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diff --git a/35338-8.txt b/35338-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f818a08 --- /dev/null +++ b/35338-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,17475 @@ +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 + + + + + + + + + + |=================================================| + | MR. WELLS HAS ALSO WRITTEN | + | The following Novels: | + | | + | TONO BUNGAY | + | LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM | + | KIPPS ANN VERONICA | + | THE HISTORY OF MR. POLLY | + | and THE NEW MACHIAVELLI | + | | + | Numerous short stories now published | + | in a single volume under the title. | + | THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND | + | | + | The following fantastic Romances: | + | | + | THE TIME MACHINE | + | THE WONDERFUL VISIT | + | THE INVISIBLE MAN | + | THE WAR OF THE WORLDS | + | THE SEA LADY | + | IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET | + | THE SLEEPER AWAKES | + | THE FOOD OF THE GODS | + | THE WAR IN THE AIR | + | THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON | + | and THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU | + | | + | And a series of books upon social and political | + | questions of which | + | | + | A MODERN UTOPIA | + | FIRST AND LAST THINGS (RELIGION) | + | NEW WORLDS FOR OLD | + | THE FUTURE IN AMERICA | + | and ANTICIPATIONS | + | are the chief. | + |=================================================| + + + + + MARRIAGE + + BY + + H. G. WELLS + + "And the Poor Dears haven't the shadow of a doubt they will live + happily ever afterwards."--_From a Private Letter_. + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + DUFFIELD & COMPANY + 1912 + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1912 + DUFFIELD & COMPANY + + + + + _FRATERNALLY + TO + ARNOLD BENNETT_ + + + + + BOOK THE FIRST + MARJORIE MARRIES + + + + +MARRIAGE + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +A DAY WITH THE POPES + + +§ 1 + +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. + +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, and so +fortified herself against this insinuating indolence. + +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! + +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. + +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.... + +Marjorie had a chin that was small in size if 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. + +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. + + +§ 2 + +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 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.... + +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.... + +Can I convey in any measure how it was with Marjorie? + +What was her religion? + +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, 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.... + +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 _that_ 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 were too expensive for +continuous use, and so the old faith did not lose its hold upon the +family altogether. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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 question, "Then why shouldn't we have a +good time?" + +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 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. + +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. 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. + +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.... + +She _was_ 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. + +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 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.... + +The train slowed down for the seventeenth time. Marjorie looked up and +read "Buryhamstreet." + + +§ 3 + +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; 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. + +"Toupee!" cried Marjorie, waving the basket. "Toupee!" + +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.... + +Marjorie flashed a second's contrast with the Carmel splendours. + +"Hullo, old Daffy. What's it like?" she asked, handing out the basket as +her sister came up. + +"It's a lark," said Daffy. "Where's the dressing-bag?" + +"Thoddy," said Marjorie, following up the dressing-bag with the +hold-all. "Lend a hand." + +"Stow it, Toupee," said Theodore, and caught the hold-all in time. + +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 jerks, each eager to tell things +first--and the whole party moved confusedly towards the station exit. +Things pelted into Marjorie's mind. + +"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 _perfectly_ safe--you couldn't +fall off if you tried.... Had positively to get out at the level +crossing and _pull_ 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 _Times_ 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...." + +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. + +"How are you, old Theodore?" + +"I'm all right, old Madge." + +"Mummy?" + +"Every one's all right," said Theodore; "if it wasn't for that damned +infernal net----" + +"Ssssh!" cried both sisters together. + +"_He_ says it," said Theodore. + +Both sisters conveyed a grave and relentless disapproval. + +"Pretty bit of road," said Marjorie. "I like that little house at the +corner." + +A pause and the eyes of the sisters met. + +"_He's_ here," said Daffy. + +Marjorie affected ignorance. + +"Who's here?" + +"_Il vostro senior Miraculoso_." + +"Just as though a fellow couldn't understand your kiddy little Italian," +said Theodore, pulling Toupee's ear. + +"Oh well, I thought he might be," said Marjorie, regardless of her +brother. + +"Oh!" said Daffy. "I didn't know----" + +Both sisters looked at each other, and then both glanced at Theodore. He +met Marjorie's eyes with a grimace of profound solemnity. + +"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." + +"_Is_ 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?" + +"Corners don't _bite_ people," said Theodore, with a critical eye to the +driving. + +Marjorie surveyed the High Street, while Daffy devoted a few moments to +Theodore. + +The particular success of the village was its 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." + +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 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. + +"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). + +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. + +"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. + +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. 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. + +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 _one_"--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.... + +Somewhere among all these interests came tea and Mrs. Pope. + +Mrs. Pope kissed her daughter with an air of having really wanted to +kiss her half an hour ago, 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, _videlicet_ tub." + +"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 +_Times_ 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 _Spectator_ altogether if they do +not become more attentive. The _Times_ 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." + +"Better get right round the other side of the church," said Daffy. + +"He'd hear far less of us if we went indoors," said Mrs. Pope. + + +§ 4 + +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 _Times_. 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. + +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 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. + +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-- + + "Something attempted, something done, + Has earned a night's repose." + +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: + + |================================| + |THY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ME. | + |================================| + +seemed to be saying something to her tantalizingly just outside her +range of apprehension. + +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? + +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 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. + +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.... + +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 A.D. 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 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? + +It was all so very cool and quiet now--with something of the immobile +serenity of death. + + +§ 5 + +When Mr. Pope had finished his letter to the _Times_, 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 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.... + +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?" + +Marjorie submitted a cheek. + +"That's right," said Mr. Pope; "and now I just want you all to advise +me----" + +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." + +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!'" + +"Rom," said Mrs. Pope, "don't creak your chair." + +"It's Daffy, mother," said Rom. + +"Oh, _Rom!_" said Daffy. + +Mr. Pope paused, and looked with a warning eye over his left +spectacle-glass at Rom. + +"Don't creak your chair, Rom," he said, "when your mother tells you." + +"I was _not_ creaking my chair," said Rom. + +"I heard it," said Mr. Pope, suavely. + +"It was Daffy." + +"Your mother does not think so," said Mr. Pope. + +"Oh, all right! I'll sit on the ground," said Rom, crimson to the roots +of her hair. + +"Me too," said Daffy. "I'd rather." + +Mr. Pope watched the transfer gravely. Then he readjusted his glasses, +cleared his throat again, trumpeted, and began. "Er--'Dear Sir,'" + +"Oughtn't it to be simply 'Sir,' father, for an editor?" said Marjorie. + +"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 _private_ letter--a private letter." + +"I didn't understand," said Marjorie. + +"It would have been evident as I went on," said Mr. Pope, and prepared +to read again. + +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. + +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 of six," he said. Then very touchingly to Mrs. Pope: "Mummy, +shall we try a game of tennis with the New Generation?" + +"Can't you read it after supper?" asked Mrs. Pope. + +"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?" + +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." + +She was gentle with her mother and they got their 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. +"_Tennis!_" + +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. + +"Had enough of it, Mummy," he said, and added some happily inaudible +comment on Marjorie's new style of play. + +The evening's exercise was at an end. + +The three ladies regarded one another in silence for some moments. + +"I will take in the racquets, dear," said Mrs. Pope. + +"I think the other ball is at your end," said Daffy.... + +The apparatus put away, Marjorie and her sister strolled thoughtfully +away from the house. + +"There's croquet here too," said Daffy. "We've not had the things out +yet!".... + +"He'll play, I suppose." + +"He wants to play."... + +"Of course," said Marjorie after a long pause, "there's no _reasoning_ +with Dad!" + + +§ 6 + +Character is one of England's noblest and most deliberate products, but +some Englishmen have it to excess. Mr. Pope had. + +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. + +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, 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. + +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. + +Unhappily the stars in their courses and the general improvement of +roads throughout the country 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. + +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 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. + +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 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 _Spectator_.... + + +§ 7 + +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. + +"I suppose those birds are rooks," she said. + +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. + +Marjorie became aware of two gentlemen with her mother on the lawn +below. + +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. + +Mr. Magnet was one of those quiet, deliberately 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. + +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! + +"Coming down?" said Daffy, a vision of sulphur-yellow, appearing in the +doorway. + +"Let _them_ 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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"Come on, Madge," said Daffy, and the two sisters emerged harmoniously +together from the house. + +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." + +A slight embarrassment fell between them. + +"You are staying near here, Mr. Magnet?" + +"At the inn," said Mr. Magnet, and then, "I chose it because it would be +near you." + +His eye pressed upon her again for a moment. + +"Is it comfortable?" said Marjorie. + +"So charmingly simple," said Mr. Magnet. "I love it." + +A tinkling bell announced the preparedness of supper, and roused the +others to the consciousness that they were silently watching Mr. Magnet +and Marjorie. + +"It's quite a simple farmhouse supper," said Mrs. Pope. + + +§ 8 + +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 _Times_. 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. + +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 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. + +"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?" + +Mr. Wintersloan thought he would take Burgundy. Mr. Magnet preferred +beer. + + "I've heard there's iron in the Beer, + And I believe it," + +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?" + +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." + +This pleased Daffy and Marjorie, and their eyes met for a moment. + +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." + +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? + +Marjorie did, and said so. + +"A sob--such as you get at the break of a pinewood on a hill." + +This baffled Mr. Pope, but Marjorie took it. "Or the short dry cough of +a cliff," she said. + +"Exactly," said Mr. Wintersloan, and having turned a little deliberate +close-lipped smile on her for a moment, resumed his wing. + +"So long as a landscape doesn't _sneeze_" said Mr. Magnet, in that +irresistible dry way of his, and Rom and Sydney, at any rate, choked. + +"Now is the hour when Landscapes yawn," mused Mr. Pope, coming in all +right at the end. + +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. + +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. + +"Mingling smiles and tears," said Mr. Pope approvingly. + +Mr. Magnet said very quietly that all true humour did that. + +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 +_Literati_. "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. + +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 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. + +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!" + +"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." + +All four girls hoped secretly and not too confidently that their +laughter had not sounded hollow. + +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 mother-in-law was dead, exclaimed "Oh, +don't make me laugh, please, I've got a split lip...." + + +§ 9 + +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. + +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. + + "I love, and he loves me again, + Yet dare I not tell who; + For if the nymphs should know my swain, + I fear they'd love him too," + +she sang, and Mr. Magnet could not conceal the intensity of his +admiration. + +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. 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. + +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 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! + +Old Daddy would lose his treasure of course. + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + +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. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The letter was _D_, 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. + +"Dahl," he began. + +"Who was Dahl?" asked Mr. Pope. + +"'Vented dahlias," said Mr. Wintersloan, with a sigh. "Danton." + +"Forgot him," said Mr. Pope. + +"Davis." + +"Davis?" + +"Davis Straits. Doe." + +"Who?" + +"John Doe, Richard Roe." + +"Legal fiction, I'm afraid," said Mr. Pope. + +"Dam," said Mr. Wintersloan, and added after a slight pause: "Anthony +van." + +Mr. Pope made an interrogative noise. + +"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." + +"Who?" + +"Painter--dead--famous. See Düsseldorf. It's all painters now--all +guaranteed dead, all good men. Deeds of Norfolk, the aquarellist, +Denton, Dibbs." + +"Er?" said Mr. Pope. + +"The Warwick Claude, _you_ know. Died 1823." + +"Dickson, Dunting, John Dickery. Peter Dickery, William Dock--I beg your +pardon?" + +Mr. Pope was making a protesting gesture, but Mr. Wintersloan's bearing +was invincible, and he proceeded. + +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. But I know a +frightful lot of painters. No end. Shall we try again?" + +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. + +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. + +The charade _was_ 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. + +Mrs. Pope said they would all accompany their guests to the gate at the +end of the avenue--in spite of the cockchafers. + +Mr. Pope's ankle, however, excused him; the cordiality of his parting +from Mr. Wintersloan seemed 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. + +He felt that Mr. Wintersloan had established an extraordinarily bad +precedent. + + +§ 10 + +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!" + +"When I saw you standing there and singing," said Mr. Magnet, and was +short of breath for a moment. + +Marjorie's natural gift for interruption failed her altogether. + +"I felt I would rather be able to call you mine--than win an empire." + +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. + +"I think you had better win an empire, Mr. Magnet," she said meekly. + +Then, before anything more was possible, they had come up to Daffy and +Mr. Wintersloan and her mother at the gate.... + +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 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?--_Our Owd Woman_--has been performed nearly twelve +hundred times! I think that is the most wonderful of gifts. Think of the +people it has made happy." + +The conversation was mainly monologue. Both Marjorie and Daffy were +unusually thoughtful. + + +§ 11 + +Marjorie ended the long day in a worldly mood. + +"Penny for your thoughts," said Daffy abruptly, brushing the long +firelit rapids of her hair. + +"Not for sale," said Marjorie, and roused herself. "I've had a long +day." + +"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?" + +"They haven't," said Daffy with conviction. + +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." + +"I didn't think of that," said Marjorie, and stuck out her chin upon her +fists. "Sound induction." + +She forgot this transitory curiosity. + +"Suppose one had a maid, Daffy--a real maid ... a maid who mended your +things ... did your hair while you read...." + +"Oh! here goes," and she stood up and grappled with the task of +undressing. + + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +THE TWO PROPOSALS OF MR. MAGNET + + +§ 1 + +It was presently quite evident to Marjorie that Mr. Magnet intended to +propose marriage to her, and she did not even know whether she wanted +him to do so. + +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. 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? + +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. + +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.... + +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. + +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. 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.... + +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. + +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 prosperously married +young woman in the person of one or two resplendent old girls revisiting +Bennett College, scattering invitations, offering protections and +opportunities.... + +Of course there is love. + +Marjorie told herself, as she had been trained to tell herself, to be +sensible, but something within her repeated: _there is love_. + +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? + +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: + + "Love looks not with the eye but with the mind." + +She felt she ought to look with the mind. Nice people surely never +looked in any other way. It seemed from this angle almost her duty to +love him.... + +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? + +She wished she hadn't looked down on him.... + +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. + +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 arms. "The ugliness of +it! The spiritless horror of it!" so dumbly and formlessly the rebel +voices urged. + +"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.... + +(Perhaps all marriage was horrid, and one had to get over it.) + +That was rather what her mother had conveyed to her. + + +§ 2 + +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. + +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 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. + +Mr. Magnet did not get his chance therefore until Lady Petchworth's +little gathering at Summerhay Park. + +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. + +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 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.... + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He joined them, and she made a desperate attempt 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 _tête-à-tête_. 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?" + +"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?" + +"I know him best in black and white," said Mr. Magnet. + +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. + +"It's a splendid day for tennis," said Marjorie. "I think I shall play +tennis all the afternoon." + +"I don't play well enough for this publicity." + +"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." + +She glanced round and detected a widening space between themselves and +the next adjacent group. + +"They're looking at the goldfish," she said. "Let us join them." + +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 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. + +"Don't _you_ play?" said the undergraduate to Mr. Magnet. + +"Very little," said Mr. Magnet. "Very little--" + +At the end of an hour she was conspicuously and publicly shepherded from +the tennis court by Mrs. Pope. + +"Other people want to play," said her mother in a clear little +undertone. + +Mr. Magnet fielded her neatly as she came off the court. + +"You play tennis like--a wild bird," he said, taking possession of her. + +Only Marjorie's entire freedom from Irish blood saved him from a +vindictive repartee. + + +§ 3 + +"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. + +"Perhaps we might see the Water Garden?" he said. "The Water Garden is +really very delightful indeed--anyhow. You ought to see that." + +On the spur of the moment, Marjorie could think of no objection to the +Water Garden, and he led her off. + +"I often think of that jolly walk we had last summer," said Mr. Magnet, +"and how you talked about your work at Oxbridge." + +Marjorie fell into a sudden rapture of admiration for a butterfly. + +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. + +"I suppose the lotus is like the water-lily," said Marjorie, with no +hope of staving off the inevitable---- + +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. + +"Marjorie," came his voice at last, strangely softened. "There is +something I want to say to you." + +She made no reply. + +"Ever since we met last summer----" + +A clear cold little resolution not to stand this, had established itself +in Marjorie's mind. If she must decide, she _would_ decide. He had +brought it upon himself. + +"Marjorie," said Mr. Magnet, "I love you." + +She lifted a clear unhesitating eye to his face. "I'm sorry, Mr. +Magnet," she said. + +"I wanted to ask you to marry me," he said. + +"I'm sorry, Mr. Magnet," she repeated. + +They looked at one another. She felt a sort of scared exultation at +having done it; her mother might say what she liked. + +"I love you very much," he said, at a loss. + +"I'm sorry," she repeated obstinately. + +"I thought you cared for me a little." + +She left that unanswered. She had a curious 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. + +"I'm disappointed," he said. + +Marjorie could only think that she was sorry again, but as she had +already said that three times, she remained awkwardly silent. + +"Is it because----" he began and stopped. + +"It isn't because of anything. Please let's go back to the others, Mr. +Magnet. I'm sorry if I'm disappointing." + +And by a great effort she turned about. + +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. + +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?" + +She answered at once with absolute conviction. + +"I don't think so, Mr. Magnet." + +"I'm sorry," he said, "to have bothered you." + +"_I'm_ sorry," said Marjorie. + +A long silence followed. + +"I'm sorry too," he said. + +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. + +With a thrill of horror Marjorie perceived he meant to _look_ rejected, +let every one see he had been rejected--after encouragement. + +What would they think? How would they look? 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---- + + +§ 4 + +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. + +Mrs. Pope joined him unobtrusively. + +"You're not playing, Mr. Magnet," she remarked. + +"I'm a looker-on, this time," he said with a sigh. + +"Marjorie's winning, I think," said Mrs. Pope. + +He made no answer for some seconds. + +"She looks so charming in that blue dress," he remarked at last, and +sighed from the lowest deeps. + +"That bird's-egg blue suits her," said Mrs. Pope, ignoring the sigh. +"She's clever in her girlish way, she chooses all her own +dresses,--colours, material, everything." + +(And also, though Mrs. Pope had not remarked it, she concealed her +bills.) + +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?" + +"There are," said Mr. Magnet sorrowfully, "and they are very +beautiful--_quite_ beautiful." + +He turned to the path along which he had so recently led Marjorie. + +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. + +Mrs. Pope knew she must keep silent. + +"I asked her to marry me this afternoon," Mr. Magnet blurted out. "I +couldn't help it." + +Mrs. Pope made her silence very impressive. + +"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." + +Mrs. Pope's voice was soft and low. "I had no idea, Mr. Magnet.... You +know she is very young. Twenty. A mother----" + +"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." + +Another long silence. + +"To me, of course, she's just a child," Mrs. Pope said at last. "She +_is_ only a child, Mr. Magnet. She could have had no idea that anything +of the sort was in your mind----" + +Her words floated away into the stillness. + +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. + +"I spoke to her here," said Mr. Magnet. + +The fountains of his confidence were unloosed. + +"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----" + +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----" + +Words failed her, and for some moments they engaged in a mutual +pressure. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Magnet, and had a queer wish it was the mother he had to +deal with. + +"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----" + +"She seems so clear and positive." + +"Her manner is always clear and positive." + +"Yes. I know." + +"I know she _has_ cared for you." + +"No!" + +"A mother sees. When your name used to be mentioned----. But these are +not things to talk about. There is something--something sacred----" + +"Yes," he said. "Yes. Only----Of course, one thing----" + +Mrs. Pope seemed lost in the contemplation of water-lilies. + +"I wondered," said Mr. Magnet, and paused again. + +Then, almost breathlessly, "I wondered if there should be perhaps--some +one else?" + +She shook her head slowly. "I should know," she said. + +"Are you sure?" + +"I know I should know." + +"Perhaps recently?" + +"I am sure I should know. A mother's intuition----" + +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----" + +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." + + +§ 5 + +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 dear," +said Mrs. Pope, "that it's all for the best--and that you've done +wisely, dear." + +Marjorie was astonished and moved by her mother's tone. + +"It's so difficult to know what _is_ for the best," Mrs. Pope went on. + +"I had to do--as I did," said Marjorie. + +"I only hope you may never find you have made a Great Mistake, dear. He +cares for you very, very much." + +"Oh! we see it now!" cried Rom, "we see it now! Mummy, have you seen it? +Like a little old round ghost being nursed!" + +When Marjorie said "Good-night," Mrs. Pope kissed her with an +unaccustomed effusion. + +It occurred to Marjorie that after all her mother had no selfish end to +serve in this affair. + + +§ 6 + +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. + +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 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 _Times_ when +Daffy asked Marjorie if she was going to sketch: "Oh, for God's sake +don't _whisper!_" 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'." + +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. + +And very soon she would have to come home and live in the midst of this +again--indefinitely! + +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 _know_ +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.... + +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. + +I doubt if reticence is really a virtue in a teacher. 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. + +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 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.... + +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: "_must_ be." But something +in her below the threshold of consciousness knew that it was more. + +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 short of +stockings. She had overlooked stockings recently. + +Daffy, unfortunately, was also short of stockings. + +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.... + +At Oxbridge she had made rather a joke of her debts. + +"I'd _swear_ I haven't had three pairs of house shoes," said Marjorie. +"But what can one do?" + +And about the whole position the question was, "what can one do?" + +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. + +"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." + + +§ 7 + +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 triumphantly on the platform, after a hard +kiss at Marjorie's cheek, "we are again." + +There, at any rate, she was, and Uncle Hubert was up the platform seeing +after the luggage, in his small anxious way. + +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 +_Times_, 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. + +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 full (though of course, poor dear, it wasn't), "how's the First +Class?" + +"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 _bonhomie_ +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. + +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 philanthropy and evolved her Movement. It was quite +remarkable how rapidly she overhauled her sisters again. + +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.... + +As no people in England will ever admit they belong to the lower strata +of society, Aunt Plessington's Movement attracted adherents from every +class in the community. + +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 _she_ going to do in +the world? + +Marjorie said she was working for her final. + +"And what then?" asked Aunt Plessington. + +"Not very clear, Aunt, yet." + +"Looking around for something to take up?" + +"Yes, Aunt." + +"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." + +"I should love to." + +"I'll give you a good time," said Aunt Plessington, nodding promisingly. +"Theodore getting on in school?" + +"He's had his remove." + +"And how's Sydney getting on with the music?" + +"Excellently." + +"And Rom. Rom getting on?" + +Marjorie indicated a more restrained success. + +"And what's Daffy doing?" + +"Oh! _get_ on!" said Daffy and suddenly whacked the donkey rather hard. +"I beg your pardon, Aunt?" + +"I asked what _you_ were up to, Daffy?" + +"Dusting, Aunt--and the virtues," said Daffy. + +"You ought to find something better than that." + +"Father tells me a lot about the East Purblow Experiment," said Daffy +after a perceptible interval. + +"Ah!" cried Aunt Plessington with a loud encouraging note, but evidently +making the best of it, "_that's_ better. Sociological observation." + +"Yes, Aunt," said Daffy, and negotiated a corner with exceptional care. + + +§ 8 + +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." + +The Reverend Jopling Baynes was a clergyman 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." + +"Too much and too rich, badly cooked and eaten too fast," said Aunt +Plessington. "And what do you think is the remedy?" + +"We make an Effort," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, "we make an Effort. A +Hint here, a Word there." + +"Nothing organized?" + +"No," said the Rev. Jopling Baynes, and shook his head with a kind of +resignation. + +"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. + +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 +_en route_ for a better one hereafter, might do worse than take up her +Movement. And this touched in, she turned her mind to Mr. Magnet. + +(That floral trophy, I should explain, by the by, 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.) + +"Well, Mr. Magnet," she said, "I wish I had your sense of humour." + +"I wish you had," said Mr. Magnet. + +"I should write tracts," said Aunt Plessington. + +"I knew it was good for something," said Mr. Magnet, and Daffy laughed +in a tentative way. + +"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!" + +Mr. Magnet's light manner deserted him. "We do what we can, Mrs. +Plessington," he said. + +"How much more might be done," said Aunt Plessington, "if humour could +be organized." + +"Hear, hear!" said Mr. Pope. + +"If all the humorists of England could be induced to laugh at something +together." + +"They do--at times," said Mr. Magnet, but the atmosphere was too serious +for his light touch. + +"They could laugh it out of existence," said Aunt Plessington. + +It was evident Mr. Magnet was struck by the idea. + +"Of course," he said, "in _Punch_, to which I happen to be an obscure +occasional contributor----" + +Mrs. Pope was understood to protest that he should not say such things. + +"We _do_ remember just what we can do either in the way of advertising +or injury. I don't think you'll find us up against any really _solid_ +institutions." + +"But do you think, Mr. Magnet, you are sufficiently kind to the New?" +Aunt Plessington persisted. + +"I think we are all grateful to _Punch_," 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----" + +Marjorie found it a very interesting conversation. + +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 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.... + + +§ 9 + +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. + +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 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. + +"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. + +She paused. + +"Why don't you up and marry Mr. Magnet, Marjorie?" she said, with her +most brilliant flash. + +"It takes two to make a marriage, aunt," said Marjorie after a slight +hesitation. + +"My dear child! he worships the ground you tread on!" said Aunt +Plessington. + +"He's rather--grown up," said Marjorie. + +"Not a bit of it. He's not forty. He's just the age." + +"I'm afraid it's a little impossible." + +"Impossible?" + +"You see I've refused him, aunt." + +"Naturally--the first time! But I wouldn't send him packing the second." + +There was an interval. + +Marjorie decided on a blunt question. "Do you really think, aunt, I +should do well to marry Mr. Magnet?" + +"He'd give you everything a clever woman needs," said Aunt Plessington. +"Everything." + +With swift capable touches she indicated the sort of life the future +Mrs. Magnet might enjoy. "He's 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." + +"Isn't that rather what he would like to do, aunt?" said Marjorie. + +"That's not _our_ business, Madge," said Aunt Plessington with humorous +emphasis. + +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. + +"Then," said Aunt Plessington with a joyous lift in her voice, "you'll +begin to _weed_ a little." + +For a time the girl's mind resisted her. + +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." + +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.... + +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 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.... + +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. + + +§ 10 + +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. + +Their influence touched every one. + +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 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 _devil_ +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. + +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. + +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. + +The lecture in the evening at Summerhay was a great success. + +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. + +The Rev. Jopling Baynes opened proceedings 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. + +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 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.) + +Some of her audience, she remarked, had not yet acquired the habit of +sitting still. + +(Laughter, and a coarse vulgar voice: "Good old Billy Punt!") + +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. + +(Scuffle, and a boy's voice at the back, saying: "Oh, _shut_ it, Nuts! +SHUT it!") + +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 _loose_ 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)-- + + "Satan finds some mischief still + For idle hands to do." + +(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?") + +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. + +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 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 _compelled_ 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.... + +The lecture reached its end at last with only one other interruption. +Some would-be humorist suddenly inquired, _à propos_ of nothing: "What's +the fare to America, Billy?" and a voice, presumably Billy's, answered +him: "Mor'n _you'll_ ev 'av in _you'_ pocket." + +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 having roused the meeting to an alert silence by the +length of his pause, answered in a voice of ringing contempt: +"Nothing--_whatsoever_." 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.)... + + +§ 11 + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"Your aunt goes to-morrow?" he said. + +Marjorie admitted it. + +"I wish I could talk to her more. She's so inspiring." + +"You know of our little excursion for Friday?" he asked after a pause. + +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. + +"How jolly of you!" said Marjorie. + +"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." + +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? + +"Theodore will think he is King of Surrey!" + +"I'll have a rod and line if he wants to fish. I don't want to forget +anything. I want it to be _his_ day really and truly." + +The slightest touch upon the pathetic note? She could not tell. + +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.... + +She was suddenly fast asleep. + + +§ 12 + +Friday was after all not so much Theodore's day as Mr. Magnet's. + +Until she found herself committed there was no 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.... + +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. + +Yet the festival was just a little dreamlike in its quality to her +perceptions. She found she could not focus clearly on its details. + +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. + +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. + +They started with much whistling and circling, 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." + +He made sinuous movements of his hand, and looked at Marjorie with that +wooden yet expressive smile. + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +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 waiters should be, +but with straw hats to protect them from the sun and weather. "Oh!" +cried Mrs. Pope, "what a _splendid_ 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." + +"Oh, _Mr._ 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. + +"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. + +"Melon," cried Mr. Magnet to the waiters, "we'll begin with the melon. +Have you ever tried melon with pepper and salt, Mrs. Pope?" + +"You put salt in everything," admired Mr. Pope. "Salt from those attics +of yours--Attic salt." + +"Or there's ginger!" said Mr. Magnet, after a whisper from the waiter. + +Mr. Pope said something classical about "ginger hot in the mouth." + +"Some of these days," said Mr. Wintersloan, "when I have exhausted all +other sensations, I mean to try melon and mustard." + +Rom made a wonderful face at him. + +"I can think of worse things than that," said Mr. Wintersloan with a +hard brightness. + +"Not till after lunch, Mr. Wintersloan!" said Rom heartily. + +"The claret cup's all right for Theodore, Mrs. Pope," said Magnet. "It's +a special twelve year old brand." (He thought of everything!) + +"Mummy," said Mr. Pope. "You'd better carve this pie, I think." + +"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." + +"Rom!" said Theodore, uncontrollably, in a tremendous stage whisper. +"There's peaches!... _There!_ on the hamper!" + +"Champagne, m'am?" said the waiter suddenly in Mrs. Pope's ear, wiping +ice-water from the bottle. + +(But what could it have cost him?) + + +§ 13 + +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 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. + +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 _tête-à-tête_ 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 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." + +Daffy looked round. "Shall I call him?" she said. + +"No," said Mrs. Pope, "do it--just--quietly." + +"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 _can_ understand this activity after +lunch." + +"Not me," said Mr. Pope. "Eh, Magnet?" + +"_I'm_ game," said Theodore. "Come along, Mr. Magnet." + +"I think," said Mr. Magnet looking at Marjorie, "I shall go up. I want +to show Marjorie the view." + +"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." + +"I'll go with Mr. Magnet," said Theodore, relying firmly on the +privileges of the day.... + +For a time they played for position, with the 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." + +Marjorie found herself violently disposed to laugh; indeed she had never +before been so near the verge of hysterics. + +"It's a perfectly lovely view," she said. "No wonder you wanted me to +see it." + +"Naturally," said Mr. Magnet, "wanted you to see it." + +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. + +"I've always wanted to bring you here," he said, "ever since I found it +in the spring." + +"It was very kind of you, Mr. Magnet," said Marjorie. + +"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." + +He watched the effect of this upon her for a moment. + +"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----" + +He stopped short. + +"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...." + +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." + +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. + +"Marjorie," he said, "I don't ask you to love me yet. All I ask is that +you shouldn't decide _not_ to love me." + +Marjorie became aware of Theodore, hotly followed by Daffy, in the +churchyard below. "I _know_ he's up there," Theodore was manifestly +saying. + +Marjorie faced her lover gravely. + +"Mr. Magnet," she said, "I will certainly promise you that." + +"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----" + +Marjorie felt she had to hurry. She could almost feel the feet of +Theodore coming up that tower. + +"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----" + +"Let me be judge of that!" cried Mr. Magnet. + +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. "_My_ birthday," +said Theodore. "Come down! You _shan't_ go up there!" said Daffy. "You +_mustn't_, 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. + +"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 _tried_ an engagement. I do not care how long I waited...." + +He paused. "Will you try?" he urged upon her distressed silence. + +She felt as though she forced the word. "_Yes!_" she said in a very low +voice. + +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. + +"Oh _don't_ kiss me," she cried, "don't kiss me yet!" + +"But a kiss!" + +"I don't like it." + +"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I forgot----. But you.... You.... I +couldn't help it." + +She was suddenly wildly sorry for what she had done. She felt she was +going to cry, to behave absurdly. + +"I want to go down," she said. + +"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----" + +"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. + +"Oh my dear!" he said, and restrained himself and took her passive hand +and kissed it. + +"I want to go down to them!" she insisted. + +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.... + +"I am sure you will never be sorry," he said.... + +They found Mr. and Mrs. Pope in the churchyard. Mr. Pope was reading +with amusement for the third time an epitaph that had caught his fancy-- + + "Lands ever bright, days ever fair, + And yet we weep that _he_ is there." + +he read. "You know that's really Good. That ought to be printed +somewhere." + +Mrs. Pope glanced sharply at her daughter's white face, and found an +enigma. Then she looked at Mr. Magnet. + +There was no mistake about Mr. Magnet. Marjorie had accepted him, +whatever else she had felt or done. + + +§ 14 + +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! + +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!" + +He also administered several resounding blows 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. + +"Madge," he said, "Madge!" + +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. + +Mr. Pope was greatly amused by this departure from the customary routine +of life, and noted it archly. + +When Daffy came up Marjorie was ostentatiously going to sleep.... + +As she herself was dropping off Daffy became aware of an odd sound, +somehow familiar, and yet surprising and disconcerting. + +Suddenly wide awake again, she started up. Yes there was no mistake +about it! And yet it was very odd. + +"Madge, what's up?" + +No answer. + +"I say! you aren't crying, Madge, are you?" + +Then after a long interval: "_Madge!_" + +An answer came in a muffled voice, almost as if Marjorie had something +in her mouth. "Oh shut it, old Daffy." + +"But Madge?" said Daffy after reflection. + +"Shut it. _Do_ 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! _Please!_" + +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.... + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE MAN WHO FELL OUT OF THE SKY + + +§ 1 + +For the next week Marjorie became more nearly 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. + +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. + +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 not keep them so long when she has +them...." + +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. + +"I don't deserve all this love," this side of Marjorie told Magnet. "But +I mean to learn to love you----" + +"My dear one!" cried Magnet, and pressed her hand.... + +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. + +Then there was an appraising satisfaction in his eye. + +On the third day of their engagement he began, quite abruptly, to call +her "Magsy." "We'll end this scandal of a Girl Pope," he said. "Magsy +Magnet, you'll be--M.M. No women M.P.'s for _us_, Magsy...." + +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.... + +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. + +"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?" + +All the rebel Marjories were up in arms at that. + +"Dreadful word, 'Municipal.' I _don't_ like it." He shook his head with +a grimace of humorous distaste. + +"I suppose women have as good brains as men," said Marjorie, "if it +comes to that." + +"Better," said Magnet. "That's why they shouldn't trouble about horrid +things like Municipal and Trading.... On a day like this!" + +"Don't you think this sort of thing is interesting?" + +"Oh!" he said, and flourished the book. "Come! And besides--_Shaw!_" + +"He makes a very good case." + +"But he's such a--mountebank." + +"Does that matter? He isn't a mountebank there." + +"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." + +He really had the air of taking her reading in hand. + +"You think I ought not to read an intelligent book." + +"I think we ought to leave those things to the people who understand." + +"But we ought to understand." + +He smiled wisely. "There's a lot of things _you_ have to understand," he +said, "nearer home than this." + +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?" + +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. + +"Here we are!" he said, "having a quarrel!" + +"Marjorie!" said Mrs. Pope. + +"Oh, it's serious!" said Mr. Magnet, and added with a gleam: "It's about +Municipal Trading!" + +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. + +"Oh! lovers' quarrels," she said, floating over the occasion. "Lovers' +quarrels. You mustn't ask _me_ to interfere!" + +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. + +"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." + +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. + +"I'm afraid," explained Mr. Magnet, "I was a little too free with one of +Magsy's favourite authors." + +"Which is the favourite author now?" asked Mrs. Pope, after a reflective +pause, with a mother's indulgent smile. + +"Shaw." He raised amused eyebrows. "It's just the age, I suppose." + +"She's frightfully loyal while it lasts," said Mrs. Pope. "No one dare +say a word against them." + +"I think it's adorable of her," said Mr. Magnet--with an answering +loyalty and gusto. + + +§ 2 + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +"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. + +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, 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. + +"Help me to hold the confounded thing up!" he cried, with a touch of +irritation in his voice at her attitude. + +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. + +"That's right. Can you hold it if I use only one hand?" + +Marjorie gasped "Yes," with a terrific weight as it seemed suddenly on +her wrists. + +"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. + +The man's face was a mass of blood, and he was sickeningly inert to his +companion's lugging. + +"Let it go," said the tall young man, and Marjorie thanked heaven as the +broken wing flapped down again. + +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. + +"Is he hurt?" cried Mrs. Pope. + +"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?" + +"I think so." Marjorie grasped the damaged man's shoulder and got him +over skilfully. + +"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. + +"He wants water," she said to the parlourmaid who was hurrying out of +the house. + +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." + +He felt the heart, and tried the flexibility of an arm. + +"_That's_ all right," he said. + +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." + +"Is he hurt?" + +"Rib, I think--or two ribs perhaps. Stunned rather. All _this_--just his +nose." + +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 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. + +"I do hope your friend isn't hurt," said Mrs. Pope, feeling the duty of +a hostess. + +"He's not hurt _much_--so far as I can see. Haven't we made rather a +mess of your lawn?" + +"Oh, not at all!" said Mrs. Pope. + +"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." + +"I'm Mrs. Pope and these are my daughters." + +Trafford bowed. "We just took the thing out for a lark," he said. + +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." + +She had felt a queer little repugnance at first with 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. + +"Wathall ..." said Sir Rupert suddenly, and tried again: "Wathall." A +third effort gave "Wathall about, eh?" + +"If we could get him into the shade," said Marjorie. + +"Woosh," cried Sir Rupert. "Weeeooo!" + +"That's all right," said Trafford. "It's only a rib or two." + +"Eeeeeyoooo!" said Sir Rupert. + +"Exactly. We're going to carry you out of the glare." + +"Don't touch me," said Sir Rupert. "Gooo." + +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 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. + +"Why not," he remarked, "have tea?" + +"If you think your friend----" began Mrs. Pope. + +"Oh! _he's_ all right. Aren't you, Solomonson? There's nothing more now +until the doctor." + +"Only want to be left alone," said Solomonson, and closed his heavy +eyelids again. + +Mrs. Pope told the maids, with an air of dismissal, to get tea. + +"We can keep an eye on him," said Trafford. + +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!" +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.... + +"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." + +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." + +"But haven't you flown before?" asked Mrs. Pope. + +"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...." + +Sir Rupert, without opening his eyes, was understood to assent. + +"Do you know," said Trafford, "The sight of your tea makes me feel +frightfully hungry." + +"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 +you're done." + + +§ 3 + +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.... + +"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.... + +The doctor departed; Sir Rupert, after stimulants, 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. + +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.... + +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 by a more engrossing topic. + +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?" + +He walked towards the wreckage, disregarding Mr. Trafford beside him. "A +man can't go away from his house for an hour!" he complained. + +"I can assure you we did all we could to prevent it," said Trafford. + +"Ought never to have had it to prevent," said Mr. Pope. "Is your friend +hurt?" + +"A rib--and shock," said Trafford. + +"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." + +"Tastes differ, of course," said Trafford, with unruffled urbanity. + +"You'll have all this cleared away," said Mr. Pope. + +"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." + +"Hope they won't kill any one," said Mr. Pope, and just for a moment the +conversation hung fire. "And your friend?" he asked. + +"He goes in the next ten minutes--well, whenever the litter comes from +the doctor's. Poor old Solomonson!" + +"Solomonson?" + +"Sir Rupert." + +"Oh!" said Mr. Pope. "Is that the Pigmentation Solomonson?" + +"I believe he does do some beastly company of that sort," said Trafford. +"Isn't it amazing we didn't smash our engine?" + +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. + + +§ 4 + +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?" + +"Registration, I hope," said Mr. Magnet,--"and relegation to the desert +of Sahara." + +"One good thing about it," said Mr. Pope--"it all wastes petrol. And +when the petrol supply gives out--they're done." + +"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." + +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. + +"Look at it!" said Mr. Pope, with bitter hostility. "Look at it!" + +Everyone had anticipated his command. + +"They'll never come to anything," said Mr. Pope, after a pause of silent +hatred. + +"But they _have_ to come to something," said Marjorie. + +"They've come to smash!" said Mr. Magnet, with the true humorist's air. + +"But consider the impudence of this invasion, the +wild--objectionableness of it!" + +"They're nasty things," said Mr. Magnet. "Nasty things!" + +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. + +"Isn't the engine rather wonderful?" she remarked. + +Mr. Magnet regarded the engine with his head a little on one side. "It's +the usual sort," he said. + +"There weren't engines like that twenty years ago." + +"There weren't people like _you_ twenty years ago," said Mr. Magnet, +smiling wisely and kindly, and turned his back on the thing. + +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. + +"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?" + +"If Marjorie, or Mrs. Pope, or Daffy...?" said Magnet. + +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 he would make cricket-playing compulsory +for every English boy. + +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. + + +§ 5 + +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. + +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. + +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.... + +She woke up palpitating. + + +§ 6 + +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 promised address on The Characteristics of English Humour to the +_Literati_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +"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--_white?_" + +"But why are you doing it?" + +"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_ don't care a rap how he feels. So I got this +thing and came out with it." + +Marjorie made her inquiries. There came a little pause. + +"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!" + +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 road again, with their wheels locked and an +indefinite future. + +"I leave the situation to you," said Trafford. "Or shall we just sit and +talk until the next motor car kills us?" + +"We ought to make an effort," said Marjorie, cheerfully, and descended +to lead the two beasts. + +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. + +"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 _this_ way. It is +by such arrangements that civilization becomes possible." + +He dismissed the hedger generously and resumed his reins. + +"Shall we race?" he asked. + +"With your leg?" she inquired. + +"No; with the donkeys. I say, this _is_ 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." + +"Again?" + +"After the year before last." + +"After the year before last?" + +"You didn't know," said Trafford, "I had met you before? How aggressive +I must have seemed! Well, _I_ wasn't quite clear. I spent the greater +part of last night--my ankle being foolish in the small hours--in +trying to remember how and where." + +"I don't remember," said Marjorie. + +"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 _is_ 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. + + 'I was a King in Babylon + And you were a Christian slave' + +--I mean a candidate." + +Marjorie remembered suddenly. "You're Professor Trafford." + +"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." + +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. + +"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?" + +"I thought," he went on, "how bright you were, and how keen and eager +you were--_you_, I mean, in particular--and just how certain it was +your brightness 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." + +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----" + +She paused. + +"You don't want to be a man?" + +"_No!_" + +She was emphatic. + +"Some of us cut more sharply at life than you think," he said, plumbing +her unspoken sense. + +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. + +"Oh," she said, "perhaps you do," and looked at him with an increased +interest. + +"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 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." + +He went on while Marjorie was still considering the proper response to +this. + +"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?" + +"Not a bit," said Marjorie. "But you do go rather fast." + +"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." + +He paused. + +"They told me after the exam.," said Marjorie, "you knew more about +crystallography--than anyone." + +"Does that strike you as a dull subject?" + +"No," said Marjorie, in a tone that invited justifications. + +"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 of molecular physics?" + +"You examined me," said Marjorie. + +"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?" + +"I've seen some rock sections," said Marjorie. "I forget the names of +the rocks." + +"The colours?" + +"Oh yes, the colours." + +"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." + +"If only you understood." + +"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 if the whole +world was fire and crystal and aquiver--with some sort of cotton +wrappers thrown over it...." + +"Dust sheets," said Marjorie. "I know." + +"Or like a diamond painted over!" + +"With that sort of grey paint, very full of body--that lasts." + +"Yes." He smiled at her. "I can't help apologetics. Most people think a +professor of science is just----" + +"A professor of science." + +"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?" + +"Only the woman's part," said Marjorie. + +"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?" + +"Dust sheets." + +"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 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----" + +He caught Marjorie's eye and stopped. + +"_Falling_ out of the air on them," corrected Marjorie very softly. + +"That was only an accident," said Mr. Trafford.... + +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.... + + +§ 7 + +In the end quite a number of people were aggrieved by this dialogue, in +the lane that led nowhither.... + +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. + +Sir Rupert admitted he had to be quiet. "But not so _damned_ quiet." + +"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...." + +Mrs. Pope came upon the affair quite by accident. + +"Well, Marjorie," she said as she poured tea for the family, "did you +get your laces?" + +"Never got there, Mummy," said Marjorie, and paused fatally. + +"Didn't get there!" said Mrs. Pope. "That's worse than Theodore! +Wouldn't the donkey go, poor dear?" + +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." + +(Sensation.) + +"You see it was like this," said Marjorie. "I ran against Mr. +Trafford...." + +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 +_whole_ 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." + +"But what was it all about?" asked Daffy curious. + +"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.) + +"And," she went on, getting a plausible idea at last, "he explained all +about aeroplanes. And all that sort of thing. Has Daddy gone to Wamping +for some more cricket?..." + +(But none of this was lost on Mrs. Pope.) + + +§ 8 + +Mr. Magnet's return next day was heralded by nearly two-thirds of a +column in the _Times_. + +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 _Literati_. + +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. + +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 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.)" + +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 _hortus siccus_ 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."... + +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 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.)"... + +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...." + +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 _Times_. +She yielded it without reluctance, turned to the breakfast table, and +never resumed her study of the social relaxations of humorists.... + +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. + +She thought particularly of the mobile animation of his face, the keen +flash of enthusiasm in his thoughts and expressions.... + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +"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!" + +"We'll take it down at croquet," said Marjorie. + +"They've cleared that thing away?" + +"And made up the lawn like a billiard table," she said. + +"That makes for skill," he said waggishly. "I shall save my head after +all." + +For a moment he seemed to loom towards kissing her, but she averted +this danger by a business-like 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. + +"It's a pleasant feeling to think that a lot of good fellows think you +are a good fellow," said Mr. Magnet. + +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. + +"I've got something in my pocket," he remarked, and playfully: "Guess." + +She did, but she wouldn't. She had a curious sinking of the heart. + +"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." + +He was feeling nervously in his pockets and then the little box was in +her hand. + +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? + +"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 improving upon the rich old Roman designs. "It's so beautifully +made." + +"I'm so glad you like it. You really _do_ like it?" + +"I don't deserve it." + +"Oh! But you _do_ like it?" + +"Enormously." + +"Ah! I spent an hour in choosing it." + +She could see him. She felt as though she had picked his pocket. + +"Only I don't deserve it, Mr. Magnet. Indeed I don't. I feel I am taking +it on false pretences." + +"Nonsense, Magsy. Nonsense! Slip it on your finger, girl." + +"But I don't," she insisted. + +He took the box from her, pocketed it and seized her hand. She drew it +away from him. + +"No!" she said. "I feel like a cheat. You know, I don't--I'm sure I +don't love----" + +"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?" + +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.... + +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. + +Mrs. Pope was the incarnate invocation of tact as Trafford drew near. + +"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. + +"Well, we seem to have got our croquet lawn back," said Mr. Pope. "And +our nerves are recovering. How is Sir Rupert?" + +"A little fractious," said Trafford, with the ghost of a smile. + +"You'll take some tea?" said Mrs. Pope in the pause that followed. + +"Thank you," said Trafford and sat down instantly. + +"I saw your jolly address in the _Standard_," he said to Magnet. "I +haven't read anything so amusing for some time." + +"Rom dear," said Mrs. Pope, "will you take the pot in and get some fresh +tea?" + +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. + +"I'm no lover of machines," he said abruptly, 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...." + +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. + +"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." + +Daffy looked at Marjorie for an instant. + +"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.... + +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. + +"Don't they?" said Mrs. Pope. "I think it is such a graceful game for a +girl." + +Mr. Trafford glanced at Mrs. Pope's face, but her expression was +impenetrable. + +"They both like it and play it so well," she said. "Their father is so +skillful and interested in games. Marjorie tells me you were her +examiner a year or so ago." + +"Yes. She struck my memory--her work stood out." + +"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." + +"Mr. Magnet?" + +"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." + +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. + +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. + +"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 _stable_. 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 _quiet_ +things." + + +§ 9 + +The effect of this _éclaircissement_ upon Mr. Trafford 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?" + +He called Mr. Magnet a "beastly little area sneak!" + +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.... + +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 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. + +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." + +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. + +Were they greater than he supposed? + +His method of coming to the issue of that problem 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?" + +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. + +"Punish him!" came the voice of Magnet from afar. + +"Yes," she said faintly. + +His remark came low and clear. It had a note of angry protest. "_Why?_" + +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. + +"I'm sorry if I've annoyed you," said Trafford, as Marjorie went after +her ball, and Daffy thanked heaven aloud for the respite. + +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, 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." + +Marjorie surveyed him, while Daffy and Magnet expressed solicitude. He +turned to go, mallet in hand, and found Marjorie following him. + +"Is that the heavier mallet?" she asked, and stood before him looking +into his eyes and weighing a mallet in either hand. + +"Mr. Trafford, you're one of the worst examiners I've ever met," she +said. + +He looked puzzled. + +"I don't know _why_," 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. + + +§ 10 + +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." + +"I want," he said, "to clear up." + +"But what _is_ there to clear up, my dear boy?" + +"Solomonson, you're a pampered plutocrat," said Trafford, as though +everything was explained. + +"I don't see any sense in it at all," said Solomonson, and regarded his +friend aslant with thick, black eyebrows raised. + +"I'm going to stay," said Trafford. + +And Solomonson said one of those unhappy and entirely disregarded things +that ought never to be said. + +"There's some girl in this," said Solomonson. + +"Your bedroom's always waiting for you at Riplings," he said, when at +last he was going off.... + +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. + +Always something intervened. + +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." + +"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." + +Mr. Pope turned round and stared at her. "I didn't think of that," he +said. "But, anyhow, I don't like the fellow." + +"He seems to be rather clever," said Mrs. Pope, "though he certainly +talks too much. And after all it was Sir Rupert's aeroplane. _He_ was +only driving it to oblige." + +"He'll think twice before he drives another," said Mr. Pope, wrenching +off his collar.... + +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. + +Nor did it help Trafford in his quest for Marjorie 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. + +On the other hand, Marjorie was greatly entangled by Magnet. + +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 her.... + +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. + +(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....) + + +§ 11 + +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. + +"I say," he said forthwith, "I want to talk with you--badly." + +"And I," she said unhesitatingly, "with you." + +"How can we?" + +"There's always people about. It's absurd." + +"We'll have to meet." + +"Yes." + +"I have to go away to-morrow. I ought to have gone two days ago. Where +_can_ we meet?" + +She had it all prepared. + +"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." + +"Couldn't I write?" + +"No. Impossible." + +"I've no end of things to say...." + +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. + + +§ 12 + +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 came out to her. + +"My darling," he said, "Oh, my darling!" + +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. + +"I will die for you," he said, "I will give all the world for you...." + +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. + + +§ 13 + +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. + +"Good God!" he cried, "what next!" + +But he still hadn't realized the worst. + +"Daffy," he said, "what in the name of goodness----?" + +Marjorie put her hands before her face too late. + +"Good Lord!" he cried with a rising inflection, "it's Madge!" + +Trafford found the situation difficult. "I should explain----" + +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. + +"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. + +"I asked your daughter to meet me here, and she came. I am prepared to +give you any explanation----" + +"If you come near this place again----" + +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!" + +Mr. Pope turned on her. "Silence, girl!" he said. + +"I shall come to you to-morrow," said Trafford. + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "to-morrow." + +"Marjorie!" said Mr. Pope, "_will_ you go indoors." + +"I have done nothing----" + +"Be off, sir." + +"I have done nothing----" + +"Will you be off, sir? And you, Marjorie--will you go indoors?" + +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. + +Mr. Pope hesitated whether he should remain with Trafford. + +A perfectly motionless man is very disconcerting. + +"Be off, sir," he said over his shoulder, lowered through a threatening +second, and followed her. + +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. + +Then he roused himself with a profound sigh, and put a hand to his cut +and bruised cheek. + +"_Well!_" he said. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +CRISIS + + +§ 1 + +Crisis prevailed in Buryhamstreet that night. On half a dozen sleepless +pillows souls communed with the darkness, and two at least of those +pillows were wet with tears. + +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.... + +What an uncharted perplexity, for example, was the mind of that +excellent woman Mrs. Pope! + +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. + +Quite early in life Mrs. Pope had realized that it 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.... + +(Why _couldn't_ Mr. Pope lie quiet?) + +Whatever she said or did had to be fitted to the exigencies of Mr. Pope. + +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. + +Finally he sat down in the little arm-chair between 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. + +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.... + +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 "_My_ 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. + +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 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.... + +(Oh! she did so wish Mr. Pope would lie quiet.) + +But he had no doubts of what became _him_. He had to maintain a splendid +and irrational rage--at any cost--to anybody. + + +§ 2 + +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. + +Only her father had spoilt everything. + +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? + +Of course, she had no business to be there.... + +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, never to have accepted Magnet.... + +She faced the disagreeable word; was she a liar? + +At any rate, she told lies. + +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. + +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. + +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." + +Her mind hung on that for a long time. "Not know it until afterwards," +she corrected. + +She liked to be exact, even in despair.... + +And then in her memory he was struck again, and stood stiff and still. +She wanted to kneel to him, imagined herself kneeling.... + +And so on, quite inconclusively, round and round through the +interminable night hours. + + +§ 3 + +The young man in the village was, if possible, 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. + +He had something of Marjorie's amazement at the position of affairs. + +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. + +"Of course," he said, entirely ignoring the actual quality of their +conversation, "she had to explain about the Magnet affair. Can't +one--converse?" + +He reflected through great intervals. + +"I _will_ see her! Why on earth shouldn't I see her?" + +"I suppose they can't lock her up!" + +For a time he contemplated a writ of Habeas Corpus. He saw reason to +regret the gaps in his legal knowledge. + +"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 a girl of twenty +who is engaged to someone else? + +The night had no answer. + +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. + +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. + + +§ 4 + +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. + +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 _sotto voce_, and it amused Syd. He seemed to think the +_Times_ opaque to such small sounds, and learnt better only to be +dismissed underfed 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. + +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." + +"I thought I heard father telling you," said Marjorie. + +"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." + +"What things?" asked Marjorie, turning sharply. + +"I don't know, my dear--and I can't imagine." + +She looked out of the window, aware of Marjorie's entirely distrustful +scrutiny. + +"I don't believe it," said Marjorie. + +"Don't believe what, dear?" + +"Whatever he says." + +"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." + +She was overcome by a rush of emotion; she turned to the bed and sat +down. + +"_There!_" she said desolately. "It's all ruined, shattered, gone." + +Marjorie tried not to feel that her mother was right. + +"If father hadn't interfered," she said weakly. + +"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 _eat into his capital_ this year. Just think of that, and the +worry he has! And this last shame and anxiety!" + +Her voice broke again. Marjorie listened with an expression that was +almost sullen. + +"But what is it," she asked, "that father knows about Mr. Trafford?" + +"I don't know, dear. I don't know. But it's something that matters--that +makes it all different." + +"Well, may I speak to Mr. Trafford before he leaves Buryhamstreet?" + +"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...." + +"I won't believe anything about Mr. Trafford," she said slowly, "until I +know----" + +She left the sentence incomplete. + +She made her declaration abruptly. "I love Mr. Trafford," she said, with +a catch in her voice, "and I don't love Mr. Magnet." + +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 said, as if she gasped involuntarily-- + +"It's too dreadful! Marjorie," she said, "I want to ask you to do +something. After all, a mother has _some_ 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 _see_ 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...." + +"Mother," said Marjorie, "I can't----" + +Mrs. Pope drew in the air sharply between her teeth, as if in agony. + +"But, mother----Mother, I _must_ let Mr. Trafford know that I'm not to +see him. I _can't_ suddenly cease.... If I could see him once----" + +"Don't!" said Mrs. Pope, in a hollow voice. + +Marjorie began weeping. "He'd not understand," she said. "If I might +just speak to him!" + +"Not alone, Marjorie." + +Marjorie stood still. "Well--before you." + +Mrs. Pope conceded the point. "And then, Marjorie----" she said. + +"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." + +Mrs. Pope did a brief calculation. "Marjorie," she said, "it's only your +happiness I think of." + +"I know," said Marjorie, and added in a low voice, "and father." + +"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 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----" + +She paused for a few seconds, and seemed to be thinking deeply. + +"Marjorie," she said, "Mr. Magnet must never know anything of this." + +"But, mother----!" + +"Nothing!" + +"I can't go on with my engagement!" + +Mrs. Pope shook her head inscrutably. + +"But how _can_ I, mother?" + +"You need not tell him _why_, Marjorie." + +"But----" + +"Just think how it would humiliate and distress him! You _can't_, +Marjorie. You must find some excuse--oh, any excuse! But not the +truth--not the truth, Marjorie. It would be too dreadful." + +Marjorie thought. "Look here, mother, I _may_ see Mr. Trafford again? I +_may_ really speak to him?" + +"Haven't I promised?" + +"Then, I'll do as you say," said Marjorie. + + +§ 5 + +Mrs. Pope found her husband seated at the desk in the ultra-Protestant +study, meditating gloomily. + +"I've been talking to her," she said, "She's in a state of terrible +distress." + +"She ought to be," said Mr. Pope. + +"Philip, you don't understand Marjorie." + +"I don't." + +"You think she was kissing that man." + +"Well, she was." + +"You can think _that_ of her!" + +Mr. Pope turned his chair to her. "But I _saw!_" + +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 _loves_ Mr. Magnet. She does indeed. I've not a doubt of it. +But----" + +"You're _sure_ she wasn't kissing him?" + +"Positive." + +"Then why didn't you say so?" + +"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 _is_ ashamed +that she won't admit it." + +"I'll make her admit it." + +"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 _die_ than begin explaining. You can't expect it of her. Really +you can't." + +He grunted and shook his head slowly from side to side. + +She sat down in the arm-chair beside the desk. + +"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." + +"How?" he asked. "Up there?" + +"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. + +"Chuck him out if he does," said Mr. Pope, grimly. + +She pressed her lips together firmly. She seemed to be weighing things +painfully. "I wouldn't," she said at last. + +"What do you mean?" asked Mr. Pope. + +"I do not want you to make an open quarrel with Mr. Trafford." + +"_Not_ quarrel!" + +"Not an open one," said Mrs. Pope. "Of course I know how nice it would +be if you _could_ 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 _is_ a dream--a girl's dream.... If only we leave it alone, she'll +leave it alone." + + +§ 6 + +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 was +done--everything. And yet.... + +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.... + +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 _had_ meant to give notice on the day of aunt +Plessington's visit. + + +§ 7 + +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. + +Mr. Trafford was admitted and disappeared, and a minute afterwards +Magnet reached the door. + +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 be detained five or ten minutes. Marjorie and Daffy were +upstairs--resting. They had been disturbed by bats in the night. + +"Isn't it charmingly rural?" said Mrs. Pope. "_Bats!_" + +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. + + +§ 8 + +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.... + +Trafford found Mr. Pope seated sternly at the centre of the writing +desk, regarding him with a threatening brow. + +"Well, sir," said Mr. Pope breaking the silence, "you have come to offer +some explanation----" + +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 towards the window. He had +also arranged the chairs in a highly favourable pattern. + +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." + +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?" + +"I am in love sir, with your daughter." + +"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.) + +Mr. Trafford had to adjust himself to the unexpected elements in this +encounter. "Oh!" he said. + +"Yes," said Mr. Pope, and there was a distinct interval. + +"Is your daughter in love with Mr. Magnet?" asked Mr. Trafford in an +almost colloquial tone. + +Mr. Pope smiled gravely. "I presume so, sir." + +"She never gave me that impression, anyhow," said the young man. + +"It was neither her duty to give nor yours to receive that impression," +said Mr. Pope. + +Again Mr. Trafford was at a loss. + +"Have you come here, sir, merely to bandy words?" asked Mr. Pope, +drumming with ten fingers on the table. + +Mr. Trafford thrust his hands into his pockets 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. + +"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." + +"I beg to differ," said Mr. Pope. + +"But I am." + +"Again," said Mr. Pope, with great patience, and a slight forward bowing +of the head, "I beg to differ." + +"Well--differ. But all the same----" + +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. + +"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. +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. + +"I don't think you ought to stay in Buryhamstreet, Mr. Trafford," said +Marjorie. + +"You don't want me to?" + +"It will only cause trouble--and scenes." + +"You want me to go?" + +"Away from here." + +"You really mean that?" + +Marjorie did not answer for a little time; she seemed to be weighing the +exact force of all she was going to say. + +"Mr. Trafford," she answered, "everything I've ever said to +you--everything--I've _meant_, more than I've ever meant anything. +Everything!" + +A little flush of colour came into Trafford's cheeks. He regarded +Marjorie with a brightening eye. + +"Oh well," he said, "I don't understand. But I'm entirely in your hands, +of course." + +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 _his_. 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. + +"I'll do anything you want me to," said Trafford. + +"Then I want you to go." + +"Ah!" said Mr. Pope. + +"Yes," said Trafford, with his eyes on her self-possession. + +"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." + +"And then?" + +"I don't know. How can I?" + +"You hear, sir?" from Mr. Pope, in the pause of mutual scrutiny that +followed. + +"One question," said Mr. Trafford. + +"You've surely asked enough, sir," said Mr. Pope. + +"Are you still engaged to Magnet?" + +"Sir!" + +"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." + +"She _is_ engaged to Mr. Magnet," said Mr. Pope. "Tell him outright, +Marjorie. Make it clear." + +"I think I understand," said Trafford, with his eyes on Marjorie. + +"I've not seen Mr. Magnet since last night," said Marjorie. "And +so--naturally--I'm still engaged to him." + +"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. + +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 softly, and Mr. Pope turned to his visitor again +with a bleak politeness. "I hope that satisfies you," he said. + +"There is nothing more to be said at present, I admit," said Mr. +Trafford. + +"Nothing," said Mr. Pope. + +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. + +"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Pope, holding the housedoor wide. + +"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." + +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.... + +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. + + +§ 9 + +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 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.... + +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. + +Marjorie received the news of her severance from Oxbridge, Mrs. Pope +thought, with a certain hardness. + +"I thought he would do that," said Marjorie. "He's always wanted to do +that," and said no more. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +A TELEPHONE CALL + + +§ 1 + +Trafford went back to Solomonson for a day or so, 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. + +"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...." + +But later Durgan was able to report that Trafford had pulled himself +together. The work was moving. + +"I was worried for a bit," said Mr. Durgan. "But I _think_ it's all +right again. I _believe_ it's all right again." + + +§ 2 + +Trafford was one of those rare scientific men who really ought to be +engaged in scientific research. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. 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. + +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 the views, the breadths, the +spacious emotions which had ennobled her husband in her eyes should rise +again in him. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +She would not let herself believe that this Indian 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." + +Once or twice that had seemed to happen, and then it had come to +nothing.... + +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. + + +§ 3 + +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 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. + +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. + +In fact, he thought of Marjorie. + +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. + +He wondered how they would meet again, and dreamt a thousand impossible +and stirring dreams, but he dreamt them as dreams. + +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. + +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. + +He had no thought of Marjorie when she answered, and for an instant he +did not recognize her voice. + +"Yes, I'm Mr. Trafford."... + +"Who is it?" he reiterated with a note of irascibility. "_Who?_" + +The little voice laughed. "Why! I'm Marjorie!" it said. + +Then she was back in his life like a lantern suddenly become visible in +a wood at midnight. + +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. + +"It's _me!_ Marjorie! I'm twenty-one to-day!" + +It was like a little arrow of exquisite light shot into the very heart +of his life. + +He laughed back. "Are you for meeting me then, Marjorie?" + + +§ 4 + +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. + +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. + +"And so," said Trafford, "we meet again!" + +"I don't see why we shouldn't meet!" said Marjorie. + +There was a slight pause. + +"Let's have two of those jolly little green chairs," said Trafford.... + +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. + +"There ought to be squirrels here, as there are in New York," he said at +last. + +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. + +"Look here," he said, "do you still love me, Marjorie?" + +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. + +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!" + +Marjorie's face flashed responses. "It's you," he said. + +"Me," she answered. + +"Do you remember?" + +"Everything!" + +"My dear!" + +"I want to tell you things," said Marjorie. "What are we to do?".... + +He tried afterwards to retrace that conversation. He was chiefly +ashamed of his scientific preoccupations 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.... + +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 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. + +He was a little astonished at himself and everything. + +But it was going to be--splendid. + +(What poor things words can be!) + + +§ 5 + +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. + +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, if it would put +you out very much if I brought home a wife to you?" + +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. "_My dear_," she +whispered softly, stroking his head, and her tears came streaming. For a +time they said no more. + +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. + +"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." + +"Perhaps I shall understand, my dear. Perhaps I shall understand better +than you think." + +"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----" + +She caressed and stroked his hand. "My dear," she said, "I know." + +"And a sort of dancing daring in her eyes." + +"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." + +He kissed her hand and sat down beside her, with 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. + +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 she glanced +up at her husband's quiet face.... + +On one point she was very clear with him. + +"You'll live with us, mother?" he said abruptly. + +"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." + +"Oh, nonsense, mother! You'll have to be with us. Living alone, indeed!" + +"My dear, I'd _prefer_ a flat of my own. You don't +understand--everything. It will be better for all of us like that." + +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."... + + +§ 6 + +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 his hands for +both of hers, and never did a maiden come so near and yet not get a +public and shameless kissing. + +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. + +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. + +"I don't like this underhand preparation," he said. + +"Nor I," she echoed. "But what can one do?" + +"Well, oughtn't I to go to your father and give him a chance? Why +shouldn't I? It's--the dignified way." + +"It won't be dignified for father," said Marjorie, "anyhow." + +"But what right has he to object?" + +"He isn't going to discuss his rights with you. He _will_ object." + +"But _why?_" + +"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." + +"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." + +"My dear, do as you please. He'll forbid and shout, and hit tables until +things break. Suppose he locks me up!" + +"Oh, Habeas Corpus, and my strong right arm! He's much more likely to +turn you out-of-doors." + +"Not if he thinks the other will annoy you more. I'll have to bear a +storm." + +"Not for long." + +"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." + +Trafford thought for a moment. "I'd far rather you could," he answered, +in a voice that spoke of inflexible determinations. + +They turned to the things they meant to do. "_Italy!_" she whispered, +"_Italy!_" 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. + +"You understand I shall come to your father," he said, as they drew near +the gate where it seemed discreet for them to part. + +"It will make it harder to get away," she said, with no apparent +despondency. "It won't stop us. Oh! do as you please." + +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. + +"Oh!" she said, "of course, you won't tell father you've seen me." + +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 _must_ go to him, go to him." + +"For myself?" + +She nodded, with her open eyes on his--eyes that looked now very blue +and very grave, and her lips a little apart. + +She surprised him a little, but even this sudden weakness seemed +adorable. + +"All right," he said. + +"You don't think that I'm shirking----?" she asked, a little too +eagerly. + +"You know your father best," he answered. "I'll tell you all he says and +all the terror of him here to-morrow afternoon." + + +§ 7 + +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. + + +§ 8 + +Trafford's little attempt to regularise his position 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. + +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 strap flew +out and hit him with projectile violence. + +"Blow!" said the young gentleman recoiling, and Trafford recovering +said: "Hullo, Theodore!" + +"Lord!" said Theodore breathless, "It's you! _What_ a lark! Your name's +never mentioned--no how. What _did_ you do?... Wish I could stop and see +it! I'm ten minutes late. _Ave atque vale_. So long!" + +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." + +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. + +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 _Punches_ from the beginning. A pile of back +numbers of the _Times_ 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 traces of recent epistolary +activity, and was littered with the printed matter of Aunt Plessington's +movements. Two or three recent issues of _The Financial Review of +Reviews_ 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. + +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?" + +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. + +Trafford remained standing astraddle over the boots before the gas fire. + +"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." + +"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." + +"But look here, sir. There's a certain justice--I mean a certain +reasonableness----" + +Mr. Pope held out an arresting hand. "I don't wish it. Let that be +enough." + +"Of course it isn't enough. I'm in love with her--and she with me. I'm +an entirely reputable and decent person----" + +"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?" + +"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." + +"There are two people to consult in that matter." + +"I'll take the risk of that." + +"Permit me to differ." + +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----" + +"Be careful, sir!" cried Mr. Pope, "be careful!" + +"I'm going to marry Marjorie." + +"If she marries you, sir, she shall never darken my doors again!" + +"If you had a thing against me!" + +"_Haven't_ I!" + +"What have you?" + +There was a quite perceptible pause before Pope fired his shot. + +"Does any decent man want the name of Trafford associated with his +daughter. Trafford! Look at the hoardings, sir!" + +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. Then he controlled himself by a violent effort. "You believe in +that libel on my dead father?" he said, with white lips. + +"Has it ever been answered?" + +"A hundred times. And anyhow!--Confound it! I don't believe--_you_ +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!" + +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!" + +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. + +"Leave my house!" cried Pope with an imperious gesture towards the door. + +Trafford made an absurd effort to save the situation. "I am sorry, sir, +I lost my temper. I had no business to abuse you----" + +"You've said enough." + +"I apologise for that. I've done what I could to manage things +decently." + +"Will you go, sir?" threatened Mr. Pope. + +"I'm sorry I came," said Trafford. + +Mr. Pope took his stand with folded arms and an expression of weary +patience. + +"I did what I could," said Trafford at the door. + +The staircase and passage were deserted. The whole house seemed to have +caught from Mr. Pope that same quality of seeing him out.... + +"Confound it!" said Trafford in the street. "How on earth did all this +happen?"... + +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? + +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. + +Could Marjorie have heard? + + +§ 9 + +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. + +They made all their arrangements elaborately and 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 _M.T._ 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. + +One eventful afternoon he went to the college, and Marjorie slipped +round by his arrangement to have tea with Mrs. Trafford.... + +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. + +But Marjorie had won Mrs. Trafford. + +"She's been," she answered. "Yes, she's all right, my dear." + +"Oh, mother!" he said. + +"She's a beautiful creature, dear--and such a child! Oh! such a child! +And God bless you, dear, God bless you.... + +"I think all young people are children. I want to take you both in my +arms and save you.... I'm talking nonsense, dear." + +He kissed her, and she clung to him as if he were something too precious +to release. + + +§ 10 + +The elopement was a little complicated by a surprise manoeuvre 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. + +She submitted and went, and Mrs. Pope and Syd saw her off. + +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. 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. + +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. + +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. + +"We've done it, Mrs. Trafford!" said Trafford. + +She snapped like an over-taut string, crumpled, clung to him, and +without a word was weeping passionately in his arms. + +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. + +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. + +"I've never crossed the sea before," she said. + +"Old England," she whispered. "It's like leaving a nest. A little row +of lights and that's all the world I've ever known, shrunken to that +already." + +Presently they went forward and peered into the night. + +"Look!" she said. "_Italy!_ There's sunshine and all sorts of beautiful +things ahead. Warm sunshine, wonderful old ruins, green lizards...." She +paused and whispered almost noiselessly: "_love_----" + +They pressed against each other. + +"And yet isn't it strange? All you can see is darkness, and clouds--and +big waves that hiss as they come near...." + + +§ 11 + +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 oxen, now a chapel hung about with _ex votos_, 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. + +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, _hers!_ + +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. + +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. + +(Monte Mottarone! Just for a moment taste the 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. + +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. + +"Adorable young people," he said. "Adorable happy young people.... + +"Did you notice, dear, how she held that dainty little chin of hers?... + +"Pride is such a good thing, my dear, clear, straight pride like +theirs--and they were both so proud!... + +"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...." + + + + + BOOK THE SECOND + MARJORIE MARRIED + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +SETTLING DOWN + + +§ 1 + +It was in a boat among reeds upon the lake of Orta that Trafford first +became familiarized with the idea that Marjorie was capable of debt. + +"Oh, I ought to have told you," she began, apropos of nothing. + +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? + +"Oh, about fifty pounds," said Marjorie, after her manner. "Not _more_. +I've not kept all the bills; and some haven't come in. You know how slow +they are." + +"These things _will_ 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." + +"I think fifty pounds will clear me," said Marjorie, clinging to her +long-established total, "if you'll let me have that." + +"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----" + +"I don't understand, quite," said Marjorie. + +"You'll have your own cheque-book and write cheques as you want them. +That seems the simplest way to me." + +"Of course," said Marjorie. "But isn't this--rather unusual? Father +always used to allowance mother." + +"It's the only decent way according to my ideas," said Trafford. "A man +shouldn't marry when he can't trust." + +"Of course not," said Marjorie. Something between fear and compunction +wrung her. "Do you think you'd better?" she asked, very earnestly. + +"Better?" + +"Do this." + +"Why not?" + +"It's--it's so generous." + +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. + +But, indeed, her state of mind was quite exceptionally confused. She was +disconcerted--and horribly afraid of herself. + +"Do you mean that I can spend what I like?" asked Marjorie. + +"Just as I may," he said. + +"I wonder," said Marjorie again, "if I'd better." + +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. + +"You've got to," said Trafford, and ended the matter. + +So Marjorie was silent--making good resolutions. + + +§ 2 + +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. + +"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!" + +"Mag," he said, "has its drawbacks! The street-boy in London says, 'Shut +your mag.' No, I think I shall stick to Marjorie...." + +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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +On three hundred pounds, that is to say--as a maximum. + +The house she had to deal with was, like Mrs. 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +She was giving the study the very best of her 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 _hors d'oeuvre_, 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 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. + +"By Jove!" he said. "How little people know of the homes of the Poor!" + +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!" + +"But aren't these rather good?" asked Mrs. Trafford. + +Marjorie answered, after a little pause. "They're not too good for +_him_," she said. + + +§ 3 + +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 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. + +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. + +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.... + +It was almost equally difficult not to indicate a larger income than +facts justified. + +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 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 calls, and the pitiless light of +criticism they would bring to bear, not indeed upon her happiness--that +was assured--but upon her success. + +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 raising her voice. +They had little or no influence even upon their own public +appointments.... + +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. + +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. + +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! _This_ 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 upon her undistinguished +uncle. + +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.... + + +§ 4 + +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. + +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.... + +Then that large circle of distinguished acquaintances 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.... + +She was very young.... + +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 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. + +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. + +But supposing Marjorie didn't see any of that! + +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. + +Those were the days of the first enthusiasms of 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. + +He opened almost apropos of nothing. "Women," he said, "are +inferior--and you can't get away from it." + +"You can deny it," said Buzard. + +"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." + +"More endurance," said Buzard. + +"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." + +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 drunken woman is far worse than a drunken man. And as +for their biological significance----" + +"They are the species," said Buzard, "and we are the accidents." + +"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...." + +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. + +"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 _want_ to do these things. They're +different." + +"Precisely," ejaculated Buzard, as if he claimed a score. + +"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 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----" + +Buzard intervened with instances. Dover would have none of them. He +displayed astonishing and distinctive knowledge. "Madame Curie," +clamoured Buzard, "Madame Curie." + +"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----" + +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---- + +"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 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--_rats!_" + +"No, no!" cried Trafford to Dover. + +Buzard's voice clamoured that all would be different when women had the +vote. + +"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. + +"Doing it cheerfully!" insisted Dover. + +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.... + +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----.... + +There is much to be discovered about life, even by a brilliant and +rising young Professor of Physics.... + +Presently Dover, fingering the little glass of yellow chartreuse he had +hitherto forgotten in the heat of controversy, took a more personal +turn. + +"Don't we know," he said, and made the limpid 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...." + +Buzard got in his one effective blow at this point. "That's why you've +never married, Sir Roderick?" he threw out. + +The big man was checked for a moment. Trafford wondered what memory lit +that instant's pause. "I've had my science," said Dover. + + +§ 5 + +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.... + +In many ways Marjorie's marriage had been a 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. + +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 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--_very_ nice." + +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 _he_ hadn't married you----" + +"But dear Mummy, of _course_ we meant to marry! We married right away." + +"Yes, dear, of course. But if he hadn't----" + +She paused, and Marjorie, with a momentary flush of indignation in her +cheeks, did not urge her to conclude her explanation. + +"He's _wounded_," said Mrs. Pope. "Some day perhaps he'll come +round--you were always his favourite daughter." + +"I know," said Marjorie concisely, with a faint flavour of cynicism in +her voice. + +"I'm afraid dear, at present--he will do nothing for you." + +"I don't think Rag would like him to," said Marjorie with an unreal +serenity; "_ever_." + +"For a time I'm afraid he'll refuse to see you. He just wants to +forget----. Everything." + +"Poor old Dad! I wish he wouldn't put himself out like this. Still, I +won't bother him, Mummy, if you mean that." + +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." + +The whimper changed by some inner force of its own to honest sobs and +tears. + +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!" + +She put her arms about her mother and held her for awhile. + +"It _is_ a shame," said her mother in a muffled 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."... + +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!" + +She paused, and added with just the faintest trace of resentment in her +voice: "She can have him, as far as I'm concerned." + +"He didn't wait long," said Trafford tactlessly. + +"No," said Marjorie; "he didn't wait long.... Of course she got him on +the rebound."... + + +§ 6 + +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 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.... + +Hardly anybody failed to appreciate the charm and decision of Marjorie's +use of those Bokhara embroideries. + +They would have been cheap at double the price. + + +§ 7 + +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!..." + +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 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.... + +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. + +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.... + +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 +largely to the funds of the Movement and wanted to meet the lady of +title, and the editor of the Movement's organ, _Upward and On_, 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. + +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. + +"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 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----" + +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." + +"No doubt," said Trafford with a faint asperity. "But tell me the +answers." + +"It's ridiculous," said Aunt Plessington, "to talk of the self-respect +of the kind of people--oh! the very dregs!" + +"It's just because the plant is delicate that you've got to handle it +carefully," said Trafford. + +"Here's Miss Gant," said Aunt Plessington, "_she_ knows the strata we +are discussing. She'll tell you they have positively _no_ +self-respect--none at all." + +"_My_ people," said Miss Gant, as if in conclusive testimony, "actually +conspire with their employers to defeat me." + +"I don't see the absence of self-respect in that," said Trafford. + +"But all their interests----" + +"I'm thinking of their pride."... + +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 _like_ your +husband. He's wrong-headed, but he's young, and he's certainly spirited. +He _ought_ to get on if he wants to. Does he do nothing but his +researches?" + +"He lectures in the spring term," said Marjorie. + +"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 shell, and let him see what it is to deal with Affairs. Then he +wouldn't talk such nonsense about our Work." + +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?"... + +She had another lunge at Trafford as he took his leave. "You must come +again soon," she said. "I _love_ 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."... + +On this occasion there was no kissing in the cab. Trafford was +exasperated. + +"Of all the intolerable women!" he said, and was silent for a time. + +"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 +_cheapness_ 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 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." + +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. + +"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."... + +"I suppose it's the way that sort of thing gets done," said Marjorie, +after an interval. + +"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 _things happen_. 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 got the cheek of your Aunt Plessington." + +He seemed to have finished. + +"_Done!_" 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!" + +"Here we are!" said Marjorie, a little relieved to find the hansom +turning out of King's Road into their own side street.... + +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 _wonderful_, Madge!" cried the younger Carmel +girl. + +The Carmel boy, seizing the opportunity of a momentary seclusion in a +corner, ended a short but rather portentous silence with "I say, you +_do_ 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.... + +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. + +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 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. + + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +THE CHILD OF THE AGES + + +§ 1 + +When the intellectual history of this time comes to 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. + +The peculiar circumstances of Trafford's birth 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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + + +§ 2 + +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. 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. + +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 _have_ you been?" + +"But my dear!" he said, as one might speak to a child, "why aren't you +in bed? It's just dawn." + +"Oh," she said, "I waited and I waited. It seemed you _must_ 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." + +"Let's make some," said Trafford. + +"It's been horrible waiting," said Marjorie without moving; "horrible! +Where have you been?" + +"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." + +"But I have been up all night!" she cried with her face and voice +softening to tears. "How _could_ you? How _could_ you?" + +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, 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. + +"You see," he said, on his knees, "I'd really got hold of my work at +last." + +"But you should have sent----" + +"I was thinking of my work. I clean forgot." + +"Forgot?" + +"Absolutely." + +"Forgot--_me!_" + +"Of course," said Trafford, with a slightly puzzled air, "you don't see +it as I do." + +The kettle engaged him for a time. Then he threw out a suggestion. +"We'll have to have a telephone." + +"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." + +He renewed his suggestion of a telephone. + +"So that if I really want you----" said Marjorie. "Or if I just want to +feel you're there." + +"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 had been in the habit of disconnecting +itself early in the afternoon. + +And yet after all it was this instrument, the same twisted wire and +little quivering tympanum, that had brought back Marjorie into his life. + + +§ 3 + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +Even now, of course, she was drawing fresh cheques.... + +He would have to pull himself together, and go into the whole thing--for +all its infinite disagreeableness--with her.... + +But it was Marjorie who broached the subject. + +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 very," he answered, and she came up +to him, kissed his head, and stood beside him with her hand on his +shoulder. + +"Pass-book?" she asked. + +He nodded. + +"I've been overrunning." + +"No end." + +The matter was opened. What would she say? + +She bent to his ear and whispered. "I'm going to overrun some more." + +His voice was resentful. "You _can't_," he said compactly without +looking at her. "You've spent--enough." + +"There's--things." + +"What things?" + +Her answer took some time in coming. "We'll have to give a wedding +present to Daffy.... I shall want--some more furniture." + +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?" + +"Six thousand." + +"I _had_. 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." + +"Five thousand," said Marjorie. + +"Five thousand." + +"And there's your salary." + +"Yes, but at this pace----" + +"Dear," said Marjorie, and her hands came about his neck, "dear--there's +something----" + +She broke off. An unfamiliar quality in her voice struck into him. He +turned his head to see her face, rose to his feet staring at her. + +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. + +"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 _dear!_ my +_dear!_" + + +§ 4 + +The world of Trafford and Marjorie was filled and transfigured by the +advent of their child. + +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 love was to be crowned by the miracle of parentage. +This fact flooded his outlook and submerged every other consideration. + +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.... + +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 supplement his +manifestly inadequate resources. + +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 _draw_? +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 _The Scientific Review_, 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. + + +§ 5 + +It was astonishing how completely this coming 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. + +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. + +"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." + +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 _do_ 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 "_Hoo_-ray!" +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. + + +§ 6 + +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, 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. + +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.... + +But his heart was very much with Marjorie through all this time. +Hitherto he had taken her health and vigour and companionship for +granted, 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. + +"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!"... + +"We will make it the most wonderful child in the world," said Marjorie. +"Indeed! what else can it be?" + +"Your eyes," said Trafford, "and my hands." + +"A girl." + +"A boy." + +He kissed her white and passive wrist. + + +§ 7 + +The child was born a little before expectation at 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.... + +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 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.... + +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.... + +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.... + +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.... + +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! + +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 little daughter, and that all was well with Marjorie. + +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.... + +They were very pontifical and official with him. + +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.... + +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 more.... + +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. + + +§ 8 + +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. + +When they were sure of its safety, Marjorie and 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. + + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE NEW PHASE + + +§ 1 + +In the course of the next six months the child of the 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. + +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 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. + +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.... + + +§ 2 + +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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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.... + +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 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. + +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 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. + +He realized the unfairness of keeping his thoughts 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. + +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. + +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.... + +One day they quarrelled. + +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 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." + +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. + +"Hullo!" he cried. + +"A new picture," she said. "What do you think of it?" + +"What is it?" + +"A town or something--never mind. Look at the colour. It heartens +everything." + +Trafford looked at the painting with a reluctant admiration. + +"It's brilliant--and impudent. He's an artist--whoever he is. He hits +the thing. But--I say--how did you get it?" + +"I bought it." + +"Bought it! Good Lord! How much?" + +"Oh! ten guineas," said Marjorie, with an affectation of ease; "it will +be worth thirty in ten years' time." + +Trafford's reply was to repeat: "Ten guineas!" + +Their eyes met, and there was singularly little tenderness in their +eyes. + +"It was priced at thirteen," said Marjorie, ending a pause, and with a +sinking heart. + +Trafford had left her side. He walked to the window and sat down in a +chair. + +"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." + +"Give up my cheque-book!" + +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 +indignant woman with the distress and unreasonable resentment of a +child. + +"Because I've bought this picture?" + +"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. + +"But it's _beautiful!_" she said. + +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. + +Suddenly she went to her little desk in the corner, 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. + +"Take it," she cried, "take it. I never asked you to give it me." + +A memory of Orta and its reeds and sunshine and love rose like a +luminous mist between them.... + +She ran weeping from the room. + +He leapt to his feet as the door closed. "Marjorie!" he cried. + +But she did not hear him.... + + +§ 3 + +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 +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. + +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. 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.... + +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. + +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 and that she could talk well, but that does +not count for much if you are rather dowdy, and quite uneventfully +virtuous. + +It became the refrain of all her thoughts that she must find something +to do. + +There remained "Movements." + +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. + +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.... + +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 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 or any inconvenient disturbance of the milieu. + +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 two others. + +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. + +The small lady in glasses was giving a fancy picture 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 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 _her_ contribution to this +great and important question. (Applause, amidst which the small lady +with the glasses resumed her seat.) + +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 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. + +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.) + +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, 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: "_Do_ 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 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. + +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 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-- + +And so on for quite a long time.... + +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 for Hundreds of Thousands of Years, Women had been in possession +of Articulate Speech before men rose to that Level of Intelligence.... + +It occurred suddenly to Trafford that he could go now; that it would be +better to go; that indeed he _must_ 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.... + + +§ 4 + +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 _mass_ 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?" + +"It's our local branch." + +"Yes, but _why?_" + +"Well, if they talk about things--Discussions like this clear up their +minds." + +"Discussion! It wasn't discussion." + +"Oh! it was a beginning." + +"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." + +"But it's a great movement, Rag, even if incidentally they say and do +silly things!" + +"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!" + +Marjorie regarded him quietly for a moment. "I must go on with +something," she said. + +"Well, not this." + +"Then _what?_" + +"Something sane." + +"Tell me what." + +"It must come out of yourself." + +Marjorie thought sullenly for a moment. "Nothing comes out of myself," +she said. + +"I don't think you realize a bit what my life has become," she went on; +"how much I'm like some one who's been put in a pleasant, high-class +prison." + +"This house! It's your own!" + +"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 _not_ 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_ haven't got enough. I wish almost I could sleep away half the +day. Oh! I want something _real_, 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?" + +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. + +Trafford thought. "No," he said. + +"Why not?" + +"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." + +"Yes," assented Marjorie flatly. + +He watched her downcast face, and then it lifted 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 _DO?_" + + +§ 5 + +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 by that fierce and steely +veracity which swung down out of the laboratory into her home. + +One may want to talk things out long before one hits upon the phrases +that will open up the matter. + +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.... + +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 _after_ they had +got something really settled and defined then it would be time enough +to broach the particulars of this second divergence.... + +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, +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. + +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.... + + +§ 6 + +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 up things for her as no +premeditated attempt of his had ever done. + +A copy of the _Scientific Bulletin_ 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 _Bulletin_, 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: + +"Oh! Damnation and damnation!" + +Then he shied the paper into the corner of the room and pushed his plate +from him. + +"Damn the whole scheme of things!" he said, and met the blank amazement +of Marjorie's eye. + +"Behrens!" he said with an air of explanation. + +"Behrens?" she echoed with a note of inquiry. + +"He's doing my stuff!" + +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 _stand_ it!" he said. + +She waited some moments. "I don't understand," she began. "What has he +done?" + +"Oh!" was Trafford's answer. He got up, recovered the crumpled paper and +stood reading. "Fool and thief," he said. + +Marjorie was amazed beyond measure. She felt as though she had been +effaced from Trafford's life. "Ugh!" he cried and slapped back the +_Bulletin_ into the corner with quite needless violence. He became aware +of Marjorie again. + +"He's doing my work," he said. + +And then as if he completed the explanation: "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." + +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----!" + +"Is he discovering what you want to discover?" + +"Behrens! _No!_ 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!" + +"But afterwards----" + +"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." + +She didn't. Her next question showed as much. "Will it affect your +F.R.S.?" she asked. + +"Oh! _that's_ 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 away from all _that!_ 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?" + +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. + +"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." + +"What _is_ there to do?" + +"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!" + +"But it's not _your_ fault. I didn't mean that. It's--it's in the nature +of things." + +"It's my fault." + +"It's not your fault." + +"It is." + +"Confound it, Marjorie. When I swear at Behrens I'm not swearing at +you." + +"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----" + +"Well, _haven't_ you?" He thrust out a hand she did not take. + +"I've broken your back," she said. + +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." + +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. _Now!_" + +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, +_damn!_" + +"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. + +"It's your silly upbringing," he said after a long pause. + +"And my silly self." + +She stood up, unlocked and opened her littered desk, turned and held out +the key to him. + +"Why?" he asked. + +"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." + +He shook his head. + +"Take it," said Marjorie with quiet insistence. + +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. + +"I ought to be sent to the chemist's," she remarked, "as one sends a +worthless cat." + +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." + +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. + +"Rag," she whispered; "all my heart is yours.... I want to help you.... +And this is what I have done." + +"I know," he said--almost grimly. + +He repeated his kiss. + +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?..." + + +§ 7 + +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 +have of reasoned cases. Perhaps that is because they themselves always +reserve something when they state a reasoned case. + +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.... + +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?... + +It seemed part of the prevailing inconvenience of life that Daffy should +see fit to pay an afternoon call. + +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. + +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. Marjorie opened the door. + +"Hullo, old Daffy!" she said. + +"Hullo, old Madge!" and there was an exchange of sisterly kisses and a +mutual inspection. + +"Nothing wrong?" asked Daffy, surveying her. + +"_Wrong?_" + +"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." + +"I'm all right," said Marjorie, getting her back to the light. "Want a +holiday, perhaps. How's every one?" + +"All right. _We're_ 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?" + +"Busy." + +"Lecturing?" + +"And his Research of course." + +"Oh! of course. How's the Babe?" + +"Just in. Come up and see the little beast, Daffy! It is getting so +pretty, and it talks----" + +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. + +"Big, big, bog," she said at the sight of Daffy. + +"Remembers you," said Marjorie. + +"Bog! Go ta-ta!" said Margharita. + +"There!" said Marjorie, and May, the nurse in the background, smiled +unlimited appreciation. + +"Bably," said Margharita. + +"That's herself!" said Marjorie, falling on her knees. "She talks like +this all day. Oh de sweetums, den!" _Was_ it? + +Daffy made amiable gestures and canary-like noises with her lips, and +Margharita responded jovially. + +"You darling!" cried Marjorie, "you delight of life," kneeling by the +cot and giving the crowing, healthy little mite a passionate hug. + +"It's really the nicest of babies," Daffy conceded, and reflected.... + +"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 _are_ 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--_restive_. 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." + +At this point Margharita discovered that the conversation had drifted +away from herself, and it was only when they got downstairs again that +Daffy 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. + +"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." + +Five years earlier Marjorie would have kicked her shins for that. + +Instead she asked pointedly, offensively, if Magnet was any balder. + +"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." + + +§ 8 + +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 +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 +_Scientific Bulletin_ 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. + +And she loved him, she loved him--_so_. 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. + +It occurred to her as a rather drastic means to this end that she might +commit suicide. + +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. + +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 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? + +These things were not his ends. + +Had she hitherto ever really cared what his ends might be? + +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 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? + +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. + +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.... + + +§ 9 + +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 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. + +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. + +The project unfolded the picture of a new method 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.... + +It particularly appealed to her that they were to walk among +mountains.... + +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 +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?... + + +§ 10 + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 with us! But this is a happy encounter!" + +"We're dirty--but so healthy!" cried Marjorie, saluting Lady Solomonson. + +"You look, oh!--splendidly well," that Lady responded. + +"We've been walking." + +"With just that knapsack!" + +"It's been glorious." + +"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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"But we've got no clothes," cried Marjorie, "no clothes at all! We've +these hobnail boots and a pair each of heelless slippers." + +"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." + +"But really!" said Marjorie. + +"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.... + +"But my husband!" Marjorie became audible. + +"We've long Persian robes," said Mrs. Lee, with a glance of undisguised +appraisement. "He'll be splendid. He'll look like a Soldan...." + +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. + + +§ 11 + +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 +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." + +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. + +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." + +"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 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. + +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 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. + +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; 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.... + +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. + +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 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. + +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.... + +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 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?" + +"No," said Trafford, "they're just cool. Under that glow of fruit. Is +this salt-cellar English cut glass?" + +"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." + +"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?" + +Trafford said he didn't. + +"And there's a sort of dignity about her. All my life, Mr. Trafford, +I've wanted to be tall. It stopped my growth." + +She glanced off at a tangent. "Tell me, Mr. 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?" + +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 _now_ 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." + +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-- + +"Of course, Mr. Trafford wouldn't believe that." + +He looked perhaps a little lost. + +"I was telling Mrs. Lee," said Rex, "that I don't 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...." + + +§ 12 + +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. + +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 English +breakfast downstairs. And suddenly I remembered your little sausages!" + +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, "_Here_ they come! +_Here_ they come!" and simultaneously the hall resonated with children's +voices and the yapping of a Skye terrier. + +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 _darlings!_" 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. + +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 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. + +"Come upstairs with us, daddy," cried the children, tugging at him. +"Come upstairs!" + +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?" + +"But," said Trafford incredulous, and with a friendly arm about his +admirer, "is this tall young woman yours?" + +The child shot him a glance of passionate appreciation for this scrap of +flattery. + +"We began young," said Mrs. Lee, with eyes of uncritical pride for the +ungainly one, and smiled at her husband. + +"Upstairs," cried the boy of five and the girl of nine. "Upstairs." + +"May we come?" asked Marjorie. + +"May we all come?" asked Christabel, determined to be in the movement. + +Rex strolled towards the cigars, with disentanglement obviously in his +mind. + +"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." + +"I've my little nursery, too," said Marjorie. + +"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 behind with an +air of inadvertency, and escaped to the terrace and a cigar.... + +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. + +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 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. + +"These are like my Teddy's," she was saying. "My Billy has some of +these." + +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." + +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. + +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. + + +§ 13 + +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 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...." + +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. + +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 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.... + +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. + +For a time until the crack of light overhead had widened again every one +became a dark head-dangling outline.... + +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 foetid +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. + +Was it fair that she should come back into the sheath because of this +passion of his for a vast inexhaustible research? + +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. + +He wondered what Lee must think of this sort of married life. How ugly +and selfish it must seem from that point of view. + +He perceived for the first time the fundamental 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.... + +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?... + +(Poor dear, how weary she looked!) + +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.... + +He would have looked at his watch, but to get at it would mean +disturbing the silent young man on his left. + +Outside in the corridor there broke out a noisy dispute about a missing +coupon, a dispute in that wonderful language that is known to the +facetious as _entente cordiale_, between an Englishman and the conductor +of the train.... + + +§ 14 + +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. + +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. + + +§ 15 + +The atmosphere of the Lees' villa had disturbed 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.... + +But indeed she was not so sure that May was going. + +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. + +There was no need to worry him unduly.... + +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 the door +and her heart failed her. + +"Rag," she whispered. + +"Yes," he said busily from his desk, without looking round. + +"I want to speak to you," she answered, and came slowly, and stood +beside him silently. + +"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. + +"I meant so well," she said and caught herself back into silence again. + +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. + +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. + +"But your work," she said; "your research?" + +"I must give up research," he said. + +"Oh, my dearest!" + +"I must give up research," he repeated. "I've been seeing it for days. +Clearer and clearer. _This_ dear, just settles things. Even--as we were +coming home in the train--I was making up my mind. At Vevey I was +talking to Solomonson." + +"My dear," she whispered, clinging to him. + +"I talked to Solomonson. He had ideas--a proposal." + +"No," she said. + +"Yes," he said. "I've left the thing too long." + +He repeated. "I must give up research--for years. I ought to have done +it long before." + +"I had meant so well," she said. "I meant to work. I meant to deny +myself...." + +"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...." + +He stood beside her for a moment, and then sat down again, sideways, +upon his chair. + +"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...." + +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! then I think now--I'd be glad--I'd be +glad, I think, to cheat life of her victory." + +"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. + +"My dear," she whispered.... + + +§ 16 + +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." + +"I remember," said Solomonson with a note of welcome. + +"I've thought it over." + +"I _thought_ you would." + +"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." + +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." + +He reflected, and then his bright eyes glanced up at Trafford. "I knew," +he said, "you would." + +"I didn't," said Trafford. "Things have happened since." + +"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 stood up as he +spoke. + +"I thought you would," he repeated, leading the way. "I knew you would. +You see,--one _has_ to. You can't get out of it." + +"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_ 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 _like_ 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----_them_. 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!" + +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." + +"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." + +Solomonson gesticulated a congratulation. + +"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 +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." + +"The world doesn't think anything at all about it," said Solomonson. + +"Suppose it did!" + +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." + +"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." + +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_ 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 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." + +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 _you've_ +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. _Caeteris +paribus_, 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." + +"You put it--graphically," said Trafford. + +"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! _Look_ 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. So I say it. And that's about +all it is, and there you are." + +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. + +"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--" + +"Oh, look here!" protested Trafford. "That's not the whole of business." + +"There's making him want it, of course, advertisement and all that, but +that falls under making him pay for it, really." + +"But a business man organizes public services, consolidates, +economizes." + +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." + +"Go on," said Trafford. + +"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." + +"Things will be arranged better some day." + +"They aren't arranged better now. Grip that! _Now_, 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 +_deprived_ 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 _you_ 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...." + +"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." + +Solomonson reflected over the end of his cigar. "It isn't good enough," +he concluded. + +"You're infernally right," said Trafford. + +"Very well," said Solomonson, "and now we can get to business." + + +§ 17 + +The immediate business was the systematic exploitation 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. + +"My dear chap, positively--you mustn't," Solomonson had screamed, and +he had opened his fingers and humped his shoulders and for all his +public school and university training lapsed undisguisedly into the +Oriental. "Don't you _see_ all you are throwing away?" he squealed. + +"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." + +"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! +_Gare l'eau!_ O! And when you could do with so much too!".... + +Now they resumed the divergent threads of that Vevey talk. + +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; 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. + +"But you _must_ 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 _your_ 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...." + +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 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. + +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. + +"I hate secrecy," said Trafford. + +"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. + +"I believe we can do the stuff at tenpence a 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." + +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----" + +"When men fight for their own hands and for profit and position in the +next ten years or so, I suppose they tend to become narrow." + +"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?" + +"No," said Trafford with a smile and a sigh, "the other sort gets the +pull." + +"Not _this_ 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...." + + + + + BOOK THE THIRD + MARJORIE AT LONELY HUT + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIRST + +SUCCESSES + + +§ 1 + +I find it hard to trace the accumulation of moods 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.... + +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 +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.... + +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.... + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +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 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.... + +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. + +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 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. + +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 trouble, becoming insubordinate, and having +contributed a little vivid story to Trafford's gathering impressions of +life, drop back again into undistinguished subordination. + +Dowd became at last entirely representative. + +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. + +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 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. + +For all these things Dowd made Trafford responsible; he held him to that +inexorably. + +"_You_ sweat us," he said, speaking between his teeth; "_you_ limit us, +_you_ stifle us, and away there in the West-end, _you_ and the women you +keep waste the plunder." + +Trafford attempted palliation. "After all," he said, "it's not me so +particularly----" + +"But it is," said Dowd. + +"It's the system things go upon." + +"You're the responsible part of it. _You_ have freedom, _you_ have power +and endless opportunity--" + +Trafford shrugged his shoulders. + +"It's because your sort wants too much," said Dowd, "that my sort hasn't +enough." + +"Tell me how to organize things better." + +"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." + +"Then what's going to happen?" + +"Overthrow. And social democracy." + +"How is that going to work?" + +Dowd had been cornered by that before. "I don't care if it _doesn't_ +work," he snarled, "so long as we smash up this. We're getting too sick +to care what comes after." + +"Dowd," said Trafford abruptly, "_I'm_ not so satisfied with things." + +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 +has got to grab, your sort has got to spend--until the thing works out +and the social revolution makes an end of you." + +"And then?" + +Dowd became busy with his work. + +Trafford stuck his hands in his pockets and stared out of the dingy +factory window. + +"I don't object so much to your diagnosis," he said, "as to your remedy. +It doesn't strike me as a remedy." + +"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. + +"Dowd," said Trafford after a fair pause, "What would you do if you were +me?" + +"Do?" said Dowd. + +"Yes," said Trafford as one who reconsiders it, "what would you do?" + +"Now that's a curious question, Mr. Trafford," said Dowd, turning to +regard him. "Meaning--if I were in your place?" + +"Yes," said Trafford. "What would you do in my place?" + +"I should sell out of this place jolly quick," he said. + +"_Sell!_" said Trafford softly. + +"Yes--sell. And start a socialist daily right off. An absolutely +independent, unbiassed socialist daily." + +"And what would that do?" + +"It would stir people up. Every day it would stir people up." + +"But you see I can't edit. I haven't the money for half a year of a +socialist daily.... And meanwhile people want rubber." + +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. + +"I don't make half of that," said Trafford. + +"Well--half of that," pressed Dowd. "It's all the same to me." + +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." + +"Well, isn't it?" + +"'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." + +"Not much likelihood," sneered Dowd. + +"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." + +"Socialism," said Dowd, "is indicated." + +"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 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----" + +"It seems to wake you up a bit," said Dowd with characteristic +irrelevance. + + +§ 2 + +The accusing finger of Dowd followed Trafford into his dreams. + +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," 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. + +But Dowd's remedies! + +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. + +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 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.... + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"It's coming to that," said Dowd; "it's coming to that." + +"_What's the good of it?_" he said, echoing Trafford's words. "It's a +sort of relief to the feelings. Why shouldn't we?" + + +§ 3 + +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 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.... + +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. + +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 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. + + +§ 4 + +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. + +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 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...." + +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. + +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. + +The quiet smile of the Christian Scientist was 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.... + +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.... + +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 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 +_Blue Weekly_ 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 +_Blue Weekly_, 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 _passive_," said Mrs. Millingham. "She +bores him...." + +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 +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, _sine-qua-nons_, 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. + +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 from her usual conversational prominence.... + +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. + +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.... + +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 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.... + +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. + +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. + + +§ 5 + +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, 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. + +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 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.... + +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 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.... + +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.... + +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 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? + +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. + + +§ 6 + +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 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. + +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.... + +But Trafford was following his own lights, upon 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.... + +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.... + +There were moods when Trafford would, as people say, 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." + +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, 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. + +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.... + +For a time Trafford made an earnest effort to 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. + +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. +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. + + + + +CHAPTER THE SECOND + +TRAFFORD DECIDES TO GO + + +§ 1 + +A haunting desire to go away into solitude grew 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. + +The word "Labrador" drifted to him one day 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." + +Trafford ceased to listen. His mind was taking up this idea of Labrador. +He wondered why he had not thought of Labrador before. + +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 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.... + +Blenkins, the gentlemanly colleague of Denton in the control of the _Old +Country Gazette_, appeared on his way to the pay-desk, gesticulating +amiably _en-route_ 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. + +But to Trafford's jaundiced eyes just then, it seemed that if you +slashed Blenkins across he would probably cut like a cheese.... + +Now, in Labrador----.... + +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 had read the story of Wallace and Hubbard in that wilderness. + +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. + +One could provision a hut and sit wrapped in fur, watching the Northern +Lights.... + +"I'm off to Labrador," said Trafford, and entered the smoking-room. + +It was, after all, perfectly easy to go to Labrador. One had just to +go.... + +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?" + +"I've just arranged to go for some months to Labrador." + +"Industrial development?" asked Blenkins, all alive. + +"No. Holiday." + +No Blenkins believes that sort of thing, but of course, if Trafford +chose to keep his own counsel---- + +"Well, come into Parliament as soon as you get back." + +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 about Labrador. I shall be starting--before the month is +out." + +Blenkins and Hart simulated interest. "It's immoral," said Blenkins, +"for a man of your standing to keep out of politics." + +"It's more than immoral," said Hart; "it's American." + +"Solomonson comes in to represent the firm," smiled Trafford, signalled +the waiter for coffee, and presently disentangled himself from their +company. + +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----!" + +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 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, _Talk in +the Past_. 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.... + +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 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.... + +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. + +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 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? + + +§ 2 + +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. + +And then? + +Why, after all, should he go to Labrador at all? Why shouldn't he make a +supreme effort here? + +Something entirely irrational within him told him with conclusive +emphasis that he had to go to Labrador.... + +He remembered there was this confounded business of the proposed house +in Mayfair to consider.... + + +§ 3 + +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 convenience. + +Durgan showed his old professor the marvels. + +"If he _chooses_ to do something here," said Durgan not too hopefully, +"a man can...." + +"What's become of the little old room where we two used to work?" asked +Trafford. + +"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_ +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...." + +He arrested himself, and obviously changed his words. "Got busy with +other things." + +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 an explosion that had banished a clumsy student from this +sanctuary at the very beginning of Trafford's career. + +"By Jove!" he said after a silence, "but I did some good work here." + +"You did, sir," said Durgan. + +"I wonder--I may take it up again presently." + +"I doubt it, sir," said Durgan. + +"Oh! But suppose I come back?" + +"I don't think you would find yourself coming back, sir," said Durgan +after judicious consideration. + +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. + + +§ 4 + +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. + +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 alert. Never +before has the world seen such multitudes, and a day must come when it +will cease to see them for evermore. + +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? + +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 of it made the abounding +active life of this stirring, bristling thoroughfare an almost +unendurable perplexity.... + +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. + +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? + +Trafford's imagination conjured up a sleepless King Emperor agonizing +for humanity.... + +He turned to his right out of Lancaster Gate into Sussex Square, and +came to a stop at the pavement edge. + +From across the road he surveyed the wide white front and portals of the +house that wasn't big enough for Marjorie. + + +§ 5 + +He let himself in with his latchkey. + +Malcolm, his man, hovered at the foot of the staircase, and came forward +for his hat and gloves and stick. + +"Mrs. Trafford in?" asked Trafford. + +"She said she would be in by four, sir." + +Trafford glanced at his watch and went slowly upstairs. + +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.... + +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 +in the remotest corner a radiant mass of azaleas.... + +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.... + +"Preposterous," he whispered. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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.... + +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?... + +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.... + +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, 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. + +"Hullo, old man!" she said, "you home?" + +He nodded. "The club bored me--and I couldn't work." + +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." + +He met her eye. "That's--premature," he said. + +"We can't go on living in this one." + +"I won't go to another." + +"But why?" + +"I just won't." + +"It isn't the money?" + +"No," said Trafford, with sudden fierce resentment. "I've overtaken you +and beaten you there, Marjorie." + +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.... + +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 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.... + +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. + +"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." + +Uncle Hubert goggled in the rear and stroked his chin, and tried to get +together a sort of facial expression. + +The Traffords made welcoming noises, and Marjorie advanced to meet her +aunt. + +"We want you to do something for us," said Aunt Plessington, taking two +hands with two hands.... + +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 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. + +"I'm damned if we have that bigger house," said Trafford. + + +§ 6 + +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. + +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 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. + +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.... + +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 and listened to +her advice.... + +It seemed to her that afternoon the wished-for day had come. + +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. + +When she had sealed and addressed her letter, she turned her head and +found him looking at his father's portrait. + +"Done?" he asked, becoming aware of her eyes. + +She took her letter into the hall and returned to him, closing the door +behind her. + +"I'm going away, little mother," he said with an unconvincing +off-handedness. "I'm going to take a holiday." + +"Alone?" + +"Yes. I want a change. I'm going off somewhere--untrodden ground as near +as one can get it nowadays--Labrador." + +Their eyes met for a moment. + +"Is it for long?" + +"The best part of a year." + +"I thought you were going on with your research work again." + +"No." He paused. "I'm going to Labrador." + +"Why?" she asked. + +"I'm going to think." + +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. + +"It surprises a mother," she said, when the maid had come and gone, +"when her son surprises her." + +"You see," he repeated, as though it explained everything, "I want to +think." + +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. + +She saw him as a little still speck against immense backgrounds of snowy +wilderness. + +The tea-things came before mother and son were back at essentials again. +Then she asked abruptly: "Why are you going away like this?" + +"I'm tired of all this business and finance," he said after a pause. + +"I thought you would be," she answered as deliberately. + +"Yes. I've had enough of things. I want to get clear. And begin again +somehow." + +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. + +"And Marjorie?" she asked. + +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 _now_--! It's empty, it's aimless, it's incessant...." + +He paused. She turned to the tea-things, and lit 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. + +"Does Marjorie like the life you are leading?" she asked, and pressed +her lips together tightly. + +He spoke with a bitterness in his voice that astonished her. "Oh, _she_ +likes it." + +"Are you sure?" + +He nodded. + +"She won't like it without you." + +"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." + +She made no answer to this outburst for a couple of seconds. Then she +threw out, "Why shouldn't Marjorie think, too?" + +He considered that for some moments. "She doesn't," he said, as though +the words came from the roots of his being. + +"But you two----" + +"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." + +"And leave her?" + +He nodded. + +"In London?" + +"With all the things she cares for." + +"Except yourself." + +"I'm only a means----" + +She turned her quiet face to him. "You know," she said, "that isn't +true."... + +"No," she repeated, to his silent contradiction. + +"I've watched her," she went on. "You're _not_ 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. "_It has come to this_," +she said in a whisper, and choked back a flood of tears. + +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." + +She poured out the tea, and left the cups steaming, and came and stood +before him. + +"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." + +"But she doesn't show it. She goes on. She wants things and wants +things----" + +"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." + +"But she doesn't show it." + +"Women don't. Not so much. Perhaps even 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."... + +Trafford tried to grasp the intention of this. "Mother," he said, "I +mean to go away." + +"But think of her!" + +"I've thought. Now I've got to think of myself." + +"You can't--without her." + +"I will. It's what I'm resolved to do." + +"Go right away?" + +"Right away." + +"And think?" + +He nodded. + +"Find out--what it all means, my boy?" + +"Yes. So far as I'm concerned." + +"And then----?" + +"Come back, I suppose. I haven't thought." + +"To her?" + +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." + +He stood still and silent. + +"You've got to think things out with her. If you don't----" + +"I can't." + +"Then you ought to go away with her----" She stopped. + +"For good?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +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. + +"I've thought so much of these things," she said with the milk-jug in +her hand. "It's not only you 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." + +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 _are_ 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." + +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." + +"I know I am," she said. + +"I've thought more and more,--it was Marjorie." + +"It's the world." + +"Women made the world. All the dress and display and competition." + +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. + +"She won't come," said Trafford, after considering it. + +Mrs. Trafford reflected. "She'll come--if you make her," she said. + +"She'll want to bring two housemaids." + +"I don't think you know Marjorie as well as I do." + +"But she can't----" + +"She can. It's you--you'll want to take two housemaids for her. Even +you.... Men are not fair to women." + +Trafford put his untasted tea upon the mantelshelf, and confronted his +mother with a question point blank. "Does Marjorie care for me?" he +asked. + +"You're the sun of her world." + +"But she goes her way." + +"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." + +"But if she cared, she'd understand!" + +"My dear, do _you_ understand?" + +He stood musing. "I had everything clear," he said. "I saw my way to +Labrador...." + +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 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...." + + +§ 7 + +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. + +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. + +"He doesn't seem to care to see his things," his wife explained. + +"It's so brilliant," said Bernard. + +"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." + +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 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! + +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 his moods +better. She felt there was more in this than a mere resentment at her +persistence about the new house.... + +Why didn't he go on with things?... + +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. + +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.... + +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.... + +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. + +"Rag," she said, "something's the matter?" + +"Well--yes." + +"The house?" + +"Yes--the house." + +Marjorie considered through a little interval. + +"Old man, why are you so prejudiced against a bigger house?" + +"Oh, because the one we have bores me, and the next one will bore me +more." + +"But try it." + +"I don't want to." + +"Well," she said and lapsed into silence. + +"And then," he asked, "what are we going to do?" + +"Going to do--when?" + +"After the new house----" + +"I'm going to open out," she said. + +He made no answer. + +"I want to open out. I want you to take your place in the world, the +place you deserve." + +"A four-footman place?" + +"Oh! the house is only a means." + +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?" + +She gave him a silent and thoughtful profile for a second or so. + +"At first I suppose you are going on with your researches." + +"Well?" + +"Then----I must tell you what I think of you, Rag. Politics----" + +"Good Lord!" + +"You've a sort of power. You could make things noble." + +"And then? Office?" + +"Why not? Look at the little men they are." + +"And then perhaps a still bigger house?" + +"You're not fair to me." + +He pulled up the bearskin over his knees. + +"Marjorie!" he said. "You see----We aren't going to do any of those +things at all.... _No!_..." + +"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, _silly_ +beyond words; temporary, accidental, foolish, a mere stop-gap--like a +gipsey's roundabout 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...." + +She waited. + +"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_ 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!" + +"This is a mood," she whispered to his pause. + +"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." + +She looked at him with dismayed eyes. "But," she said, "this _is_ a +mood." + +"No," he said, "no mood, but conviction. I _know_...." + +He started. The car had stopped at their house, and Malcolm was opening +the door of the car. They descended silently, and went upstairs in +silence. + +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. + +"Rag," she said, "I don't know what to say. This isn't so much of a +surprise.... I _felt_ 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?..." + +"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?" + +"Think," he suggested. + +"We've got to live as well as think." + +"It's the immense troublesome futility of--everything," he said. + +"Well--let us cease to be futile. Let us _do_. 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...." + +"Who are we that we should tamper with the lives of others?" + +"But one must do something." + +He thought that over. + +"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 heart of the trouble.... Does this life satisfy _you?_ If it did +would you always be so restless?..." + +"But," she said, "think of the good things in life?" + +"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." + +"Isn't there----" She hesitated. "Love--still?" + +"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...." + +He looked up at her. "Oh, I love a thousand things about you," he said. +"But do I love _you_, 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?" + +She was still for a moment, then knelt very swiftly before him and held +out her arms. + +"Oh Rag!" she said, with a face of tender beauty. He took her finger +tips in his, dropped them and stood up above her. + +"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...." + +He stopped short. + +She crouched before the fire at his feet. "Go on," she said, "go on." + +"I feel now that all our lives now, Marjorie----We have come to a +crisis. I feel that now----_now_ 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...." + +He stopped this halting speech and then broke out again. + +"Oh! why _should_ 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--_this!_ 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 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!" + +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...." + +"But how?" asked Marjorie, with her bare arms about her knees, staring +into the fire. "_How?_" + +"We must get out of its constant interruptions, its incessant vivid, +petty appeals...." + +"We might go away--to Switzerland." + +"We _went_ 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." + +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---- + +"Where?" + +"Ever so much further." + +"Where?" + +"I don't know." + +"You do. You've planned something." + +"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!" + +He sat down in her arm-chair, and bowed his face on his hands. + +Then abruptly he stood up and went out of the room. + + +§ 8 + +When in five minutes' time he came back into her 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. + +"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." + +She moved impulsively and checked herself and crouched away from him. "I +mustn't touch your hand," she whispered. + +"I want to explain." + +"You've got to explain." + +"I've got quite a definite plan.... But a sort of terror seized me. It +was like--shyness." + +"I know. I knew you had a plan." + +"You see.... I mean to go to Labrador." + +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---- + +"But how long?" she asked abruptly. + +"The better part of a year." + +"And we are to talk?" + +"Yes," he said, "talk and think ourselves together--oh!--the old phrases +carry it all--find God...." + +"It is what I dreamt of, Rag, years ago." + +"Will you come," he cried, "out of all this?" + +She leant across the hearthrug, and seized and kissed his hand.... + +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!" + +"We can," he said. "We must." + +"But, my dear!--our duty!" + +"_Is_ 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?--_We_ happened--_you_ 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 _you_, 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." + +"Separate!" + +"Separate. Why not? We can afford it. Of course, we shall separate." + +"But Rag!--separate!" + +He faced her protest squarely. "Life is not worth living," he said, +"unless it has more to hold it together than ours has now. If we cannot +escape together, then--_I will go alone_."... + + +§ 9 + +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 _Times_ 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. + +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 lunch he went to work in the library, +finding out books about Labrador, and looking up the details of the +journey. + +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. + +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.... + +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. + + +§ 10 + +But Marjorie fluctuated more than he did. + +There were times when the expedition for which he was now preparing +rapidly and methodically seemed 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?" + +"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 _make_ you +come with me." + +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." + +He was too intent upon his own resolve to heed her tones. + +"It hasn't seemed necessary somehow," he said, considering her +statement. "Now it does." + +"This is something final," she said. + +"It is final." + +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----" + +"In Labrador," he began.... + + + + +CHAPTER THE THIRD + +THE PILGRIMAGE TO LONELY HUT + + +§ 1 + +Marjorie was surprised to find how easy it was at last to part from her +children and go with Trafford. + +"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...." + +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. + +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 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.... + +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 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...." + +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.... + +They were going, Trafford said, in search of God, but it was far more +like two children starting out upon a holiday. + + +§ 2 + +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. + +Neither he nor Marjorie looked back at the headland 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +She was awakened by a blaze of sunshine pouring 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." + +She blinked at him. "Aren't you stiff?" she asked. + +"I was stiffer before I bathed," he said. + +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. + +"You can't be a squaw all at once," said Trafford. + + +§ 3 + +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. + +"But I _say!_" she cried, with a sudden, sharp note of dismay, "we +haven't soap! This is our last cake almost. I never thought of soap." + +"Nor I," said Trafford. + +He spoke again presently. "We don't turn back for soap," he said. + +"We don't turn back for anything," said Marjorie. "Still--I didn't count +on a soapless winter." + +"I'll manage something," said Trafford, a little doubtfully. "Trust a +chemist...." + +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 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. + +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. + +"Now," said Trafford, "we ought to begin talking." + +"There's nothing much to do else," said Marjorie. + +"Only one can't begin," said Trafford. + +He was silent for a time. "We're getting out of things," he said.... + +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 towards the silent inland of +Labrador. + +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." + +"We're getting out of things." + +"Suppose we are getting out of our problems!..." + +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. + +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 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. + +"Shall I take a shot?" asked Trafford. + +"No," said Marjorie, pervaded by the desire for mutual toleration. "Let +them be." + +The big brutes disappeared in a gully, reappeared, came out against the +skyline one by one and vanished. + +"Too long a shot," said Trafford, handing back the gun.... + +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. + +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 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.... + +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 slopes to +them. + +"Here presently," said Trafford, "we shall be in peace." + +"It is very lonely," said Marjorie. + +"The nearer to God." + +"Think! Not one of these hills has ever had a name." + +"Well?" + +"It might be in some other planet." + +"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." + +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. + + +§ 4 + +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 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. + +Noyes would stand, holding a hammer and staring at the narrow little +berth he was fixing together. + +"You'll not sleep in this," he said. + +"I will," replied Marjorie. + +"You'll come back with us." + +"Not me." + +"There'll be wolves come and howl." + +"Let 'em." + +"They'll come right up to the door here. Winter makes 'em hidjus bold." + +Marjorie shrugged her shoulders. + +"It's that cold I've known a man have his nose froze while he lay in +bed," said Noyes. + +"Up here?" + +"Down the coast. But they say it's 'most as cold up here. Many's the man +it's starved and froze."... + +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.... + +Such they said, were the common things that happened in a Labrador +winter. Did the Traffords wish to run such risks? + +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 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----" + +"London," said Marjorie. + +"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." + +"By telephone," helped Trafford. + +"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...." + +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." 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.... + +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?" + +"I can't stand that," said Marjorie. "It touches my pride. I've stood a +good deal. Mr. Mackenzie!... Mr.... Mackenzie." + +The voice at the men's fire stopped and a black head turned around. +"What is it, Mrs. Trafford?" asked Mackenzie. + +She held up four fingers. "Four!" she said. + +"Eh?" + +"Three sons and a daughter," said Marjorie. + +Mackenzie did not take it in until his younger brother had repeated her +words. + +"And you've come from them to _this_.... Sir, what _have_ you come for?" + +"We want to be here," shouted Trafford to their listening pause. Their +silence was incredulous. + +"We wanted to be alone together. There was too much--over there--too +much everything." + +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. + +"Come back with us sir," said Noyes. "You'll weary of it...." + +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. + +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. + +"I don't care to leave ye," he said. + +"Good luck!" said Trafford. + +"You'll need it," said Noyes, and looked at Marjorie very gravely and +intently before he turned about and marched off after his fellows.... + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER THE FOURTH + +LONELY HUT + + +§ 1 + +Marjorie and Trafford walked slowly back to the 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." + +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." + +He paused. "Now it will be different perhaps...." + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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----" + +"That tin's _boiling!_" screamed Marjorie sharply. + +He resumed his thread after an active interlude. + +"We'll keep the wolf from the door," he said. + +"Don't talk of wolves!" said Marjorie. + +"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----" + +"What?" asked Marjorie in his pause. + +"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." + +"Oh, nonsense!" cried Marjorie. + +"Think of your carpets at home! Think of the great, warm, beautiful +house that wasn't big enough!--And yet here, we're happy." + +"We _are_ happy," said Marjorie, struck by the thought. "Only----" + +"Yes." + +"I'm afraid. And I long for the children. And the wind _nips_." + +"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?" + + +§ 2 + +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 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. + +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. + + +§ 3 + +Through all that time they got no further with the great discussion for +which they had faced that solitude. They attempted beginnings. + +"Where had we got to when we left England?" cried Marjorie. "You +couldn't work, you couldn't rest--you hated our life." + +"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." + +He covered his face with his hands. + +"Why did we come here?" he asked. + +"You wanted--to get out of things." + +"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 you.... + +"When one lies awake at nights, then one seems to get down into +things...." + +He went to the door, opened it, and stood looking out. Against a wan +daylight the snow was falling noiselessly and steadily. + +"Everything goes on," he said.... "Relentlessly...." + + +§ 4 + +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. + +"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." + + +§ 5 + +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. + +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. "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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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--_much_--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? 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.... + +She sat chin on hand staring into the fire, the sock forgotten on her +knee. + +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?... + +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.... + +She flashed to her feet. What was that? + +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. + +This wilderness was making her as nervously responsive as a creature of +the wild. + +Came a second shot; this time there was no doubt of it. Then the +desolate silence closed about her again. + +She stood for a long time staring at the shrubby 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. + +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. + +Prompt come an answering shot. + +"He wants me," said Marjorie. "Something----Perhaps he has killed +something too big to bring!" + +She was for starting at once, and then remembered this was not the way +of the wilderness. + +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 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. + +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.... + +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. + +By four the fire was out, and the snow was piling high in the darkling +twilight against tent and hut.... + + +§ 6 + +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 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. + +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? + +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. + +Suppose it came towards her! + +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 crest. + +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. + +Over the ridge she would find him. Surely she would find him over the +ridge. + +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. + +It seemed to her he must have been running.... + +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. + +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. + +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 +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. + +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. + +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." + +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. + +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 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? + +Trafford was trying to speak again. "I got----" he said. + +"Yes?" + +"Got my leg in that crack. Damn--damned nuisance." + +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. + +"Rag!" she said. + +"Rotten hole," said Trafford. + +"What?" she cried sharply. + +"Got you in a rotten hole," he said. "Eh?" + +"Listen," she said, and shook his shoulder. "Look! I want to get you up +against that rock." + +"Won't make much difference," said Trafford, and opened his eyes. +"Where?" he asked. + +"There." + +He remained quite quiet for a second perhaps. "Listen to me," he said. +"Go back to camp." + +"Yes," she said. + +"Go back to camp. Make a pack of all the strongest +food--strenthin'--strengthrin' food--you know?" He seemed troubled to +express himself. + +"Yes," she said. + +"Down the river. Down--down. Till you meet help." + +"Leave you?" + +He nodded his head and winced. + +"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." + +She stared at him and her spirit was a luminous mist of tears. "You old +_coward_," 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'm_ boss +now, old man," she said. "I want to get you to that place there under +the rock. If I drag, can you help?" + +He answered obstinately: "You'd better go." + +"I'll make you comfortable first," she answered, "anyhow." + +He made an enormous effort, and then with her quick help and with his +back to her knee, had raised himself on his elbows. + +"And afterwards?" he asked. + +"Build a fire." + +"Wood?" + +"Down there." + +"Two bits of wood tied on my leg--splints. Then I can drag myself. See? +Like a blessed old walrus." + +He smiled, and she kissed his bandaged face again. + +"Else it hurts," he apologized, "more than I can stand." + +She stood up again, thought, put his rifle and 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. + +"A fool," he remarked, "would have made the splints down there. +You're--_good_, Marjorie." + +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. + +She rolled him over on his chest, and left him to struggle to the +shelter of the rock while she went for more wood. + +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 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?... + +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. + +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. + +"I am not afraid of to-morrow now," she said at last--a thought matured. +"_No!_" + +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. After a loss of +blood." + +"The leg's better?" + +"Hot as fire." His humour hadn't left him. "It's a treat," he said. "The +hottest thing in Labrador." + +"I've been a good squaw this time, old man?" she asked suddenly. + +He seemed not to hear her; then his lips twitched and he made a feeble +movement for her hand. "I cursed you," he said.... + +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.... + +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 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!... + +She felt a passionate desire to pray.... + +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. + + +§ 7 + +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 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.... + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +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 +with shut eyes, and tripped and came near sprawling. "Oh God!" she +cried, "oh God!" too stupefied for more articulate prayers. + +Would the rise of the ground to the ribs of rock never come? + +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.... + +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. + +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.... + +And she ached, she ached.... + +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 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. + +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. + +Ten seconds, twenty seconds, and then so loud and near it amazed her, +came his answering shot. It sounded like the hillside bursting. + +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. + +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. + +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----" + +He hesitated. "No grub?" + +She knelt over him, gave his rough unshaven cheek a swift kiss, and very +rapidly explained her plan. + + +§ 8 + +In three days' time they were back at the hut, and the last two days +they wore blue spectacles because of the mid-day glare of the sunlit +snow. + +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. + +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 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 +_it wasn't herself!_ It was the extremest of her superficiality. + +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.... + +She fell asleep.... + + +§ 9 + +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 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 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.... + + +§ 10 + +Darkness about a sullen glow of red, and a voice speaking. + +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. + +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. + +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; sometimes she awakened from sleep to find him +talking. But slowly she realized a thread in his discourse, a progress +and development. + +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 _Beast!_" + +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.... + +"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."... + +The voice died away as if he was baffled. Then it resumed. + +"But we ought to _partake_ of immortality; that's my point. We ought to +partake of immortality. + +"I mean we're like the little elements in a magnet; ought not to lie +higgledy-piggledy, ought to point the same way, bepolarized----Something +microcosmic, you know, ought to be found in a man. + +"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!..." + +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...." + +He lapsed into silent thought for a time, and Marjorie glanced at his +dim face in the shadows. + +"I say nothing of ultimates," he said at last. + +He repeated that twice before his thoughts would flow again. + +"This is as much as I see, in time as I know it and space as I know +it--_something struggling to exist_. It's true to the end of my limits. +What can I say beyond that? It struggles to exist, becomes conscious, +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, _that_. 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! + +"I've always believed that. All my life I've believed that. + +"Only I've forgotten." + +"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." + +"Grant me what?" she cried, startled beyond measure to hear herself +addressed. + +"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, nonsense. Lynx hunts! Just ways of getting +themselves mauled and clawed perhaps--into a state of understanding. Who +knows?..." + +His voice became low and clear. + +"Understanding spreading like a dawn.... + +"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.... + +"Until man shall stand upon this earth as upon a footstool and reach out +his hand among the stars.... + +"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.... + +"There's a flaw in it somewhere...." + +He came back to that several times before he seemed able to go on from +it. + +"There _is_ 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." + +"Behrens?" + +"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----" + +"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?..." + +He was silent for a long time, and then he began to answer himself. "Of +course," he said, "I said it--or 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!... + +"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...." + +There came a silence as though some difficulty baffled him, and he was +feeling back to get his argument again. + +"This flame that arises out of life, that redeems life from purposeless +triviality, _isn't_ life. Let me get hold of that. That's a point. +That's a very important point." + +Something had come to him. + +"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." + +Then he stuck out an argumentative hand. "You see, Marjorie _is_ life," +he said. + +"She took me." + +He spoke slowly, as though he traced things carefully. "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 +_she_ 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...." + +"_My dear!_" whispered Marjorie unheeded. She wanted to tell him it +mattered now, mattered supremely, but she knew he had no ears for her. + +His voice flattened. "It's perplexing," he said. "The two different +things." + +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, 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!... + +"Marjorie, Marjorie, Marjorie! Why is she so good and no better! Why +wasn't she worth it altogether?... + +"No! I don't want to go on with it any more--ever. I want to go back. + +"I want my life over again, and to go back. + +"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.... + +"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!..." + +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 every +need. + + +§ 11 + +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. + +"Would you like to get out into that?" she asked abruptly. + +"Yes," he said, and seemed disposed to get up. + +"You've got a broken leg," she cried, to arrest his movement, and he +looked at her and answered: "Of course--I forgot." + +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. + +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 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.... + +When he awakened the sun was red in the west. His eyes met hers, and he +seemed a little puzzled. + +"I've been sleeping, Madge?" he said. + +She nodded. + +"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?" + +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." + +He stared at her. + +"I say," he said, "you've had a pretty rough time! How long has this +been going on?" + +He amazed her by rising himself on his elbow and sitting up. + +"Your leg!" she cried. + +He put his hand down and felt it. "Pretty stiff," he said. "You get me +some food--there _were_ 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 _have_ had a +time!" + +His eyes, full of a warmth of kindliness she had not seen for long +weeks, scrutinized her face. "I say!" he repeated, very softly. + +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. + +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. + +"How long has it been?" he asked. "Poor dear! Poor dear! How long can it +have been?" + + +§ 12 + +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. + +"It seems a decent interval," said Trafford. "We'll try it." + +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 she knelt by the +stove feeding it with logs, and gave him an account of their position. + +"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." + +"Right O," said Trafford admiring her capable gravity. "Let's ration." + +"Marjorie," he asked abruptly, "are you sorry we came?" + +Her answer came unhesitatingly. "_No!_" + +"Nor I." + +He paused. "I've found you out," he said. "Dear dirty living thing!... +You _are_ dirty, you know." + +"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----" + +"Lugano," he suggested. "Don't let's forget good things, Marjorie. Oh! +And endless times!" + +"Oh, of course! As for _that_----! 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 _am_ dirty. 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." + +"_We've_ wasted!" + +"No," she said, "it was I." + +She sat back on the floor and regarded him. "You don't remember things +you said--when you were delirious?" + +"No," he answered. "What did I say?" + +"Nothing?" + +"Nothing clearly. What did I say?" + +"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." + +"What?" + +"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 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 _do_ 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----" + +"Dear old Madge!" he said, "there's all sorts of women and all sorts of +men." + +"Well, our sort of women, then, and our sort of men." + +"I doubt even that." + +"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, heal up your broken life and begin again."... + +She paused. + +"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?" + + +§ 13 + +What are we doing with life? + +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? + +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 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. + +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. + +"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. _You_, 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...." + + +§ 14 + +On the evening of the day when Trafford first 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." + +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." + +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. + +"If ever we get back there," he said. + +"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!..." + +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. + +"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. 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?" + +"No," she said, intent; "go on." + +"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."... + +He stopped and stared at her. + +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!" + +"Well, we've got to talk of these things as mankind--or just leave them +alone, and shoot pheasants."... + +"If I could shoot a pheasant now!" whispered Marjorie, involuntarily. + +"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.... + +"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." + +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 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."... + +He became silent. + +"Will you go back to your work?" she said, abruptly. "Go back to your +laboratory?" + +He stared at her for a moment without speaking. "Never," he said at +last. + +"But," she said, and the word dropped from her like a stone that falls +down a well.... + +"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 +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." + +He paused and she waited, with a face aglow. + +"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----" + +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.... + +"Don't please make me," she stumbled through 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." + +"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?" + +"And we will go back," she whispered, "with a work----" + +"With a purpose," he said. + +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." + +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!" + +"But what?" + +"I might have married Will Magnet----. That's all." + +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." + +She hovered for some moments close to the stove 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." + +"Why not?" he answered. + +She made no answer, but went across for the tea.... + +He turned his head at the sound of the biscuit tin and watched her put +out the precious discs. + +"I shall have another pipe," he proclaimed, with an agreeable note of +excess. "Thank heaven for unstinted tobacco...." + +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.... + +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.... + +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 +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. + + +§ 15 + +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!... + +These were her moods of exaltation. And she was sure she had never loved +her man before, that this was indeed her beginning. It was as if she had +just found him.... + +Perhaps, she thought, true lovers keep on finding each other all through +their lives. + +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: "_It's me, you know. It's Marjorie!_" + +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.... + +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 +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." + +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 +_sequelæ_ 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. + +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 even paper for him to make notes or +provisional drafts of the new work. He hobbled about the camp fretting +at these deprivations. + +"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--" + +"To Hammond?" + +"Why not?" + +"But the way?" + +"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...." + +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.... + +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. + +"Of course," she said, with a new aspect drifting before her mind, +"then--we _could_ eat. We _could_ feed up before we started. We could +feast almost!" + + +§ 16 + +"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 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.... + +"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 _you_ 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 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." + +"We've got to come," said Marjorie. + +"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." + +"A long day, mate of my heart." + +"Who knows how long or how far? Aren't you at any rate here, dear woman +of mine.... (_Surely you are here_)." + +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 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?" + +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 _talk_. We've +months--for repetitions." + +"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...." + +"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. + +"That's the real perplexity between thousands of men and women.... + +"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---- + +"You used 'release' the other day, Marjorie? Of course, I remember. It's +queer how I go on talking after you have understood." + +"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." + +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.... + +"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, 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." + +"My dear!" cried Marjorie, with a sharp note of amusement. "What _is_ a +Gawdsaker?" + +"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 _do_ something _now!_' 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 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 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...." + +He broke off abruptly with: "I want to go back and begin." + +"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.... + +She knew exactly the shop in Oxford Street where the stuff for the +curtains might be best obtained. + + +§ 17 + +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...." + +Trafford was scraping out his pipe, and did not answer for some moments. +Then he remarked: "What nonsense!" + +"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." + +"No," he said, after thought. "You're all Labrador older." + +"I always _have_ failed," she considered, "when it came to any special +temptations, Rag. I can't _stand_ not having a thing!" + +He made no answer. + +"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." + +"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 _look_ 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----" + +"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." + +"Nothing ever heals completely," he said, answering her first sentence, +"and nothing ever goes back to the exact place it held before. We _are_ +different, you sun-bitten, frost-bitten wife of mine."... + +"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 other...." + +"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." + +She thought intently. + +"I am afraid," she whispered. + +"But what is there to be afraid of?" + +"_Myself_." + +She spoke after a little pause that seemed to hesitate. "At times I +wish--oh, passionately!--that I could pray." + +"Why don't you?" + +"I don't believe enough--in that. I wish I did." + +Trafford thought. "People are always so exacting about prayer," he said. + +"Exacting." + +"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...." + +"Yes," said Marjorie, "I suppose one must." + +She thought. "I suppose in the end one does," she said.... + + +§ 18 + +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 contemplation of the infinities +and the needs of mankind. Out of nowhere, quite disconnectedly, would +come the human, finite: "Do you remember----?" + +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." + +"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." + +"Dick shall burn his fingers when his mother's home to kiss him. But +spare his fingers now, Dadda...." + +The other topic was food. + +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 _hors-d'oeuvre_. Trafford wanted to dwell on +them when Marjorie was eager for the soup. + +"It's niggling with food," said Marjorie. + +"Oh, but there's no reason," said Trafford, "why you shouldn't take a +lot of _hors-d'oeuvre_. Three or four sardines, and potato salad and +a big piece of smoked salmon, and some of that Norwegian herring, and so +on, and keep the olives by you to pick at. It's a beginning." + +"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, _rich_ soup. Thick soup--with things in it, vegetables +and meat and things. Bits of oxtail." + +"Not peas." + +"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." + +"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--_Croûte-au-pot_, 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, _full_, with little drops all over +the outside of it, and the ladle sticking out under the lid." + +"Have you ever tasted turtle soup?" + +"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 _doled_ 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." + +"About a tablespoonful," said Marjorie. "It's mocking an appetite." + +"Still there's things to follow," said Trafford.... + +They discussed the proper order of a dinner very carefully. They +decided that sorbets and ices were not only unwholesome, but nasty. "In +London," said Trafford, "one's taste gets--vitiated."... + +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--_amplitude_. 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." + +"Beef is the best," she said. + +"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?" + +"Of course," said Marjorie, "one must do justice to a well-chosen +turkey, a _fat_ turkey." + +"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." + +Sausage led to Germany. "I'm not one of those 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 _soufflé_. 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?" + +"That was a good place. I remember there was stewed beef once with a lot +of barley--such _good_ barley!" + +"Every country has its glories. One talks of the cookery of northern +countries and then suddenly one thinks of curry, with lots of rice." + +"And lots of chicken!" + +"And lots of hot curry powder, _very_ 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, 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!" + +"Of course, corn is being anglicized. I've often given you +corn--latterly, before we came away." + +"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." + +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'd_ like to do that," said Marjorie. + +Her face flushed a little at a guilty thought, her eyes sparkled. She +leant forward and spoke in a confidential undertone. + +"_I'd--I'd like to eat a mutton chop like that_," said Marjorie. + + +§ 20 + +One morning Marjorie broached something she had had on her mind for +several days. + +"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." + +"You'll have to dig out that looking-glass." + +"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...." + +Their eyes met. "We're a thousand deeps now below the look of things," +said Trafford. "We'd love each other minced." + +She broke into that smiling laugh of hers. "Oh! it won't come to +_that_," she said. "Trust my housekeeping!" + + + + +CHAPTER THE FIFTH + +THE TRAIL TO THE SEA + + +§ 1 + +One astonishing afternoon in January a man 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." + +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. + +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. + +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 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. + +("I thought, perhaps----" whispered Louis Napoleon.) + +"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 +_this_. 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." + +"You'd have to leave the tent," said Louis Napoleon. + +"I _said_ leave the tent." + +"And you'd have to leave ... some of those tins." + +"Nearly all of them." + +"And the ammunition, there;--except just a little." + +"Just enough for the journey down." + +"Perhaps a gun?" + +"No, not a gun. Though, after all,--well, we'd return one of the guns. +Give it you to bring back here." + +"Bring back here?" + +"If you liked." + +For some moments Louis Napoleon was intently silent. When he spoke his +voice was guttural with emotion. "After," he said thoughtfully and +paused, and then resolved to have it over forthwith, "all you leave will +be mine? Eh?" + +Trafford said that was the idea. + +Louis Napoleon's eye brightened, but his face preserved its Indian calm. + +"I will take you right to Hammond's," he said, "Where they have dogs. +And then I can come back here...." + + +§ 2 + +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. + +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. + +The day after was Sunday, and Louis Napoleon 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. + +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. + +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 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. + +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. + +"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. + + +§ 3 + +Their return was a very different journey from the 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. + +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 summer flowers. + +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. + +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. + +They insisted they must witness no more. They would wait while he went +to a trap.... + +"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 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."... + +"I wonder," reflected Marjorie, "if I could buy one perhaps. As a +memento." + +He looked at her with eyes of quiet amusement. + +"Oh!" she cried, "I didn't mean to! The old Eve!" + +"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." + +"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." + +"I'd like to," said Trafford. + +"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." + +He looked at her for a moment. "Very well," he said. "But I'd have liked +to."... + +"You're right," he added, five seconds later. + +"Oh! I'm right." + + +§ 4 + +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 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. + +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! + +They tried poor inadequate congratulation.... + +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 men altogether--along +the coast.... + +He explained, dear bundle of clothes and dirt! that he was always +perfectly respectable when he was drunk. + + +§ 5 + +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.... + +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." + +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, broke down and +wept wildly and uncontrollably.... + + +§ 6 + +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. + +One day their teams insisted upon racing. + +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. + +"Marjorie," he shouted, "d'you remember? Old donkey cart?" + +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 so fast as this, eh?"... + + +§ 7 + +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 _Grenfell_, +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. + + +THE END + + * * * * * + +Transcriber's Notes: + +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. 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?" + p. 34: protruberant replaced with protuberant ("large protuberant") + p. 38: pay replaced with play ("what the play was") + p. 40: Majorie replaced with Marjorie ("Marjorie loved singing") + p. 40: feut replaced with felt ("that he felt") + p. 60: téte-à-tête replaced with tête-à-tête ("silent tête-à-tête") + p. 70: foundamental replaced with fundamental ("three fundamental + things") + p. 76: fina replaced with final ("working for her final") + p. 88: challenege replaced with challenge ("challenge inattentive + auditors") + p. 92: presumbly replaced with presumably ("presumably Billy's") + p. 115: ino replaced with into ("into the air") + p. 141: himse_f replaced with himself ("ask himself") + p. 147: contradication replaced with contradiction ("any sort of + contradiction") + p. 167: calcalculated replaced with calculated ("indeed calculated") + p. 223: hestitated replaced with hesitated ("She hesitated") + p. 230: intriques replaced with intrigues ("culminations and intrigues") + p. 242: America replaced with American ("American minor poet") + p. 265: acquiscent replaced with acquiescent ("by no means acquiescent") + p. 313: It's replaced with Its ("Its end was the Agenda Club") + p. 316: regime replaced with régime ("the new régime") + p. 341: number of section 15 replaced with 16 + p. 342: gestulated replaced with gesticulated ("Solomonson + gesticulated") + p. 342: The paragraphs starting with: "It was all" and "You said + good-bye" were merged + p. 346: The paragraphs starting with: "They aren't arranged" and "They'd + get everything" were merged + p. 349: devine replaced with divine ("by right divine of genius") + p. 368: presumptious replaced with presumptuous ("extremely + presumptuous") + p. 376: mispelling replaced with misspelling ("as much misspelling as") + p. 376: The replaced with They ("They gave dinners") + p. 378: The replaced with They ("They could play") + p. 395: Docter replaced with Doctor ("Doctor Codger") + p. 396: authoritive replaced with authoritative ("authoritative + imagine") + p. 399: shuldered replaced with shouldered ("As he shouldered") + p. 403: wet replaced with went ("Trafford's eyes went from") + p. 405: subthe replaced with subtle ("skilful, subtle appreciation") + p. 426: fine replaced with find ("find God") + p. 427: chidren replaced with children ("of having children at all") + p. 441: serere replaced with serene ("brightly serene") + p. 442: tundura replaced with tundra ("wide stretches of tundra") + p. 457: rucksac replaced with rucksack ("chunks of dry paper, + the rucksack") + p. 481: realties replaced with realities ("expression of the realities") + p. 485: the duplicate phrase "He stared at her" was removed + p. 493: think replaced with thing ("salvation is a collective thing") + p. 504: realty replaced with reality ("of sense and reality") + p. 509: greal replaced with great ("a great lump") + p. 512: caluclated replaced with calculated ("now they calculated") + p. 515: travellel replaced with travelled ("I had travelled") + p. 518: gutteral replaced with guttural ("seemed guttural") + p. 520: gutteral replaced with guttural ("his voice was guttural") + p. 524: slaughers replaced with slaughters ("he finds and slaughters") + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marriage, by H. 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