“It is paradoxical, but it must be done,” said Matthew. “Our hope lies in the growing multiplicity and worldwide push of movements like ours; the new dark will to self-assertion. China must achieve united and independent nationhood; Japan must stop aping the West and North and throw her lot definitely with the East and South. Egypt must stop looking north for prestige and tourists’ tips and look south toward the black Sudan, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa for a new economic synthesis of the tropics.”
“And meantime, Matthew, our very hope of breaking the sinister and fatal power of Europe lies in Europe itself: in its own drear disaster; in negative jealousies, hatreds, and memories; in the positive power of revolutionary Russia, in German Socialism, in French radicalism and English labor. The Power and Will is in the world today. Unending pressure, steadying pull, blow on blow, and the great axis of the world quest will turn from Wealth to Men.”
“The mission of the darker peoples, my Kautilya, of black and brown and yellow, is to raise out of their pain, slavery, and humiliation, a beacon to guide manhood to health and happiness and life and away from the morass of hate, poverty, crime, sickness, monopoly, and the mass-murder called war.”
Kautilya sat with glowing eyes. She looked at Matthew and whispered:
“Day dawns. We must—start.”
Matthew hesitated and faltered. He talked like one exploring the dark:
“I had thought I might dig here in Chicago and that you might write and study, and that we together might live far out somewhere alone with trees and stars and carry on—correspondence with the world; and perhaps—”
“If we only could,” she said softly; and in the instant both knew it was an impossible idyl.
A week went by. There grew a certain stillness and apprehension in the air. The hard heat of July was settling on Chicago. Each morning Matthew put on his overalls and took his dinner-pail and went down into the earth to dig. Each night he came home, bathed, and put on the gorgeous dressing-gown Kautilya had bought him and sat down to the dinner Kautilya had cooked—it was always good, but simple, and he ate enormously. Then there was music, a late stroll beneath the stars, and bed. But always in Kautilya’s eyes, the rapt look burned.
And little things were beginning to happen. At first Matthew’s old popularity in his district had protected him, He always met nods and greetings as he and Kautilya fared forth and back. Then came reaction—the social tribute of the half-submerged to standards of respectability. Here and there a woman sneered, a child yelled, and a policeman was gruff. As weeks went by, Sammy interfered, and active hostility was evident. Jibes multiplied from chance passersby who recognized them; the sneers of policemen were open. Then came the question of money, which never occurred to Kautilya, but drove Matthew mad when he tried to stretch his meager wage beyond the simple food to American Beauty roses and new books and bits of silk and gold.
Tonight as they returned from a silent but sweet stroll a bit earlier than their wont, they met a crowd of children, those children who seem never to have a bedtime. The children stared, laughed, jeered, and then stoned them. Matthew would have rushed upon them to tear their flesh, but Kautilya soothed him, and they came breathless home.
They stood awhile clinging in the dark. Then slowly Matthew took her shoulders in his hand and said:
“We have had the day God owed us, Kautilya, and now at last we must face facts frankly. Here and in this way I cannot protect you, I cannot support you, and neither of us can do the great work which is our dream.”
“It was brave and good of you, Matthew, to speak first when you knew how hard the duty was to me and how weak I am in presence of our love. Yes, we have had the day God owed us—and now, Matthew, the day of our parting dawns. I am going away.”
He knew that she was going to say this, and yet until it was said he kept trying to believe it would not come. Now when it did come it struck upon his ears like doom. The brownness of his face went gray, and his cheeks sagged with sudden age. He looked at her with stricken eyes, and she, sobbing, smiled at him through tears.
“You are a brave man,” she went on steadily. “In this last great deed, I will not fear. I go to greet the ghosts of all my fathers, the Maharajahs of Bwodpur. India calls. The black world summons. I must be about my fathers’ business. Tomorrow, I go. This night, this beautiful night, is ours. Behold the good, sweet moon and the white dripping of the stars. There shall be no fire tonight, save in our twined bodies and in our flaming hearts.”
But he only whispered, “Parted!”
“Courage, my darling,” she said. “Nothing, not even the high Majesty of Death, shall part us for a moment. There is a sense—a beautiful meaning—in which we two can never part. To all time, we are one wedded soul. The day may dawn when in cries and tears of joy we shall feel each other’s arms again. But we must not deceive ourselves. It is possible that now and from this incarnate spirit we part forever. Great currents and waves of forces are rolling down between. It may not lie in human power to breast them. But, Matthew, oh, Matthew, always,
