THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

6

"We can't part in a room," said Isabel.

"We'll have one last talk together," I said, and planned that we

should meet for a half a day between Dover and Walmer and talk

ourselves out. I still recall that day very well, recall even the

curious exaltation of grief that made our mental atmosphere

distinctive and memorable. We had seen so much of one another, had

become so intimate, that we talked of parting even as we parted with

a sense of incredible remoteness. We went together up over the

cliffs, and to a place where they fall towards the sea, past the

white, quaint-lanterned lighthouses of the South Foreland. There,

in a kind of niche below the crest, we sat talking. It was a

spacious day, serenely blue and warm, and on the wrinkled water

remotely below a black tender and six hooded submarines came

presently, and engaged in mysterious manoeuvers. Shrieking gulls

and chattering jackdaws circled over us and below us, and dived and

swooped; and a skerry of weedy, fallen chalk appeared, and gradually

disappeared again, as the tide fell and rose.

We talked and thought that afternoon on every aspect of our

relations. It seems to me now we talked so wide and far that

scarcely an issue in the life between man and woman can arise that

we did not at least touch upon. Lying there at Isabel's feet, I

have become for myself a symbol of all this world-wide problem

between duty and conscious, passionate love the world has still to

solve. Because it isn't solved; there's a wrong in it either way..

.. The sky, the wide horizon, seemed to lift us out of ourselves

until we were something representative and general. She was

womanhood become articulate, talking to her lover.

"I ought," I said, "never to have loved you."

"It wasn't a thing planned," she said.

"I ought never to have let our talk slip to that, never to have

turned back from America."

"I'm glad we did it," she said. "Don't think I repent."

I looked at her.

"I will never repent," she said. "Never!" as though she clung to

her life in saying it.

I remember we talked for a long time of divorce. It seemed to us

then, and it seems to us still, that it ought to have been possible

for Margaret to divorce me, and for me to marry without the

scandalous and ugly publicity, the taint and ostracism that follow

such a readjustment. We went on to the whole perplexing riddle of

marriage. We criticised the current code, how muddled and

conventionalised it had become, how modified by subterfuges and

concealments and new necessities, and the increasing freedom of

women. "It's all like Bromstead when the building came," I said;

for I had often talked to her of that early impression of purpose

dissolving again into chaotic forces. "There is no clear right in

the world any more. The world is Byzantine. The justest man to-day

must practise a tainted goodness."

These questions need discussion-a magnificent frankness of

discussion-if any standards are again to establish an effective

hold upon educated people. Discretions, as I have said already,

will never hold any one worth holding-longer than they held us.

Against every "shalt not" there must be a "why not" plainly put,-

the "why not" largest and plainest, the law deduced from its

purpose. "You and I, Isabel," I said, "have always been a little

disregardful of duty, partly at least because the idea of duty comes

to us so ill-clad. Oh! I know there's an extravagant insubordinate

strain in us, but that wasn't all. I wish humbugs would leave duty

alone. I wish all duty wasn't covered with slime. That's where the

real mischief comes in. Passion can always contrive to clothe

itself in beauty, strips itself splendid. That carried us. But for

all its mean associations there is this duty…

"Don't we come rather late to it?"

"Not so late that it won't be atrociously hard to do."

"It's queer to think of now," said Isabel. "Who could believe we

did all we have done honestly? Well, in a manner honestly. Who

could believe we thought this might be hidden? Who could trace it

all step by step from the time when we found that a certain boldness

in our talk was pleasing? We talked of love… Master, there's

not much for us to do in the way of Apologia that any one will

credit. And yet if it were possible to tell the very heart of our

story…

"Does Margaret really want to go on with you?" she asked-"shield

you-knowing of… THIS?"

"I'm certain. I don't understand-just as I don't understand

Shoesmith, but she does. These people walk on solid ground which is

just thin air to us. They've got something we haven't got.

Assurances? I wonder."…

Then it was, or later, we talked of Shoesmith, and what her life

might be with him.

"He's good," she said; "he's kindly. He's everything but magic.

He's the very image of the decent, sober, honourable life. You

can't say a thing against him or I-except that something-something

in his imagination, something in the tone of his voice-fails for

me. Why don't I love him?-he's a better man than you! Why don't

you? IS he a better man than you? He's usage, he's honour, he's

the right thing, he's the breed and the tradition,-a gentleman.

You're your erring, incalculable self. I suppose we women will

trust this sort and love your sort to the very end of time…"

We lay side by side and nibbled at grass stalks as we talked. It

seemed enormously unreasonable to us that two people who had come to

the pitch of easy and confident affection and happiness that held

between us should be obliged to part and shun one another, or murder

half the substance of their lives. We feltourselves crushed and

beaten by an indiscriminating machine which destroys happiness in

the service of jealousy. "The mass of people don't feel these

things in quite the same manner as we feel them," she said. "Is it

because they're different in grain, or educated out of some

primitive instinct?"

"It's because we've explored love a little, and they know no more

than the gateway," I said. "Lust and then jealousy; their simple

conception-and we have gone past all that and wandered hand in

hand…"

I remember that for a time we watched two of that larger sort of

gull, whose wings are brownish-white, circle and hover against the

blue. And then we lay and looked at a band of water mirror clear

far out to sea, and wondered why the breeze that rippled all the

rest should leave it so serene.

"And in this State of ours," I resumed.

"Eh!" said Isabel, rolling over into a sitting posture and looking

out at the horizon. "Let's talk no more of things we can never see.

Talk to me of the work you are doing and all we shall do-after we

have parted. We've said too little of that. We've had our red

life, and it's over. Thank Heaven!-though we stole it! Talk about

your work, dear, and the things we'll go on doing-just as though we

were still together. We'll still be together in a sense-through

all these things we have in common."

And so we talked of politics and our outlook. We were interested to

the pitch of self-forgetfulness. We weighed persons and forces,

discussed the probabilities of the next general election, the steady

drift of public opinion in the north and west away from Liberalism

towards us. It was very manifest that in spite of Wardenham and the

EXPURGATOR, we should come into the new Government strongly. The

party had no one else, all the young men were formally or informally

with us; Esmeer would have office, Lord Tarvrille, I… and very

probably there would be something for Shoesmith. "And for my own

part," I said, "I count on backing on the Liberal side. For the

last two years we've been forcing competition in constructive

legislation between the parties. The Liberals have not been long in

following up our Endowment of Motherhood lead. They'll have to give

votes and lip service anyhow. Half the readers of the BLUE WEEKLY,

they say, are Liberals…

"I remember talking about things of this sort with old Willersley,"

I said, "ever so many years ago. It was some place near Locarno,

and we looked down the lake that shone weltering-just as now we

look over the sea. And then we dreamt in an indistinct featureless

way of all that you and I are doing now."

"I!" said Isabel, and laughed.

"Well, of some such thing," I said, and remained for awhile silent,

thinking of Locarno.

I recalled once more the largeness, the release from small personal

things that I had felt in my youth; statecraft became real and

wonderful again with the memory, the gigantic handling of gigantic

problems. I began to talk out my thoughts, sitting up beside her,

as I could never talk of them to any one but Isabel; began to

recover again the purpose that lay under all my political ambitions

and adjustments and anticipations. I saw the State, splendid and

wide as I had seen it in that first travel of mine, but now it was

no mere distant prospect of spires and pinnacles, but populous with

fine-trained, bold-thinking, bold-doing people. It was as if I had

forgotten for a long time and now remembered with amazement.

At first, I told her, I had been altogether at a loss how I could do

anything to battle against the aimless muddle of our world; I had

wanted a clue-until she had come into my life questioning,

suggesting, unconsciously illuminating. "But I have done nothing,"

she protested. I declared she had done everything in growing to

education under my eyes, in reflecting again upon all the processes

that had made myself, so that instead of abstractions and blue-books

and bills and devices, I had realised the world of mankind as a

crowd needing before all things fine women and men. We'd spoilt

ourselves in learning that, but anyhow we had our lesson. Before

her I was in a nineteenth-century darkness, dealing with the nation

as if it were a crowd of selfish men, forgetful of women and

children and that shy wild thing in the hearts of men, love, which

must be drawn upon as it has never been drawn upon before, if the

State is to live. I saw now how it is possible to bring the loose

factors of a great realm together, to create a mind of literature

and thought in it, and the expression of a purpose to make it self-

conscious and fine. I had it all clear before me, so that at a

score of points I could presently begin. The BLUE WEEKLY was a

centre of force. Already we had given Imperialism a criticism, and

leavened half the press from our columns. Our movement consolidated

and spread. We should presently come into power. Everything moved

towards our hands. We should be able to get at the schools, the

services, the universities, the church; enormously increase the

endowment of research, and organise what was sorely wanted, a

criticism of research; contrive a closer contact between the press

and creative intellectual life; foster literature, clarify,

strengthen the public consciousness, develop social organisation and

a sense of the State. Men were coming to us every day, brilliant

young peers like Lord Dentonhill, writers like Carnot and Cresswell.

It filled me with pride to win such men. "We stand for so much more

than we seem to stand for," I said. I opened my heart to her, so

freely that I hesitate to open my heart even to the reader, telling

of projects and ambitions I cherished, of my consciousness of great

powers and widening opportunities…

Isabel watched me as I talked.

She too, I think, had forgotten these things for a while. For it is

curious and I think a very significant thing that since we had

become lovers, we had talked very little of the broader things that

had once so strongly gripped our imaginations.

"It's good," I said, "to talk like this to you, to get back to youth

and great ambitions with you. There have been times lately when

politics has seemed the pettiest game played with mean tools for

mean ends-and none the less so that the happiness of three hundred

million people might be touched by our follies. I talk to no one

else like this… And now I think of parting, I think but of

how much more I might have talked to you."…

Things drew to an end at last, but after we had spoken of a thousand

things.

"We've talked away our last half day," I said, staring over my

shoulder at the blazing sunset sky behind us. "Dear, it's been the

last day of our lives for us… It doesn't seem like the last

day of our lives. Or any day."

"I wonder how it will feel?" said Isabel.

"It will be very strange at first-not to be able to tell you

things."

"I've a superstition that after-after we've parted-if ever I go

into my room and talk, you'll hear. You'll be-somewhere."

"I shall be in the world-yes."

"I don't feel as though these days ahead were real. Here we are,

here we remain."

"Yes, I feel that. As though you and I were two immortals, who

didn't live in time and space at all, who never met, who couldn't

part, and here we lie on Olympus. And those two poor creatures who

did meet, poor little Richard Remington and Isabel Rivers, who met

and loved too much and had to part, they part and go their ways, and

we lie here and watch them, you and I. She'll cry, poor dear."

"She'll cry. She's crying now!"

"Poor little beasts! I think he'll cry too. He winces. He could-

for tuppence. I didn't know he had lachrymal glands at all until a

little while ago. I suppose all love is hysterical-and a little

foolish. Poor mites! Silly little pitiful creatures! How we have

blundered! Think how we must look to God! Well, we'll pity them,

and then we'll inspire him to stiffen up again-and do as we've

determined he shall do. We'll see it through,-we who lie here on

the cliff. They'll be mean at times, and horrid at times; we know

them! Do you see her, a poor little fine lady in a great house,-

she sometimes goes to her room and writes."

"She writes for his BLUE WEEKLY still."

"Yes. Sometimes-I hope. And he's there in the office with a bit

of her copy in his hand."

"Is it as good as if she still talked it over with him before she

wrote it? Is it?"

"Better, I think. Let's play it's better-anyhow. It may be that

talking over was rather mixed with love-making. After all, love-

making is joy rather than magic. Don't let's pretend about that

even… Let's go on watching him. (I don't see why her writing

shouldn't be better. Indeed I don't.) See! There he goes down

along the Embankment to Westminster just like a real man, for all

that he's smaller than a grain of dust. What is running round

inside that speck of a head of his? Look at him going past the

Policemen, specks too-selected large ones from the country. I

think he's going to dinner with the Speaker-some old thing like

that. Is his face harder or commoner or stronger?-I can't quite

see… And now he's up and speaking in the House. Hope he'll

hold on to the thread. He'll have to plan his speeches to the very

end of his days-and learn the headings."

"Isn't she up in the women's gallery to hear him?"

"No. Unless it's by accident."

"She's there," she said.

"Well, by accident it happens. Not too many accidents, Isabel.

Never any more adventures for us, dear, now. No!… They play

the game, you know. They've begun late, but now they've got to.

You see it's not so very hard for them since you and I, my dear, are

here always, always faithfully here on this warm cliff of love

accomplished, watching and helping them under high heaven. It isn't

so VERY hard. Rather good in some ways. Some people HAVE to be

broken a little. Can you see Altiora down there, by any chance?"

"She's too little to be seen," she said.

"Can you see the sins they once committed?"

"I can only see you here beside me, dear-for ever. For all my

life, dear, till I die. Was that-the sin?"…

I took her to the station, and after she had gone I was to drive to

Dover, and cross to Calais by the night boat. I couldn't, I felt,

return to London. We walked over the crest and down to the little

station of Martin Mill side by side, talking at first in broken

fragments, for the most part of unimportant things.

"None of this," she said abruptly, "seems in the slightest degree

real to me. I've got no sense of things ending."

"We're parting," I said.

"We're parting-as people part in a play. It's distressing. But I

don't feel as though you and I were really never to see each other

again for years. Do you?"

I thought. "No," I said.

"After we've parted I shall look to talk it over with you."

"So shall I."

"That's absurd."

"Absurd."

"I feel as if you'd always he there, just about where you are now.

Invisible perhaps, but there. We've spent so much of our lives

joggling elbows."…

"Yes. Yes. I don't in the least realise it. I suppose I shall

begin to when the train goes out of the station. Are we wanting in

imagination, Isabel?"

"I don't know. We've always assumed it was the other way about."

"Even when the train goes out of the station-! I've seen you into

so many trains."

"I shall go on thinking of things to say to you-things to put in

your letters. For years to come. How can I ever stop thinking in

that way now? We've got into each other's brains."

"It isn't real," I said; "nothing is real. The world's no more than

a fantastic dream. Why are we parting, Isabel?"

"I don't know. It seems now supremely silly. I suppose we have to.

Can't we meet?-don't you think we shall meet even in dreams?"

"We'll meet a thousand times in dreams," I said.

"I wish we could dream at the same time," said Isabel… "Dream

walks. I can't believe, dear, I shall never have a walk with you

again."

"If I'd stayed six months in America," I said, "we might have walked

long walks and talked long talks for all our lives."

"Not in a world of Baileys," said Isabel. "And anyhow-"

She stopped short. I looked interrogation.

"We've loved," she said.

I took her ticket, saw to her luggage, and stood by the door of the

compartment. "Good-bye," I said a little stiffly, conscious of the

people upon the platform. She bent above me, white and dusky,

looking at me very steadfastly.

"Come here," she whispered. "Never mind the porters. What can they

know? Just one time more-I must."

She rested her hand against the door of the carriage and bent down

upon me, and put her cold, moist lips to mine.