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."