THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

3

Isabel came after dinner one evening and talked in the office. She

made a white-robed, dusky figure against the deep blues of my big

window. I sat at my desk and tore a quill pen to pieces as I

talked.

"The Baileys don't intend to let this drop," I said. "They mean

that every one in London is to know about it."

"I know."

"Well!" I said.

"Dear heart," said Isabel, facing it, "it's no good waiting for

things to overtake us; we're at the parting of the ways."

"What are we to do?"

"They won't let us go on."

"Damn them!"

"They are ORGANISING scandal."

"It's no good waiting for things to overtake us," I echoed; "they

have overtaken us." I turned on her. "What do you want to do?"

"Everything," she said. "Keep you and have our work. Aren't we

Mates?"

"We can't."

"And we can't!"

"I've got to tell Margaret," I said.

"Margaret!"

"I can't bear the idea of any one else getting in front with it.

I've been wincing about Margaret secretly-"

"I know. You'll have to tell her-and make your peace with her."

She leant back against the bookcases under the window.

"We've had some good times, Master;" she said, with a sigh in her

voice.

And then for a long time we stared at one another in silence.

"We haven't much time left," she said.

"Shall we bolt?" I said.

"And leave all this?" she asked, with her eyes going round the room.

"And that?" And her head indicated Westminster. "No!"

I said no more of bolting.

"We've got to screw ourselves up to surrender," she said.

"Something."

"A lot."

"Master," she said, "it isn't all sex and stuff between us?"

"No!"

"I can't give up the work. Our work's my life."

We came upon another long pause.

"No one will believe we've ceased to be lovers-if we simply do,"

she said.

"We shouldn't."

"We've got to do something more parting than that."

I nodded, and again we paused. She was coming to something.

"I could marry Shoesmith," she said abruptly.

"But-" I objected.

"He knows. It wasn't fair. I told him."

"Oh, that explains," I said. "There's been a kind of sulkiness-

But-you told him?"

She nodded. "He's rather badly hurt," she said. "He's been a good

friend to me. He's curiously loyal. But something, something he

said one day-forced me to let him know… That's been the

beastliness of all this secrecy. That's the beastliness of all

secrecy. You have to spring surprises on people. But he keeps on.

He's steadfast. He'd already suspected. He wants me very badly to

marry him…"

"But you don't want to marry him?"

"I'm forced to think of it."

"But does he want to marry you at that? Take you as a present from

the world at large?-against your will and desire?… I don't

understand him."

"He cares for me."

"How?"

"He thinks this is a fearful mess for me. He wants to pull it

straight."

We sat for a time in silence, with imaginations that obstinately

refused to take up the realities of this proposition.

"I don't want you to marry Shoesmith," I said at last.

"Don't you like him?"

"Not as your husband."

"He's a very clever and sturdy person-and very generous and devoted

to me."

"And me?"

"You can't expect that. He thinks you are wonderful-and,

naturally, that you ought not to have started this."

"I've a curious dislike to any one thinking that but myself. I'm

quite ready to think it myself."

"He'd let us be friends-and meet."

"Let us be friends!" I cried, after a long pause. "You and me!"

"He wants me to be engaged soon. Then, he says, he can go round

fighting these rumours, defending us both-and force a quarrel on

the Baileys."

"I don't understand him," I said, and added, "I don't understand

you."

I was staring at her face. It seemed white and set in the dimness.

"Do you really mean this, Isabel?" I asked.

"What else is there to do, my dear?-what else is there to do at

all? I've been thinking day and night. You can't go away with me.

You can't smash yourself suddenly in the sight of all men. I'd

rather die than that should happen. Look what you are becoming in

the country! Look at all you've built up!-me helping. I wouldn't

let you do it if you could. I wouldn't let you-if it were only for

Margaret's sake. THIS… closes the scandal, closes everything."

"It closes all our life together," I cried.

She was silent.

"It never ought to have begun," I said.

She winced. Then abruptly she was on her knees before me, with her

hands upon my shoulder and her eyes meeting mine.

"My dear," she said very earnestly, "don't misunderstand me! Don't

thinkI'm retreating from the things we've done! Our love is the

best thing I could ever have had from life. Nothing can ever equal

it; nothing could ever equal the beauty and delight you and I have

had together. Never! You have loved me; you do love me…

No one could ever know how to love you as I have loved you; no one

could ever love me as you have loved me, my king. And it's just

because it's been so splendid, dear; it's just because I'd die

rather than have a tithe of all this wiped out of my life again-for

it's made me, it's all I am-dear, it's years since I began loving

you-it's just because of its goodness that I want not to end in

wreckage now, not to end in the smashing up of all the big things I

understand in you and love in you…

"What is there for us if we keep on and go away?" she went on. "All

the big interests in our lives will vanish-everything. We shall

become specialised people-people overshadowed by a situation. We

shall be an elopement, a romance-all our breadth and meaning gone!

People will always think of it first when they think of us; all our

work and aims will be warped by it and subordinated to it. Is it

good enough, dear? Just to specialise… I think of you.

We've got a case, a passionate case, the best of cases, but do we

want to spend all our lives defending it and justifying it? And

there's that other life. I know now you care for Margaret-you care

more than you think you do. You have said fine things of her. I've

watched you about her. Little things have dropped from you. She's

given her life for you; she's nothing without you. You feel that to

your marrow all the time you are thinking about these things. Oh,

I'm not jealous, dear. I love you for loving her. I love you in

relation to her. But there it is, an added weight against us,

another thing worth saving."

Presently, I remember, she sat back on her heels and looked up into

my face. "We've done wrong-and parting's paying. It's time to

pay. We needn't have paid, if we'd kept to the track… You

and I, Master, we've got to be men."

"Yes," I said; "we've got to be men."