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?"
"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."
4
I was driven to tell Margaret about our situation by my intolerable
dread that otherwise the thing might come to her through some stupid