and clumsy informant. She might even meet Altiora, and have it from
her.
I can still recall the feeling of sitting at my desk that night in
that large study of mine in Radnor Square, waiting for Margaret to
come home. It was oddly like the feeling of a dentist's reception-
room; only it was for me to do the dentistry with clumsy, cruel
hands. I had left the door open so that she would come in to me.
I heard her silken rustle on the stairs at last, and then she was in
the doorway. "May I come in?" she said.
"Do," I said, and turned round to her.
"Working?" she said.
"Hard," I answered. "Where have YOU been?"
"At the Vallerys'. Mr. Evesham was talking about you. They were
all talking. I don't think everybody knew who I was. Just Mrs.
Mumble I'd been to them. Lord Wardenham doesn't like you."
"He doesn't."
"But they all feel you're rather big, anyhow. Then I went on to
Park Lane to hear a new pianist and some other music at Eva's."
"Yes."
"Then I looked in at the Brabants' for some midnight tea before I
came on here. They'd got some writers-and Grant was there."
"You HAVE been flying round…"
There was a little pause between us.
I looked at her pretty, unsuspecting face, and at the slender grace
of her golden-robed body. What gulfs there were between us!
"You've been amused," I said.
"It's been amusing. You've been at the House?"
"The Medical Education Bill kept me."…
After all, why should I tell her? She'd got to a way of living that
fulfilled her requirements. Perhaps she'd never hear. But all that
day and the day before I'd been making up my mind to do the thing.
"I want to tell you something," I said. "I wish you'd sit down for
a moment or so."…
Once I had begun, it seemed to me I had to go through with it.
Something in the quality of my voice gave her an intimation of
unusual gravity. She looked at me steadily for a moment and sat
down slowly in my armchair.
"What is it?" she said.
I went on awkwardly. "I've got to tell you-something
extraordinarily distressing," I said.
She was manifestly altogether unaware.
"There seems to be a good deal of scandal abroad-I've only recently
heard of it-about myself-and Isabel."
"Isabel!"
I nodded.
"What do they say?" she asked.
It was difficult, I found, to speak.
"They say she's my mistress."
"Oh! How abominable!"
She spoke with the most natural indignation. Our eyes met.
"We've been great friends," I said.
"Yes. And to make THAT of it. My poor dear! But how can they?"
She paused and looked at me. It's so incredible. How can any one
believe it? I couldn't."
She stopped, with her distressed eyes regarding me. Her expression
changed to dread. There was a tense stillness for a second,
perhaps.
I turned my face towards the desk, and took up and dropped a handful
of paper fasteners.
"Margaret," I said, " I'm afraid you'll have to believe it."
5
Margaret sat very still. When I looked at her again, her face was
very white, and her distressed eyes scrutinised me. Her lips
quivered as she spoke. "You really mean-THAT?" she said.
I nodded.
"I never dreamt."
"I never meant you to dream."
"And that is why-we've been apart?"
I thought. "I suppose it is."
"Why have you told me now?"
"Those rumours. I didn't want any one else to tell you."
"Or else it wouldn't have mattered?"
"No."
She turned her eyes from me to the fire. Then for a moment she
looked about the room she had made for me, and then quite silently,
with a childish quivering of her lips, with a sort of dismayed
distress upon her face, she was weeping. She sat weeping in her
dress of cloth of gold, with her bare slender arms dropped limp over
the arms of her chair, and her eyes averted from me, making no
effort to stay or staunch her tears. "Iamsorry, Margaret," I
said. "I was in love… I did not understand…"
Presently she asked: "What are you going to do?"
"You see, Margaret, now it's come to be your affair-I want to know
what you-what you want."
"You want to leave me?"
"If you want me to, I must."
"Leave Parliament-leave all the things you are doing,-all this
fine movement of yours?"
"No." I spoke sullenly. "I don't want to leave anything. I want to
stay on. I've told you, because I think we-Isabel and I, I mean-
have got to drive through a storm of scandal anyhow. I don't know
how far things may go, how much people may feel, and I can't, I
can't have you unconscious, unarmed, open to any revelation-"
She made no answer.
"When the thing began-I knew it was stupid but I thought it was a
thing that wouldn't change, wouldn't be anything but itself,
wouldn't unfold-consequences… People have got hold of these
vague rumours… Directly it reached any one else but-but us
two-I saw it had to come to you."