“So you have come,” he said; “that’s good, and so. … Let us walk a little way … out of this. My aunt will pick us up on the road.” He linked his arm into mine and propelled me swiftly down the bright, broad street. “I’m sorry you came in for that, but—one has to do these things.”
There was a sort of resisted numbness in his voice, a lack of any resiliency. My heart sank a little. It was as if I were beside an invalid who did not—must not—know his condition; as if I were pledged not to notice anything. In the open the change struck home as a hammer strikes; in the pitiless searching of the unrestrained light, his grayness, his tremulousness, his aloofness from the things about him, came home to me like a pang.
“You look a bit fagged,” I said, “perhaps we ought not to talk about work.” His thoughts seemed to come back from a great distance, oh, from an infinite distance beyond the horizon, the soft hills of that fat country. “You want rest,” I added.
“I—oh, no,” he answered, “I can’t have it … till the end of the session. I’m used to it too.”
He began talking briskly about the Cromwell; proofs had emerged from the infinite and wanted attention. There were innumerable little matters, things to be copied for the appendix and revisions. It was impossible for me to keep my mind upon them.
It had come suddenly home to me that this was the world that I belonged to; that I had come back to it as if from an under world; that to this I owed allegiance. She herself had recognised that; she herself had bidden me tell him what was agate against him. It was a duty too; he was my friend. But, face to face with him, it became almost an impossibility. It was impossible even to put it into words. The mere ideas seemed to be untranslatable, to savour of madness. I found myself in the very position that she had occupied at the commencement of our relations: that of having to explain—say, to a Persian—the working principles of the telegraph. And I was not equal to the task. At the same time I had to do something. I had to. It would be abominable to have to go through life forever, alone with the consciousness of that sort of treachery of silence. But how could I tell him even the comprehensibles? What kind of sentence was I to open with? With pluckings of an apologetic string, without prelude at all—or how? I grew conscious that there was need for haste; he was looking behind him down the long white road for the carriage that was to pick us up.
“My dear fellow. …” I began. He must have noted a change in my tone, and looked at me with suddenly lifted eyebrows. “You know my sister is going to marry Mr. Gurnard.”
“Why, no,” he answered—“that is … I’ve heard. …” he began to offer good wishes.
“No, no,” I interrupted him hurriedly, “not that. But I happen to know that Gurnard is meditating … is going to separate from you in public matters.” An expression of dismay spread over his face.
“My dear fellow,” he began.
“Oh, I’m not drunk,” I said bitterly, “but I’ve been behind the scenes—for a long time. And I could not … couldn’t let the thing go on without a word.”
He stopped in the road and looked at me.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I daresay. … But what does it lead to? … Even if I could listen to you—I can’t go behind the scenes. Mr. Gurnard may differ from me in points, but don’t you see? …” He had walked on slowly, but he came to a halt again. “We had better put these matters out of our minds. Of course you are not drunk; but one is tied down in these matters. …”
He spoke very gently, as if he did not wish to offend me by this closing of the door. He seemed suddenly to grow very old and very gray. There was a stile in the dusty hedgerow, and he walked toward it, meditating. In a moment he looked back at me. “I had forgotten,” he said; “I meant to suggest that we should wait here—I am a little tired.” He perched himself on the top bar and became lost in the inspection of the cord of his glasses. I went toward him.
“I knew,” I said, “that you could not listen to … to the sort of thing. But there were reasons. I felt forced. You will forgive me.” He looked up at me, starting as if he had forgotten my presence.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I have a certain—I can’t think of the right word—say respect—for your judgment and—and motives … But you see, there are, for instance, my colleagues. I couldn’t go to them …” He lost the thread of his idea.
“To tell the truth,” I said, with a sudden impulse for candour, “it isn’t the political aspect of the matter, but the personal. I spoke because it was just possible that I might be of service to you—personally—and because I would like you … to make a good fight for it.” I had borrowed her own words.
He looked up at me and smiled. “Thank you,” he said. “I believe you think it’s a losing game,” he added, with a touch of gray humour that was like a genial hour of sunlight on a wintry day. I did not answer. A little way down the road Miss Churchill’s carriage whirled into sight, sparkling in the sunlight, and sending up an attendant cloud of dust that melted like smoke through the dog-roses of the leeward hedge.
“So you don’t think much of me as a politician,”
