow-member. "Seems +to be a remarkable country," said the speaker. +"Mineral wealth hardly glanced at, you know. Furs +and a few score Indians. And at our doors. Practically—at +our doors."</p> + +<p>Trafford ceased to listen. His mind was taking +up this idea of Labrador. He wondered why he had +not thought of Labrador before.</p> + +<p>He had two or three streams of thought flowing +in his mind, as a man who muses alone is apt to do. +Marjorie's desire to move had reappeared; a particular +group of houses between Berkeley Square +and Park Lane had taken hold of her fancy, she +had urged the acquisition of one upon him that +morning, and this kept coming up into consciousness +like a wrong thread in a tapestry. Moreover, +he was watching his fellow-members with a critical +rather than a friendly eye. A half-speculative, half-hostile +contemplation of his habitual associates was +one of the queer aspects of this period of unsettlement. +They exasperated him by their massive contentment +with the surface of things. They came in +one after another patting their ties, or pulling at +the lapels of their coats, and looked about them for +vacant places with a conscious ease of manner that +irritated his nerves. No doubt they were all more +or less successful and distinguished men, matter for +conversation and food for anecdotes, but why did +they trouble to give themselves the air of it? They +halted or sat down by friends, enunciated vapid +remarks in sonorous voices, and opened conversations +in trite phrases, about London architecture, about +the political situation or the morning's newspaper, +conversations that ought, he felt, to have been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">-390-</a></span> +thrown away unopened, so stale and needless they +seemed to him. They were judges, lawyers of all +sorts, bankers, company promoters, railway managers, +stockbrokers, pressmen, politicians, men of +leisure. He wondered if indeed they were as opaque +as they seemed, wondered with the helpless wonder +of a man of exceptional mental gifts whether any +of them at any stage had had such thoughts as his, +had wanted as acutely as he did now to get right +out of the world. Did old Booch over there, for example, +guzzling oysters, cry at times upon the unknown +God in the vast silences of the night? But +Booch, of course, was a member or something of the +House of Laymen, and very sound on the thirty-nine +articles—a man who ate oysters like that could +swallow anything—and in the vast silences of the +night he was probably heavily and noisily asleep....</p> + +<p>Blenkins, the gentlemanly colleague of Denton in +the control of the <i>Old Country Gazette</i>, appeared on +his way to the pay-desk, gesticulating amiably <i>en-route</i> +to any possible friend. Trafford returned his +salutation, and pulled himself together immediately +after in fear that he had scowled, for he hated to +be churlish to any human being. Blenkins, too, it +might be, had sorrow and remorse and periods of +passionate self-distrust and self-examination; maybe +Blenkins could weep salt tears, as Blenkins no +doubt under suitable sword-play would reveal heart +and viscera as quivering and oozy as any man's.</p> + +<p>But to Trafford's jaundiced eyes just then, it +seemed that if you slashed Blenkins across he would +probably cut like a cheese....</p> + +<p>Now, in Labrador——....</p> + +<p>So soon as Blenkins had cleared, Trafford followed +him to the pay-desk, and went on upstairs to the +smoking-room, thinking of Labrador. Long ago he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">-391-</a></span> +had read the story of Wallace and Hubbard in that +wilderness.</p> + +<p>There was much to be said for a winter in Labrador. +It was cold, it was clear, infinitely lonely, with +a keen edge of danger and hardship and never a +letter or a paper.</p> + +<p>One could provision a hut and sit wrapped in +fur, watching the Northern Lights....</p> + +<p>"I'm off to Labrador," said Trafford, and entered +the smoking-room.</p> + +<p>It was, after all, perfectly easy to go to Labrador. +One had just to go....</p> + +<p>As he pinched the end of his cigar, he became +aware of Blenkins, with a gleam of golden glasses and +a flapping white cuff, beckoning across the room to +him. With that probable scowl on his conscience +Trafford was moved to respond with an unreal +warmth, and strolled across to Blenkins and a group +of three or four other people, including that vigorous +young politician, Weston Massinghay, and Hart, +K.C., about the further fireplace. "We were talking +of you," said Blenkins. "Come and sit down with us. +Why don't you come into Parliament?"</p> + +<p>"I've just arranged to go for some months to +Labrador."</p> + +<p>"Industrial development?" asked Blenkins, all +alive.</p> + +<p>"No. Holiday."</p> + +<p>No Blenkins believes that sort of thing, but of +course, if Trafford chose to keep his own counsel——</p> + +<p>"Well, come into Parliament as soon as you get +back."</p> + +<p>Trafford had had that old conversation before. +He pretended insensibility when Blenkins gestured +to a vacant chair. "No," he said, still standing, "we +settled all that. And now I'm up to my neck in—detail<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">-392-</a></span> +about Labrador. I shall be starting—before +the month is out."</p> + +<p>Blenkins and Hart simulated interest. "It's +immoral," said Blenkins, "for a man of your standing +to keep out of politics."</p> + +<p>"It's more than immoral," said Hart; "it's +American."</p> + +<p>"Solomonson comes in to represent the firm," +smiled Trafford, signalled the waiter for coffee, and +presently disentangled himself from their company.</p> + +<p>For Blenkins Trafford concealed an exquisite +dislike and contempt; and Blenkins had a considerable +admiration for Trafford, based on extensive misunderstandings. +Blenkins admired Trafford because +he was good-looking and well-dressed, with a beautiful +and successful wife, because he had become reasonably +rich very quickly and easily, was young +and a Fellow of the Royal Society with a reputation +that echoed in Berlin, and very perceptibly did not +return Blenkins' admiration. All these things filled +Blenkins with a desire for Trafford's intimacy, and +to become the associate of the very promising political +career that it seemed to him, in spite of Trafford's +repudiations, was the natural next step in a +deliberately and honourably planned life. He +mistook Trafford's silences and detachment for the +marks of a strong, silent man, who was scheming the +immense, vulgar, distinguished-looking achievements +that appeal to the Blenkins mind. Blenkins was +a sentimentally loyal party Liberal, and as he said +at times to Hart and Weston Massinghay: "If those +other fellows get hold of him——!"</p> + +<p>Blenkins was the fine flower of Oxford Liberalism +and the Tennysonian days. He wanted to be like +King Arthur and Sir Galahad, with the merest touch +of Launcelot, and to be perfectly upright and splendid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">-393-</a></span> +and very, very successful. He was a fair, tenoring +sort of person with an Arthurian moustache and +a disposition to long frock coats. It had been said +of him that he didn't dress like a gentleman, but that +he dressed more like a gentleman than a gentleman +ought to dress. It might have been added that he didn't +behave like a gentleman, but that he behaved more +like a gentleman than a gentleman ought to behave. +He didn't think, but he talked and he wrote more +thoughtfully in his leaders, and in the little dialogues +he wrote in imitation of Sir Arthur Helps, than any +other person who didn't think could possibly do. He +was an orthodox Churchman, but very, very broad; +he held all the doctrines, a distinguished sort of thing +to do in an age of doubt, but there was a quality +about them as he held them—as though they had been +run over by something rather heavy. It was a flattened +and slightly obliterated breadth—nothing was +assertive, but nothing, under examination, proved to +be altogether gone. His profuse thoughtfulness was +not confined to his journalistic and literary work, it +overflowed into Talks. He was a man for Great +Talks, interminable rambling floods of boyish observation, +emotional appreciation, and silly, sapient +comment. He loved to discuss "Who are the Best +Talkers now Alive?" He had written an essay, <i>Talk +in the Past</i>. He boasted of week-ends when the Talk +had gone on from the moment of meeting in the train +to the moment of parting at Euston, or Paddington, +or Waterloo; and one or two hostesses with embittered +memories could verify his boasting. He did his +best to make the club a Talking Club, and loved to +summon men to a growing circle of chairs....</p> + +<p>Trafford had been involved in Talks on one or +two occasions, and now, as he sat alone in the corridor +and smoked and drank his coffee, he could imagine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">-394-</a></span> +the Talk he had escaped, the Talk that was going +on in the smoking room—the platitudes, the sagacities, +the digressions, the sudden revelation of deep, +irrational convictions. He reflected upon the various +Talks at which he had assisted. His chief impression +of them all was of an intolerable fluidity. Never once +had he known a Talk thicken to adequate discussion; +never had a new idea or a new view come to him in a +Talk. He wondered why Blenkins and his like talked +at all. Essentially they lived for pose, not for expression; +they did not greatly desire to discover, +make, or be; they wanted to seem and succeed. Talking +perhaps was part of their pose of great intellectual +activity, and Blenkins was fortunate to have an +easy, unforced running of mind....</p> + +<p>Over his cigar Trafford became profoundly philosophical +about Talk. And after the manner of those +who become profoundly philosophical he spread out +the word beyond its original and proper intentions +to all sorts of kindred and parallel things. Blenkins +and his miscellany of friends in their circle of chairs +were, after all, only a crude rendering of very much +of intellectual activity of mankind. Men talked so +often as dogs bark. Those Talkers never came to +grips, fell away from topic to topic, pretended depth +and evaded the devastating horrors of sincerity. Listening +was a politeness amongst them that was presently +rewarded with utterance. Tremendously like +dogs they were, in a dog-fancying neighborhood on +a summer week-day afternoon. Fluidity, excessive +abundance, inconsecutiveness; these were the things +that made Talk hateful to Trafford.</p> + +<p>Wasn't most literature in the same class? Wasn't +nearly all present philosophical and sociological +discussion in the world merely a Blenkins circle on a +colossal scale, with every one looming forward to get<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">-395-</a></span> +in a deeply thoughtful word edgeways at the first opportunity? +Imagine any one in distress about his +soul or about mankind, going to a professor of economics +or sociology or philosophy! He thought of +the endless, big, expensive, fruitless books, the windy +expansions of industrious pedantry that mocked the +spirit of inquiry. The fields of physical and biological +science alone had been partially rescued from the +floods of human inconsecutiveness. There at least +a man must, on the whole, join on to the work of +other men, stand a searching criticism, justify himself. +Philosophically this was an age of relaxed schoolmen. +He thought of Doctor Codger at Cambridge, +bubbling away with his iridescent Hegelianism like +a salted snail; of Doctor Quiller at Oxford, ignoring +Bergson and fulminating a preposterous insular +Pragmatism. Each contradicted the other fundamentally +upon matters of universal concern; neither +ever joined issue with the other. Why in the name +of humanity didn't some one take hold of those two +excellent gentlemen, and bang their busy heads together +hard and frequently until they either compromised or cracked?</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>He forgot these rambling speculations as he came +out into the spring sunshine of Pall Mall, and halting +for a moment on the topmost step, regarded the tidy +pavements, the rare dignified shops, the waiting taxicabs, +the pleasant, prosperous passers-by. His mind +lapsed back to the thought that he meant to leave all +this and go to Labrador. His mind went a step further, +and reflected that he would not only go to Labrador, +but—it was highly probable—come back +again.</p> + +<p>And then?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">-396-</a></span></p> + +<p>Why, after all, should he go to Labrador at all? +Why shouldn't he make a supreme effort here?</p> + +<p>Something entirely irrational within him told him +with conclusive emphasis that he had to go to Labrador....</p> + +<p>He remembered there was this confounded business +of the proposed house in Mayfair to consider....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>It occurred to him that he would go a little out +of his way, and look at the new great laboratories +at the Romeike College, of which his old bottle-washer +Durgan was, he knew, extravagantly proud. +Romeike's widow was dead now and her will executed, +and her substance half turned already to bricks and +stone and glazed tiles and all those excesses of space +and appliance which the rich and authoritative imagine +must needs give us Science, however ill-selected and +underpaid and slighted the users of those opportunities +may be. The architects had had great fun with +the bequest; a quarter of the site was devoted to a +huge square surrounded by dignified, if functionless, +colonnades, and adorned with those stone seats of +honour which are always so chill and unsatisfactory +as resting places in our island climate. The Laboratories, +except that they were a little shaded by the +colonnades, were everything a laboratory should be; +the benches were miracles of convenience, there wasn't +anything the industrious investigator might want, +steam, high pressures, electric power, that he couldn't +get by pressing a button or turning a switch, unless +perhaps it was inspiring ideas. And the new library +at the end, with its greys and greens, its logarithmic +computators at every table, was a miracle of mental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">-397-</a></span> +convenience.</p> + +<p>Durgan showed his old professor the marvels.</p> + +<p>"If he <i>chooses</i> to do something here," said Durgan +not too hopefully, "a man can...."</p> + +<p>"What's become of the little old room where we +two used to work?" asked Trafford.</p> + +<p>"They'll turn 'em all out presently," said Durgan, +"when this part is ready, but just at present it's +very much as you left it. There's been precious little +research done there since you went away—not what +<i>I</i> call research. Females chiefly—and boys. Playing +at it. Making themselves into D.Sc.'s by a baby +research instead of a man's examination. It's like +broaching a thirty-two gallon cask full of Pap to +think of it. Lord, sir, the swill! Research! Counting +and weighing things! Professor Lake's all right, +I suppose, but his work was mostly mathematical; +he didn't do much of it here. No, the old days ended, +sir, when you...."</p> + +<p>He arrested himself, and obviously changed his +words. "Got busy with other things."</p> + +<p>Trafford surveyed the place; it seemed to him to +have shrunken a little in the course of the three years +that had intervened since he resigned his position. On +the wall at the back there still hung, fly-blown and a +little crumpled, an old table of constants he had made +for his elasticity researches. Lake had kept it there, +for Lake was a man of generous appreciations, and +rather proud to follow in the footsteps of an investigator +of Trafford's subtlety and vigor. The old sink +in the corner where Trafford had once swilled his +watch glasses and filled his beakers had been replaced +by one of a more modern construction, and the +combustion cupboard was unfamiliar, until Durgan +pointed out that it had been enlarged. The ground-glass +window at the east end showed still the marks of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">-398-</a></span> +an explosion that had banished a clumsy student from +this sanctuary at the very beginning of Trafford's +career.</p> + +<p>"By Jove!" he said after a silence, "but I did +some good work here."</p> + +<p>"You did, sir," said Durgan.</p> + +<p>"I wonder—I may take it up again presently."</p> + +<p>"I doubt it, sir," said Durgan.</p> + +<p>"Oh! But suppose I come back?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think you would find yourself coming +back, sir," said Durgan after judicious consideration.</p> + +<p>He adduced no shadow of a reason for his doubt, +but some mysterious quality in his words carried +conviction to Trafford's mind. He knew that he +would never do anything worth doing in molecular +physics again. He knew it now conclusively for the +first time.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>He found himself presently in Bond Street. The +bright May day had brought out great quantities of +people, so that he had to come down from altitudes of +abstraction to pick his way among them.</p> + +<p>He was struck by the prevailing interest and contentment +in the faces he passed. There was no sense +of insecurity betrayed, no sense of the deeps and +mysteries upon which our being floats like a film. +They looked solid, they looked satisfied; surely never +before in the history of the world has there been so +great a multitude of secure-feeling, satisfied-looking, +uninquiring people as there is to-day. All the tragic +great things of life seem stupendously remote from +them; pain is rare, death is out of sight, religion has +shrunken to an inconsiderable, comfortable, reassuring +appendage of the daily life. And with the bright +small things of immediacy they are so active and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">-399-</a></span> +alert. Never before has the world seen such multitudes, +and a day must come when it will cease to see +them for evermore.</p> + +<p>As he shouldered his way through the throng before +the Oxford Street shop windows he appreciated +a queer effect, almost as it were of insanity, about all +this rich and abundant and ultimately aimless life, +this tremendous spawning and proliferation of uneventful +humanity. These individual lives signified no +doubt enormously to the individuals, but did all the +shining, reflecting, changing existence that went by +like bubbles in a stream, signify collectively anything +more than the leaping, glittering confusion of shoaling +mackerel on a sunlit afternoon? The pretty +girl looking into the window schemed picturesque +achievements with lace and ribbon, the beggar at the +curb was alert for any sympathetic eye, the chauffeur +on the waiting taxi-cab watched the twopences +ticking on with a quiet satisfaction; each followed a +keenly sought immediate end, but altogether? Where +were they going altogether? Until he knew that, +where was the sanity of statecraft, the excuse of any +impersonal effort, the significance of anything beyond +a life of appetites and self-seeking instincts?</p> + +<p>He found that perplexing suspicion of priggishness +affecting him again. Why couldn't he take the +gift of life as it seemed these people took it? Why +was he continually lapsing into these sombre, dimly +religious questionings and doubts? Why after all +should he concern himself with these riddles of some +collective and ultimate meaning in things? Was he +for all his ability and security so afraid of the accidents +of life that on that account he clung to this +conception of a larger impersonal issue which the +world in general seemed to have abandoned so cheerfully? +At any rate he did cling to it—and his sense<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">-400-</a></span> +of it made the abounding active life of this stirring, +bristling thoroughfare an almost unendurable perplexity....</p> + +<p>By the Marble Arch a little crowd had gathered +at the pavement edge. He remarked other little +knots towards Paddington, and then still others, and +inquiring, found the King was presently to pass. +They promised themselves the gratification of seeing +the King go by. They would see a carriage, they +would see horses and coachmen, perhaps even they +might catch sight of a raised hat and a bowing figure. +And this would be a gratification to them, it would +irradiate the day with a sense of experiences, exceptional +and precious. For that some of them had already +been standing about for two or three hours.</p> + +<p>He thought of these waiting people for a time, +and then he fell into a speculation about the King. +He wondered if the King ever lay awake at three +o'clock in the morning and faced the riddle of the +eternities or whether he did really take himself seriously +and contentedly as being in himself the vital +function of the State, performed his ceremonies, went +hither and thither through a wilderness of gaping +watchers, slept well on it. Was the man satisfied? +Was he satisfied with his empire as it was and himself +as he was, or did some vision, some high, ironical intimation +of the latent and lost possibilities of his +empire and of the world of Things Conceivable that +lies beyond the poor tawdry splendours of our present +loyalties, ever dawn upon him?</p> + +<p>Trafford's imagination conjured up a sleepless +King Emperor agonizing for humanity....</p> + +<p>He turned to his right out of Lancaster Gate into +Sussex Square, and came to a stop at the pavement +edge.</p> + +<p>From across the road he surveyed the wide white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">-401-</a></span> +front and portals of the house that wasn't big enough +for Marjorie.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>He let himself in with his latchkey.</p> + +<p>Malcolm, his man, hovered at the foot of the +staircase, and came forward for his hat and gloves +and stick.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Trafford in?" asked Trafford.</p> + +<p>"She said she would be in by four, sir."</p> + +<p>Trafford glanced at his watch and went slowly +upstairs.</p> + +<p>On the landing there had been a rearrangement of +the furniture, and he paused to survey it. The alterations +had been made to accommodate a big cloisonné +jar, that now glowed a wonder of white and tinted +whites and luminous blues upon a dark, deep-shining +stand. He noted now the curtain of the window had +been changed from something—surely it had been a +reddish curtain!—to a sharp clear blue with a black +border, that reflected upon and sustained and encouraged +the jar tremendously. And the wall behind—? +Yes. Its deep brown was darkened to an absolute +black behind the jar, and shaded up between the +lacquer cabinets on either hand by insensible degrees +to the general hue. It was wonderful, perfectly harmonious, +and so subtly planned that it seemed it all +might have grown, as flowers grow....</p> + +<p>He entered the drawing-room and surveyed its +long and handsome spaces. Post-impressionism was +over and gone; three long pictures by young Rogerson +and one of Redwood's gallant bronzes faced the +tall windows between the white marble fireplaces at +either end. There were two lean jars from India, a +young boy's head from Florence, and in a great bowl<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">-402-</a></span> +in the remotest corner a radiant mass of azaleas....</p> + +<p>His mood of wondering at familiar things was +still upon him. It came to him as a thing absurd and +incongruous that this should be his home. It was all +wonderfully arranged into one dignified harmony, but +he felt now that at a touch of social earthquake, with +a mere momentary lapse towards disorder, it would +degenerate altogether into litter, lie heaped together +confessed the loot it was. He came to a stop opposite +one of the Rogersons, a stiffly self-conscious shop girl +in her Sunday clothes, a not unsuccessful emulation of +Nicholson's wonderful Mrs. Stafford of Paradise +Row. Regarded as so much brown and grey and +amber-gold, it was coherent in Marjorie's design, but +regarded as a work of art, as a piece of expression, +how madly irrelevant was its humour and implications +to that room and the purposes of that room! Rogerson +wasn't perhaps trying to say much, but at any +rate he was trying to say something, and Redwood +too was asserting freedom and adventure, and the +thought of that Florentine of the bust, and the patient, +careful Indian potter, and every maker of all +the little casual articles about him, produced an effect +of muffled, stifled assertions. Against this subdued +and disciplined background of muted, inarticulate +cries,—cries for beauty, for delight, for freedom, +Marjorie and her world moved and rustled and chattered +and competed—wearing the skins of beasts, the +love-plumage of birds, the woven cocoon cases of little +silkworms....</p> + +<p>"Preposterous," he whispered.</p> + +<p>He went to the window and stared out; turned +about and regarded the gracious variety of that long, +well-lit room again, then strolled thoughtfully upstairs. +He reached the door of his study, and a +sound of voices from the schoolroom—it had recently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">-403-</a></span> +been promoted from the rank of day nursery to this +level—caught his mood. He changed his mind, crossed +the landing, and was welcomed with shouts.</p> + +<p>The rogues had been dressing up. Margharita, +that child of the dreadful dawn, was now a sturdy and +domineering girl of eight, and she was attired in a +gilt paper mitre and her governess's white muslin +blouse so tied at the wrists as to suggest long sleeves, +a broad crimson band doing duty as a stole. She +was Becket prepared for martyrdom at the foot of +the altar. Godwin, his eldest son, was a hot-tempered, +pretty-featured pleasantly self-conscious boy of +nearly seven and very happy now in a white dragoon's +helmet and rude but effective brown paper breastplate +and greaves, as the party of assassin knights. A +small acolyte in what was in all human probably one +of the governess's more intimate linen garments assisted +Becket, while the general congregation of Canterbury +was represented by Edward, aged two, and +the governess, disguised with a Union Jack tied over +her head after the well-known fashion of the middle +ages. After the children had welcomed their father +and explained the bloody work in hand, they returned +to it with solemn earnestness, while Trafford surveyed +the tragedy. Godwin slew with admirable gusto, and +I doubt if the actual Thomas of Canterbury showed +half the stately dignity of Margharita.</p> + +<p>The scene finished, they went on to the penance +of Henry the Second; and there was a tremendous +readjustment of costumes, with much consultation +and secrecy. Trafford's eyes went from his offspring +to the long, white-painted room, with its gay frieze +of ships and gulls and its rug-variegated cork carpet +of plain brick red. Everywhere it showed his wife's +quick cleverness, the clean serviceable decorativeness +of it all, the pretty patterned window curtains, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">-404-</a></span> +writing desks, the little library of books, the flowers +and bulbs in glasses, the counting blocks and bricks +and jolly toys, the blackboard on which the children +learnt to draw in bold wide strokes, the big, well-chosen +German colour prints upon the walls. And +the children did credit to their casket; they were not +only full of vitality but full of ideas, even Edward +was already a person of conversation. They were +good stuff anyhow....</p> + +<p>It was fine in a sense, Trafford thought, to have +given up his own motives and curiosities to afford this +airy pleasantness of upbringing for them, and then +came a qualifying thought. Would they in their turn +for the sake of another generation have to give up +fine occupations for mean occupations, deep thoughts +for shallow? Would the world get them in turn? +Would the girls be hustled and flattered into advantageous +marriages, that dinners and drawing-rooms +might still prevail? Would the boys, after this gracious +beginning, presently have to swim submerged +in another generation of Blenkinses and their Talk, +toil in arduous self-seeking, observe, respect and +manipulate shams, succeed or fail, and succeeding, +beget amidst hope and beautiful emotions yet another +generation doomed to insincerities and accommodations, +and so die at last—as he must die?...</p> + +<p>He heard his wife's clear voice in the hall below, +and went down to meet her. She had gone into the +drawing-room, and he followed her in and through +the folding doors to the hinder part of the room, +where she stood ready to open a small bureau. She +turned at his approach, and smiled a pleasant, habitual +smile....</p> + +<p>She was no longer the slim, quick-moving girl who +had come out of the world to him when he crawled +from beneath the wreckage of Solomonson's plane,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">-405-</a></span> +no longer the half-barbaric young beauty who had +been revealed to him on the staircase of the Vevey +villa. She was now a dignified, self-possessed woman, +controlling her house and her life with a skilful, subtle +appreciation of her every point and possibility. +She was wearing now a simple walking dress of brownish +fawn colour, and her hat was touched with a steely +blue that made her blue eyes seem handsome and hard, +and toned her hair to a merely warm brown. She +had, as it were, subdued her fine colours into a sheath +in order that she might presently draw them again +with more effect.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, old man!" she said, "you home?"</p> + +<p>He nodded. "The club bored me—and I couldn't +work."</p> + +<p>Her voice had something of a challenge and defiance +in it. "I've been looking at a house," she said. +"Alice Carmel told me of it. It isn't in Berkeley +Square, but it's near it. It's rather good."</p> + +<p>He met her eye. "That's—premature," he said.</p> + +<p>"We can't go on living in this one."</p> + +<p>"I won't go to another."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"I just won't."</p> + +<p>"It isn't the money?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Trafford, with sudden fierce resentment. +"I've overtaken you and beaten you there, +Marjorie."</p> + +<p>She stared at the harsh bitterness of his voice. +She was about to speak when the door opened, and +Malcom ushered in Aunt Plessington and Uncle +Hubert. Husband and wife hung for a moment, and +then realized their talk was at an end....</p> + +<p>Marjorie went forward to greet her aunt, careless +now of all that once stupendous Influence might +think of her. She had long ceased to feel even the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">-406-</a></span> +triumph of victory in her big house, her costly, dignified +clothes, her assured and growing social importance. +For five years Aunt Plessington had not even +ventured to advise; had once or twice admired. All +that business of Magnet was—even elaborately—forgotten....</p> + +<p>Seven years of feverish self-assertion had left +their mark upon both the Plessingtons. She was +leaner, more gauntly untidy, more aggressively ill-dressed. +She no longer dressed carelessly, she defied +the world with her clothes, waved her tattered and +dingy banners in its face. Uncle Hubert was no fatter, +but in some queer way he had ceased to be thin. +Like so many people whose peripheries defy the manifest +quaint purpose of Providence, he was in a state +of thwarted adiposity, and with all the disconnectedness +and weak irritability characteristic of his condition. +He had developed a number of nervous movements, +chin-strokings, cheek-scratchings, and incredulous +pawings at his more salient features.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it a lark?" began Aunt Plessington, with +something like a note of apprehension in her highpitched +voice, and speaking almost from the doorway, +"we're making a call together. I and Hubert! It's +an attack in force."</p> + +<p>Uncle Hubert goggled in the rear and stroked his +chin, and tried to get together a sort of facial expression.</p> + +<p>The Traffords made welcoming noises, and Marjorie +advanced to meet her aunt.</p> + +<p>"We want you to do something for us," said Aunt +Plessington, taking two hands with two hands....</p> + +<p>In the intervening years the Movement had had +ups and downs; it had had a boom, which had ended +abruptly in a complete loss of voice for Aunt Plessington—she +had tried to run it on a patent non-stimulating<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">-407-</a></span> +food, and then it had entangled itself with a new +cult of philanthropic theosophy from which it had +been extracted with difficulty and in a damaged condition. +It had never completely recovered from that +unhappy association. Latterly Aunt Plessington had +lost her nerve, and she had taken to making calls upon +people with considerable and sometimes embarrassing +demand for support, urging them to join committees, +take chairs, stake reputations, speak and act as foils +for her. If they refused she lost her temper very +openly and frankly, and became industriously vindictive. +She circulated scandals or created them. +Her old assurance had deserted her; the strangulated +contralto was losing its magic power, she felt, in this +degenerating England it had ruled so long. In the +last year or so she had become extremely snappy with +Uncle Hubert. She ascribed much of the Movement's +futility to the decline of his administrative powers and +the increasing awkwardness of his gestures, and she +did her utmost to keep him up to the mark. Her +only method of keeping him up to the mark was to +jerk the bit. She had now come to compel Marjorie +to address a meeting that was to inaugurate a new +phase in the Movement's history, and she wanted +Marjorie because she particularly wanted a daring, +liberal, and spiritually amorous bishop, who had once +told her with a note of profound conviction that Marjorie +was a very beautiful woman. She was so intent +upon her purpose that she scarcely noticed Trafford. +He slipped from the room unobserved under cover +of her playful preliminaries, and went to the untidy +little apartment overhead which served in that house +as his study. He sat down at the big desk, pushed +his methodically arranged papers back, and drummed +on the edge with his fingers.</p> + +<p>"I'm damned if we have that bigger house," said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">-408-</a></span> +Trafford.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>He felt he wanted to confirm and establish this +new resolution, to go right away to Labrador for a +year. He wanted to tell someone the thing definitely. +He would have gone downstairs again to Marjorie, +but she was submerged and swimming desperately +against the voluble rapids of Aunt Plessington's purpose. +It might be an hour before that attack withdrew. +Presently there would be other callers. He decided +to have tea with his mother and talk to her +about this new break in the course of his life.</p> + +<p>Except that her hair was now grey and her brown +eyes by so much contrast brighter, Mrs. Trafford's +appearance had altered very little in the ten years of +her only son's marriage. Whatever fresh realizations +of the inevitably widening separation between parent +and child these years had brought her, she had kept +to herself. She had watched her daughter-in-law +sometimes with sympathy, sometimes with perplexity, +always with a jealous resolve to let no shadow of +jealousy fall between them. Marjorie had been sweet +and friendly to her, but after the first outburst of +enthusiastic affection, she had neither offered nor +invited confidences. Old Mrs. Trafford had talked +of Marjorie to her son guardedly, and had marked +and respected a growing indisposition on his part to +discuss his wife. For a year or so after his marriage +she had ached at times with a sense of nearly intolerable +loneliness, and then the new interests she had +found for herself had won their way against this depression. +The new insurrectionary movement of women +that had distinguished those years had attacked +her by its emotion and repelled her by its crudity, and +she had resolved, quite in the spirit of the man who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">-409-</a></span> +had shaped her life, to make a systematic study of all +the contributory strands that met in this difficult +tangle. She tried to write, but she found that the +poetic gift, the gift of the creative and illuminating +phrase which alone justifies writing, was denied to +her, and so she sought to make herself wise, to read +and hear, and discuss and think over these things, and +perhaps at last inspire and encourage writing in +others.</p> + +<p>Her circle of intimates grew, and she presently +remarked with a curious interest that while she had +lost the confidences of her own son and his wife, she +was becoming the confidant of an increasing number +of other people. They came to her, she perceived, +because she was receptive and sympathetic and without +a claim upon them or any interest to complicate +the freedoms of their speech with her. They came to +her, because she did not belong to them nor they to +her. It is, indeed, the defect of all formal and established +relationship, that it embarrasses speech, and +taints each phase in intercourse with the flavour of +diplomacy. One can be far more easily outspoken +to a casual stranger one may never see again than to +that inseparable other, who may misinterpret, who +may disapprove or misunderstand, and who will certainly +in the measure of that discord remember....</p> + +<p>It became at last a matter of rejoicing to Mrs. +Trafford that the ties of the old instinctive tenderness +between herself and her son, the memories of pain and +tears and the passionate conflict of childhood, were +growing so thin and lax and inconsiderable, that she +could even hope some day to talk to him again—almost +as she talked to the young men and young women +who drifted out of the unknown to her and sat +in her little room and sought to express their perplexities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">-410-</a></span> +and listened to her advice....</p> + +<p>It seemed to her that afternoon the wished-for day +had come.</p> + +<p>Trafford found her just returned from a walk in +Kensington Gardens and writing a note at her desk +under the narrow sunlit window that looked upon the +High Street. "Finish your letter, little mother," he +said, and took possession of the hearthrug.</p> + +<p>When she had sealed and addressed her letter, she +turned her head and found him looking at his father's +portrait.</p> + +<p>"Done?" he asked, becoming aware of her eyes.</p> + +<p>She took her letter into the hall and returned to +him, closing the door behind her.</p> + +<p>"I'm going away, little mother," he said with an +unconvincing off-handedness. "I'm going to take a +holiday."</p> + +<p>"Alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I want a change. I'm going off somewhere—untrodden +ground as near as one can get it +nowadays—Labrador."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met for a moment.</p> + +<p>"Is it for long?"</p> + +<p>"The best part of a year."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were going on with your research +work again."</p> + +<p>"No." He paused. "I'm going to Labrador."</p> + +<p>"Why?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to think."</p> + +<p>She found nothing to say for a moment. "It's +good," she remarked, "to think." Then, lest she herself +should seem to be thinking too enormously, she +rang the bell to order the tea that was already on its +way.</p> + +<p>"It surprises a mother," she said, when the maid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">-411-</a></span> +had come and gone, "when her son surprises her."</p> + +<p>"You see," he repeated, as though it explained +everything, "I want to think."</p> + +<p>Then after a pause she asked some questions about +Labrador; wasn't it very cold, very desert, very dangerous +and bitter, and he answered informingly. +How was he going to stay there? He would go up +the country with an expedition, build a hut and remain +behind. Alone? Yes—thinking. Her eyes +rested on his face for a time. "It will be—lonely," +she said after a pause.</p> + +<p>She saw him as a little still speck against immense +backgrounds of snowy wilderness.</p> + +<p>The tea-things came before mother and son were +back at essentials again. Then she asked abruptly: +"Why are you going away like this?"</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of all this business and finance," he +said after a pause.</p> + +<p>"I thought you would be," she answered as deliberately.</p> + +<p>"Yes. I've had enough of things. I want to get +clear. And begin again somehow."</p> + +<p>She felt they both hung away from the essential +aspect. Either he or she must approach it. She +decided that she would, that it was a less difficult +thing for her than for him.</p> + +<p>"And Marjorie?" she asked.</p> + +<p>He looked into his mother's eyes very quietly. +"You see," he went on deliberately disregarding her +question, "I'm beached. I'm aground. I'm spoilt +now for the old researches—spoilt altogether. And I +don't like this life I'm leading. I detest it. While I +was struggling it had a kind of interest. There was +an excitement in piling up the first twenty thousand. +But <i>now</i>—! It's empty, it's aimless, it's incessant...."</p> + +<p>He paused. She turned to the tea-things, and lit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">-412-</a></span> +the spirit lamp under the kettle. It seemed a little +difficult to do, and her hand trembled. When she +turned on him again it was with an effort.</p> + +<p>"Does Marjorie like the life you are leading?" +she asked, and pressed her lips together tightly.</p> + +<p>He spoke with a bitterness in his voice that astonished +her. "Oh, <i>she</i> likes it."</p> + +<p>"Are you sure?"</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"She won't like it without you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's too much! It's her world. It's what +she's done—what she's made. She can have it; she +can keep it. I've played my part and got it for her. +But now—now I'm free to go. I will go. She's got +everything else. I've done my half of the bargain. +But my soul's my own. If I want to go away and +think, I will. Not even Marjorie shall stand in the +way of that."</p> + +<p>She made no answer to this outburst for a couple +of seconds. Then she threw out, "Why shouldn't +Marjorie think, too?"</p> + +<p>He considered that for some moments. "She +doesn't," he said, as though the words came from the +roots of his being.</p> + +<p>"But you two——"</p> + +<p>"We don't talk. It's astonishing—how we don't. +We don't. We can't. We try to, and we can't. And +she goes her way, and now—I will go mine."</p> + +<p>"And leave her?"</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"In London?"</p> + +<p>"With all the things she cares for."</p> + +<p>"Except yourself."</p> + +<p>"I'm only a means——"</p> + +<p>She turned her quiet face to him. "You know,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">-413-</a></span> +she said, "that isn't true."...</p> + +<p>"No," she repeated, to his silent contradiction.</p> + +<p>"I've watched her," she went on. "You're <i>not</i> a +means. I'd have spoken long ago if I had thought +that. Haven't I watched? Haven't I lain awake +through long nights thinking about her and you, +thinking over every casual mood, every little sign—longing +to help—helpless." ... She struggled with +herself, for she was weeping. "<i>It has come to this</i>," +she said in a whisper, and choked back a flood of +tears.</p> + +<p>Trafford stood motionless, watching her. She +became active. She moved round the table. She +looked at the kettle, moved the cups needlessly, made +tea, and stood waiting for a moment before she poured +it out. "It's so hard to talk to you," she said, +"and about all this.... I care so much. For her. +And for you.... Words don't come, dear.... One +says stupid things."</p> + +<p>She poured out the tea, and left the cups steaming, +and came and stood before him.</p> + +<p>"You see," she said, "you're ill. You aren't +just. You've come to an end. You don't know where +you are and what you want to do. Neither does she, +my dear. She's as aimless as you—and less able to +help it. Ever so much less able."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't show it. She goes on. She +wants things and wants things——"</p> + +<p>"And you want to go away. It's the same thing. +It's exactly the same thing. It's dissatisfaction. Life +leaves you empty and craving—leaves you with nothing +to do but little immediate things that turn to dust +as you do them. It's her trouble, just as it's your +trouble."</p> + +<p>"But she doesn't show it."</p> + +<p>"Women don't. Not so much. Perhaps even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">-414-</a></span> +she doesn't know it. Half the women in our world +don't know—and for a woman it's so much easier to +go on—so many little things."...</p> + +<p>Trafford tried to grasp the intention of this. +"Mother," he said, "I mean to go away."</p> + +<p>"But think of her!"</p> + +<p>"I've thought. Now I've got to think of myself."</p> + +<p>"You can't—without her."</p> + +<p>"I will. It's what I'm resolved to do."</p> + +<p>"Go right away?"</p> + +<p>"Right away."</p> + +<p>"And think?"</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"Find out—what it all means, my boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. So far as I'm concerned."</p> + +<p>"And then——?"</p> + +<p>"Come back, I suppose. I haven't thought."</p> + +<p>"To her?"</p> + +<p>He didn't answer. She went and stood beside him, +leaning upon the mantel. "Godwin," she said, "she'd +only be further behind.... You've got to take her +with you."</p> + +<p>He stood still and silent.</p> + +<p>"You've got to think things out with her. If +you don't——"</p> + +<p>"I can't."</p> + +<p>"Then you ought to go away with her——" She +stopped.</p> + +<p>"For good?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>They were both silent for a space. Then Mrs. +Trafford gave her mind to the tea that was cooling +in the cups, and added milk and sugar. She spoke +again with the table between them.</p> + +<p>"I've thought so much of these things," she said +with the milk-jug in her hand. "It's not only you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">-415-</a></span> +two, but others. And all the movement about us.... +Marriage isn't what it was. It's become a different +thing because women have become human beings. +Only——You know, Godwin, all these things are so +difficult to express. Woman's come out of being a +slave, and yet she isn't an equal.... We've had a +sort of sham emancipation, and we haven't yet come +to the real one."</p> + +<p>She put down the milk-jug on the tray with an air +of grave deliberation. "If you go away from her +and make the most wonderful discoveries about life +and yourself, it's no good—unless she makes them +too. It's no good at all.... You can't live without +her in the end, any more than she can live without +you. You may think you can, but I've watched you. +You don't want to go away from her, you want to go +away from the world that's got hold of her, from the +dresses and parties and the competition and all this +complicated flatness we have to live in.... It +wouldn't worry you a bit, if it hadn't got hold of her. +You don't want to get out of it for your own sake. +You <i>are</i> out of it. You are as much out of it as any +one can be. Only she holds you in it, because she +isn't out of it. Your going away will do nothing. +She'll still be in it—and still have her hold on you.... +You've got to take her away. Or else—if +you go away—in the end it will be just like a ship, +Godwin, coming back to its moorings."</p> + +<p>She watched his thoughtful face for some moments, +then arrested herself just in time in the act of +putting a second portion of sugar into each of the +cups. She handed her son his tea, and he took it +mechanically. "You're a wise little mother," he said. +"I didn't see things in that light.... I wonder if +you're right."</p> + +<p>"I know I am," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">-416-</a></span></p> + +<p>"I've thought more and more,—it was Marjorie."</p> + +<p>"It's the world."</p> + +<p>"Women made the world. All the dress and display +and competition."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trafford thought. "Sex made the world. +Neither men nor women. But the world has got hold +of the women tighter than it has the men. They're +deeper in." She looked up into his face. "Take her +with you," she said, simply.</p> + +<p>"She won't come," said Trafford, after considering +it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Trafford reflected. "She'll come—if you +make her," she said.</p> + +<p>"She'll want to bring two housemaids."</p> + +<p>"I don't think you know Marjorie as well as I +do."</p> + +<p>"But she can't——"</p> + +<p>"She can. It's you—you'll want to take two +housemaids for her. Even you.... Men are not fair +to women."</p> + +<p>Trafford put his untasted tea upon the mantelshelf, +and confronted his mother with a question +point blank. "Does Marjorie care for me?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You're the sun of her world."</p> + +<p>"But she goes her way."</p> + +<p>"She's clever, she's full of life, full of activities, +eager to make and arrange and order; but there's +nothing she is, nothing she makes, that doesn't centre +on you."</p> + +<p>"But if she cared, she'd understand!"</p> + +<p>"My dear, do <i>you</i> understand?"</p> + +<p>He stood musing. "I had everything clear," he +said. "I saw my way to Labrador...."</p> + +<p>Her little clock pinged the hour. "Good God!" +he said, "I'm to be at dinner somewhere at seven. +We're going to a first night. With the Bernards, I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">-417-</a></span> +think. Then I suppose we'll have a supper. Always +life is being slashed to tatters by these things. +Always. One thinks in snatches of fifty minutes. +It's dementia...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>They dined at the Loretto Restaurant with the +Bernards and Richard Hampden and Mrs. Godwin +Capes, the dark-eyed, quiet-mannered wife of the +dramatist, a woman of impulsive speech and long +silences, who had subsided from an early romance +(Capes had been divorced for her while she was still a +mere girl) into a markedly correct and exclusive +mother of daughters. Through the dinner Marjorie +was watching Trafford and noting the deep preoccupation +of his manner. He talked a little to Mrs. +Bernard until it was time for Hampden to entertain +her, then finding Mrs. Capes was interested in Bernard, +he lapsed into thought. Presently Marjorie +discovered his eyes scrutinizing herself.</p> + +<p>She hoped the play would catch his mind, but the +play seemed devised to intensify his sense of the tawdry +unreality of contemporary life. Bernard filled +the intervals with a conventional enthusiasm. Capes +didn't appear.</p> + +<p>"He doesn't seem to care to see his things," his +wife explained.</p> + +<p>"It's so brilliant," said Bernard.</p> + +<p>"He has to do it," said Mrs. Capes slowly, her +sombre eyes estimating the crowded stalls below. "It +isn't what he cares to do."</p> + +<p>The play was in fact an admirable piece of English +stagecraft, and it dealt exclusively with that unreal +other world of beings the English theatre has +for its own purposes developed. Just as Greece<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">-418-</a></span> +through the ages evolved and polished and perfected +the idealized life of its Homeric poems, so the British +mind has evolved their Stage Land to embody its +more honourable dreams, full of heroic virtues, incredible +honour, genial worldliness, childish villainies, +profound but amiable waiters and domestics, pathetic +shepherds and preposterous crimes. Capes, needing +an income, had mastered the habits and customs of +this imagined world as one learns a language; success +endorsed his mastery; he knew exactly how deeply +to underline an irony and just when it is fit and proper +for a good man to call upon "God!" or cry out +"Damn!" In this play he had invented a situation +in which a charming and sympathetic lady had killed +a gross and drunken husband in self-defence, almost +but not quite accidentally, and had then appealed to +the prodigious hero for assistance in the resulting +complications. At a great cost of mental suffering +to himself he had told his First and Only Lie to +shield her. Then years after he had returned to +England—the first act happened, of course in India—to +find her on the eve of marrying, without any +of the preliminary confidences common among human +beings, an old school friend of his. (In plays all +Gentlemen have been at school together, and one has +been the other's fag.) The audience had to be interested +in the problem of what the prodigious hero was +to do in this prodigious situation. Should he maintain +a colossal silence, continue his shielding, and let +his friend marry the murderess saved by his perjury, +or——?... The dreadful quandary! Indeed, the +absolute—inconvenience!</p> + +<p>Marjorie watched Trafford in the corner of the +box, as he listened rather contemptuously to the +statement of the evening's Problem and then lapsed +again into a brooding quiet. She wished she understood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">-419-</a></span> +his moods better. She felt there was more in +this than a mere resentment at her persistence about +the new house....</p> + +<p>Why didn't he go on with things?...</p> + +<p>This darkling mood of his had only become manifest +to her during the last three or four years of their +life. Previously, of course, he had been irritable +at times.</p> + +<p>Were they less happy now than they had been in +the little house in Chelsea? It had really been a +horrible little house. And yet there had been a +brightness then—a nearness....</p> + +<p>She found her mind wandering away upon a sort +of stock-taking expedition. How much of real happiness +had she and Trafford had together? They +ought by every standard to be so happy....</p> + +<p>She declined the Bernard's invitation to a chafing-dish +supper, and began to talk so soon as she and +Trafford had settled into the car.</p> + +<p>"Rag," she said, "something's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"Well—yes."</p> + +<p>"The house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—the house."</p> + +<p>Marjorie considered through a little interval.</p> + +<p>"Old man, why are you so prejudiced against a +bigger house?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, because the one we have bores me, and the +next one will bore me more."</p> + +<p>"But try it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to."</p> + +<p>"Well," she said and lapsed into silence.</p> + +<p>"And then," he asked, "what are we going to +do?"</p> + +<p>"Going to do—when?"</p> + +<p>"After the new house——"</p> + +<p>"I'm going to open out," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">-420-</a></span></p> + +<p>He made no answer.</p> + +<p>"I want to open out. I want you to take your +place in the world, the place you deserve."</p> + +<p>"A four-footman place?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! the house is only a means."</p> + +<p>He thought upon that. "A means," he asked, +"to what? Look here, Marjorie, what do you think +you are up to with me and yourself? What do you +see me doing—in the years ahead?"</p> + +<p>She gave him a silent and thoughtful profile for +a second or so.</p> + +<p>"At first I suppose you are going on with your +researches."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"Then——I must tell you what I think of you, +Rag. Politics——"</p> + +<p>"Good Lord!"</p> + +<p>"You've a sort of power. You could make things +noble."</p> + +<p>"And then? Office?"</p> + +<p>"Why not? Look at the little men they are."</p> + +<p>"And then perhaps a still bigger house?"</p> + +<p>"You're not fair to me."</p> + +<p>He pulled up the bearskin over his knees.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie!" he said. "You see——We aren't +going to do any of those things at all.... <i>No!</i>..."</p> + +<p>"I can't go on with my researches," he explained. +"That's what you don't understand. I'm not able +to get back to work. I shall never do any good research +again. That's the real trouble, Marjorie, +and it makes all the difference. As for politics——I +can't touch politics. I despise politics. I think this +empire and the monarchy and Lords and Commons +and patriotism and social reform and all the rest of +it, silly, <i>silly</i> beyond words; temporary, accidental, +foolish, a mere stop-gap—like a gipsey's roundabout<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">-421-</a></span> +in a place where one will presently build a +house.... You don't help make the house by riding +on the roundabout.... There's no clear knowledge—no +clear purpose.... Only research matters—and +expression perhaps—I suppose expression is a +sort of research—until we get that—that sufficient +knowledge. And you see, I can't take up my work +again. I've lost something...."</p> + +<p>She waited.</p> + +<p>"I've got into this stupid struggle for winning +money," he went on, "and I feel like a woman must +feel who's made a success of prostitution. I've been +prostituted. I feel like some one fallen and diseased.... +Business and prostitution; they're the same +thing. All business is a sort of prostitution, all prostitution +is a sort of business. Why should one sell +one's brains any more than one sells one's body?... +It's so easy to succeed if one has good brains and +cares to do it, and doesn't let one's attention or +imagination wander—and it's so degrading. Hopelessly +degrading.... I'm sick of this life, Marjorie. +<i>I</i> don't want to buy things. I'm sick of buying. +I'm at an end. I'm clean at an end. It's exactly as +though suddenly in walking through a great house +one came on a passage that ended abruptly in a +door, which opened—on nothing! Nothing!"</p> + +<p>"This is a mood," she whispered to his pause.</p> + +<p>"It isn't a mood, it's a fact.... I've got nothing +ahead, and I don't know how to get back. My +life's no good to me any more. I've spent myself."</p> + +<p>She looked at him with dismayed eyes. "But," +she said, "this <i>is</i> a mood."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "no mood, but conviction. I +<i>know</i>...."</p> + +<p>He started. The car had stopped at their house,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">-422-</a></span> +and Malcolm was opening the door of the car. They +descended silently, and went upstairs in silence.</p> + +<p>He came into her room presently and sat down by +her fireside. She had gone to her dressing-table and +unfastened a necklace; now with this winking and +glittering in her hand she came and stood beside him.</p> + +<p>"Rag," she said, "I don't know what to say. +This isn't so much of a surprise.... I <i>felt</i> that somehow +life was disappointing you, that I was disappointing +you. I've felt it endless times, but more so +lately. I haven't perhaps dared to let myself know +just how much.... But isn't it what life is? Doesn't +every wife disappoint her husband? We're none of +us inexhaustible. After all, we've had a good time; +isn't it a little ungrateful to forget?..."</p> + +<p>"Look here, Rag," she said. "I don't know +what to do. If I did know, I would do it.... What +are we to do?"</p> + +<p>"Think," he suggested.</p> + +<p>"We've got to live as well as think."</p> + +<p>"It's the immense troublesome futility of—everything," +he said.</p> + +<p>"Well—let us cease to be futile. Let us <i>do</i>. +You say there is no grip for you in research, that +you despise politics.... There's no end of trouble +and suffering. Cannot we do social work, social +reform, change the lives of others less fortunate than +ourselves...."</p> + +<p>"Who are we that we should tamper with the lives +of others?"</p> + +<p>"But one must do something."</p> + +<p>He thought that over.</p> + +<p>"No," he said "that's the universal blunder nowadays. +One must do the right thing. And we don't +know the right thing, Marjorie. That's the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">-423-</a></span> +heart of the trouble.... Does this life satisfy <i>you?</i> +If it did would you always be so restless?..."</p> + +<p>"But," she said, "think of the good things in +life?"</p> + +<p>"It's just the good, the exquisite things in life, +that make me rebel against this life we are leading. +It's because I've seen the streaks of gold that I +know the rest for dirt. When I go cheating and scheming +to my office, and come back to find you squandering +yourself upon a horde of chattering, overdressed +women, when I think that that is our substance and +everyday and what we are, then it is I remember most +the deep and beautiful things.... It is impossible, +dear, it is intolerable that life was made beautiful +for us—just for these vulgarities."</p> + +<p>"Isn't there——" She hesitated. "Love—still?"</p> + +<p>"But——Has it been love? Love is a thing +that grows. But we took it—as people take flowers +out of a garden, cut them off, put them in water.... +How much of our daily life has been love? How +much of it mere consequences of the love we've left +behind us?... We've just cohabited and 'made +love'—you and I—and thought of a thousand other +things...."</p> + +<p>He looked up at her. "Oh, I love a thousand +things about you," he said. "But do I love <i>you</i>, +Marjorie? Have I got you? Haven't I lost you—haven't +we both lost something, the very heart of it +all? Do you think that we were just cheated by +instinct, that there wasn't something in it we felt and +thought was there? And where is it now? Where is +that brightness and wonder, Marjorie, and the pride +and the immense unlimited hope?"</p> + +<p>She was still for a moment, then knelt very swiftly +before him and held out her arms.</p> + +<p>"Oh Rag!" she said, with a face of tender beauty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">-424-</a></span> +He took her finger tips in his, dropped them and stood +up above her.</p> + +<p>"My dear," he cried, "my dear! why do you +always want to turn love into—touches?... Stand +up again. Stand up there, my dear; don't think I've +ceased to love you, but stand up there and let me +talk to you as one man to another. If we let this occasion +slide to embraces...."</p> + +<p>He stopped short.</p> + +<p>She crouched before the fire at his feet. "Go on," +she said, "go on."</p> + +<p>"I feel now that all our lives now, Marjorie——We +have come to a crisis. I feel that now——<i>now</i> +is the time. Either we shall save ourselves now or +we shall never save ourselves. It is as if something +had gathered and accumulated and could wait no +longer. If we do not seize this opportunity——Then +our lives will go on as they have gone on, will become +more and more a matter of small excitements and +elaborate comforts and distraction...."</p> + +<p>He stopped this halting speech and then broke +out again.</p> + +<p>"Oh! why <i>should</i> the life of every day conquer us? +Why should generation after generation of men have +these fine beginnings, these splendid dreams of youth, +attempt so much, achieve so much and then, then +become—<i>this!</i> Look at this room, this litter of little +satisfactions! Look at your pretty books there, a +hundred minds you have pecked at, bright things +of the spirit that attracted you as jewels attract a +jackdaw. Look at the glass and silver, and that silk +from China! And we are in the full tide of our years, +Marjorie. Now is the very crown and best of our +lives. And this is what we do, we sample, we accumulate. +For this we loved, for this we hoped. Do you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">-425-</a></span> +remember when we were young—that life seemed so +splendid—it was intolerable we should ever die?... +The splendid dream! The intimations of greatness!... +The miserable failure!"</p> + +<p>He raised clenched fists. "I won't stand it, +Marjorie. I won't endure it. Somehow, in some way, +I will get out of this life—and you with me. I have +been brooding upon this and brooding, but now I +know...."</p> + +<p>"But how?" asked Marjorie, with her bare arms +about her knees, staring into the fire. "<i>How?</i>"</p> + +<p>"We must get out of its constant interruptions, +its incessant vivid, petty appeals...."</p> + +<p>"We might go away—to Switzerland."</p> + +<p>"We <i>went</i> to Switzerland. Didn't we agree—it +was our second honeymoon. It isn't a honeymoon +we need. No, we'll have to go further than that."</p> + +<p>A sudden light broke upon Marjorie's mind. She +realized he had a plan. She lifted a fire-lit face to +him and looked at him with steady eyes and asked——</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"Ever so much further."</p> + +<p>"Where?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"You do. You've planned something."</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Marjorie. At least—I haven't +made up my mind. Where it is very lonely. Cold and +remote. Away from all this——" His mind stopped +short, and he ended with a cry: "Oh! God! how I +want to get out of all this!"</p> + +<p>He sat down in her arm-chair, and bowed his face +on his hands.</p> + +<p>Then abruptly he stood up and went out of the +room.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>When in five minutes' time he came back into her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">-426-</a></span> +room she was still upon her hearthrug before the fire, +with her necklace in her hand, the red reflections of +the flames glowing and winking in her jewels and in +her eyes. He came and sat again in her chair.</p> + +<p>"I have been ranting," he said. "I feel I've +been—eloquent. You make me feel like an actor-manager, +in a play by Capes.... You are the most +difficult person for me to talk to in all the world—because +you mean so much to me."</p> + +<p>She moved impulsively and checked herself and +crouched away from him. "I mustn't touch your +hand," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"I want to explain."</p> + +<p>"You've got to explain."</p> + +<p>"I've got quite a definite plan.... But a sort +of terror seized me. It was like—shyness."</p> + +<p>"I know. I knew you had a plan."</p> + +<p>"You see.... I mean to go to Labrador."</p> + +<p>He leant forward with his elbows on his knees and +his hands extended, explanatory. He wanted intensely +that she should understand and agree and his desire +made him clumsy, now slow and awkward, now +glibly and unsatisfyingly eloquent. But she comprehended +his quality better than he knew. They were to +go away to Labrador, this snowy desert of which she +had scarcely heard, to camp in the very heart of the +wilderness, two hundred miles or more from any human +habitation——</p> + +<p>"But how long?" she asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"The better part of a year."</p> + +<p>"And we are to talk?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, "talk and think ourselves together—oh!—the +old phrases carry it all—find +God...."</p> + +<p>"It is what I dreamt of, Rag, years ago."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">-427-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Will you come," he cried, "out of all this?"</p> + +<p>She leant across the hearthrug, and seized and +kissed his hand....</p> + +<p>Then, with one of those swift changes of hers, +she was in revolt. "But, Rag," she exclaimed, "this +is dreaming. We are not free. There are the children! +Rag! We cannot leave the children!"</p> + +<p>"We can," he said. "We must."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear!—our duty!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> it a mother's duty always to keep with her +children? They will be looked after, their lives are +organized, there is my mother close at hand.... +What is the good of having children at all—unless +their world is to be better than our world?... What +are we doing to save them from the same bathos as +this—to which we have come? We give them food +and health and pictures and lessons, that's all very +well while they are just little children; but we've got +no religion to give them, no aim, no sense of a general +purpose. What is the good of bread and health—and +no worship?... What can we say to them when +they ask us why we brought them into the world?—<i>We</i> +happened—<i>you</i> happened. What are we to tell +them when they demand the purpose of all this training, +all these lessons? When they ask what we are +preparing them for? Just that <i>you</i>, too, may have +children! Is that any answer? Marjorie, it's common-sense +to try this over—to make this last supreme +effort—just as it will be common-sense to separate +if we can't get the puzzle solved together."</p> + +<p>"Separate!"</p> + +<p>"Separate. Why not? We can afford it. Of +course, we shall separate."</p> + +<p>"But Rag!—separate!"</p> + +<p>He faced her protest squarely. "Life is not +worth living," he said, "unless it has more to hold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">-428-</a></span> +it together than ours has now. If we cannot escape +together, then—<i>I will go alone</i>."...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>They parted that night resolved to go to Labrador +together, with the broad outline of their subsequent +journey already drawn. Each lay awake +far into the small hours thinking of this purpose and +of one another, with a strange sense of renewed association. +Each woke to a morning of sunshine +heavy-eyed. Each found that overnight decision +remote and incredible. It was like something in a +book or a play that had moved them very deeply. +They came down to breakfast, and helped themselves +after the wonted fashion of several years, Marjorie +with a skilful eye to the large order of her household; +the <i>Times</i> had one or two characteristic letters which +interested them both; there was the usual picturesque +irruption of the children and a distribution of early +strawberries among them. Trafford had two notes +in his correspondence which threw a new light upon +the reconstruction of the Norton-Batsford company +in which he was interested; he formed a definite conclusion +upon the situation, and went quite normally +to his study and the telephone to act upon that.</p> + +<p>It was only as the morning wore on that it became +real to him that he and Marjorie had decided to +leave the world. Then, with the Norton-Batsford business +settled, he sat at his desk and mused. His +apathy passed. His imagination began to present +first one picture and then another of his retreat. +He walked along Oxford Street to his Club thinking—"soon +we shall be out of all this." By the time he +was at lunch in his Club, Labrador had become again +the magic refuge it had seemed the day before. After<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">-429-</a></span> +lunch he went to work in the library, finding out +books about Labrador, and looking up the details of +the journey.</p> + +<p>But his sense of futility and hopeless oppression +had vanished. He walked along the corridor and +down the great staircase, and without a trace of the +despairful hostility of the previous day, passed Blenkins, +talking grey bosh with infinite thoughtfulness. +He nodded easily to Blenkins. He was going out of +it all, as a man might do who discovers after years +of weary incarceration that the walls of his cell are +made of thin paper. The time when Blenkins seemed +part of a prison-house of routine and invincible +stupidity seemed ten ages ago.</p> + +<p>In Pall Mall Trafford remarked Lady Grampians +and the Countess of Claridge, two women of +great influence, in a big green car, on the way no +doubt to create or sustain or destroy; and it seemed +to him that it was limitless ages since these poor old +dears with their ridiculous hats and their ridiculous +airs, their luncheons and dinners and dirty aggressive +old minds, had sent tidal waves of competitive anxiety +into his home....</p> + +<p>He found himself jostling through the shopping +crowd on the sunny side of Regent Street. He felt +now that he looked over the swarming, preoccupied +heads at distant things. He and Marjorie were going +out of it all, going clean out of it all. They were +going to escape from society and shopping, and petty +engagements and incessant triviality—as a bird flies +up out of weeds.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>But Marjorie fluctuated more than he did.</p> + +<p>There were times when the expedition for which he +was now preparing rapidly and methodically seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">-430-</a></span> +to her the most adventurously-beautiful thing that +had ever come to her, and times when it seemed the +maddest and most hopeless of eccentricities. There +were times when she had devastating premonitions of +filth, hunger, strain and fatigue, damp and cold, when +her whole being recoiled from the project, when she +could even think of staying secure in London and +letting him go alone. She developed complicated +anxieties for the children; she found reasons for further +inquiries, for delay. "Why not," she suggested, +"wait a year?"</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I won't. I mean we are to do +this, and do it now, and nothing but sheer physical +inability to do it will prevent my carrying it out.... +And you? Of course you are to come. I can't drag +you shrieking all the way to Labrador; short of that +I'm going to <i>make</i> you come with me."</p> + +<p>She sat and looked up at him with dark lights in +her upturned eyes, and a little added warmth in her +cheek. "You've never forced my will like this before," +she said, in a low voice. "Never."</p> + +<p>He was too intent upon his own resolve to heed +her tones.</p> + +<p>"It hasn't seemed necessary somehow," he said, +considering her statement. "Now it does."</p> + +<p>"This is something final," she said.</p> + +<p>"It is final."</p> + +<p>She found an old familiar phrasing running +through her head, as she sat crouched together, looking +up at his rather gaunt, very intent face, the +speech of another woman echoing to her across a vast +space of years: "Whither thou goest I will go——"</p> + +<p>"In Labrador," he began....</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE THIRD</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Pilgrimage to Lonely Hut</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>Marjorie was surprised to find how easy it was at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">-431-</a></span> +last to part from her children and go with Trafford.</p> + +<p>"I am not sorry," she said, "not a bit sorry—but +I am fearfully afraid. I shall dream they are +ill.... Apart from that, it's strange how you grip +me and they don't...."</p> + +<p>In the train to Liverpool she watched Trafford +with the queer feeling which comes to all husbands +and wives at times that that other partner is indeed +an undiscovered stranger, just beginning to show perplexing +traits,—full of inconceivable possibilities.</p> + +<p>For some reason his tearing her up by the roots +in this fashion had fascinated her imagination. She +felt a strange new wonder at him that had in it just +a pleasant faint flavour of fear. Always before she +had felt a curious aversion and contempt for those +servile women who are said to seek a master, to want +to be mastered, to be eager even for the physical +subjugations of brute force. Now she could at least +understand, sympathize even with them. Not only +Trafford surprised her but herself. She found she was +in an unwonted perplexing series of moods. All her +feelings struck her now as being incorrect as well as +unexpected; not only had life become suddenly full +of novelty but she was making novel responses. She +felt that she ought to be resentful and tragically +sorry for her home and children. She felt this departure +ought to have the quality of an immense sacrifice, +a desperate and heroic undertaking for Trafford's sake. +Instead she could detect little beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">-432-</a></span> +an adventurous exhilaration when presently she +walked the deck of the steamer that was to take her +to St. John's. She had visited her cabin, seen her +luggage stowed away, and now she surveyed the +Mersey and its shipping with a renewed freshness +of mind. She was reminded of the day, now nearly +nine years ago, when she had crossed the sea for +the first time—to Italy. Then, too, Trafford had +seemed a being of infinitely wonderful possibilities.... +What were the children doing?—that ought +to have been her preoccupation. She didn't know; +she didn't care! Trafford came and stood beside her, +pointed out this and that upon the landing stage, +no longer heavily sullen, but alert, interested, almost +gay....</p> + +<p>Neither of them could find any way to the great +discussion they had set out upon, in this voyage to +St. John's. But there was plenty of time before them. +Plenty of time! They were both the prey of that +uneasy distraction which seems the inevitable quality +of a passenger steamship. They surveyed and criticized +their fellow travellers, and prowled up and down +through the long swaying days and the cold dark +nights. They slept uneasily amidst fog-horn hootings +and the startling sounds of waves swirling +against the ports. Marjorie had never had a long sea +voyage before; for the first time in her life she saw all +the world, through a succession of days, as a circle of +endless blue waters, with the stars and planets and +sun and moon rising sharply from its rim. Until +one has had a voyage no one really understands that +old Earth is a watery globe.... They ran into +thirty hours of storm, which subsided, and then came +a slow time among icebergs, and a hooting, dreary +passage through fog. The first three icebergs were +marvels, the rest bores; a passing collier out of her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">-433-</a></span> +course and pitching heavily, a lonely black and dirty +ship with a manner almost derelict, filled their +thoughts for half a day. Their minds were in a state +of tedious inactivity, eager for such small interests +and only capable of such small interests. There was +no hurry to talk, they agreed, no hurry at all, until +they were settled away ahead there among the snows. +"There we shall have plenty of time for everything...."</p> + +<p>Came the landfall and then St. John's, and they +found themselves side by side watching the town draw +near. The thought of landing and transference to +another ship refreshed them both....</p> + +<p>They were going, Trafford said, in search of +God, but it was far more like two children starting +out upon a holiday.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>There was trouble and procrastination about the +half-breed guides that Trafford had arranged should +meet them at St. John's, and it was three weeks from +their reaching Newfoundland before they got themselves +and their guides and equipment and general +stores aboard the boat for Port Dupré. Thence he +had planned they should go in the Gibson schooner +to Manivikovik, the Marconi station at the mouth +of the Green River, and thence past the new pulp-mills +up river to the wilderness. There were delays +and a few trivial, troublesome complications in carrying +out this scheme, but at last a day came when +Trafford could wave good-bye to the seven people +and eleven dogs which constituted the population of +Peter Hammond's, that last rude outpost of civilization +twenty miles above the pulp-mill, and turn +his face in good earnest towards the wilderness.</p> + +<p>Neither he nor Marjorie looked back at the headland<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">-434-</a></span> +for a last glimpse of the little settlement they +were leaving. Each stared ahead over the broad, +smooth sweep of water, broken by one transverse bar +of foaming shallows, and scanned the low, tree-clad +hills beyond that drew together at last in the distant +gorge out of which the river came. The morning +was warm and full of the promise of a hot noon, +so that the veils they wore against the assaults of +sand-flies and mosquitoes were already a little inconvenient. +It seemed incredible in this morning glow +that the wooded slopes along the shore of the lake +were the border of a land in which nearly half the +inhabitants die of starvation. The deep-laden canoes +swept almost noiselessly through the water with a +rhythmic alternation of rush and pause as the dripping +paddles drove and returned. Altogether there +were four long canoes and five Indian breeds in their +party, and when they came to pass through shallows +both Marjorie and Trafford took a paddle.</p> + +<p>They came to the throat of the gorge towards +noon, and found strong flowing deep water between +its high purple cliffs. All hands had to paddle again, +and it was only when they came to rest in a pool to +eat a mid-day meal and afterwards to land upon a +mossy corner for a stretch and a smoke, that Marjorie +discovered the peculiar beauty of the rock +about them. On the dull purplish-grey surfaces +played the most extraordinary mist of luminous +iridescence. It fascinated her. Here was a land +whose common substance had this gemlike opalescence. +But her attention was very soon withdrawn +from these glancing splendours.</p> + +<p>She had had to put aside her veil to eat, and presently +she felt the vividly painful stabs of the black-fly +and discovered blood upon her face. A bigger +fly, the size and something of the appearance of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">-435-</a></span> +small wasp, with an evil buzz, also assailed her and +Trafford. It was a bad corner for flies; the breeds +even were slapping their wrists and swearing under +the torment, and every one was glad to embark and +push on up the winding gorge. It opened out for a +time, and then the wooded shores crept in again, and +in another half-hour they saw ahead of them a long +rush of foaming waters among tumbled rocks that +poured down from a brimming, splashing line of light +against the sky. They crossed the river, ran the +canoes into an eddy under the shelter of a big stone +and began to unload. They had reached their first +portage.</p> + +<p>The rest of the first day was spent in packing and +lugging first the cargoes and then the canoes up +through thickets and over boulders and across +stretches of reindeer moss for the better part of two +miles to a camping ground about half-way up the +rapids. Marjorie and Trafford tried to help with the +carrying, but this evidently shocked and distressed +the men too much, so they desisted and set to work +cutting wood and gathering moss for the fires and +bedding for the camp. When the iron stove was +brought up the man who had carried it showed them +how to put it up on stakes and start a fire in it, and +then Trafford went to the river to get water, and Marjorie +made a kind of flour cake in the frying-pan in +the manner an American woman from the wilderness +had once shown her, and boiled water for tea. The +twilight had deepened to night while the men were +still stumbling up the trail with the last two canoes.</p> + +<p>It gave Marjorie a curiously homeless feeling to +stand there in the open with the sunset dying away +below the black scrubby outlines of the treetops uphill +to the northwest, and to realize the nearest roof +was already a day's toilsome journey away. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">-436-</a></span> +cool night breeze blew upon her bare face and arms—for +now the insects had ceased from troubling and +she had cast aside gloves and veil and turned up her +sleeves to cook—and the air was full of the tumult +of the rapids tearing seaward over the rocks below. +Struggling through the bushes towards her was an +immense, headless quadruped with unsteady legs +and hesitating paces, two of the men carrying the +last canoe. Two others were now assisting Trafford +to put up the little tent that was to shelter her, and +the fifth was kneeling beside her very solemnly and +respectfully cutting slices of bacon for her to fry. +The air was very sweet, and she wished she could +sleep not in the tent but under the open sky.</p> + +<p>It was queer, she thought, how much of the wrappings +of civilization had slipped from them already. +Every day of the journey from London had released +them or deprived them—she hardly knew +which—of a multitude of petty comforts and easy +accessibilities. The afternoon toil uphill intensified +the effect of having clambered up out of things—to +this loneliness, this twilight openness, this simplicity.</p> + +<p>The men ate apart at a fire they made for +themselves, and after Trafford and Marjorie had +supped on damper, bacon and tea, he smoked. They +were both too healthily tired to talk very much. +There was no moon but a frosty brilliance of stars, +the air which had been hot and sultry at mid-day +grew keen and penetrating, and after she had made +him tell her the names of constellations she had forgotten, +she suddenly perceived the wisdom of the +tent, went into it—it was sweet and wonderful with +sprigs of the Labrador tea-shrub—undressed, and +had hardly rolled herself up into a cocoon of blankets +before she was fast asleep.</p> + +<p>She was awakened by a blaze of sunshine pouring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">-437-</a></span> +into the tent, a smell of fried bacon and Trafford's +voice telling her to get up. "They've gone on +with the first loads," he said. "Get up, wrap yourself +in a blanket, and come and bathe in the river. +It's as cold as ice."</p> + +<p>She blinked at him. "Aren't you stiff?" she +asked.</p> + +<p>"I was stiffer before I bathed," he said.</p> + +<p>She took the tin he offered her. (They weren't to +see china cups again for a year.) "It's woman's +work getting tea," she said as she drank.</p> + +<p>"You can't be a squaw all at once," said Trafford.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>After Marjorie had taken her dip, dried roughly +behind a bush, twisted her hair into a pigtail and +coiled it under her hat, she amused herself and Trafford +as they clambered up through rocks and willows +to the tent again by cataloguing her apparatus of +bath and toilette at Sussex Square and tracing just +when and how she had parted from each item on the +way to this place.</p> + +<p>"But I <i>say!</i>" she cried, with a sudden, sharp note +of dismay, "we haven't soap! This is our last cake +almost. I never thought of soap."</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>He spoke again presently. "We don't turn back +for soap," he said.</p> + +<p>"We don't turn back for anything," said Marjorie. +"Still—I didn't count on a soapless winter."</p> + +<p>"I'll manage something," said Trafford, a little +doubtfully. "Trust a chemist...."</p> + +<p>That day they finished the portage and came out +upon a wide lake with sloping shores and a distant +view of snow-topped mountains, a lake so shallow that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">-438-</a></span> +at times their loaded canoes scraped on the glaciated +rock below and they had to alter their course. They +camped in a lurid sunset; the night was warm and +mosquitoes were troublesome, and towards morning +came a thunderstorm and wind and rain.</p> + +<p>The dawn broke upon a tearing race of waves +and a wild drift of slanting rain sweeping across the +lake before a gale. Marjorie peered out at this as +one peers out under the edge of an umbrella. It was +manifestly impossible to go on, and they did nothing +that day but run up a canvas shelter for the men and +shift the tent behind a thicket of trees out of the full +force of the wind. The men squatted stoically, and +smoked and yarned. Everything got coldly wet, and +for the most part the Traffords sat under the tent +and stared blankly at this summer day in Labrador.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Trafford, "we ought to begin talking."</p> + +<p>"There's nothing much to do else," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Only one can't begin," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>He was silent for a time. "We're getting out of +things," he said....</p> + +<p>The next day began with a fine drizzle through +which the sun broke suddenly about ten o'clock. They +made a start at once, and got a good dozen miles up +the lake before it was necessary to camp again. Both +Marjorie and Trafford felt stiff and weary and uncomfortable +all day, and secretly a little doubtful +now of their own endurance. They camped on an +island on turf amidst slippery rocks, and the next +day were in a foaming difficult river again, with +glittering shallows that obliged every one to get out +at times to wade and push. All through the afternoon +they were greatly beset by flies. And so they +worked their way on through a third days' journey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">-439-</a></span> +towards the silent inland of Labrador.</p> + +<p>Day followed day of toilsome and often tedious +travel; they fought rapids, they waited while the men +stumbled up long portages under vast loads, going +and returning, they camped and discussed difficulties +and alternatives. The flies sustained an unrelenting +persecution, until faces were scarred in spite of veils +and smoke fires, until wrists and necks were swollen +and the blood in a fever. As they got higher and +higher towards the central plateau, the mid-day heat +increased and the nights grew colder, until they would +find themselves toiling, wet with perspiration, over +rocks that sheltered a fringe of ice beneath their +shadows. The first fatigues and lassitudes, the shrinking +from cold water, the ache of muscular effort, gave +place to a tougher and tougher endurance; skin +seemed to have lost half its capacity for pain without +losing a tithe of its discrimination, muscles attained +a steely resilience; they were getting seasoned. "I +don't feel philosophical," said Trafford, "but I feel +well."</p> + +<p>"We're getting out of things."</p> + +<p>"Suppose we are getting out of our problems!..."</p> + +<p>One day as they paddled across a mile-long pool, +they saw three bears prowling in single file high up on +the hillside. "Look," said the man, and pointed with +his paddle at the big, soft, furry black shapes, magnified +and startling in the clear air. All the canoes +rippled to a stop, the men, at first still, whispered +softly. One passed a gun to Trafford, who hesitated +and looked at Marjorie.</p> + +<p>The air of tranquil assurance about these three +huge loafing monsters had a queer effect on Marjorie's +mind. They made her feel that they were at +home and that she was an intruder. She had never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">-440-</a></span> +in her life seen any big wild animals except in a +menagerie. She had developed a sort of unconscious +belief that all big wild animals were in menageries +nowadays, and this spectacle of beasts entirely at +large startled her. There was never a bar between +these creatures, she felt, and her sleeping self. They +might, she thought, do any desperate thing to feeble +men and women who came their way.</p> + +<p>"Shall I take a shot?" asked Trafford.</p> + +<p>"No," said Marjorie, pervaded by the desire for +mutual toleration. "Let them be."</p> + +<p>The big brutes disappeared in a gully, reappeared, +came out against the skyline one by one and vanished.</p> + +<p>"Too long a shot," said Trafford, handing back +the gun....</p> + +<p>Their journey lasted altogether a month. Never +once did they come upon any human being save themselves, +though in one place they passed the poles—for +the most part overthrown—of an old Indian encampment. +But this desolation was by no means +lifeless. They saw great quantities of waterbirds, +geese, divers, Arctic partridge and the like, they became +familiar with the banshee cry of the loon. They +lived very largely on geese and partridge. Then for +a time about a string of lakes, the country was alive +with migrating deer going south, and the men found +traces of a wolf. They killed six caribou, and stayed +to skin and cut them up and dry the meat to replace +the bacon they had consumed, caught, fried and ate +great quantities of trout, and became accustomed to +the mysterious dance of the northern lights as the +sunset afterglow faded.</p> + +<p>Everywhere, except in the river gorges, the +country displayed the low hummocky lines and tarn-like +pools of intensely glaciated land; everywhere it +was carpeted with reindeer moss growing upon peat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">-441-</a></span> +and variegated by bushes of flowering, sweet-smelling +Labrador tea. In places this was starred with little +harebells and diversified by tussocks of heather and +rough grass, and over the rocks trailed delicate dwarf +shrubs and a very pretty and fragrant pink-flowered +plant of which neither she nor Trafford knew the +name. There was an astonishing amount of wild +fruit, raspberries, cranberries, and a white kind of +strawberry that was very delightful. The weather, +after its first outbreak, remained brightly serene....</p> + +<p>And at last it seemed fit to Trafford to halt and +choose his winter quarters. He chose a place on the +side of a low, razor-hacked rocky mountain ridge, +about fifty feet above the river—which had now +dwindled to a thirty-foot stream. His site was near +a tributary rivulet that gave convenient water, in a +kind of lap that sheltered between two rocky knees, +each bearing thickets of willow and balsam. Not a +dozen miles away from them now they reckoned was +the Height of Land, the low watershed between the +waters that go to the Atlantic and those that go to +Hudson's Bay. Close beside the site he had chosen +a shelf of rock ran out and gave a glimpse up the +narrow rocky valley of the Green River's upper +waters and a broad prospect of hill and tarn towards +the south-east. North and north-east of them the +country rose to a line of low crests, with here and +there a yellowing patch of last year's snow, and +across the valley were slopes covered in places by +woods of stunted pine. It had an empty spaciousness +of effect; the one continually living thing seemed +to be the Green River, hurrying headlong, noisily, +perpetually, in an eternal flight from this high desolation. +Birds were rare here, and the insects that +buzzed and shrilled and tormented among the rocks +and willows in the gorge came but sparingly up the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">-442-</a></span> +slopes to them.</p> + +<p>"Here presently," said Trafford, "we shall be in +peace."</p> + +<p>"It is very lonely," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"The nearer to God."</p> + +<p>"Think! Not one of these hills has ever had a +name."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"It might be in some other planet."</p> + +<p>"Oh!—we'll christen them. That shall be Marjorie +Ridge, and that Rag Valley. This space shall +be—oh! Bayswater! Before we've done with it, this +place and every feature of it will be as familiar as +Sussex Square. More so,—for half the houses there +would be stranger to us, if we could see inside them, +than anything in this wilderness.... As familiar, +say—as your drawing-room. That's better."</p> + +<p>Marjorie made no answer, but her eyes went +from the reindeer moss and scrub and thickets of the +foreground to the low rocky ridges that bounded the +view north and east of them. The scattered boulders, +the tangles of wood, the barren upper slopes, the +dust-soiled survivals of the winter's snowfall, all contributed +to an effect at once carelessly desert and +hopelessly untidy. She looked westward, and her +memory was full of interminable streaming rapids, +wastes of ice-striated rocks, tiresome struggles +through woods and wild, wide stretches of tundra +and tarn, trackless and treeless, infinitely desolate. +It seemed to her that the sea coast was but a step +from London and ten thousand miles away from her.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>The men had engaged to build the framework of +hut and store shed before returning, and to this under +Trafford's direction they now set themselves. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">-443-</a></span> +were all half-breeds, mingling with Indian with Scottish +or French blood, sober and experienced men. +Three were named Mackenzie, two brothers and a +cousin, and another, Raymond Noyes, was a relation +and acquaintance of that George Elson who was +with Wallace and Leonidas Hubbard, and afterwards +guided Mrs. Hubbard in her crossing of Labrador. +The fifth was a boy of eighteen named Lean. They +were all familiar with the idea of summer travel in +this country; quite a number, a score or so that is to +say, of adventurous people, including three or four +women, had ventured far in the wake of the Hubbards +into these great wildernesses during the decade that +followed that first tragic experiment in which Hubbard +died. But that any one not of Indian or Esquimaux +blood should propose to face out the Labrador +winter was a new thing to them. They were really +very sceptical at the outset whether these two highly +civilized-looking people would ever get up to the +Height of Land at all, and it was still with manifest +incredulity that they set about the building of +the hut and the construction of the sleeping bunks +for which they had brought up planking. A stream +of speculative talk had flowed along beside Marjorie +and Trafford ever since they had entered the Green +River; and it didn't so much come to an end as get +cut off at last by the necessity of their departure.</p> + +<p>Noyes would stand, holding a hammer and staring +at the narrow little berth he was fixing together.</p> + +<p>"You'll not sleep in this," he said.</p> + +<p>"I will," replied Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"You'll come back with us."</p> + +<p>"Not me."</p> + +<p>"There'll be wolves come and howl."</p> + +<p>"Let 'em."</p> + +<p>"They'll come right up to the door here. Winter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">-444-</a></span> +makes 'em hidjus bold."</p> + +<p>Marjorie shrugged her shoulders.</p> + +<p>"It's that cold I've known a man have his nose +froze while he lay in bed," said Noyes.</p> + +<p>"Up here?"</p> + +<p>"Down the coast. But they say it's 'most as cold +up here. Many's the man it's starved and froze."...</p> + +<p>He and his companions told stories,—very circumstantial +and pitiful stories, of Indian disasters. +They were all tales of weariness and starvation, of the +cessation of food, because the fishing gave out, because +the caribou did not migrate by the customary +route, because the man of a family group broke his +wrist, and then of the start of all or some of the party +to the coast to get help and provisions, of the straining, +starving fugitives caught by blizzards, losing +the track, devouring small vermin raw, gnawing their +own skin garments until they toiled half-naked in the +snow,—becoming cannibals, becoming delirious, lying +down to die. Once there was an epidemic of influenza, +and three families of seven and twenty people just +gave up and starved and died in their lodges, and +were found, still partly frozen, a patient, pitiful company, +by trappers in the spring....</p> + +<p>Such they said, were the common things that +happened in a Labrador winter. Did the Traffords +wish to run such risks?</p> + +<p>A sort of propagandist enthusiasm grew up in +the men. They felt it incumbent upon them to persuade +the Traffords to return. They reasoned with +them rather as one does with wilful children. They +tried to remind them of the delights and securities of +the world they were deserting. Noyes drew fancy +pictures of the pleasures of London by way of contrast +to the bitter days before them. "You've got +everything there, everything. Suppose you feel a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">-445-</a></span> +bit ill, you go out, and every block there's a drug +store got everything—all the new rem'dies—p'raps +twenty, thirty sorts of rem'dy. Lit up, nice. And +chaps in collars—like gentlemen. Or you feel a bit +dully and you go into the streets and there's people. +Why! when I was in New York I used to spend hours +looking at the people. Hours! And everything lit up, +too. Sky signs! Readin' everywhere. You can spend +hours and hours in New York——"</p> + +<p>"London," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Well, London—just going about and reading +the things they stick up. Every blamed sort of thing. +Or you say, let's go somewhere. Let's go out and be +a bit lively. See? Up you get on a car and there you +are! Great big restaurants, blazing with lights, and +you can't think of a thing to eat they haven't got. +Waiters all round you, dressed tremendous, fair asking +you to have more. Or you say, let's go to a +theatre. Very likely," said Noyes, letting his imagination +soar, "you order up one of these automobillies."</p> + +<p>"By telephone," helped Trafford.</p> + +<p>"By telephone," confirmed Noyes. "When I +was in New York there was a telephone in each room +in the hotel. Each room. I didn't use it ever, except +once when they didn't answer—but there it was. I +know about telephones all right...."</p> + +<p>Why had they come here? None of the men were +clear about that. Marjorie and Trafford would overhear +them discussing this question at their fire night +after night; they seemed to talk of nothing else. +They indulged in the boldest hypotheses, even in the +theory that Trafford knew of deposits of diamonds +and gold, and would trust no one but his wife with +the secret. They seemed also attracted by the idea +that our two young people had "done something."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">-446-</a></span> +Lean, with memories of some tattered sixpenny novel +that had drifted into his hands from England, had +even some notion of an elopement, of a pursuing husband +or a vindictive wife. He was young and romantic, +but it seemed incredible he should suggest that +Marjorie was a royal princess. Yet there were moments +when his manner betrayed a more than personal +respect....</p> + +<p>One night after a hard day's portage Mackenzie +was inspired by a brilliant idea. "They got no +children," he said, in a hoarse, exceptionally audible +whisper. "It worries them. Them as is Catholics +goes pilgrimages, but these ain't Catholics. See?"</p> + +<p>"I can't stand that," said Marjorie. "It touches +my pride. I've stood a good deal. Mr. Mackenzie!... +Mr.... Mackenzie."</p> + +<p>The voice at the men's fire stopped and a black +head turned around. "What is it, Mrs. Trafford?" +asked Mackenzie.</p> + +<p>She held up four fingers. "Four!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Three sons and a daughter," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>Mackenzie did not take it in until his younger +brother had repeated her words.</p> + +<p>"And you've come from them to <i>this</i>.... Sir, +what <i>have</i> you come for?"</p> + +<p>"We want to be here," shouted Trafford to their +listening pause. Their silence was incredulous.</p> + +<p>"We wanted to be alone together. There was too +much—over there—too much everything."</p> + +<p>Mackenzie, in silhouette against the fire, shook his +head, entirely dissatisfied. He could not understand +how there could be too much of anything. It was +beyond a trapper's philosophy.</p> + +<p>"Come back with us sir," said Noyes. "You'll<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">-447-</a></span> +weary of it...."</p> + +<p>Noyes clung to the idea of dissuasion to the end. +"I don't care to leave ye," he said, and made a sort +of byword of it that served when there was nothing +else to say.</p> + +<p>He made it almost his last words. He turned back +for another handclasp as the others under their light +returning packs were filing down the hill.</p> + +<p>"I don't care to leave ye," he said.</p> + +<p>"Good luck!" said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"You'll need it," said Noyes, and looked at Marjorie +very gravely and intently before he turned +about and marched off after his fellows....</p> + +<p>Both Marjorie and Trafford felt a queer emotion, +a sense of loss and desertion, a swelling in the throat, +as that file of men receded over the rocky slopes, went +down into a dip, reappeared presently small and remote +cresting another spur, going on towards the +little wood that hid the head of the rapids. They +halted for a moment on the edge of the wood and +looked back, then turned again one by one and melted +stride by stride into the trees. Noyes was the last to +go. He stood, in an attitude that spoke as plainly +as words, "I don't care to leave ye." Something +white waved and flickered; he had whipped out the +letters they had given him for England, and he was +waving them. Then, as if by an effort, he set himself +to follow the others, and the two still watchers on the +height above saw him no more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FOURTH</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Lonely Hut</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>Marjorie and Trafford walked slowly back to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">-448-</a></span> +hut. "There is much to do before the weather breaks," +he said, ending a thoughtful silence. "Then we can +sit inside there and talk about the things we need to +talk about."</p> + +<p>He added awkwardly: "Since we started, there +has been so much to hold the attention. I remember +a mood—an immense despair. I feel it's still somewhere +at the back of things, waiting to be dealt with. +It's our essential fact. But meanwhile we've been +busy, looking at fresh things."</p> + +<p>He paused. "Now it will be different perhaps...."</p> + +<p>For nearly four weeks indeed they were occupied +very closely, and crept into their bunks at night as +tired as wholesome animals who drop to sleep. At +any time the weather might break; already there had +been two overcast days and a frowning conference of +clouds in the north. When at last storms began they +knew there would be nothing for it but to keep in the +hut until the world froze up.</p> + +<p>There was much to do to the hut. The absence of +anything but stunted and impoverished timber and the +limitation of time, had forbidden a log hut, and their +home was really only a double framework, rammed +tight between inner and outer frame with a mixture +of earth and boughs and twigs of willow, pine and +balsam. The floor was hammered earth carpeted with +balsam twigs and a caribou skin. Outside and within +wall and roof were faced with coarse canvas—that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">-449-</a></span> +was Trafford's idea—and their bunks occupied two +sides of the hut. Heating was done by the sheet-iron +stove they had brought with them, and the smoke was +carried out to the roof by a thin sheet-iron pipe +which had come up outside a roll of canvas. They +had made the roof with about the pitch of a Swiss +châlet, and it was covered with nailed waterproof canvas, +held down by a large number of big lumps of +stone. Much of the canvassing still remained to do +when the men went down, and then the Traffords used +every scrap of packing-paper and newspaper that +had come up with them and was not needed for lining +the bunks in covering any crack or join in the canvas +wall.</p> + +<p>Two decadent luxuries, a rubber bath and two +rubber hot-water bottles, hung behind the door. They +were almost the only luxuries. Kettles and pans and +some provisions stood on a shelf over the stove; there +was also a sort of recess cupboard in the opposite +corner, reserve clothes were in canvas trunks under +the bunks, they kept their immediate supply of wood +under the eaves just outside the door, and there was a +big can of water between stove and door. When +the winter came they would have to bring in ice from +the stream.</p> + +<p>This was their home. The tent that had sheltered +Marjorie on the way up was erected close to this hut +to serve as a rude scullery and outhouse, and they +also made a long, roughly thatched roof with a canvas +cover, supported on stakes, to shelter the rest of +the stores. The stuff in tins and cases and jars they +left on the ground under this; the rest—the flour, +candles, bacon, dried caribou beef, and so forth, they +hung, as they hoped, out of the reach of any prowling +beast. And finally and most important was the wood +pile. This they accumulated to the north and east<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">-450-</a></span> +of the hut, and all day long with a sort of ant-like +perseverance Trafford added to it from the thickets +below. Once or twice, however, tempted by the appearance +of birds, he went shooting, and one day he +got five geese that they spent a day upon, plucking, +cleaning, boiling and putting up in all their store +of empty cans, letting the fat float and solidify on +the top to preserve this addition to their provision +until the advent of the frost rendered all other preservatives +unnecessary. They also tried to catch +trout down in the river below, but though they saw +many fish the catch was less than a dozen.</p> + +<p>It was a discovery to both of them to find how +companionable these occupations were, how much +more side by side they could be amateurishly cleaning +out a goose and disputing about its cooking, than +they had ever contrived to be in Sussex Square.</p> + +<p>"These things are so infernally interesting," said +Trafford, surveying the row of miscellaneous cans +upon the stove he had packed with disarticulated +goose. "But we didn't come here to picnic. All this +is eating us up. I have a memory of some immense +tragic purpose——"</p> + +<p>"That tin's <i>boiling!</i>" screamed Marjorie sharply.</p> + +<p>He resumed his thread after an active interlude.</p> + +<p>"We'll keep the wolf from the door," he said.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk of wolves!" said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"It is only when men have driven away the wolf +from the door—oh! altogether away, that they find +despair in the sky? I wonder——"</p> + +<p>"What?" asked Marjorie in his pause.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if there is nothing really in life but +this, the food hunt and the love hunt. Is life just all +hunger and need, and are we left with nothing—nothing +at all—when these things are done?... +We're infernally uncomfortable here."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">-451-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense!" cried Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Think of your carpets at home! Think of the +great, warm, beautiful house that wasn't big enough!—And +yet here, we're happy."</p> + +<p>"We <i>are</i> happy," said Marjorie, struck by the +thought. "Only——"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid. And I long for the children. And +the wind <i>nips</i>."</p> + +<p>"It may be those are good things for us. No! +This is just a lark as yet, Marjorie. It's still fresh +and full of distractions. The discomforts are amusing. +Presently we'll get used to it. Then we'll +talk out—what we have to talk out.... I say, +wouldn't it keep and improve this goose of ours if +we put in a little brandy?"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>The weather broke at last. One might say it +smashed itself over their heads. There came an afternoon +darkness swift and sudden, a wild gale and an +icy sleet that gave place in the night to snow, so that +Trafford looked out next morning to see a maddening +chaos of small white flakes, incredibly swift, against +something that was neither darkness nor light. Even +with the door but partly ajar a cruelty of cold put +its claw within, set everything that was moveable +swaying and clattering, and made Marjorie hasten +shuddering to heap fresh logs upon the fire. Once or +twice Trafford went out to inspect tent and roof and +store-shed, several times wrapped to the nose he +battled his way for fresh wood, and for the rest of +the blizzard they kept to the hut. It was slumberously +stuffy, but comfortingly full of flavours of tobacco +and food. There were two days of intermission and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">-452-</a></span> +a day of gusts and icy sleet again, turning with one +extraordinary clap of thunder to a wild downpour of +dancing lumps of ice, and then a night when it seemed +all Labrador, earth and sky together, was in hysterical +protest against inconceivable wrongs.</p> + +<p>And then the break was over; the annual freezing-up +was accomplished, winter had established itself, +the snowfall moderated and ceased, and an ice-bound +world shone white and sunlit under a cloudless +sky.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>Through all that time they got no further with the +great discussion for which they had faced that solitude. +They attempted beginnings.</p> + +<p>"Where had we got to when we left England?" +cried Marjorie. "You couldn't work, you couldn't +rest—you hated our life."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know. I had a violent hatred of the +lives we were leading. I thought—we had to get +away. To think.... But things don't leave us +alone here."</p> + +<p>He covered his face with his hands.</p> + +<p>"Why did we come here?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"You wanted—to get out of things."</p> + +<p>"Yes. But with you.... Have we, after all, +got out of things at all? I said coming up, perhaps +we were leaving our own problem behind. In exchange +for other problems—old problems men have +had before. We've got nearer necessity; that's all. +Things press on us just as much. There's nothing +more fundamental in wild nature, nothing profounder—only +something earlier. One doesn't get out of life +by going here or there.... But I wanted to get +you away—from all things that had such a hold on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">-453-</a></span> +you....</p> + +<p>"When one lies awake at nights, then one seems +to get down into things...."</p> + +<p>He went to the door, opened it, and stood looking +out. Against a wan daylight the snow was falling +noiselessly and steadily.</p> + +<p>"Everything goes on," he said.... "Relentlessly...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>That was as far as they had got when the storms +ceased and they came out again into an air inexpressibly +fresh and sharp and sweet, and into a world +blindingly clean and golden white under the rays of +the morning sun.</p> + +<p>"We will build a fire out here," said Marjorie; +"make a great pile. There is no reason at all why +we shouldn't live outside all through the day in such +weather as this."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>One morning Trafford found the footmarks of +some catlike creature in the snow near the bushes +where he was accustomed to get firewood; they led +away very plainly up the hill, and after breakfast he +took his knife and rifle and snowshoes and went after +the lynx—for that he decided the animal must +be. There was no urgent reason why he should want +to kill a lynx, unless perhaps that killing it made the +store shed a trifle safer; but it was the first trail of +any living thing for many days; it promised excitement; +some primordial instinct perhaps urged him.</p> + +<p>The morning was a little overcast, and very cold +between the gleams of wintry sunshine. "Good-bye, +dear wife!" he said, and then as she remembered afterwards +came back a dozen yards to kiss her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">-454-</a></span> "I'll +not be long," he said. "The beast's prowling, and +if it doesn't get wind of me I ought to find it in an +hour." He hesitated for a moment. "I'll not be +long," he repeated, and she had an instant's wonder +whether he hid from her the same dread of loneliness +that she concealed. Or perhaps he only knew her +secret. Up among the tumbled rocks he turned, and +she was still watching him. "Good-bye!" he cried +and waved, and the willow thickets closed about him.</p> + +<p>She forced herself to the petty duties of the day, +made up the fire from the pile he had left for her, +set water to boil, put the hut in order, brought out +sheets and blankets to air and set herself to wash up. +She wished she had been able to go with him. The +sky cleared presently, and the low December sun lit +all the world about her, but it left her spirit desolate.</p> + +<p>She did not expect him to return until mid-day, +and she sat herself down on a log before the fire to +darn a pair of socks as well as she could. For a time +this unusual occupation held her attention and then +her hands became slow and at last inactive, and she +fell into reverie. She thought at first of her children +and what they might be doing, in England +across there to the east it would be about five hours +later, four o'clock in the afternoon, and the children +would be coming home through the warm muggy London +sunshine with Fraulein Otto to tea. She wondered +if they had the proper clothes, if they were well; +were they perhaps quarrelling or being naughty or +skylarking gaily across the Park. Of course Fraulein +Otto was all right, quite to be trusted, absolutely +trustworthy, and their grandmother would watch for +a flushed face or an irrational petulance or any of +the little signs that herald trouble with more than a +mother's instinctive alertness. No need to worry<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">-455-</a></span> +about the children, no need whatever.... The +world of London opened out behind these thoughts; +it was so queer to think that she was in almost the +same latitude as the busy bright traffic of the autumn +season in Kensington Gore; that away there in ten +thousand cleverly furnished drawing-rooms the ringing +tea things were being set out for the rustling advent +of smart callers and the quick leaping gossip. +And there would be all sorts of cakes and little things; +for a while her mind ran on cakes and little things, +and she thought in particular whether it wasn't time +to begin cooking.... Not yet. What was it she +had been thinking about? Ah! the Solomonsons and +the Capeses and the Bernards and the Carmels and +the Lees. Would they talk of her and Trafford? It +would be strange to go back to it all. Would they go +back to it all? She found herself thinking intently +of Trafford.</p> + +<p>What a fine human being he was! And how +touchingly human! The thoughts of his moments of +irritation, his baffled silences, filled her with a wild +passion of tenderness. She had disappointed him; +all that life failed to satisfy him. Dear master of her +life! what was it he needed? She too wasn't satisfied +with life, but while she had been able to assuage herself +with a perpetual series of petty excitements, theatres, +new books and new people, meetings, movements, dinners, +shows, he had grown to an immense discontent. +He had most of the things men sought, wealth, respect, +love, children.... So many men might +have blunted their heart-ache with—adventures. +There were pretty women, clever women, unoccupied +women. She felt she wouldn't have minded—<i>much</i>—if +it made him happy.... It was so wonderful he +loved her still.... It wasn't that he lacked occupation; +on the whole he overworked. His business interests +were big and wide. Ought he to go into politics?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">-456-</a></span> +Why was it that the researches that had held +him once, could hold him now no more? That was +the real pity of it. Was she to blame for that? She +couldn't state a case against herself, and yet she felt +she was to blame. She had taken him away from +those things, forced him to make money....</p> + +<p>She sat chin on hand staring into the fire, the +sock forgotten on her knee.</p> + +<p>She could not weigh justice between herself and +him. If he was unhappy it was her fault. She knew +if he was unhappy it was no excuse that she +had not known, had been misled, had a right to her +own instincts and purposes. She had got to make +him happy. But what was she to do, what was there +for her to do?...</p> + +<p>Only he could work out his own salvation, and +until he had light, all she could do was to stand by +him, help him, cease to irritate him, watch, wait. +Anyhow she could at least mend his socks as well as +possible, so that the threads would not chafe him....</p> + +<p>She flashed to her feet. What was that?</p> + +<p>It seemed to her she had heard the sound of a +shot, and a quick brief wake of echoes. She looked +across the icy waste of the river, and then up the +tangled slopes of the mountain. Her heart was beating +very fast. It must have been up there, and no +doubt he had killed his beast. Some shadow of doubt +she would not admit crossed that obvious suggestion.</p> + +<p>This wilderness was making her as nervously responsive +as a creature of the wild.</p> + +<p>Came a second shot; this time there was no doubt +of it. Then the desolate silence closed about her +again.</p> + +<p>She stood for a long time staring at the shrubby<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">-457-</a></span> +slopes that rose to the barren rock wilderness of the +purple mountain crest. She sighed deeply at last, and +set herself to make up the fire and prepare for the +mid-day meal. Once far away across the river she +heard the howl of a wolf.</p> + +<p>Time seemed to pass very slowly that day. She +found herself going repeatedly to the space between +the day tent and the sleeping hut from which she +could see the stunted wood that had swallowed him +up, and after what seemed a long hour her watch +told her it was still only half-past twelve. And the +fourth or fifth time that she went to look out she was +set atremble again by the sound of a third shot. And +then at regular intervals out of that distant brown +purple jumble of thickets against the snow came two +more shots. "Something has happened," she said, +"something has happened," and stood rigid. Then +she became active, seized the rifle that was always at +hand when she was alone, fired into the sky and stood +listening.</p> + +<p>Prompt come an answering shot.</p> + +<p>"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something——Perhaps +he has killed something too big to bring!"</p> + +<p>She was for starting at once, and then remembered +this was not the way of the wilderness.</p> + +<p>She thought and moved very rapidly. Her mind +catalogued possible requirements, rifle, hunting knife, +the oilskin bag with matches, and some chunks of dry +paper, the rucksack—and he would be hungry. She +took a saucepan and a huge chunk of cheese and +biscuit. Then a brandy flask is sometimes handy—one +never knows. Though nothing was wrong, of +course. Needles and stout thread, and some cord. +Snowshoes. A waterproof cloak could be easily carried. +Her light hatchet for wood. She cast about +to see if there was anything else. She had almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">-458-</a></span> +forgotten cartridges—and a revolver. Nothing more. +She kicked a stray brand or so into the fire, put on +some more wood, damped the fire with an armful of +snow to make it last longer, and set out towards the +willows into which he had vanished.</p> + +<p>There was a rustling and snapping of branches +as she pushed her way through the bushes, a little +stir that died insensibly into quiet again; and then the +camping place became very still....</p> + +<p>Scarcely a sound occurred, except for the little +shuddering and stirring of the fire, and the reluctant, +infrequent drip from the icicles along the sunny edge +of the log hut roof. About one o'clock the amber +sunshine faded out altogether, a veil of clouds thickened +and became greyly ominous, and a little after +two the first flakes of a snowstorm fell hissing into +the fire. A wind rose and drove the multiplying snowflakes +in whirls and eddies before it. The icicles +ceased to drip, but one or two broke and fell with a +weak tinkling. A deep soughing, a shuddering groaning +of trees and shrubs, came ever and again out of +the ravine, and the powdery snow blew like puffs of +smoke from the branches.</p> + +<p>By four the fire was out, and the snow was piling +high in the darkling twilight against tent and hut....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Trafford's trail led Marjorie through the thicket +of dwarf willows and down to the gully of the rivulet +which they had called Marjorie Trickle; it had long +since become a trough of snow-covered rotten ice; the +trail crossed this and, turning sharply uphill, went +on until it was clear of shrubs and trees, and in the +windy open of the upper slopes it crossed a ridge and +came over the lip of a large desolate valley with slopes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">-459-</a></span> +of ice and icy snow. Here she spent some time in +following his loops back on the homeward trail before +she saw what was manifestly the final trail running +far away out across the snow, with the spoor of +the lynx, a lightly-dotted line, to the right of it. She +followed this suggestion of the trail, put on her snowshoes, +and shuffled her way across this valley, which +opened as she proceeded. She hoped that over the +ridge she would find Trafford, and scanned the sky +for the faintest discolouration of a fire, but there was +none. That seemed odd to her, but the wind was in +her face, and perhaps it beat the smoke down. Then +as her eyes scanned the hummocky ridge ahead, she +saw something, something very intent and still, that +brought her heart into her mouth. It was a big, grey +wolf, standing with back haunched and head down, +watching and winding something beyond there, out +of sight.</p> + +<p>Marjorie had an instinctive fear of wild animals, +and it still seemed dreadful to her that they should go +at large, uncaged. She suddenly wanted Trafford +violently, wanted him by her side. Also she thought +of leaving the trail, going back to the bushes. She +had to take herself in hand. In the wastes one did +not fear wild beasts. One had no fear of them. But +why not fire a shot to let him know she was near?</p> + +<p>The beast flashed round with an animal's +instantaneous change of pose, and looked at her. For a +couple of seconds, perhaps, woman and brute regarded +one another across a quarter of a mile of +snowy desolation.</p> + +<p>Suppose it came towards her!</p> + +<p>She would fire—and she would fire at it. She +made a guess at the range and aimed very carefully. +She saw the snow fly two yards ahead of the grisly +shape, and then in an instant it had vanished over the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">-460-</a></span> +crest.</p> + +<p>She reloaded, and stood for a moment waiting for +Trafford's answer. No answer came. "Queer!" she +whispered, "queer!"—and suddenly such a horror of +anticipation assailed her that she started running and +floundering through the snow to escape it. Twice she +called his name, and once she just stopped herself +from firing a shot.</p> + +<p>Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she +would find him over the ridge.</p> + +<p>She found herself among rocks, and there was a +beaten and trampled place where Trafford must have +waited and crouched. Then on and down a slope of +tumbled boulders. There came a patch where he +had either thrown himself down or fallen.</p> + +<p>It seemed to her he must have been running....</p> + +<p>Suddenly, a hundred feet or so away, she saw a +patch of violently disturbed snow—snow stained a +dreadful colour, a snow of scarlet crystals! Three +strides and Trafford was in sight.</p> + +<p>She had a swift conviction he was dead. He was +lying in a crumpled attitude on a patch of snow +between convergent rocks, and the lynx, a mass of +blood smeared silvery fur, was in some way mixed up +with him. She saw as she came nearer that the snow +was disturbed round about them, and discoloured +copiously, yellow widely, and in places bright red, +with congealed and frozen blood. She felt no fear +now, and no emotion; all her mind was engaged with +the clear, bleak perception of the fact before her. +She did not care to call to him again. His head was +hidden by the lynx's body, it was as if he was +burrowing underneath the creature; his legs were twisted +about each other in a queer, unnatural attitude.</p> + +<p>Then, as she dropped off a boulder, and came +nearer, Trafford moved. A hand came out and +gripped the rifle beside him; he suddenly lifted a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">-461-</a></span> +dreadful face, horribly scarred and torn, and crimson +with frozen blood; he pushed the grey beast aside, +rose on an elbow, wiped his sleeve across his eyes, +stared at her, grunted, and flopped forward. He +had fainted.</p> + +<p>She was now as clear-minded and as self-possessed +as a woman in a shop. In another moment she was +kneeling by his side. She saw, by the position of his +knife and the huge rip in the beast's body, that he +had stabbed the lynx to death as it clawed his head; +he must have shot and wounded it and then fallen +upon it. His knitted cap was torn to ribbons, and +hung upon his neck. Also his leg was manifestly +injured; how, she could not tell. It was chiefly +evident he must freeze if he lay here. It seemed to her +that perhaps he had pulled the dead brute over him +to protect his torn skin from the extremity of cold. +The lynx was already rigid, its clumsy paws asprawl—the +torn skin and clot upon Trafford's face was +stiff as she put her hands about his head to raise +him. She turned him over on his back—how heavy +he seemed!—and forced brandy between his teeth. +Then, after a moment's hesitation, she poured a little +brandy on his wounds.</p> + +<p>She glanced at his leg, which was surely broken, +and back at his face. Then she gave him more brandy +and his eyelids flickered. He moved his hand weakly. +"The blood," he said, "kept getting in my eyes."</p> + +<p>She gave him brandy once again, wiped his face +and glanced at his leg. Something ought to be done +to that she thought. But things must be done in +order.</p> + +<p>She stared up at the darkling sky with its grey +promise of snow, and down the slopes of the mountain. +Clearly they must stay the night here. They +were too high for wood among these rocks, but three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">-462-</a></span> +or four hundred yards below there were a number of +dwarfed fir trees. She had brought an axe, so that +a fire was possible. Should she go back to camp and +get the tent?</p> + +<p>Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got——" +he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"Got my leg in that crack. Damn—damned +nuisance."</p> + +<p>Was he able to advise her? She looked at him, +and then perceived she must bind up his head and +face. She knelt behind him and raised his head on +her knee. She had a thick silk neck muffler, and this +she supplemented by a band she cut and tore from +her inner vest. She bound this, still warm from her +body, about him, wrapped her cloak round him. The +next thing was a fire. Five yards away, perhaps, a +great mass of purple gabbro hung over a patch of +nearly snowless moss. A hummock to the westward +offered shelter from the weakly bitter wind, the icy +draught, that was soughing down the valley. Always +in Labrador, if you can, you camp against a +rock surface; it shelters you from the wind, reflects +your fire, guards your back.</p> + +<p>"Rag!" she said.</p> + +<p>"Rotten hole," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"What?" she cried sharply.</p> + +<p>"Got you in a rotten hole," he said. "Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. +"Look! I want to get you up against that rock."</p> + +<p>"Won't make much difference," said Trafford, +and opened his eyes. "Where?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"There."</p> + +<p>He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. +"Listen to me," he said. "Go back to camp."</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">-463-</a></span></p> + +<p>"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the +strongest food—strenthin'—strengthrin' food—you +know?" He seemed troubled to express himself.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said.</p> + +<p>"Down the river. Down—down. Till you meet +help."</p> + +<p>"Leave you?"</p> + +<p>He nodded his head and winced.</p> + +<p>"You're always plucky," he said. "Look facts in +the face. Kiddies. Thought it over while you were +coming." A tear oozed from his eye. "Not be a +fool, Madge. Kiss me good-bye. Not be a fool. I'm +done. Kids."</p> + +<p>She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous +mist of tears. "You old <i>coward</i>," she said in his ear, +and kissed the little patch of rough and bloody cheek +beneath his eye. Then she knelt up beside him. +"<i>I'm</i> boss now, old man," she said. "I want to get +you to that place there under the rock. If I drag, +can you help?"</p> + +<p>He answered obstinately: "You'd better go."</p> + +<p>"I'll make you comfortable first," she answered, +"anyhow."</p> + +<p>He made an enormous effort, and then with her +quick help and with his back to her knee, had raised +himself on his elbows.</p> + +<p>"And afterwards?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Build a fire."</p> + +<p>"Wood?"</p> + +<p>"Down there."</p> + +<p>"Two bits of wood tied on my leg—splints. Then +I can drag myself. See? Like a blessed old walrus."</p> + +<p>He smiled, and she kissed his bandaged face again.</p> + +<p>"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can +stand."</p> + +<p>She stood up again, thought, put his rifle and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">-464-</a></span> +knife to his hand for fear of that lurking wolf, abandoning +her own rifle with an effort, and went striding +and leaping from rock to rock towards the trees below. +She made the chips fly, and was presently towing +three venerable pine dwarfs, bumping over rock and +crevice, back to Trafford. She flung them down, +stood for a moment bright and breathless, then set +herself to hack off the splints he needed from the +biggest stem. "Now," she said, coming to him.</p> + +<p>"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the +splints down there. You're—<i>good</i>, Marjorie."</p> + +<p>She lugged his leg out straight, put it into the +natural and least painful pose, padded it with moss +and her torn handkerchief, and bound it up. As she +did so a handful of snowflakes came whirling about +them. She was now braced up to every possibility. +"It never rains," she said grimly, "but it pours," +and went on with her bone-setting. He was badly +weakened by pain and shock, and once he swore at +her sharply. "Sorry," he said.</p> + +<p>She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to +struggle to the shelter of the rock while she went for +more wood.</p> + +<p>The sky alarmed her. The mountains up the +valley were already hidden by driven rags of slaty +snowstorms. This time she found a longer but easier +path for dragging her boughs and trees; she determined +she would not start the fire until nightfall, nor +waste any time in preparing food until then. There +were dead boughs for kindling—more than enough. +It was snowing quite fast by the time she got up to +him with her second load, and a premature twilight +already obscured and exaggerated the rocks and +mounds about her. She gave some of her cheese to +Trafford, and gnawed some herself on her way down +to the wood again. She regretted that she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">-465-</a></span> +brought neither candles nor lantern, because then she +might have kept on until the cold of night stopped +her, and she reproached herself bitterly because she +had brought no tea. She could forgive herself the +lantern, she had never expected to be out after dark, +but the tea was inexcusable. She muttered self-reproaches +while she worked like two men among the +trees, panting puffs of mist that froze upon her lips +and iced the knitted wool that covered her chin. Why +don't they teach a girl to handle an axe?...</p> + +<p>When at last the wolfish cold of the Labrador +night had come, it found Trafford and Marjorie +seated almost warmly on a bed of pine boughs between +the sheltering dark rock behind and a big but well +husbanded fire in front, drinking a queer-tasting but +not unsavory soup of lynx-flesh, that she had fortified +with the remainder of the brandy. Then they +tried roast lynx and ate a little, and finished with +some scraps of cheese and deep draughts of hot water. +Then—oh Tyburnia and Chelsea and all that is becoming!—they +smoked Trafford's pipe for alternate +minutes, and Marjorie found great comfort in it.</p> + +<p>The snowstorm poured incessantly out of the +darkness to become flakes of burning fire in the light +of the flames, flakes that vanished magically, but it +only reached them and wetted them in occasional +gusts. What did it matter for the moment if the dim +snow-heaps rose and rose about them? A glorious +fatigue, an immense self-satisfaction possessed Marjorie; +she felt that they had both done well.</p> + +<p>"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at +last—a thought matured. "<i>No!</i>"</p> + +<p>Trafford had the pipe and did not speak for a +moment. "Nor I," he said at last. "Very likely +we'll get through with it." He added after a pause: +"I thought I was done for. A man—loses heart.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">-466-</a></span> +After a loss of blood."</p> + +<p>"The leg's better?"</p> + +<p>"Hot as fire." His humour hadn't left him. "It's +a treat," he said. "The hottest thing in Labrador."</p> + +<p>"I've been a good squaw this time, old man?" she +asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>He seemed not to hear her; then his lips twitched +and he made a feeble movement for her hand. "I +cursed you," he said....</p> + +<p>She slept, but on a spring as it were, lest the fire +should fall. She replenished it with boughs, tucked in +the half-burnt logs, and went to sleep again. Then it +seemed to her that some invisible hand was pouring a +thin spirit on the flames that made them leap and +crackle and spread north and south until they filled +the heavens. Her eyes were open and the snowstorm +overpast, leaving the sky clear, and all the westward +heaven alight with the trailing, crackling, leaping +curtains of the Aurora, brighter than she had ever +seen them before. Quite clearly visible beyond the +smoulder of the fire, a wintry waste of rock and snow, +boulder beyond boulder, passed into a dun obscurity. +The mountain to the right of them lay long and white +and stiff, a shrouded death. All earth was dead and +waste and nothing, and the sky alive and coldly marvellous, +signalling and astir. She watched the changing, +shifting colours, and they made her think of the +gathering banners of inhuman hosts, the stir and marshalling +of icy giants for ends stupendous and indifferent +to all the trivial impertinence of man's existence....</p> + +<p>That night the whole world of man seemed small +and shallow and insecure to her, beyond comparison. +One came, she thought, but just a little way out of its +warm and sociable cities hither, and found this homeless +wilderness; one pricked the thin appearances of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">-467-</a></span> +life with microscope or telescope and came to an equal +strangeness. All the pride and hope of human life +goes to and fro in a little shell of air between this +ancient globe of rusty nickel-steel and the void of +space; faint specks we are within a film; we quiver +between the atom and the infinite, being hardly more +substantial than the glow within an oily skin that +drifts upon the water. The wonder and the riddle of +it! Here she and Trafford were! Phantasmal shapes +of unsubstantial fluid thinly skinned against evaporation +and wrapped about with woven wool and the +skins of beasts, that yet reflected and perceived, suffered +and sought to understand; that held a million +memories, framed thoughts that plumbed the deeps of +space and time,—and another day of snow or icy +wind might leave them just scattered bones and torn +rags gnawed by a famishing wolf!...</p> + +<p>She felt a passionate desire to pray....</p> + +<p>She glanced at Trafford beside her, and found +him awake and staring. His face was very pale and +strange in that livid, flickering light. She would have +spoken, and then she saw his lips were moving, and +something, something she did not understand, held +her back from doing so.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>The bleak, slow dawn found Marjorie intently +busy. She had made up the fire, boiled water and +washed and dressed Trafford's wounds, and made +another soup of lynx. But Trafford had weakened +in the night, the stuff nauseated him, he refused it and +tried to smoke and was sick, and then sat back rather +despairfully after a second attempt to persuade her +to leave him there to die. This failure of his spirit +distressed her and a little astonished her, but it only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">-468-</a></span> +made her more resolute to go through with her work. +She had awakened cold, stiff and weary, but her fatigue +vanished with movement; she toiled for an hour +replenishing her pile of fuel, made up the fire, put his +gun ready to his hand, kissed him, abused him lovingly +for the trouble he gave her until his poor torn face +lit in response, and then parting on a note of cheerful +confidence set out to return to the hut. She found the +way not altogether easy to make out, wind and snow +had left scarcely a trace of their tracks, and her mind +was full of the stores she must bring and the possibility +of moving him nearer to the hut. She was startled +to see by the fresh, deep spoor along the ridge how +near the wolf had dared approach them in the darkness....</p> + +<p>Ever and again Marjorie had to halt and look +back to get her direction right. As it was she came +through the willow scrub nearly half a mile above the +hut, and had to follow the steep bank of the frozen +river down. At one place she nearly slipped upon an +icy slope of rock.</p> + +<p>One possibility she did not dare to think of during +that time; a blizzard now would cut her off absolutely +from any return to Trafford. Short of that she believed +she could get through.</p> + +<p>Her quick mind was full of all she had to do. At +first she had thought chiefly of his immediate necessities, +of food and some sort of shelter. She had got +a list of things in her head—meat extract, bandages, +corrosive sublimate by way of antiseptic, brandy, a +tin of beef, some bread and so forth; she went over +that several times to be sure of it, and then for a time +she puzzled about a tent. She thought she could +manage a bale of blankets on her back, and that she +could rig a sleeping tent for herself and Trafford with +one and some bent sticks. The big tent would be too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">-469-</a></span> +much to strike and shift. And then her mind went on +to a bolder enterprise, which was to get him home. +The nearer she could bring him to the log hut, the +nearer they would be to supplies. She cast about for +some sort of sledge. The snow was too soft and broken +for runners, especially among the trees, but if she +could get a flat of smooth wood she thought she might +be able to drag him. She decided to try the side of +her bunk. She could easily get that off. She would +have, of course, to run it edgewise through the thickets +and across the ravine, but after that she would +have almost clear going until she reached the steep +place of broken rocks within two hundred yards of +him. The idea of a sledge grew upon her, and she +planned to nail a rope along the edge and make a +kind of harness for herself.</p> + +<p>She found the camping-place piled high with +drifted snow, which had invaded tent and hut, and +that some beast, a wolverine she guessed, had been into +the hut, devoured every candle-end and the uppers +of Trafford's well-greased second boots, and had then +gone to the corner of the store shed and clambered up +to the stores. She made no account of its depredations +there, but set herself to make a sledge and get +her supplies together. There was a gleam of sunshine, +but she did not like the look of the sky, and she +was horribly afraid of what might be happening to +Trafford. She carried her stuff through the wood +and across the ravine, and returned for her improvised +sledge. She was still struggling with that among +the trees when it began to snow again.</p> + +<p>It was hard then not to be frantic in her efforts. +As it was, she packed her stuff so loosely on the planking +that she had to repack it, and she started without +putting on her snowshoes, and floundered fifty yards +before she discovered that omission. The snow was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">-470-</a></span> +now falling fast, darkling the sky and hiding everything +but objects close at hand, and she had to use all +her wits to determine her direction; she knew she must +go down a long slope and then up to the ridge, and it +came to her as a happy inspiration that if she bore to +the left she might strike some recognizable vestige of +her morning's trail. She had read of people walking +in circles when they have no light or guidance, and +that troubled her until she bethought herself of the +little compass on her watch chain. By that she kept +her direction. She wished very much she had timed +herself across the waste, so that she could tell when +she approached the ridge.</p> + +<p>Soon her back and shoulders were aching violently, +and the rope across her chest was tugging like +some evil-tempered thing. But she did not dare to +rest. The snow was now falling thick and fast, the +flakes traced white spirals and made her head spin, so +that she was constantly falling away to the south-westward +and then correcting herself by the compass. +She tried to think how this zig-zagging might affect +her course, but the snow whirls confused her mind and +a growing anxiety would not let her pause to think. +She felt blinded; it seemed to be snowing inside her +eyes so that she wanted to rub them. Soon the +ground must rise to the ridge, she told herself; it +must surely rise. Then the sledge came bumping at +her heels and she perceived she was going down hill. +She consulted the compass, and she found she was +facing south. She turned sharply to the right again. +The snowfall became a noiseless, pitiless torture to +sight and mind.</p> + +<p>The sledge behind her struggled to hold her back, +and the snow balled under her snowshoes. She wanted +to stop and rest, take thought, sit for a moment. She +struggled with herself and kept on. She tried walking<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">-471-</a></span> +with shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. +"Oh God!" she cried, "oh God!" too stupefied +for more articulate prayers.</p> + +<p>Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock +never come?</p> + +<p>A figure, black and erect, stood in front of her +suddenly, and beyond appeared a group of black, +straight antagonists. She staggered on towards them, +gripping her rifle with some muddled idea of defence, +and in another moment she was brushing against the +branches of a stunted fir, which shed thick lumps of +snow upon her feet. What trees were these? Had +she ever passed any trees? No! There were no trees +on her way to Trafford....</p> + +<p>She began whimpering like a tormented child. +But even as she wept she turned her sledge about to +follow the edge of the wood. She was too much +downhill, she thought and she must bear up again.</p> + +<p>She left the trees behind, made an angle uphill to +the right, and was presently among trees again. Again +she left them and again came back to them. She +screamed with anger at them and twitched her sledge +away. She wiped at the snowstorm with her arm as +though she would wipe it away. She wanted to stamp +on the universe....</p> + +<p>And she ached, she ached....</p> + +<p>Something caught her eye ahead, something that +gleamed; it was exactly like a long, bare rather pinkish +bone standing erect on the ground. Just because +it was strange and queer she ran forward to it. Then +as she came nearer she perceived it was a streak of +barked trunk; a branch had been torn off a pine tree +and the bark stripped down to the root. And then +her foot hit against a freshly hewn stump, and then +came another, poking its pinkish wounds above the +snow. And there were chips! This filled her with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">-472-</a></span> +wonder. Some one had been cutting wood! There +must be Indians or trappers near, she thought, and +then realized the wood-cutter could be none other +than herself.</p> + +<p>She turned to the right and saw the rocks rising +steeply close at hand. "Oh Rag!" she cried, and +fired her rifle in the air.</p> + +<p>Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and +near it amazed her, came his answering shot. It +sounded like the hillside bursting.</p> + +<p>In another moment she had discovered the trail +she had made overnight and that morning by dragging +firewood. It was now a shallow soft white trench. +Instantly her despair and fatigue had gone from her. +Should she take a load of wood with her? she asked +herself, in addition to the weight behind her, and had +a better idea. She would unload and pile her stuff +here, and bring him down on the sledge closer to the +wood. She looked about and saw two rocks that +diverged with a space between. She flashed schemes. +She would trample the snow hard and flat, put her +sledge on it, pile boughs and make a canopy of blanket +overhead and behind. Then a fire in front.</p> + +<p>She saw her camp admirable. She tossed her provisions +down and ran up the broad windings of her +pine-tree trail to Trafford, with the unloaded sledge +bumping behind her. She ran as lightly as though +she had done nothing that day.</p> + +<p>She found him markedly recovered, weak and +quiet, with snow drifting over his feet, his rifle across +his knees, and his pipe alight. "Back already," he +said, "but——"</p> + +<p>He hesitated. "No grub?"</p> + +<p>She knelt over him, gave his rough unshaven cheek +a swift kiss, and very rapidly explained her plan.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 8</p> + +<p>In three days' time they were back at the hut, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">-473-</a></span> +the last two days they wore blue spectacles because of +the mid-day glare of the sunlit snow.</p> + +<p>It amazed Marjorie to discover as she lay awake +in the camp on the edge of the ravine close to the hut +to which she had lugged Trafford during the second +day, that she was deeply happy. It was preposterous +that she should be so, but those days of almost despairful +stress were irradiated now by a new courage. +She was doing this thing, against all Labrador and +the snow-driving wind that blew from the polar wilderness, +she was winning. It was a great discovery to +her that hardship and effort almost to the breaking-point +could ensue in so deep a satisfaction. She lay +and thought how deep and rich life had become for +her, as though in all this effort and struggle some unsuspected +veil had been torn away. She perceived +again, but now with no sense of desolation, that same +infinite fragility of life which she had first perceived +when she had watched the Aurora Borealis flickering +up the sky. Beneath that realization and carrying +it, as a river flood may carry scum, was a sense of +herself as something deeper, greater, more enduring +than mountain or wilderness or sky, or any of those +monstrous forms of nature that had dwarfed her +physical self to nothingness.</p> + +<p>She had a persuasion of self detachment and illumination, +and withal of self-discovery. She saw her +life of time and space for what it was. Away in +London the children, with the coldest of noses and the +gayest of spirits, would be scampering about their +bedrooms in the mild morning sunlight of a London +winter; Elsie, the parlourmaid, would be whisking +dexterous about the dining-room, the bacon would be +cooking and the coffee-mill at work, the letters of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">-474-</a></span> +morning delivery perhaps just pattering into the letter-box, +and all the bright little household she had +made, with all the furniture she had arranged, all the +characteristic decoration she had given it, all the +clever convenient arrangements, would be getting itself +into action for another day—and <i>it wasn't herself!</i> +It was the extremest of her superficiality.</p> + +<p>She had come out of all that, and even so it seemed +she had come out of herself; this weary woman +lying awake on the balsam boughs with a brain cleared +by underfeeding and this continuous arduous bath +of toil in snow-washed, frost cleansed, starry air, this, +too, was no more than a momentarily clarified window +for her unknown and indefinable reality. What was +that reality? what was she herself? She became interested +in framing an answer to that, and slipped +down from the peace of soul she had attained. Her +serenity gave way to a reiteration of this question, +reiterations increasing and at last oppressing like the +snowflakes of a storm, perpetual whirling repetitions +that at last confused her and hid the sky....</p> + +<p>She fell asleep....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 9</p> + +<p>With their return to the hut, Marjorie had found +herself encountering a new set of urgencies. In their +absence that wretched little wolverine had found great +plenty and happiness in the tent and store-shed; its +traces were manifest nearly everywhere, and it had +particularly assailed the candles, after a destructive +time among the frozen caribou beef. It had clambered +up on the packages of sardines and jumped thence +on to a sloping pole that it could claw along into the +frame of the roof. She rearranged the packages, +but that was no good. She could not leave Trafford<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">-475-</a></span> +in order to track the brute down, and for a night or +so she could not think of any way of checking its depredations. +It came each night.... Trafford kept +her close at home. She had expected that when he +was back in his bunk, secure and warm, he would heal +rapidly, but instead he suddenly developed all the +symptoms of a severe feverish cold, and his scars, +which had seemed healing, became flushed and ugly-looking. +Moreover, there was something wrong with +his leg, an ominous ache that troubled her mind. +Every woman, she decided, ought to know how to set +a bone. He was unable to sleep by reason of these +miseries, though very desirous of doing so. He became +distressingly weak and inert, he ceased to care +for food, and presently he began ta talk to himself +with a complete disregard of her presence. Hourly +she regretted her ignorance of medicine that left her +with no conceivable remedy for all the aching and +gnawing that worried and weakened him, except bathing +with antiseptics and a liberal use of quinine.</p> + +<p>And his face became strange to her, for over his +flushed and sunken cheeks, under the raw spaces of +the scar a blond beard bristled and grew. Presently, +Trafford was a bearded man.</p> + +<p>Incidentally, however, she killed the wolverine by +means of a trap of her own contrivance, a loaded rifle +with a bait of what was nearly her last candles, rigged +to the trigger.</p> + +<p>But this loss of the candles brought home to them +the steady lengthening of the nights. Scarcely seven +hours of day remained now in the black, cold grip of +the darkness. And through those seventeen hours of +chill aggression they had no light but the red glow +of the stove. She had to close the door of the hut and +bar every chink and cranny against the icy air, that +became at last a murderous, freezing wind. Not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">-476-</a></span> +only did she line the hut with every scrap of skin +and paper she could obtain, but she went out with the +spade toiling for three laborious afternoons in piling +and beating snow against the outer frame. And now +it was that Trafford talked at last, talked with something +of the persistence of delirium, and she sat and +listened hour by hour, silently, for he gave no heed to +her or to anything she might say. He talked, it +seemed, to God....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 10</p> + +<p>Darkness about a sullen glow of red, and a voice +speaking.</p> + +<p>The voice of a man, fevered and in pain, wounded +and amidst hardship and danger, struggling with the +unrelenting riddle of his being. Ever and again when +a flame leapt she would see his face, haggard, bearded, +changed, and yet infinitely familiar.</p> + +<p>His voice varied, now high and clear, now mumbling, +now vexed and expostulating, now rich with deep +feeling, now fagged and slow; his matter varied, too; +now he talked like one who is inspired, and now like +one lost and confused, stupidly repeating phrases, +going back upon a misleading argument, painfully, +laboriously beginning over and over again. Marjorie +sat before the stove watching it burn and sink, replenishing +it, preparing food, and outside the bitter +wind moaned and blew the powdery snow before it, and +the shortening interludes of pallid, diffused daylight +which pass for days in such weather, came and went. +Intense cold had come now with leaden snowy days +and starless nights.</p> + +<p>Sometimes his speech filled her mind, seemed to +fill all her world; sometimes she ceased to listen, following +thoughts of her own. Sometimes she dozed;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">-477-</a></span> +sometimes she awakened from sleep to find him talking. +But slowly she realized a thread in his discourse, +a progress and development.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he talked of his early researches, and +then he would trace computations with his hands as if +he were using a blackboard, and became distressed to +remember what he had written. Sometimes he would +be under the claws of the lynx again, and fighting for +his eyes. "Ugh!" he said, "keep those hind legs +still. Keep your hind legs still! Knife? Knife? +Ah! got it. Gu—u—u, you <i>Beast!</i>"</p> + +<p>But the gist of his speech was determined by the +purpose of his journey to Labrador. At last he was +reviewing his life and hers, and all that their life might +signify, even as he determined to do. She began to +perceive that whatever else drifted into his mind and +talk, this recurred and grew, that he returned to the +conclusion he had reached, and not to the beginning +of the matter, and went on from that....</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "our lives are nothing—nothing +in themselves. I know that; I've never had +any doubts of that. We individuals just pick up a +mixed lot of things out of the powers that begat us, +and lay them down again presently a little altered, +that's all—heredities, traditions, the finger nails of +my grandfather, a great-aunt's lips, the faith of a +sect, the ideas of one's time. We live and then we die, +and the threads run, dispersing this way and that. To +make other people again. Whatever's immortal isn't +that, our looks or our habits, our thoughts or our +memories—just the shapes, these are, of one immortal +stuff.... One immortal stuff."...</p> + +<p>The voice died away as if he was baffled. Then +it resumed.</p> + +<p>"But we ought to <i>partake</i> of immortality; that's +my point. We ought to partake of immortality.</p> + +<p>"I mean we're like the little elements in a magnet;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">-478-</a></span> +ought not to lie higgledy-piggledy, ought to +point the same way, be polarized——Something microcosmic, +you know, ought to be found in a man.</p> + +<p>"Analogies run away with one. Suppose the bar +isn't magnetized yet! Suppose purpose has to come; +suppose the immortal stuff isn't yet, isn't being but +struggling to be. Struggling to be.... Gods! that +morning! When the child was born! And afterwards +she was there—with a smile on her lips, and a +little flushed and proud—as if nothing had happened +so very much out of the way. Nothing so wonderful. +And we had another life besides our own!..."</p> + +<p>Afterwards he came back to that. "That was a +good image," he said, "something trying to exist, +which isn't substance, doesn't belong to space or time, +something stifled and enclosed, struggling to get +through. Just confused birth cries, eyes that hardly +see, deaf ears, poor little thrusting hands. A thing +altogether blind at first, a twitching and thrusting of +protoplasm under the waters, and then the plants +creeping up the beaches, the insects and reptiles on +the margins of the rivers, beasts with a flicker of +light in their eyes answering the sun. And at last, +out of the long interplay of desire and fear, an ape, +an ape that stared and wondered, and scratched queer +pictures on a bone...."</p> + +<p>He lapsed into silent thought for a time, and +Marjorie glanced at his dim face in the shadows.</p> + +<p>"I say nothing of ultimates," he said at last.</p> + +<p>He repeated that twice before his thoughts would +flow again.</p> + +<p>"This is as much as I see, in time as I know it and +space as I know it—<i>something struggling to exist</i>. +It's true to the end of my limits. What can I say +beyond that? It struggles to exist, becomes conscious,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">-479-</a></span> +becomes now conscious of itself. That is where I come +in, as a part of it. Above the beast in me is that—the +desire to know better, to know—beautifully, and +to transmit my knowledge. That's all there is in life +for me beyond food and shelter and tidying up. This +Being—opening its eyes, listening, trying to comprehend. +Every good thing in man is that;—looking +and making pictures, listening and making songs, +making philosophies and sciences, trying new powers, +bridge and engine, spark and gun. At the bottom of +my soul, <i>that</i>. We began with bone-scratching. We're +still—near it. I am just a part of this beginning—mixed +with other things. Every book, every art, +every religion is that, the attempt to understand and +express—mixed with other things. Nothing else matters, +nothing whatever. I tell you——Nothing +whatever!</p> + +<p>"I've always believed that. All my life I've believed +that.</p> + +<p>"Only I've forgotten."</p> + +<p>"Every man with any brains believes that at the +bottom of his heart. Only he gets busy and forgets. +He goes shooting lynxes and breaks his leg. Odd, +instinctive, brutal thing to do—to go tracking down +a lynx to kill it! I grant you that, Marjorie. I grant +you that."</p> + +<p>"Grant me what?" she cried, startled beyond +measure to hear herself addressed.</p> + +<p>"Grant you that it is rather absurd to go hunting +a lynx. And what big paws it has—disproportionately +big! I wonder if that's an adaptation to +snow. Tremendous paws they are.... But the +real thing, I was saying, the real thing is to get +knowledge, and express it. All things lead up to that. +Civilization, social order, just for that. Except for +that, all the life of man, all his affairs, his laws and +police, his morals and manners—nonsense, nonsense,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">-480-</a></span> +nonsense. Lynx hunts! Just ways of getting themselves +mauled and clawed perhaps—into a state of +understanding. Who knows?..."</p> + +<p>His voice became low and clear.</p> + +<p>"Understanding spreading like a dawn....</p> + +<p>"Logic and language, clumsy implements, but +rising to our needs, rising to our needs, thought +clarified, enriched, reaching out to every man alive—some +day—presently—touching every man alive, harmonizing +acts and plans, drawing men into gigantic +co-operations, tremendous co-operations....</p> + +<p>"Until man shall stand upon this earth as upon +a footstool and reach out his hand among the stars....</p> + +<p>"And then I went into the rubber market, and +spent seven years of my life driving shares up and +down and into a net!... Queer game indeed! +Stupid ass Behrens was—at bottom....</p> + +<p>"There's a flaw in it somewhere...."</p> + +<p>He came back to that several times before he +seemed able to go on from it.</p> + +<p>"There <i>is</i> a collective mind," he said, "a growing +general consciousness—growing clearer. Something +put me away from that, but I know it. My +work, my thinking, was a part of it. That's why +I was so mad about Behrens."</p> + +<p>"Behrens?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. He'd got a twist, a wrong twist. It +makes me angry now. It will take years, it will eat +up some brilliant man to clean up after Behrens——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but the point is"—his voice became acute—"why +did I go making money and let Behrens in? +Why generally and in all sorts of things does Behrens +come in?..."</p> + +<p>He was silent for a long time, and then he began +to answer himself. "Of course," he said, "I said it—or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">-481-</a></span> +somebody said it—about this collective mind being +mixed with other things. It's something arising out +of life—not the common stuff of life. An exhalation.... +It's like the little tongues of fire that came +at Pentecost.... Queer how one comes drifting +back to these images. Perhaps I shall die a Christian +yet.... The other Christians won't like me if I do. +What was I saying?... It's what I reach up to, +what I desire shall pervade me, not what I am. Just +as far as I give myself purely to knowledge, to making +feeling and thought clear in my mind and words, +to the understanding and expression of the realities +and relations of life, just so far do I achieve Salvation.... +Salvation!...</p> + +<p>"I wonder, is Salvation the same for every one? +Perhaps for one man Salvation is research and +thought, and for another expression in art, and for +another nursing lepers. Provided he does it in the +spirit. He has to do it in the spirit...."</p> + +<p>There came a silence as though some difficulty +baffled him, and he was feeling back to get his argument +again.</p> + +<p>"This flame that arises out of life, that redeems +life from purposeless triviality, <i>isn't</i> life. Let me get +hold of that. That's a point. That's a very important +point."</p> + +<p>Something had come to him.</p> + +<p>"I've never talked of this to Marjorie. I've lived +with her nine years and more, and never talked of +religion. Not once. That's so queer of us. Any +other couple in any other time would have talked +religion no end.... People ought to."</p> + +<p>Then he stuck out an argumentative hand. "You +see, Marjorie <i>is</i> life," he said.</p> + +<p>"She took me."</p> + +<p>He spoke slowly, as though he traced things carefully.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">-482-</a></span> +"Before I met her I suppose I wasn't half +alive. No! Yet I don't remember I felt particularly +incomplete. Women were interesting, of course; they +excited me at times, that girl at Yonkers!—H'm. I +stuck to my work. It was fine work, I forget half of +it now, the half-concealed intimations I mean—queer +how one forgets!—but I know I felt my way to wide, +deep things. It was like exploring caves—monstrous, +limitless caves. Such caves!... Very still—underground. +Wonderful and beautiful.... They're +lying there now for other men to seek. Other men +will find them.... Then <i>she</i> came, as though she +was taking possession. The beauty of her, oh! the +life and bright eagerness, and the incompatibility! +That's the riddle! I've loved her always. When she +came to my arms it seemed to me the crown of life. +Caves indeed! Old caves! Nothing else seemed to +matter. But something did. All sorts of things did. +I found that out soon enough. And when that first +child was born. That for a time was supreme.... +Yes—she's the quintessence of life, the dear greed of +her, the appetite, the clever appetite for things. She +grabs. She's so damned clever! The light in her eyes! +Her quick sure hands!... Only my work was +crowded out of my life and ended, and she didn't +seem to feel it, she didn't seem to mind it. There was +a sort of disregard. Disregard. As though all that +didn't really matter...."</p> + +<p>"<i>My dear!</i>" whispered Marjorie unheeded. She +wanted to tell him it mattered now, mattered supremely, +but she knew he had no ears for her.</p> + +<p>His voice flattened. "It's perplexing," he said. +"The two different things."</p> + +<p>Then suddenly he cried out harshly: "I ought +never to have married her—never, never! I had my +task. I gave myself to her. Oh! the high immensities,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">-483-</a></span> +the great and terrible things open to the mind of +man! And we breed children and live in littered houses +and play with our food and chatter, chatter, chatter. +Oh, the chatter of my life! The folly! The women +with their clothes. I can hear them rustle now, whiff +the scent of it! The scandals—as though the things +they did with themselves and each other mattered a +rap; the little sham impromptu clever things, the +trying to keep young—and underneath it all that +continual cheating, cheating, cheating, damning +struggle for money!...</p> + +<p>"Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie! Why is she so +good and no better! Why wasn't she worth it altogether?...</p> + +<p>"No! I don't want to go on with it any more—ever. +I want to go back.</p> + +<p>"I want my life over again, and to go back.</p> + +<p>"I want research, and the spirit of research that +has died in me, and that still, silent room of mine +again, that room, as quiet as a cell, and the toil that +led to light. Oh! the coming of that light, the +uprush of discovery, the solemn joy as the generalization +rises like a sun upon the facts—floods them +with a common meaning. That is what I want. That +is what I have always wanted....</p> + +<p>"Give me my time oh God! again; I am sick of +this life I have chosen. I am sick of it! This—busy +death! Give me my time again.... Why did you +make me, and then waste me like this? Why are we +made for folly upon folly? Folly! and brains made to +scale high heaven, smeared into the dust! Into the +dust, into the dust. Dust!..."</p> + +<p>He passed into weak, wandering repetitions of +disconnected sentences, that died into whispers and +silence, and Marjorie watched him and listened to +him, and waited with a noiseless dexterity upon his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">-484-</a></span> +every need.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 11</p> + +<p>One day, she did not know what day, for she had +lost count of the days, Marjorie set the kettle to boil +and opened the door of the hut to look out, and the +snow was ablaze with diamonds, and the air was sweet +and still. It occurred to her that it would be well to +take Trafford out into that brief brightness. She +looked at him and found his eyes upon the sunlight +quiet and rather wondering eyes.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to get out into that?" she asked +abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, and seemed disposed to get up.</p> + +<p>"You've got a broken leg," she cried, to arrest +his movement, and he looked at her and answered: +"Of course—I forgot."</p> + +<p>She was all atremble that he should recognize her +and speak to her. She pulled her rude old sledge +alongside his bunk, and kissed him, and showed him +how to shift and drop himself upon the plank. She +took him in her arms and lowered him. He helped +weakly but understandingly, and she wrapped him up +warmly on the planks and lugged him out and built +up a big fire at his feet, wondering, but as yet too +fearful to rejoice, at the change that had come to +him.</p> + +<p>He said no more, but his eyes watched her move +about with a kind of tired curiosity. He smiled for a +time at the sun, and shut his eyes, and still faintly +smiling, lay still. She had a curious fear that if she +tried to talk to him this new lucidity would vanish +again. She went about the business of the morning, +glancing at him ever and again, until suddenly the +calm of his upturned face smote her, and she ran to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">-485-</a></span> +him and crouched down to him between hope and a +terrible fear, and found that he was sleeping, and +breathing very lightly, sleeping with the deep unconsciousness +of a child....</p> + +<p>When he awakened the sun was red in the west. +His eyes met hers, and he seemed a little puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I've been sleeping, Madge?" he said.</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"And dreaming? I've a vague sort of memory of +preaching and preaching in a kind of black, empty +place, where there wasn't anything.... A fury of +exposition... a kind of argument.... I say!—Is +there such a thing in the world as a new-laid egg—and +some bread-and-butter?"</p> + +<p>He seemed to reflect. "Of course," he said, "I +broke my leg. Gollys! I thought that beast was +going to claw my eyes out. Lucky, Madge, it didn't +get my eyes. It was just a chance it didn't."</p> + +<p>He stared at her.</p> + +<p>"I say," he said, "you've had a pretty rough +time! How long has this been going on?"</p> + +<p>He amazed her by rising himself on his elbow and +sitting up.</p> + +<p>"Your leg!" she cried.</p> + +<p>He put his hand down and felt it. "Pretty stiff," +he said. "You get me some food—there <i>were</i> some +eggs, Madge, frozen new-laid, anyhow—and then we'll +take these splints off and feel about a bit. Eh! why +not? How did you get me out of that scrape, Madge? +I thought I'd got to be froze as safe as eggs. (Those +eggs ought to be all right, you know. If you put +them on in a saucepan and wait until they boil.) I've +a sort of muddled impression.... By Jove, Madge, +you've had a time! I say you <i>have</i> had a time!"</p> + +<p>His eyes, full of a warmth of kindliness she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">-486-</a></span> +not seen for long weeks, scrutinized her face. "I +say!" he repeated, very softly.</p> + +<p>All her strength went from her at his tenderness. +"Oh, my dear," she wailed, kneeling at his side, "my +dear, dear!" and still regardful of his leg, she yet +contrived to get herself weeping into his coveted arms.</p> + +<p>He regarded her, he held her, he patted her back! +The infinite luxury to her! He'd come back. He'd +come back to her.</p> + +<p>"How long has it been?" he asked. "Poor dear! +Poor dear! How long can it have been?"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 12</p> + +<p>From that hour Trafford mended. He remained +clear-minded, helpful, sustaining. His face healed +daily. Marjorie had had to cut away great fragments +of gangrenous frozen flesh, and he was clearly destined +to have a huge scar over forehead and cheek, +but in that pure, clear air, once the healing had begun +it progressed swiftly. His leg had set, a little +shorter than its fellow and with a lump in the middle +of the shin, but it promised to be a good serviceable +leg none the less. They examined it by the light of +the stove with their heads together, and discussed +when it would be wise to try it. How do doctors tell +when a man may stand on his broken leg? She had a +vague impression you must wait six weeks, but she +could not remember why she fixed upon that time.</p> + +<p>"It seems a decent interval," said Trafford. +"We'll try it."</p> + +<p>She had contrived a crutch for him against that +momentous experiment, and he sat up in his bunk, +pillowed up by a sack and her rugs, and whittled it +smooth, and padded the fork with the skin of that +slaughtered wolverine, poor victim of hunger!—while<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">-487-</a></span> +she knelt by the stove feeding it with logs, and gave +him an account of their position.</p> + +<p>"We're somewhere in the middle of December," +she said, "somewhere between the twelfth and the +fourteenth,—yes! I'm as out as that!—and I've +handled the stores pretty freely. So did that little +beast until I got him." She nodded at the skin in +his hand. "I don't see myself shooting much now, +and so far I've not been able to break the ice to fish. +It's too much for me. Even if it isn't too late to +fish. This book we've got describes barks and mosses, +and that will help, but if we stick here until the birds +and things come, we're going to be precious short. +We may have to last right into July. I've plans—but +it may come to that. We ought to ration all the +regular stuff, and trust to luck for a feast. The +rations!—I don't know what they'll come to."</p> + +<p>"Right O," said Trafford admiring her capable +gravity. "Let's ration."</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," he asked abruptly, "are you sorry +we came?"</p> + +<p>Her answer came unhesitatingly. "<i>No!</i>"</p> + +<p>"Nor I."</p> + +<p>He paused. "I've found you out," he said. +"Dear dirty living thing!... You <i>are</i> dirty, you +know."</p> + +<p>"I've found myself," she answered, thinking. "I +feel as if I've never loved you until this hut. I suppose +I have in my way——"</p> + +<p>"Lugano," he suggested. "Don't let's forget +good things, Marjorie. Oh! And endless times!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course! As for <i>that</i>——! But now—now +you're in my bones. We were just two shallow, +pretty, young things—loving. It was sweet, dear—sweet +as youth—but not this. Unkempt and weary—then +one understands love. I suppose I <i>am</i> dirty.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">-488-</a></span> +Think of it! I've lugged you through the snow till +my shoulders chafed and bled. I cried with pain, and +kept on lugging——Oh, my dear! my dear!" He +kissed her hair. "I've held you in my arms to keep +you from freezing. (I'd have frozen myself first.) +We've got to starve together perhaps before the end.... +Dear, if I could make you, you should eat me.... +I'm—I'm beginning to understand. I've had a +light. I've begun to understand. I've begun to see +what life has been for you, and how I've wasted—wasted."</p> + +<p>"<i>We've</i> wasted!"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, "it was I."</p> + +<p>She sat back on the floor and regarded him. "You +don't remember things you said—when you were +delirious?"</p> + +<p>"No," he answered. "What did I say?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing clearly. What did I say?"</p> + +<p>"It doesn't matter. No, indeed. Only you made +me understand. You'd never have told me. You've +always been a little weak with me there. But it's +plain to me why we didn't keep our happiness, why +we were estranged. If we go back alive, we go back—all +that settled for good and all."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"That discord. My dear, I've been a fool, selfish, +ill-trained and greedy. We've both been floundering +about, but I've been the mischief of it. Yes, +I've been the trouble. Oh, it's had to be so. What +are we women—half savages, half pets, unemployed +things of greed and desire—and suddenly we want all +the rights and respect of souls! I've had your life in +my hands from the moment we met together. If I +had known.... It isn't that we can make you or +guide you—I'm not pretending to be an inspiration—but—but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">-489-</a></span> +we can release you. We needn't press upon +you; we can save you from the instincts and passions +that try to waste you altogether on us.... Yes, I'm +beginning to understand. Oh, my child, my husband, +my man! You talked of your wasted life!... I've +been thinking—since first we left the Mersey. I've +begun to see what it is to be a woman. For the first +time in my life. We're the responsible sex. And +we've forgotten it. We think we've done a wonder if +we've borne men into the world and smiled a little, +but indeed we've got to bear them all our lives.... +A woman has to be steadier than a man and more self-sacrificing +than a man, because when she plunges she +does more harm than a man.... And what does she +achieve if she does plunge? Nothing—nothing worth +counting. Dresses and carpets and hangings and +pretty arrangements, excitements and satisfactions +and competition and more excitements. We can't +<i>do</i> things. We don't bring things off! And you, +you Monster! you Dream! you want to stick your +hand out of all that is and make something that isn't, +begin to be! That's the man——"</p> + +<p>"Dear old Madge!" he said, "there's all sorts of +women and all sorts of men."</p> + +<p>"Well, our sort of women, then, and our sort of +men."</p> + +<p>"I doubt even that."</p> + +<p>"I don't. I've found my place. I've been making +my master my servant. We women—we've been looting +all the good things in the world, and helping +nothing. You've carried me on your back until you +are loathing life. I've been making you fetch and +carry for me, love me, dress me, keep me and my children, +minister to my vanities and greeds.... No; +let me go on. I'm so penitent, my dear, so penitent I +want to kneel down here and marry you all over again,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_490" id="Page_490">-490-</a></span> +heal up your broken life and begin again."...</p> + +<p>She paused.</p> + +<p>"One doesn't begin again," she said. "But I +want to take a new turn. Dear, you're still only a +young man; we've thirty or forty years before us—forty +years perhaps or more.... What shall we do +with our years? We've loved, we've got children. +What remains? Here we can plan it out, work it out, +day after day. What shall we do with our lives and +life? Tell me, make me your partner; it's you who +know, what are we doing with life?"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 13</p> + +<p>What are we doing with life?</p> + +<p>That question overtakes a reluctant and fugitive +humanity. The Traffords were but two of a great +scattered host of people, who, obeying all the urgencies +of need and desire, struggling, loving, begetting, +enjoying, do nevertheless find themselves at last unsatisfied. +They have lived the round of experience, +achieved all that living creatures have sought since +the beginning of the world—security and gratification +and offspring—and they find themselves still strong, +unsatiated, with power in their hands and years before +them, empty of purpose. What are they to do?</p> + +<p>The world presents such a spectacle of evasion as +it has never seen before. Never was there such a +boiling over and waste of vital energy. The Sphinx +of our opportunity calls for the uttermost powers of +heart and brain to read its riddle—the new, astonishing +riddle of excessive power. A few give themselves +to those honourable adventures that extend the range +of man, they explore untravelled countries, climb remote +mountains, conduct researches, risk life and limb<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_491" id="Page_491">-491-</a></span> +in the fantastic experiments of flight, and a monstrous +outpouring of labour and material goes on in +the strenuous preparation for needless and improbable +wars. The rest divert themselves with the dwarfish +satisfactions of recognized vice, the meagre routine +of pleasure, or still more timidly with sport and +games—those new unscheduled perversions of the soul.</p> + +<p>We are afraid of our new selves. The dawn of +human opportunity appals us. Few of us dare look +upon this strange light of freedom and limitless resources +that breaks upon our world.</p> + +<p>"Think," said Trafford, "while we sit here in +this dark hut—think of the surplus life that wastes +itself in the world for sheer lack of direction. Away +there in England—I suppose that is westward"—he +pointed—"there are thousands of men going out to-day +to shoot. Think of the beautifully made guns, +the perfected ammunition, the excellent clothes, the +army of beaters, the carefully preserved woodland, +the admirable science of it—all for that idiot massacre +of half-tame birds! Just because man once had +need to be a hunter! Think of the others again—golfing. +Think of the big, elaborate houses from +which they come, the furnishings, the service. And +the women—dressing! Perpetually dressing. <i>You</i>, +Marjorie—you've done nothing but dress since we +married. No, let me abuse you, dear! It's insane, +you know! You dress your minds a little to talk +amusingly, you spread your minds out to backgrounds, +to households, picturesque and delightful +gardens, nurseries. Those nurseries! Think of our +tremendously cherished and educated children! And +when they grow up, what have we got for them? A +feast of futility...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 14</p> + +<p>On the evening of the day when Trafford first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_492" id="Page_492">-492-</a></span> +tried to stand upon his leg, they talked far into the +night. It had been a great and eventful day for them, +full of laughter and exultation. He had been at first +ridiculously afraid; he had clung to her almost childishly, +and she had held him about the body with +his weight on her strong right arm and his right arm +in her left hand, concealing her own dread of a collapse +under a mask of taunting courage. The crutch +had proved admirable. "It's my silly knees!" Trafford +kept on saying. "The leg's all right, but I get +put out by my silly knees."</p> + +<p>They made the day a feast, a dinner of two whole +day's rations and a special soup instead of supper. +"The birds will come," they explained to each other, +"ducks and geese, long before May. May, you know, +is the latest."</p> + +<p>Marjorie confessed the habit of sharing his pipe +was growing on her. "What shall we do in Tyburnia!" +she said, and left it to the imagination.</p> + +<p>"If ever we get back there," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't much fancy kicking a skirt before my +shins again—and I'll be a black, coarse woman down +to my neck at dinner for years to come!..."</p> + +<p>Then, as he lay back in his bunk and she crammed +the stove with fresh boughs and twigs of balsam that +filled the little space about them with warmth and +with a faint, sweet smell of burning and with flitting +red reflections, he took up a talk about religion they +had begun some days before.</p> + +<p>"You see," he said, "I've always believed in +Salvation. I suppose a man's shy of saying so—even +to his wife. But I've always believed more or less +distinctly that there was something up to which a life +worked—always. It's been rather vague, I'll admit.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_493" id="Page_493">-493-</a></span> +I don't think I've ever believed in individual salvation. +You see, I feel these are deep things, and the deeper +one gets the less individual one becomes. That's why +one thinks of those things in darkness and loneliness—and +finds them hard to tell. One has an individual +voice, or an individual birthmark, or an individualized +old hat, but the soul—the soul's different.... It +isn't me talking to you when it comes to that.... +This question of what we are doing with life isn't a +question to begin with for you and me as ourselves, +but for you and me as mankind. Am I spinning it +too fine, Madge?"</p> + +<p>"No," she said, intent; "go on."</p> + +<p>"You see, when we talk rations here, Marjorie, +it's ourselves, but when we talk religion—it's mankind. +You've either got to be Everyman in religion +or leave it alone. That's my idea. It's no more presumptuous +to think for the race than it is for a beggar +to pray—though that means going right up to +God and talking to Him. Salvation's a collective +thing and a mystical thing—or there isn't any. Fancy +the Almighty and me sitting up and keeping Eternity +together! God and R. A. G. Trafford, F.R.S.—that's +silly. Fancy a man in number seven boots, and a +tailor-made suit in the nineteen-fourteen fashion, sitting +before God! That's caricature. But God and +Man! That's sense, Marjorie."...</p> + +<p>He stopped and stared at her.</p> + +<p>Marjorie sat red-lit, regarding him. "Queer +things you say!" she said. "So much of this I've +never thought out. I wonder why I've never done so.... +Too busy with many things, I suppose. But +go on and tell me more of these secrets you've kept +from me!"</p> + +<p>"Well, we've got to talk of these things as +mankind—or just leave them alone, and shoot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_494" id="Page_494">-494-</a></span> +pheasants."...</p> + +<p>"If I could shoot a pheasant now!" whispered +Marjorie, involuntarily.</p> + +<p>"And where do we stand? What do we need—I +mean the whole race of us—kings and beggars +together? You know, Marjorie, it's this,—it's Understanding. +That's what mankind has got to, the +realization that it doesn't understand, that it can't +express, that it's purblind. We haven't got eyes for +those greater things, but we've got the promise—the +intimation of eyes. We've come out of an unsuspecting +darkness, brute animal darkness, not into sight, +that's been the mistake, but into a feeling of illumination, +into a feeling of light shining through our +opacity....</p> + +<p>"I feel that man has now before all things to +know. That's his supreme duty, to feel, realize, see, +understand, express himself to the utmost limits of +his power."</p> + +<p>He sat up, speaking very earnestly to her, and in +that flickering light she realized for the first time how +thin he had become, how bright and hollow his eyes, +his hair was long over his eyes, and a rough beard +flowed down to his chest. "All the religions," he +said, "all the philosophies, have pretended to achieve +too much. We've no language yet for religious truth +or metaphysical truth; we've no basis yet broad +enough and strong enough on which to build. Religion +and philosophy have been impudent and quackish—quackish! +They've been like the doctors, who +have always pretended they could cure since the beginning +of things, cure everything, and to this day +even they haven't got more than the beginnings of +knowledge on which to base a cure. They've lacked +humility, they've lacked the honour to say they didn't +know; the priests took things of wood and stone, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_495" id="Page_495">-495-</a></span> +philosophers took little odd arrangements of poor +battered words, metaphors, analogies, abstractions, +and said: "That's it! Think of their silly old Absolute,—ab-solutus, +an untied parcel. I heard Haldane +at the Aristotelian once, go on for an hour—no! +it was longer than an hour—as glib and slick as +a well-oiled sausage-machine, about the different sorts +of Absolute, and not a soul of us laughed out at him! +The vanity of such profundities! They've no faith, +faith in patience, faith to wait for the coming of +God. And since we don't know God, since we don't +know His will with us, isn't it plain that all our lives +should be a search for Him and it? Can anything +else matter,—after we are free from necessity? That +is the work now that is before all mankind, to attempt +understanding—by the perpetual finding of thought +and the means of expression, by perpetual extension +and refinement of science, by the research that every +artist makes for beauty and significance in his art, +by the perpetual testing and destruction and rebirth +under criticism of all these things, and by a perpetual +extension of this intensifying wisdom to more minds +and more minds and more, till all men share in it, and +share in the making of it.... There you have my +creed, Marjorie; there you have the very marrow of +me."...</p> + +<p>He became silent.</p> + +<p>"Will you go back to your work?" she said, +abruptly. "Go back to your laboratory?"</p> + +<p>He stared at her for a moment without speaking. +"Never," he said at last.</p> + +<p>"But," she said, and the word dropped from her +like a stone that falls down a well....</p> + +<p>"My dear," he said, at last, "I've thought of +that. But since I left that dear, dusty little laboratory, +and all those exquisite subtle things—I've lived. +I've left that man seven long years behind me. Some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_496" id="Page_496">-496-</a></span> +other man must go on—I think some younger man—with +the riddles I found to work on then. I've grown—into +something different. It isn't how atoms swing +with one another, or why they build themselves up so +and not so, that matters any more to me. I've got +you and all the world in which we live, and a new set +of riddles filling my mind, how thought swings about +thought, how one man attracts his fellows, how the +waves of motive and conviction sweep through a +crowd and all the little drifting crystallizations of +spirit with spirit and all the repulsions and eddies +and difficulties, that one can catch in that turbulent +confusion. I want to do a new sort of work now altogether.... +Life has swamped me once, but I +don't think it will get me under again;—I want to +study men."</p> + +<p>He paused and she waited, with a face aglow.</p> + +<p>"I want to go back to watch and think—and I +suppose write. I believe I shall write criticism. But +everything that matters is criticism!... I want to +get into contact with the men who are thinking. I +don't mean to meet them necessarily, but to get into +the souls of their books. Every writer who has anything +to say, every artist who matters, is the stronger +for every man or woman who responds to him. That's +the great work—the Reality. I want to become a part +of this stuttering attempt to express, I want at least +to resonate, even if I do not help.... And you with +me, Marjorie—you with me! Everything I write I +want you to see and think about. I want you to read +as I read.... Now after so long, now that, now +that we've begun to talk, you know, talk again——"</p> + +<p>Something stopped his voice. Something choked +them both into silence. He held out a lean hand, and +she shuffled on her knees to take it....</p> + +<p>"Don't please make me," she stumbled through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_497" id="Page_497">-497-</a></span> +her thoughts, "one of those little parasitic, parroting +wives—don't pretend too much about me—because +you want me with you——. Don't forget a +woman isn't a man."</p> + +<p>"Old Madge," he said, "you and I have got to +march together. Didn't I love you from the first, +from that time when I was a boy examiner and you +were a candidate girl—because your mind was clear?"</p> + +<p>"And we will go back," she whispered, "with a +work——"</p> + +<p>"With a purpose," he said.</p> + +<p>She disengaged herself from his arm, and sat close +to him upon the floor. "I think I can see what you +will do," she said. She mused. "For the first time +I begin to see things as they may be for us. I begin +to see a life ahead. For the very first time."</p> + +<p>Queer ideas came drifting into her head. Suddenly +she cried out sharply in that high note he +loved. "Good heavens!" she said. "The absurdity! +The infinite absurdity!"</p> + +<p>"But what?"</p> + +<p>"I might have married Will Magnet——. That's +all."</p> + +<p>She sprang to her feet. There came a sound of +wind outside, a shifting of snow on the roof, and the +door creaked. "Half-past eleven," she exclaimed +looking at the watch that hung in the light of the +stove door. "I don't want to sleep yet; do you? +I'm going to brew some tea—make a convivial drink. +And then we will go on talking. It's so good talking +to you. So good!... I've an idea! Don't you think +on this special day, it might run to a biscuit?" Her +face was keenly anxious. He nodded. "One biscuit +each," she said, trying to rob her voice of any note of +criminality. "Just one, you know, won't matter."</p> + +<p>She hovered for some moments close to the stove<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_498" id="Page_498">-498-</a></span> +before she went into the arctic corner that contained +the tin of tea. "If we can really live like that!" she +said. "When we are home again."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" he answered.</p> + +<p>She made no answer, but went across for the +tea....</p> + +<p>He turned his head at the sound of the biscuit +tin and watched her put out the precious discs.</p> + +<p>"I shall have another pipe," he proclaimed, with +an agreeable note of excess. "Thank heaven for +unstinted tobacco...."</p> + +<p>And now Marjorie's mind was teaming with +thoughts of this new conception of a life lived for +understanding. As she went about the preparation of +the tea, her vividly concrete imagination was active +with the realization of the life they would lead on +their return. She could not see it otherwise than +framed in a tall, fine room, a study, a study in sombre +tones, with high, narrow, tall, dignified bookshelves +and rich deep green curtains veiling its windows. +There should be a fireplace of white marble, very +plain and well proportioned, with furnishings of old +brass, and a big desk towards the window beautifully +lit by electric light, with abundant space for papers +to lie. And she wanted some touch of the wilderness +about it; a skin perhaps....</p> + +<p>The tea was still infusing when she had determined +upon an enormous paper-weight of that iridescent +Labradorite that had been so astonishing a +feature of the Green River Valley. She would have +it polished on one side only—the other should be +rough to show the felspar in its natural state....</p> + +<p>It wasn't that she didn't feel and understand +quite fully the intention and significance of all he had +said, but that in these symbols of texture and equipment +her mind quite naturally clothed itself. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_499" id="Page_499">-499-</a></span> +while this room was coming into anticipatory being +in her mind, she was making the tea very deftly and +listening to Trafford's every word.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 15</p> + +<p>That talk marked an epoch to Marjorie. From +that day forth her imagination began to shape a +new, ordered and purposeful life for Trafford and +herself in London, a life not altogether divorced from +their former life, but with a faith sustaining it and +aims controlling it. She had always known of the +breadth and power of his mind, but now as he talked +of what he might do, what interests might converge +and give results through him, it seemed she really +knew him for the first time. In his former researches, +so technical and withdrawn, she had seen little of his +mind in action: now he was dealing in his own fashion +with things she could clearly understand. There +were times when his talk affected her like that joy of +light one has in emerging into sunshine from a long +and tedious cave. He swept things together, flashed +unsuspected correlations upon her intelligence, +smashed and scattered absurd yet venerated conventions +of thought, made undreamt-of courses of action +visible in a flare of luminous necessity. And she +could follow him and help him. Just as she had +hampered him and crippled him, so now she could +release him—she fondled that word. She found a +preposterous image in her mind that she hid like a +disgraceful secret, that she tried to forget, and yet +its stupendous, its dreamlike absurdity had something +in it that shaped her delight as nothing else could do; +she was, she told herself—hawking with an archangel!...</p> + +<p>These were her moods of exaltation. And she<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_500" id="Page_500">-500-</a></span> +was sure she had never loved her man before, that +this was indeed her beginning. It was as if she had +just found him....</p> + +<p>Perhaps, she thought, true lovers keep on finding +each other all through their lives.</p> + +<p>And he too had discovered her. All the host of +Marjories he had known, the shining, delightful, +seductive, wilful, perplexing aspects that had so +filled her life, gave place altogether for a time to +this steady-eyed woman, lean and warm-wrapped with +the valiant heart and the frost-roughened skin. What +a fine, strong, ruddy thing she was! How glad he was +for this wild adventure in the wilderness, if only because +it had made him lie among the rocks and think +of her and wait for her and despair of her life and +God, and at last see her coming back to him, flushed +with effort and calling his name to him out of that +whirlwind of snow.... And there was at least one +old memory mixed up with all these new and overmastering +impressions, the memory of her clear unhesitating +voice as it had stabbed into his life again +long years ago, minute and bright in the telephone: +"<i>It's me, you know. It's Marjorie!</i>"</p> + +<p>Perhaps after all she had not wasted a moment of +his life, perhaps every issue between them had been +necessary, and it was good altogether to be turned +from the study of crystals to the study of men and +women....</p> + +<p>And now both their minds were Londonward, +where all the tides and driftage and currents of human +thought still meet and swirl together. They +were full of what they would do when they got back. +Marjorie sketched that study to him—in general +terms and without the paper-weight—and began to +shape the world she would have about it. She meant +to be his squaw and body-servant first of all, and then—a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_501" id="Page_501">-501-</a></span> +mother. Children, she said, are none the worse +for being kept a little out of focus. And he was +rapidly planning out his approach to the new questions +to which he was now to devote his life. "One +wants something to hold the work together," he said, +and projected a book. "One cannot struggle at +large for plain statement and copious and free and +courageous statement, one needs a positive attack."</p> + +<p>He designed a book, which he might write if only +for the definition it would give him and with no +ultimate publication, which was to be called: "The +Limits of Language as a Means of Expression." ... +It was to be a pragmatist essay, a sustained attempt +to undermine the confidence of all that scholasticism +and logic chopping which still lingers like the <i>sequelæ</i> +of a disease in our University philosophy. "Those +duffers sit in their studies and make a sort of tea of +dry old words—and think they're distilling the spirit +of wisdom," he said.</p> + +<p>He proliferated titles for a time, and settled at +last on "From Realism to Reality." He wanted to get +at that at once; it fretted him to have to hang in the +air, day by day, for want of books to quote and opponents +to lance and confute. And he wanted to see +pictures, too and plays, read novels he had heard +of and never read, in order to verify or correct +the ideas that were seething in his mind about +the qualities of artistic expression. His thought had +come out to a conviction that the line to wider human +understandings lies through a huge criticism and +cleaning up of the existing methods of formulation, +as a preliminary to the wider and freer discussion of +those religious and social issues our generation still +shrinks from. "It's grotesque," he said, "and utterly +true that the sanity and happiness of all the world +lies in its habits of generalization." There was not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_502" id="Page_502">-502-</a></span> +even paper for him to make notes or provisional drafts +of the new work. He hobbled about the camp fretting +at these deprivations.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," he said, "we've done our job. Why +should we wait here on this frosty shelf outside the +world? My leg's getting sounder—if it wasn't for +that feeling of ice in it. Why shouldn't we make +another sledge from the other bunk and start down—"</p> + +<p>"To Hammond?"</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"But the way?"</p> + +<p>"The valley would guide us. We could do four +hours a day before we had to camp. I'm not sure we +couldn't try the river. We could drag and carry all +our food...."</p> + +<p>She looked down the wide stretches of the valley. +There was the hill they had christened Marjorie +Ridge. At least it was familiar. Every night before +nightfall if they started there would be a fresh camping +place to seek among the snow-drifts, a great heap +of wood to cut to last the night. Suppose his leg +gave out—when they were already some days away, +so that he could no longer go on or she drag him +back to the stores. Plainly there would be nothing +for it then but to lie down and die together....</p> + +<p>And a sort of weariness had come to her as a +consequence of two months of half-starved days, not +perhaps a failure so much as a reluctance of spirit.</p> + +<p>"Of course," she said, with a new aspect drifting +before her mind, "then—we <i>could</i> eat. We <i>could</i> +feed up before we started. We could feast almost!"</p> + +<p class="title">§ 16</p> + +<p>"While you were asleep the other night," Trafford +began one day as they sat spinning out their +mid-day meal, "I was thinking how badly I had expressed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_503" id="Page_503">-503-</a></span> +myself when I talked to you the other day, +and what a queer, thin affair I made of the plans I +wanted to carry out. As a matter of fact, they're +neither queer nor thin, but they are unreal in comparison +with the common things of everyday life, +hunger, anger, all the immediate desires. They must be. +They only begin when those others are at peace. It's +hard to set out these things; they're complicated and +subtle, and one cannot simplify without falsehood. I +don't want to simplify. The world has gone out of +its way time after time through simplifications and +short cuts. Save us from epigrams! And when one +thinks over what one has said, at a little distance,—one +wants to go back to it, and say it all again. I +seem to be not so much thinking things out as reviving +and developing things I've had growing in my +mind ever since we met. It's as though an immense +reservoir of thought had filled up in my mind at last +and was beginning to trickle over and break down +the embankment between us. This conflict that has +been going on between our life together and my—my +intellectual life; it's only just growing clear in my +own mind. Yet it's just as if one turned up a light +on something that had always been there....</p> + +<p>"It's a most extraordinary thing to think out, +Marjorie, that antagonism. Our love has kept us so +close together and always our purposes have been—like +that." He spread divergent hands. "I've speculated +again and again whether there isn't something +incurably antagonistic between women (that's <i>you</i> +generalized, Marjorie) and men (that's me) directly +we pass beyond the conditions of the individualistic +struggle. I believe every couple of lovers who've ever +married have felt that strain. Yet it's not a difference +in kind between us but degree. The big conflict +between us has a parallel in a little internal conflict<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_504" id="Page_504">-504-</a></span> +that goes on; there's something of man in every +woman and a touch of the feminine in every man. +But you're nearer as woman to the immediate personal +life of sense and reality than I am as man. It's +been so ever since the men went hunting and fighting +and the women kept hut, tended the children and +gathered roots in the little cultivation close at hand. +It's been so perhaps since the female carried and +suckled her child and distinguished one male from +another. It may be it will always be so. Men were +released from that close, continuous touch with physical +necessities long before women were. It's only +now that women begin to be released. For ages now +men have been wandering from field and home and +city, over the hills and far away, in search of adventures +and fresh ideas and the wells of mystery +beyond the edge of the world, but it's only now that +the woman comes with them too. Our difference isn't +a difference in kind, old Marjorie; it's the difference +between the old adventurer and the new feet upon the +trail."</p> + +<p>"We've got to come," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Oh! you've got to come. No good to be pioneers +if the race does not follow. The women are the +backbone of the race; the men are just the individuals. +Into this Labrador and into all the wild and +desolate places of thought and desire, if men come +you women have to come too—and bring the race +with you. Some day."</p> + +<p>"A long day, mate of my heart."</p> + +<p>"Who knows how long or how far? Aren't you +at any rate here, dear woman of mine.... (<i>Surely +you are here</i>)."</p> + +<p>He went off at a tangent. "There's all those +words that seem to mean something and then don't +seem to mean anything, that keep shifting to and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_505" id="Page_505">-505-</a></span> +fro from the deepest significance to the shallowest of +claptrap, Socialism, Christianity.... You know,—they +aren't anything really, as yet; they are something +trying to be.... Haven't I said that before, +Marjorie?"</p> + +<p>She looked round at him. "You said something +like that when you were delirious," she answered, +after a little pause. "It's one of the ideas that you're +struggling with. You go on, old man, and <i>talk</i>. +We've months—for repetitions."</p> + +<p>"Well, I mean that all these things are seeking +after a sort of co-operation that's greater than our +power even of imaginative realization; that's what I +mean. The kingdom of Heaven, the communion of +saints, the fellowship of men; these are things like +high peaks far out of the common life of every day, +shining things that madden certain sorts of men to +climb. Certain sorts of us! I'm a religious man, I'm +a socialistic man. These calls are more to me than my +daily bread. I've got something in me more generalizing +than most men. I'm more so than many other +men and most other women, I'm more socialistic than +you...."</p> + +<p>"You know, Marjorie, I've always felt you're a +finer individual than me, I've never had a doubt of it. +You're more beautiful by far than I, woman for my +man. You've a keener appetite for things, a firmer +grip on the substance of life. I love to see you do +things, love to see you move, love to watch your +hands; you've cleverer hands than mine by far.... +And yet—I'm a deeper and bigger thing than you. +I reach up to something you don't reach up to.... +You're in life—and I'm a little out of it, I'm like +one of those fish that began to be amphibian, I go out +into something where you don't follow—where you +hardly begin to follow.</p> + +<p>"That's the real perplexity between thousands of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_506" id="Page_506">-506-</a></span> +men and women....</p> + +<p>"It seems to me that the primitive socialism of +Christianity and all the stuff of modern socialism +that matters is really aiming—almost unconsciously, +I admit at times—at one simple end, at the release +of the human spirit from the individualistic struggle——</p> + +<p>"You used 'release' the other day, Marjorie? Of +course, I remember. It's queer how I go on talking +after you have understood."</p> + +<p>"It was just a flash," said Marjorie. "We +have intimations. Neither of us really understands. +We're like people climbing a mountain in a mist, +that thins out for a moment and shows valleys and +cities, and then closes in again, before we can recognize +them or make out where we are."</p> + +<p>Trafford thought. "When I talk to you, I've +always felt I mustn't be too vague. And the very +essence of all this is a vague thing, something we +shall never come nearer to it in all our lives than to see +it as a shadow and a glittering that escapes again into +a mist.... And yet it's everything that matters, +everything, the only thing that matters truly and for +ever through the whole range of life. And we have +to serve it with the keenest thought, the utmost patience, +inordinate veracity....</p> + +<p>"The practical trouble between your sort and +my sort, Marjorie, is the trouble between faith and +realization. You demand the outcome. Oh! and I +hate to turn aside and realize. I've had to do it for +seven years. Damnable years! Men of my sort want +to understand. We want to understand, and you ask +us to make. We want to understand atoms, ions, +molecules, refractions. You ask us to make rubber +and diamonds. I suppose it's right that incidentally +we should make rubber and diamonds. Finally,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_507" id="Page_507">-507-</a></span> +I warn you, we will make rubber unnecessary and +diamonds valueless. And again we want to understand +how people react upon one another to produce +social consequences, and you ask us to put it at once +into a draft bill for the reform of something or +other. I suppose life lies between us somewhere, +we're the two poles of truth seeking and truth getting; +with me alone it would be nothing but a luminous dream, +with you nothing but a scramble in which +sooner or later all the lamps would be upset.... +But it's ever too much of a scramble yet, and ever +too little of a dream. All our world over there is +full of the confusion and wreckage of premature +realizations. There's no real faith in thought and +knowledge yet. Old necessity has driven men so hard +that they still rush with a wild urgency—though she +goads no more. Greed and haste, and if, indeed, we +seem to have a moment's breathing space, then the +Gawdsaker tramples us under."</p> + +<p>"My dear!" cried Marjorie, with a sharp note +of amusement. "What <i>is</i> a Gawdsaker?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Trafford, "haven't you heard that +before? He's the person who gets excited by any +deliberate discussion and gets up wringing his hands +and screaming, 'For Gawd's sake, let's <i>do</i> something +<i>now!</i>' I think they used it first for Pethick Lawrence, +that man who did so much to run the old militant +suffragettes and burke the proper discussion of +woman's future. You know. You used to have 'em +in Chelsea—with their hats. Oh! 'Gawdsaking' is +the curse of all progress, the hectic consumption that +kills a thousand good beginnings. You see it in +small things and in great. You see it in my life; +Gawdsaking turned my life-work to cash and promotions, +Gawdsaking——Look at the way the aviators +took to flying for prizes and gate-money, the way<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_508" id="Page_508">-508-</a></span> +pure research is swamped by endowments for technical +applications! Then that poor ghost-giant of +an idea the socialists have;—it's been treated like +one of those unborn lambs they kill for the fine skin +of it, made into results before ever it was alive. +Was there anything more pitiful? The first great +dream and then the last phase! when your Aunt +Plessington and the district visitors took and used +it as a synonym for Payment in Kind.... It's natural, +I suppose, for people to be eager for results, +personal and immediate results—the last lesson of +life is patience. Naturally they want reality, naturally! +They want the individual life, something +to handle and feel and use and live by, something of +their very own before they die, and they want it +now. But the thing that matters for the race, Marjorie, +is a very different thing; it is to get the emerging +thought process clear and to keep it clear—and +to let those other hungers go. We've got to go back +to England on the side of that delay, that arrest of +interruption, that detached, observant, synthesizing +process of the mind, that solvent of difficulties +and obsolescent institutions, which is the reality of +collective human life. We've got to go back on the +side of pure science—literature untrammeled by the +preconceptions of the social schemers—art free from +the urgency of immediate utility—and a new, a regal, +a god-like sincerity in philosophy. And, above all, +we've got to stop this Jackdaw buying of yours, my +dear, which is the essence of all that is wrong with the +world, this snatching at everything, which loses everything +worth having in life, this greedy confused +realization of our accumulated resources! You're +going to be a non-shopping woman now. You're to +come out of Bond Street, you and your kind, like +Israel leaving the Egyptian flesh-pots. You're going<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_509" id="Page_509">-509-</a></span> +to be my wife and my mate.... Less of this service +of things. Investments in comfort, in security, in +experience, yes; but not just spending any more...."</p> + +<p>He broke off abruptly with: "I want to go back +and begin."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marjorie, "we will go back," and +saw minutely and distantly, and yet as clearly and +brightly as if she looked into a concave mirror, that +tall and dignified study, a very high room indeed, +with a man writing before a fine, long-curtained +window and a great lump of rich-glowing Labradorite +upon his desk before him holding together an accumulation +of written sheets....</p> + +<p>She knew exactly the shop in Oxford Street where +the stuff for the curtains might be best obtained.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 17</p> + +<p>One night Marjorie had been sitting musing before +the stove for a long time, and suddenly she said: +"I wonder if we shall fail. I wonder if we shall get +into a mess again when we are back in London.... +As big a mess and as utter a discontent as sent us +here...."</p> + +<p>Trafford was scraping out his pipe, and did not +answer for some moments. Then he remarked: "What +nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"But we shall," she said. "Everybody fails. To +some extent, we are bound to fail. Because indeed +nothing is clear; nothing is a clear issue.... You +know—I'm just the old Marjorie really in spite of +all these resolutions—the spendthrift, the restless, +the eager. I'm a born snatcher and shopper. We're +just the same people really."</p> + +<p>"No," he said, after thought. "You're all +Labrador older."</p> + +<p>"I always <i>have</i> failed," she considered, "when it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_510" id="Page_510">-510-</a></span> +came to any special temptations, Rag. I can't <i>stand</i> +not having a thing!"</p> + +<p>He made no answer.</p> + +<p>"And you're still the same old Rag, you know," +she went on. "Who weakens into kindness if I cry. +Who likes me well-dressed. Who couldn't endure to +see me poor."</p> + +<p>"Not a bit of it. No! I'm a very different Rag +with a very different Marjorie. Yes indeed! Things—are +graver. Why!—I'm lame for life—and I've a +scar. The very <i>look</i> of things is changed...." He +stared at her face and said: "You've hidden the +looking-glass and you think I haven't noted it——"</p> + +<p>"It keeps on healing," she interrupted. "And if +it comes to that—where's my complexion?" She +laughed. "These are just the superficial aspects of +the case."</p> + +<p>"Nothing ever heals completely," he said, answering +her first sentence, "and nothing ever goes +back to the exact place it held before. We <i>are</i> different, +you sun-bitten, frost-bitten wife of mine."...</p> + +<p>"Character is character," said Marjorie, coming +back to her point. "Don't exaggerate conversion, +dear. It's not a bit of good pretending we shan't +fall away, both of us. Each in our own manner. We +shall. We shall, old man. London is still a tempting +and confusing place, and you can't alter people fundamentally, +not even by half-freezing and half-starving +them. You only alter people fundamentally +by killing them and replacing them. I shall be extravagant +again and forget again, try as I may, +and you will work again and fall away again and forgive +me again. You know——It's just as though +we were each of us not one person, but a lot of persons, +who sometimes meet and shout all together, and +then disperse and forget and plot against each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_511" id="Page_511">-511-</a></span> +other...."</p> + +<p>"Oh, things will happen again," said Trafford, +in her pause. "But they will happen again with a +difference—after this. With a difference. That's +the good of it all.... We've found something here—that +makes everything different.... We've found +each other, too, dear wife."</p> + +<p>She thought intently.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"But what is there to be afraid of?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Myself</i>."</p> + +<p>She spoke after a little pause that seemed to hesitate. +"At times I wish—oh, passionately!—that I +could pray."</p> + +<p>"Why don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe enough—in that. I wish I did."</p> + +<p>Trafford thought. "People are always so exacting +about prayer," he said.</p> + +<p>"Exacting."</p> + +<p>"You want to pray—and you can't make terms +for a thing you want. I used to think I could. I +wanted God to come and demonstrate a bit.... It's +no good, Madge.... If God chooses to be silent—you +must pray to the silence. If he chooses to live in +darkness, you must pray to the night...."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Marjorie, "I suppose one must."</p> + +<p>She thought. "I suppose in the end one does," +she said....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 18</p> + +<p>Mixed up with this entirely characteristic theology +of theirs and their elaborate planning-out of a +new life in London were other strands of thought. +Queer memories of London and old times together +would flash with a peculiar brightness across their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_512" id="Page_512">-512-</a></span> +contemplation of the infinities and the needs of mankind. +Out of nowhere, quite disconnectedly, would +come the human, finite: "Do you remember——?"</p> + +<p>Two things particularly pressed into their minds. +One was the thought of their children, and I do not +care to tell how often in the day now they calculated +the time in England, and tried to guess to a half mile +or so where those young people might be and what +they might be doing. "The shops are bright for +Christmas now," said Marjorie. "This year Dick +was to have had his first fireworks. I wonder if he +did. I wonder if he burnt his dear little funny stumps +of fingers. I hope not."</p> + +<p>"Oh, just a little," said Trafford. "I remember +how a squib made my glove smoulder and singed +me, and how my mother kissed me for taking it like a +man. It was the best part of the adventure."</p> + +<p>"Dick shall burn his fingers when his mother's +home to kiss him. But spare his fingers now, +Dadda...."</p> + +<p>The other topic was food.</p> + +<p>It was only after they had been doing it for a +week or so that they remarked how steadily they +gravitated to reminiscences, suggestions, descriptions +and long discussions of eatables—sound, solid eatables. +They told over the particulars of dinners +they had imagined altogether forgotten; neither hosts +nor conversations seemed to matter now in the slightest +degree, but every item in the menu had its place. +They nearly quarrelled one day about <i>hors-d'œuvre</i>. +Trafford wanted to dwell on them when Marjorie +was eager for the soup.</p> + +<p>"It's niggling with food," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but there's no reason," said Trafford, "why +you shouldn't take a lot of <i>hors-d'œuvre</i>. Three or +four sardines, and potato salad and a big piece of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_513" id="Page_513">-513-</a></span> +smoked salmon, and some of that Norwegian herring, +and so on, and keep the olives by you to pick at. It's +a beginning."</p> + +<p>"It's—it's immoral," said Marjorie, "that's +what I feel. If one needs a whet to eat, one shouldn't +eat. The proper beginning of a dinner is soup—good, +hot, <i>rich</i> soup. Thick soup—with things in it, +vegetables and meat and things. Bits of oxtail."</p> + +<p>"Not peas."</p> + +<p>"No, not peas. Pea-soup is tiresome. I never +knew anything one tired of so soon. I wish we hadn't +relied on it so much."</p> + +<p>"Thick soup's all very well," said Trafford, "but +how about that clear stuff they give you in the little +pavement restaurants in Paris. You know—<i>Croûte-au-pot</i>, +with lovely great crusts and big leeks and +lettuce leaves and so on! Tremendous aroma of +onions, and beautiful little beads of fat! And being +a clear soup, you see what there is. That's—interesting. +Twenty-five centimes, Marjorie. Lord! I'd +give a guinea a plate for it. I'd give five pounds for +one of those jolly white-metal tureens full—you +know, <i>full</i>, with little drops all over the outside of it, +and the ladle sticking out under the lid."</p> + +<p>"Have you ever tasted turtle soup?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. They give it you in the City. The +fat's—ripping. But they're rather precious with it, +you know. For my own part, I don't think soup +should be <i>doled</i> out. I always liked the soup we used +to get at the Harts'; but then they never give you +enough, you know—not nearly enough."</p> + +<p>"About a tablespoonful," said Marjorie. "It's +mocking an appetite."</p> + +<p>"Still there's things to follow," said Trafford....</p> + +<p>They discussed the proper order of a dinner very +carefully. They decided that sorbets and ices were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_514" id="Page_514">-514-</a></span> +not only unwholesome, but nasty. "In London," +said Trafford, "one's taste gets—vitiated."...</p> + +<p>They weighed the merits of French cookery, modern +international cookery, and produced alternatives. +Trafford became very eloquent about old English +food. "Dinners," said Trafford, "should be feasting, +not the mere satisfaction of a necessity. There +should be—<i>amplitude</i>. I remember a recipe for a +pie; I think it was in one of those books that man +Lucas used to compile. If I remember rightly, it +began with: 'Take a swine and hew it into gobbets.' +Gobbets! That's something like a beginning. It was +a big pie with tiers and tiers of things, and it kept it +up all the way in that key.... And then what could +be better than prime British-fed roast beef, reddish, +just a shade on the side of underdone, and not too +finely cut. Mutton can't touch it."</p> + +<p>"Beef is the best," she said.</p> + +<p>"Then our English cold meat again. What can +equal it? Such stuff as they give in a good country +inn, a huge joint of beef—you cut from it yourself, +you know as much as you like—with mustard, pickles, +celery, a tankard of stout, let us say. Pressed beef, +such as they'll give you at the Reform, too, that's +good eating for a man. With chutney, and then old +cheese to follow. And boiled beef, with little carrots +and turnips and a dumpling or so. Eh?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," said Marjorie, "one must do justice +to a well-chosen turkey, a <i>fat</i> turkey."</p> + +<p>"Or a good goose, for the matter of that—with +honest, well-thought-out stuffing. I like the little +sausages round the dish of a turkey, too; like cherubs +they are, round the feet of a Madonna.... There's +much to be said for sausage, Marjorie. It concentrates."</p> + +<p>Sausage led to Germany. "I'm not one of those<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_515" id="Page_515">-515-</a></span> +patriots," he was saying presently, "who run down +other countries by way of glorifying their own. While +I was in Germany I tasted many good things. There's +their Leberwurst; it's never bad, and, at its best, it's +splendid. It's only a fool would reproach Germany +with sausage. Devonshire black-pudding, of course, +is the master of any Blutwurst, but there's all those +others on the German side, Frankfurter, big reddish +sausage stuff again with great crystalline lumps of +white fat. And how well they cook their rich hashes, +and the thick gravies they make. Curious, how much +better the cooking of Teutonic peoples is than the +cooking of the South Europeans! It's as if one needed +a colder climate to brace a cook to his business. +The Frenchman and the Italian trifle and stimulate. +It's as if they'd never met a hungry man. No German +would have thought of <i>soufflé</i>. Ugh! it's vicious +eating. There's much that's fine, though, in Austria +and Hungary. I wish I had travelled in Hungary. +Do you remember how once or twice we've lunched at +that Viennese place in Regent Street, and how they've +given us stuffed Paprika, eh?"</p> + +<p>"That was a good place. I remember there was +stewed beef once with a lot of barley—such <i>good</i> +barley!"</p> + +<p>"Every country has its glories. One talks of the +cookery of northern countries and then suddenly one +thinks of curry, with lots of rice."</p> + +<p>"And lots of chicken!"</p> + +<p>"And lots of hot curry powder, <i>very</i> hot. And +look at America! Here's a people who haven't any of +them been out of Europe for centuries, and yet they +have as different a table as you could well imagine. +There's a kind of fish, planked shad, that they cook +on resinous wood—roast it, I suppose. It's substantial, +like nothing else in the world. And how good,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_516" id="Page_516">-516-</a></span> +too, with turkey are sweet potatoes. Then they have +such a multitude of cereal things; stuff like their +buckwheat cakes, all swimming in golden syrup. And +Indian corn, again!"</p> + +<p>"Of course, corn is being anglicized. I've often +given you corn—latterly, before we came away."</p> + +<p>"That sort of separated grain—out of tins. +Like chicken's food! It's not the real thing. You +should eat corn on the cob—American fashion! It's +fine. I had it when I was in the States. You know, +you take it up in your hands by both ends—you've +seen the cobs?—and gnaw."</p> + +<p>The craving air of Labrador at a temperature +of -20° Fahrenheit, and methodically stinted rations, +make great changes in the outward qualities of +the mind. "<i>I'd</i> like to do that," said Marjorie.</p> + +<p>Her face flushed a little at a guilty thought, her +eyes sparkled. She leant forward and spoke in a +confidential undertone.</p> + +<p>"<i>I'd—I'd like to eat a mutton chop like that</i>," +said Marjorie.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 20</p> + +<p>One morning Marjorie broached something she +had had on her mind for several days.</p> + +<p>"Old man," she said, "I can't stand it any longer. +I'm going to thaw my scissors and cut your +hair.... And then you'll have to trim that beard of +yours."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to dig out that looking-glass."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Marjorie. She looked at him. +"You'll never be a pretty man again," she said. +"But there's a sort of wild splendour.... And I +love every inch and scrap of you...."</p> + +<p>Their eyes met. "We're a thousand deeps now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_517" id="Page_517">-517-</a></span> +below the look of things," said Trafford. "We'd +love each other minced."</p> + +<p>She broke into that smiling laugh of hers. "Oh! +it won't come to <i>that</i>," she said. "Trust my housekeeping!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER THE FIFTH</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">The Trail to the Sea</span></h3> + +<p class="title">§ 1</p> + +<p>One astonishing afternoon in January a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_518" id="Page_518">-518-</a></span> +came out of the wilderness to Lonely Hut. He was +a French-Indian half-breed, a trapper up and down +the Green River and across the Height of Land to +Sea Lake. He arrived in a sort of shy silence, and +squatted amiably on a log to thaw. "Much snow," +he said, "and little fur."</p> + +<p>After he had sat at their fire for an hour and eaten +and drunk, his purpose in coming thawed out. He +explained he had just come on to them to see how +they were. He was, he said, a planter furring; he +had a line of traps, about a hundred and twenty miles +in length. The nearest trap in his path before he +turned northward over the divide was a good forty +miles down the river. He had come on from there. +Just to have a look. His name, he said, was Louis +Napoleon Partington. He had carried a big pack, +a rifle and a dead marten,—they lay beside him—and +out of his shapeless mass of caribou skins and +woolen clothing and wrappings, peeped a genial, oily, +brown face, very dirty, with a strand of blue-black +hair across one eye, irregular teeth in its friendly +smile, and little, squeezed-up eyes.</p> + +<p>Conversation developed. There had been doubts +of his linguistic range at first, but he had an understanding +expression, and his English seemed guttural +rather than really bad.</p> + +<p>He was told the tremendous story of Trafford's +leg; was shown it, and felt it; he interpolated thick +and whistling noises to show how completely he followed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_519" id="Page_519">-519-</a></span> +their explanations, and then suddenly he began +a speech that made all his earlier taciturnity seem +but the dam of a great reservoir of mixed and partly +incomprehensible English. He complimented Marjorie +so effusively and relentlessly and shamelessly as +to produce a pause when he had done. "Yes," he +said, and nodded to button up the whole. He sucked +his pipe, well satisfied with his eloquence. Trafford +spoke in his silence. "We are coming down," he said.</p> + +<p>("I thought, perhaps——" whispered Louis Napoleon.)</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Trafford, "we are coming down with +you. Why not? We can get a sledge over the snow +now? It's hard? I mean a flat sledge—like <i>this</i>. +See? Like this." He got up and dragged Marjorie's +old arrangement into view. "We shall bring all the +stuff we can down with us, grub, blankets—not the +tent, it's too bulky; we'll leave a lot of the heavy +gear."</p> + +<p>"You'd have to leave the tent," said Louis Napoleon.</p> + +<p>"I <i>said</i> leave the tent."</p> + +<p>"And you'd have to leave ... some of those +tins."</p> + +<p>"Nearly all of them."</p> + +<p>"And the ammunition, there;—except just a +little."</p> + +<p>"Just enough for the journey down."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps a gun?"</p> + +<p>"No, not a gun. Though, after all,—well, we'd +return one of the guns. Give it you to bring back +here."</p> + +<p>"Bring back here?"</p> + +<p>"If you liked."</p> + +<p>For some moments Louis Napoleon was intently +silent. When he spoke his voice was guttural with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_520" id="Page_520">-520-</a></span> +emotion. "After," he said thoughtfully and paused, +and then resolved to have it over forthwith, "all you +leave will be mine? Eh?"</p> + +<p>Trafford said that was the idea.</p> + +<p>Louis Napoleon's eye brightened, but his face +preserved its Indian calm.</p> + +<p>"I will take you right to Hammond's," he said, +"Where they have dogs. And then I can come back +here...."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 2</p> + +<p>They had talked out nearly every particular of +their return before they slept that night; they yarned +away three hours over the first generous meal that +any one of them had eaten for many weeks. Louis +Napoleon stayed in the hut as a matter of course, and +reposed with snores and choking upon Marjorie's +sledge and within a yard of her. It struck her as she +lay awake and listened that the housemaids in Sussex +Square would have thought things a little congested +for a lady's bedroom, and then she reflected that after +all it wasn't much worse than a crowded carriage in +an all-night train from Switzerland. She tried to +count how many people there had been in that compartment, +and failed. How stuffy that had been—the +smell of cheese and all! And with that, after a +dream that she was whaling and had harpooned a +particularly short-winded whale she fell very peacefully +into oblivion.</p> + +<p>Next day was spent in the careful preparation of +the two sledges. They intended to take a full provision +for six weeks, although they reckoned that +with good weather they ought to be down at Hammond's +in four.</p> + +<p>The day after was Sunday, and Louis Napoleon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_521" id="Page_521">-521-</a></span> +would not look at the sledges or packing. Instead he +held a kind of religious service which consisted partly +in making Trafford read aloud out of a very oily old +New Testament he produced, a selected passage from +the book of Corinthians, and partly in moaning +rather than singing several hymns. He was rather +disappointed that they did not join in with him. In +the afternoon he heated some water, went into the +tent with it and it would appear partially washed his +face. In the evening, after they had supped, he discussed +religion, being curious by this time about their +beliefs and procedure.</p> + +<p>He spread his mental and spiritual equipment +before them very artlessly. Their isolation and their +immense concentration on each other had made them +sensitive to personal quality, and they listened to the +broken English and the queer tangential starts into +new topics of this dirty mongrel creature with the +keenest appreciation of its quality. It was inconsistent, +miscellaneous, simple, honest, and human. It +was as touching as the medley in the pocket of a dead +schoolboy. He was superstitious and sceptical and +sensual and spiritual, and very, very earnest. The +things he believed, even if they were just beliefs +about the weather or drying venison or filling pipes, +he believed with emotion. He flushed as he told them. +For all his intellectual muddle they felt he knew how +to live honestly and die if need be very finely.</p> + +<p>He was more than a little distressed at their apparent +ignorance of the truths of revealed religion +as it is taught in the Moravian schools upon the coast, +and indeed it was manifest that he had had far more +careful and infinitely more sincere religious teaching +than either Trafford or Marjorie. For a time the +missionary spirit inspired him, and then he quite forgot +his solicitude for their conversion in a number<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_522" id="Page_522">-522-</a></span> +of increasingly tall anecdotes about hunters and fishermen, +illustrating at first the extreme dangers of any +departure from a rigid Sabbatarianism, but presently +becoming just stories illustrating the uncertainty of +life. Thence he branched off to the general topic of +life upon the coast and the relative advantages of +"planter" and fisherman.</p> + +<p>And then with a kindling eye he spoke of women, +and how that some day he would marry. His voice +softened, and he addressed himself more particularly +to Marjorie. He didn't so much introduce the topic +of the lady as allow the destined young woman suddenly +to pervade his discourse. She was, it seemed, +a servant, an Esquimaux girl at the Moravian Mission +station at Manivikovik. He had been plighted to her +for nine years. He described a gramophone he had +purchased down at Port Dupré and brought back to +her three hundred miles up the coast—it seemed to +Marjorie an odd gift for an Esquimaux maiden—and +he gave his views upon its mechanism. He said +God was with the man who invented the gramophone +"truly." They would have found one a very great +relief to the tediums of their sojourn at Lonely Hut. +The gramophone he had given his betrothed possessed +records of the Rev. Capel Gumm's preaching +and of Madame Melba's singing, a revival hymn called +"Sowing the Seed," and a comic song—they could +not make out his pronunciation of the title—that +made you die with laughter. "It goes gobble, gobble, +gobble," he said, with a solemn appreciative reflection +of those distant joys.</p> + +<p>"It's good to be jolly at times," he said with his +bright eyes scanning Marjorie's face a little doubtfully, +as if such ideas were better left for week-day +expression.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 3</p> + +<p>Their return was a very different journey from the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_523" id="Page_523">-523-</a></span> +toilsome ascent of the summer. An immense abundance +of snow masked the world, snow that made them +regret acutely they had not equipped themselves with +ski. With ski and a good circulation, a man may go +about Labrador in winter, six times more easily than +by the canoes and slow trudging of summer travel. +As it was they were glad of their Canadian snow +shoes. One needs only shelters after the Alpine Club +hut fashion, and all that vast solitary country would +be open in the wintertime. Its shortest day is no +shorter than the shortest day in Cumberland or Dublin.</p> + +<p>This is no place to tell of the beauty and wonder +of snow and ice, the soft contours of gentle slopes, +the rippling of fine snow under a steady wind, the +long shadow ridges of shining powder on the lee of +trees and stones and rocks, the delicate wind streaks +over broad surfaces like the marks of a chisel in marble, +the crests and cornices, the vivid brightness of +edges in the sun, the glowing yellowish light on sunlit +surfaces, the long blue shadows, the flush of sunset +and sunrise and the pallid unearthly desolation of +snow beneath the moon. Nor need the broken snow in +woods and amidst tumbled stony slopes be described, +nor the vast soft overhanging crests on every outstanding +rock beside the icebound river, nor the huge +stalactites and stalagmites of green-blue ice below the +cliffs, nor trees burdened and broken by frost and +snow, nor snow upon ice, nor the blue pools at mid-day +upon the surface of the ice-stream. Across the smooth +wind-swept ice of the open tarns they would find a +growth of ice flowers, six-rayed and complicated, +more abundant and more beautiful than the Alpine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_524" id="Page_524">-524-</a></span> +summer flowers.</p> + +<p>But the wind was very bitter, and the sun had +scarcely passed its zenith before the thought of fuel +and shelter came back into their minds.</p> + +<p>As they approached Partington's tilt, at the point +where his trapping ground turned out of the Green +River gorge, he became greatly obsessed by the +thought of his traps. He began to talk of all that he +might find in them, all he hoped to find, and the +"dallars" that might ensue. They slept the third +night, Marjorie within and the two men under the +lee of the little cabin, and Partington was up and +away before dawn to a trap towards the ridge. He +had infected Marjorie and Trafford with a sympathetic +keenness, but when they saw his killing of a +marten that was still alive in its trap, they suddenly +conceived a distaste for trapping.</p> + +<p>They insisted they must witness no more. They +would wait while he went to a trap....</p> + +<p>"Think what he's doing!" said Trafford, as they +sat together under the lee of a rock waiting for him. +"We imagined this was a free, simple-souled man +leading an unsophisticated life on the very edge of +humanity, and really he is as much a dependant of +your woman's world, Marjorie, as any sweated seamstress +in a Marylebone slum. Lord! how far those +pretty wasteful hands of women reach! All these +poor broken and starving beasts he finds and slaughters +are, from the point of view of our world, just furs. +Furs! Poor little snarling unfortunates! Their pelts +will be dressed and prepared because women who have +never dreamt of this bleak wilderness desire them. +They will get at last into Regent Street shops, and +Bond Street shops, and shops in Fifth Avenue and in +Paris and Berlin, they will make delightful deep muffs, +with scent and little bags and powder puffs and all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_525" id="Page_525">-525-</a></span> +sorts of things tucked away inside, and long wraps for +tall women, and jolly little frames of soft fur for +pretty faces, and dainty coats and rugs for expensive +little babies in Kensington Gardens."...</p> + +<p>"I wonder," reflected Marjorie, "if I could buy +one perhaps. As a memento."</p> + +<p>He looked at her with eyes of quiet amusement.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" she cried, "I didn't mean to! The old +Eve!"</p> + +<p>"The old Adam is with her," said Trafford. +"He's wanting to give it her.... We don't cease +to be human, Madge, you know, because we've got an +idea now of just where we are. I wonder, which +would you like? I dare say we could arrange it."</p> + +<p>"No," said Marjorie, and thought. "It would +be jolly," she said. "All the same, you know—and +just to show you—I'm not going to let you buy me +that fur."</p> + +<p>"I'd like to," said Trafford.</p> + +<p>"No," said Marjorie, with a decision that was +almost fierce. "I mean it. I've got more to do than +you in the way of reforming. It's just because always +I've let my life be made up of such little things +that I mustn't. Indeed I mustn't. Don't make things +hard for me."</p> + +<p>He looked at her for a moment. "Very well," he +said. "But I'd have liked to."...</p> + +<p>"You're right," he added, five seconds later.</p> + +<p>"Oh! I'm right."</p> + +<p class="title">§ 4</p> + +<p>One day Louis Napoleon sent them on along the +trail while he went up the mountain to a trap among +the trees. He rejoined them—not as his custom was, +shouting inaudible conversation for the last hundred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_526" id="Page_526">-526-</a></span> +yards or so, but in silence. They wondered at that, +and at the one clumsy gesture that flourished something +darkly grey at them. What had happened to +the man? Whatever he had caught he was hugging +it as one hugs a cat, and stroking it. "Ugh!" he +said deeply, drawing near. "Oh!" A solemn joy +irradiated his face, and almost religious ecstasy found +expression.</p> + +<p>He had got a silver fox, a beautifully marked silver +fox, the best luck of Labrador! One goes for years +without one, in hope, and when it comes, it pays the +trapper's debts, it clears his life—for years!</p> + +<p>They tried poor inadequate congratulation....</p> + +<p>As they sat about the fire that night a silence +came upon Louis Napoleon. It was manifest that his +mind was preoccupied. He got up, walked about, +inspected the miracle of fur that had happened to +him, returned, regarded them. "'M'm," he said, and +stroked his chin with his forefinger. A certain diffidence +and yet a certain dignity of assurance mingled +in his manner. It wasn't so much a doubt of his own +correctness as of some possible ignorance of the finer +shades on their part that might embarrass him. He +coughed a curt preface, and intimated he had a request +to make. Behind the Indian calm of his face +glowed tremendous feeling, like the light of a foundry +furnace shining through chinks in the door. He spoke +in a small flat voice, exercising great self-control. +His wish, he said, in view of all that had happened, +was a little thing.... This was nearly a perfect day +for him, and one thing only remained.... "Well," +he said, and hung. "Well," said Trafford. He +plunged. Just simply this. Would they give him +the brandy bottle and let him get drunk? Mr. Grenfell +was a good man, a very good man, but he had +made brandy dear—dear beyond the reach of common<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_527" id="Page_527">-527-</a></span> +men altogether—along the coast....</p> + +<p>He explained, dear bundle of clothes and dirt! +that he was always perfectly respectable when he was +drunk.</p> + +<p class="title">§ 5</p> + +<p>It seemed strange to Trafford that now that Marjorie +was going home, a wild impatience to see her +children should possess her. So long as it had been +probable that they would stay out their year in Labrador, +that separation had seemed mainly a sentimental +trouble; now at times it was like an animal +craving. She would talk of them for hours at a +stretch, and when she was not talking he could see +her eyes fixed ahead, and knew that she was anticipating +a meeting. And for the first time it seemed +the idea of possible misadventure troubled her....</p> + +<p>They reached Hammond's in one and twenty days +from Lonely Hut, three days they had been forced to +camp because of a blizzard, and three because Louis +Napoleon was rigidly Sabbatarian. They parted +from him reluctantly, and the next day Hammond's +produced its dogs, twelve stout but extremely hungry +dogs, and sent the Traffords on to the Green River +pulp-mills, where there were good beds and a copious +supply of hot water. Thence they went to Manivikovik, +and thence the new Marconi station sent their +inquiries home, inquiries that were answered next day +with matter-of-fact brevity: "Everyone well, love +from all."</p> + +<p>When the operator hurried with that to Marjorie +she received it off-handedly, glanced at it carelessly, +asked him to smoke, remarked that wireless telegraphy +was a wonderful thing, and then, in the midst +of some unfinished commonplace about the temperature,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_528" id="Page_528">-528-</a></span> +broke down and wept wildly and uncontrollably....</p> + +<p class="title">§ 6</p> + +<p>Then came the long, wonderful ride southward +day after day along the coast to Port Dupré, a ride +from headland to headland across the frozen bays behind +long teams of straining, furry dogs, that leapt +and yelped as they ran. Sometimes over the land the +brutes shirked and loitered and called for the whip; +they were a quarrelsome crew to keep waiting; but +across the sea-ice they went like the wind, and downhill +the komatic chased their waving tails. The +sledges swayed and leapt depressions, and shot athwart +icy stretches. The Traffords, spectacled and +wrapped to their noses, had all the sensations then of +hunting an unknown quarry behind a pack of wolves. +The snow blazed under the sun, out to sea beyond the +ice the water glittered, and it wasn't so much air they +breathed as a sort of joyous hunger.</p> + +<p>One day their teams insisted upon racing.</p> + +<p>Marjorie's team was the heavier, her driver more +skillful, and her sledge the lighter, and she led in +that wild chase from start to finish, but ever and +again Trafford made wild spurts that brought him almost +level. Once, as he came alongside, she heard +him laughing joyously.</p> + +<p>"Marjorie," he shouted, "d'you remember? Old +donkey cart?"</p> + +<p>Her team yawed away, and as he swept near +again, behind his pack of whimpering, straining, furious +dogs, she heard him shouting, "You know, that +old cart! Under the overhanging trees! So thick and +green they met overhead! You know! When you and +I had our first talk together! In the lane. It wasn't<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_529" id="Page_529">-529-</a></span> +so fast as this, eh?"...</p> + +<p class="title">§ 7</p> + +<p>At Port Dupré they stayed ten days—days that +Marjorie could only make tolerable by knitting absurd +garments for the children (her knitting was +atrocious), and then one afternoon they heard the +gun of the <i>Grenfell</i>, the new winter steamer from St. +John's, signalling as it came in through the fog, very +slowly, from that great wasteful world of men and +women beyond the seaward grey.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">THE END</span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class='tnote'><h3>Transcriber's Notes:</h3> +<p>Obvious punctuation and hyphenation inconsistencies have been silently repaired. Words with variable spelling have been retained. +The following spelling and typographical emendations have been made:</p> + +<ul><li>p. 22: broken text "were they living and moving realities" was completed to "were they living and moving realities when those others were at home again?"</li> +<li>p. 34: protruberant replaced with protuberant ("large protuberant")</li> +<li>p. 38: pay replaced with play ("what the play was")</li> +<li>p. 40: Majorie replaced with Marjorie ("Marjorie loved singing")</li> +<li>p. 40: feut replaced with felt ("that he felt")</li> +<li>p. 60: téte-à-tête replaced with tête-à-tête ("silent tête-à-tête")</li> +<li>p. 70: foundamental replaced with fundamental ("three fundamental +things")</li> +<li>p. 76: fina replaced with final ("working for her final")</li> +<li>p. 88: challenege replaced with challenge ("challenge inattentive +auditors")</li> +<li>p. 92: presumbly replaced with presumably ("presumably Billy's")</li> +<li>p. 115: ino replaced with into ("into the air")</li> +<li>p. 141: himse_f replaced with himself ("ask himself")</li> +<li>p. 147: contradication replaced with contradiction ("any sort of +contradiction")</li> +<li>p. 167: calcalculated replaced with calculated ("indeed calculated")</li> +<li>p. 223: hestitated replaced with hesitated ("She hesitated")</li> +<li>p. 230: intriques replaced with intrigues ("culminations and intrigues")</li> +<li>p. 242: America replaced with American ("American minor poet")</li> +<li>p. 265: acquiscent replaced with acquiescent ("by no means acquiescent")</li> +<li>p. 313: "It's end" replaced with "Its end" ("Its end was the Agenda Club")</li> +<li>p. 316: regime replaced with régime ("the new régime")</li> +<li>p. 341: number of section 15 replaced with 16</li> +<li>p. 342: gestulated replaced with gesticulated ("Solomonson +gesticulated")</li> +<li> p. 342: The paragraphs starting with: "It was all" and "You said +good-bye" were merged</li> +<li>p. 346: The paragraphs starting with: "They aren't arranged" and "They'd +get everything" were merged</li> +<li>p. 349: devine replaced with divine ("by right divine of genius")</li> +<li>p. 368: presumptious replaced with presumptuous ("extremely +presumptuous")</li> +<li>p. 376: mispelling replaced with misspelling ("as much misspelling as")</li> +<li>p. 376: The replaced with They ("They gave dinners")</li> +<li>p. 378: The replaced with They ("They could play")</li> +<li>p. 395: Docter replaced with Doctor ("Doctor Codger")</li> +<li>p. 396: authoritive replaced with authoritative ("authoritative imagine")</li> +<li>p. 399: shuldered replaced with shouldered ("As he shouldered")</li> +<li>p. 403: wet replaced with went ("Trafford's eyes went from")</li> +<li>p. 405: subthe replaced with subtle ("skilful, subtle appreciation")</li> +<li>p. 426: fine replaced with find ("find God")</li> +<li>p. 427: chidren replaced with children ("of having children at all")</li> +<li>p. 441: serere replaced with serene ("brightly serene")</li> +<li>p. 442: tundura replaced with tundra ("wide stretches of tundra")</li> +<li>p. 457: rucksac replaced with rucksack ("chunks of dry paper, the rucksack")</li> +<li>p. 481: realties replaced with realities ("expression of the realities")</li> +<li>p. 485: the duplicate phrase "He stared at her" was removed</li> +<li>p. 493: think replaced with thing ("salvation is a collective thing")</li> +<li>p. 504: realty replaced with reality ("of sense and reality")</li> +<li>p. 509: greal replaced with great ("a great lump")</li> +<li>p. 512: caluclated replaced with calculated ("now they calculated")</li> +<li>p. 515: travellel replaced with travelled ("I had travelled")</li> +<li>p. 518: gutteral replaced with guttural ("seemed guttural")</li> +<li>p. 520: gutteral replaced with guttural ("his voice was guttural")</li> +<li>p. 524: slaughers replaced with slaughters ("he finds and slaughters")</li></ul></div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marriage, by H. 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