palliation.
"
After
all
,
"
he
said
,
"
it
's
not
me
so
particularly
—
—
"
"
But
it
is
,
"
said
Dowd
.
"
It
's
the
system
things
go
upon
.
"
"
You
're
the
responsible
part
of
it
.
You
have
freedom
,
you
have
power
and
endless
opportunity
—
"
Trafford
shrugged
his
shoulders
.
"
It
's
because
your
sort
wants
too
much
,
"
said
Dowd
,
"
that
my
sort
has
n't
enough
.
"
"
Tell
me
how
to
organize
things
better
.
"
"
Much
you
'd
care
.
They
'll
organize
themselves
.
Everything
is
drifting
to
class
separation
,
the
growing
discontent
,
the
growing
hardship
of
the
masses
...
.
Then
you
'll
see
.
"
"
Then
what
's
going
to
happen
?
"
"
Overthrow
.
And
social
democracy
.
"
"
How
is
that
going
to
work
?
"
Dowd
had
been
cornered
by
that
before
.
"
I
do
n't
care
if
it
does
n't
work
,
"
he
snarled
,
"
so
long
as
we
smash
up
this
.
We
're
getting
too
sick
to
care
what
comes
after
.
"
"
Dowd
,
"
said
Trafford
abruptly
,
"
I
'm
not
so
satisfied
with
things
.
"
Dowd
looked
at
him
askance
.
"
You
'll
get
reconciled
to
it
,
"
he
said
.
"
It
's
ugly
here
—
but
it
's
all
right
there
—
at
the
spending
end
...
.
Your
sort
has
got
to
grab
,
your
sort
has
got
to
spend
—
until
the
thing
works
out
and
the
social
revolution
makes
an
end
of
you
.
"
"
And
then
?
"
Dowd
became
busy
with
his
work
.
Trafford
stuck
his
hands
in
his
pockets
and
stared
out
of
the
dingy
factory
window
.
"
I
do
n't
object
so
much
to
your
diagnosis
,
"
he
said
,
"
as
to
your
remedy
.
It
does
n't
strike
me
as
a
remedy
.
"
"
It
's
an
end
,
"
said
Dowd
,
"
anyhow
.
My
God
!
When
I
think
of
all
the
women
and
shirkers
flaunting
and
frittering
away
there
in
the
West
,
while
here
men
and
women
toil
and
worry
and
starve
...
.
"
He
stopped
short
like
one
who
feels
too
full
for
controlled
speech
.
"
Dowd
,
"
said
Trafford
after
a
fair
pause
,
"
What
would
you
do
if
you
were
me
?
"
"
Do
?
"
said
Dowd
.
"
Yes
,
"
said
Trafford
as
one
who
reconsiders
it
,
"
what
would
you
do
?
"
"
Now
that
's
a
curious
question
,
Mr.
Trafford
,
"
said
Dowd
,
turning
to
regard
him
.
"
Meaning
—
if
I
were
in
your
place
?
"
"
Yes
,
"
said
Trafford
.
"
What
would
you
do
in
my
place
?
"
"
I
should
sell
out
of
this
place
jolly
quick
,
"
he
said
.
"
Sell
!
"
said
Trafford
softly
.
"
Yes
—
sell
.
And
start
a
socialist
daily
right
off
.
An
absolutely
independent
,
unbiassed
socialist
daily
.
"
"
And
what
would
that
do
?
"
"
It
would
stir
people
up
.
Every
day
it
would
stir
people
up
.
"
"
But
you
see
I
ca
n't
edit
.
I
have
n't
the
money
for
half
a
year
of
a
socialist
daily
...
.
And
meanwhile
people
want
rubber
.
"
Dowd
shook
his
head
.
"
You
mean
that
you
and
your
wife
want
to
have
the
spending
of
six
or
eight
thousand
a
year
,
"
he
said
.
"
I
do
n't
make
half
of
that
,
"
said
Trafford
.
"
Well
—
half
of
that
,
"
pressed
Dowd
.
"
It
's
all
the
same
to
me
.
"
Trafford
reflected
.
"
The
point
where
I
do
n't
agree
with
you
,
"
he
said
,
"
is
in
supposing
that
my
scale
of
living
—
over
there
,
is
directly
connected
with
the
scale
of
living
—
about
here
.
"
"
Well
,
is
n't
it
?
"
"
'
Directly
,
'
I
said
.
No.
If
we
just
stopped
it
—
over
there
—
there
'd
be
no
improvement
here
.
In
fact
,
for
a
time
it
would
mean
dislocations
.
It
might
mean
permanent
,
hopeless
,
catastrophic
dislocation
.
You
know
that
as
well
as
I
do
.
Suppose
the
West-end
became
—
Tolstoyan
;
the
East
would
become
chaos
.
"
"
Not
much
likelihood
,
"
sneered
Dowd
.
"
That
's
another
question
.
That
we
earn
together
here
and
that
I
spend
alone
over
there
,
it
's
unjust
and
bad
,
but
it
is
n't
a
thing
that
admits
of
any
simple
remedy
.
Where
we
differ
,
Dowd
,
is
about
that
remedy
.
I
admit
the
disease
as
fully
as
you
do
.
I
,
as
much
as
you
,
want
to
see
the
dawn
of
a
great
change
in
the
ways
of
human
living
.
But
I
do
n't
think
the
diagnosis
is
complete
and
satisfactory
;
our
problem
is
an
intricate
muddle
of
disorders
,
not
one
simple
disorder
,
and
I
do
n't
see
what
treatment
is
indicated
.
"
"
Socialism
,
"
said
Dowd
,
"
is
indicated
.
"
"
You
might
as
well
say
that
health
is
indicated
,
"
said
Trafford
with
a
note
of
impatience
in
his
voice
.
"
Does
any
one
question
that
if
we
could
have
this
socialist
state
in
which
every
one
is
devoted
and
every
one
is
free
,
in
which
there
is
no
waste
and
no
want
,
and
beauty
and
brotherhood
prevail
universally
,
we
would
n't
?
But
—
—
.
You
socialists
have
no
scheme
of
government
,
no
scheme
of
economic
organization
,
no
intelligible
guarantees
of
personal
liberty
,
no
method
of
progress
,
no
ideas
about
marriage
,
no
plan
—
except
those
little
pickpocket
plans
of
the
Fabians
that
you
despise
as
much
as
I
do
—
for
making
this
order
into
that
other
order
you
've
never
yet
taken
the
trouble
to
work
out
even
in
principle
.
Really
you
know
,
Dowd
,
what
is
the
good
of
pointing
at
my
wife
's
dresses
and
waving
the
red
flag
at
me
,
and
talking
of
human
miseries
—
—
"
"
It
seems
to
wake
you
up
a
bit
,
"
said
Dowd
with
characteristic
irrelevance
.
The
accusing
finger
of
Dowd
followed
Trafford
into
his
dreams
.
Behind
it
was
his
grey-toned
,
intelligent
,
resentful
face
,
his
smouldering
eyes
,
his
slightly
frayed
collar
and
vivid
,
ill-chosen
tie
.
At
times
Trafford
could
almost
hear
his
flat
insistent
voice
,
his
measured
h-less
speech
.
Dowd
was
so
penetratingly
right
,
—
and
so
ignorant
of
certain
essentials
,
so
wrong
in
his
forecasts
and
ultimates
.
It
was
true
beyond
disputing
that
Trafford
as
compared
with
Dowd
had
opportunity
,
power
of
a
sort
,
the
prospect
and
possibility
of
leisure
.
He
admitted
the
liability
that
followed
on
that
advantage
.
It
expressed
so
entirely
the
spirit
of
his
training
that
with
Trafford
the
noble
maxim
of
the
older
socialists
;
"
from
each
according
to
his
ability
,
to
each
according
to
his
need
,
"
received
an
intuitive
acquiescence
.
He
had
no
more
doubt
than
Dowd
that
Dowd
was
the
victim
of
a
subtle
evasive
injustice
,
innocently
and
helplessly
underbred
,
underfed
,
cramped
and
crippled
,
and
that
all
his
own
surplus
made
him
in
a
sense
Dowd
's
debtor
.
But
Dowd
's
remedies
!
Trafford
made
himself
familiar
with
the
socialist
and
labor
newspapers
,
and
he
was
as
much
impressed
by
their
honest
resentments
and
their
enthusiastic
hopefulness
as
he
was
repelled
by
their
haste
and
ignorance
,
their
cocksure
confidence
in
untried
reforms
and
impudent
teachers
,
their
indiscriminating
progressiveness
,
their
impulsive
lapses
into
hatred
,
misrepresentation
and
vehement
personal
abuse
.
He
was
in
no
mood
for
the
humours
of
human
character
,
and
he
found
the
ill-masked
feuds
and
jealousies
of
the
leaders
,
the
sham
statecraft
of
G
.
B
.
Magdeberg
,
M.P.
,
the
sham
Machiavellism
of
Dorvil
,
the
sham
persistent
good-heartedness
of
Will
Pipes
,
discouraging
and
irritating
.
Altogether
it
seemed
to
him
the
conscious
popular
movement
in
politics
,
both
in
and
out
of
Parliament
,
was
a
mere
formless
and
indeterminate
aspiration
.
It
was
a
confused
part
of
the
general
confusion
,
symptomatic
perhaps
,
but
exercising
no
controls
and
no
direction
.
His
attention
passed
from
the
consideration
of
this
completely
revolutionary
party
to
the
general
field
of
social
reform
.
With
the
naïve
directness
of
a
scientific
man
,
he
got
together
the
published
literature
of
half
a
dozen
flourishing
agitations
and
philanthropies
,
interviewed
prominent
and
rather
embarrassed
personages
,
attended
meetings
,
and
when
he
found
the
speeches
too
tiresome
to
follow
watched
the
audience
about
him
.
He
even
looked
up
Aunt
Plessington
's
Movement
,
and
filled
her
with
wild
hopes
and
premature
boastings
about
a
promising
convert
.
"
Marjorie
's
brought
him
round
at
last
!
"
said
Aunt
Plessington
.
"
I
knew
I
could
trust
my
little
Madge
!
"
His
impression
was
not
the
cynic
's
impression
of
these
wide
shallows
of
activity
.
Progress
and
social
reform
are
not
,
he
saw
,
mere
cloaks
of
hypocrisy
;
a
wealth
of
good
intention
lies
behind
them
in
spite
of
their
manifest
futility
.
There
is
much
dishonesty
due
to
the
blundering
desire
for
consistency
in
people
of
hasty
intention
,
much
artless
and
a
little
calculated
self-seeking
,
but
far
more
vanity
and
amiable
feebleness
of
mind
in
their
general
attainment
of
failure
.
The
Plessingtons
struck
him
as
being
after
all
very
typical
of
the
publicist
at
large
,
quite
devoted
,
very
industrious
,
extremely
presumptuous
and
essentially
thin-witted
.
They
would
cheat
like
ill-bred
children
for
example
,
on
some
petty
point
of
reputation
,
but
they
could
be
trusted
to
expend
,
ineffectually
indeed
,
but
with
the
extremest
technical
integrity
,
whatever
sums
of
money
their
adherents
could
get
together
...
.
He
emerged
from
this
inquiry
into
the
proposed
remedies
and
palliatives
for
Dowd
's
wrongs
with
a
better
opinion
of
people
's
hearts
and
a
worse
one
of
their
heads
than
he
had
hitherto
entertained
.
Pursuing
this
line
of
thought
he
passed
from
the
politicians
and
practical
workers
to
the
economists
and
sociologists
.
He
spent
the
entire
leisure
of
the
second
summer
after
the
establishment
of
the
factory
upon
sociological
and
economic
literature
.
At
the
end
of
that
bout
of
reading
he
attained
a
vivid
realization
of
the
garrulous
badness
that
rules
in
this
field
of
work
,
and
the
prevailing
slovenliness
and
negligence
in
regard
to
it
.
He
chanced
one
day
to
look
up
the
article
on
Socialism
in
the
new
Encyclopædia
Britannica
,
and
found
in
its
entire
failure
to
state
the
case
for
or
against
modern
Socialism
,
to
trace
its
origins
,
or
to
indicate
any
rational
development
in
the
movement
,
a
symptom
of
the
universal
laxity
of
interest
in
these
matters
.
Indeed
,
the
writer
did
not
appear
to
have
heard
of
modern
Socialism
at
all
;
he
discussed
collective
and
individualist
methods
very
much
as
a
rather
ill-read
schoolgirl
in
a
hurry
for
her
college
debating
society
might
have
done
.
Compared
with
the
treatment
of
engineering
or
biological
science
in
the
same
compilation
,
this
article
became
almost
symbolical
of
the
prevailing
habitual
incompetence
with
which
all
this
system
of
questions
is
still
handled
.
The
sciences
were
done
scantily
and
carelessly
enough
,
but
they
admitted
at
any
rate
the
possibility
of
completeness
;
this
did
not
even
pretend
to
thoroughness
.
One
might
think
such
things
had
no
practical
significance
.
And
at
the
back
of
it
all
was
Dowd
,
remarkably
more
impatient
each
year
,
confessing
the
failure
of
parliamentary
methods
,
of
trades
unionism
,
hinting
more
and
more
plainly
at
the
advent
of
a
permanent
guerilla
war
against
capital
,
at
the
general
strike
and
sabotage
.
"
It
's
coming
to
that
,
"
said
Dowd
;
"
it
's
coming
to
that
.
"
"
What
's
the
good
of
it
?
"
he
said
,
echoing
Trafford
's
words
.
"
It
's
a
sort
of
relief
to
the
feelings
.
Why
should
n't
we
?
"
But
you
must
not
suppose
that
at
any
time
these
huge
grey
problems
of
our
social
foundations
and
the
riddle
of
intellectual
confusion
one
reaches
through
them
,
and
the
yet
broader
riddles
of
human
purpose
that
open
beyond
,
constitute
the
whole
of
Trafford
's
life
during
this
time
.
When
he
came
back
to
Marjorie
and
his
home
,
a
curtain
of
unreality
fell
between
him
and
all
these
things
.
It
was
as
if
he
stepped
through
such
boundaries
as
Alice
passed
to
reach
her
Wonderland
;
the
other
world
became
a
dream
again
;
as
if
he
closed
the
pages
of
a
vivid
book
and
turned
to
things
about
him
.
Or
again
it
was
as
if
he
drew
down
the
blind
of
a
window
that
gave
upon
a
landscape
,
grave
,
darkling
,
ominous
,
and
faced
the
warm
realities
of
a
brightly
illuminated
room
...
.
In
a
year
or
so
he
had
the
works
so
smoothly
organized
and
Dowd
so
reconciled
,
trained
and
encouraged
that
his
own
daily
presence
was
unnecessary
,
and
he
would
go
only
three
and
then
only
two
mornings
a
week
to
conduct
those
secret
phases
in
the
preparation
of
his
catalytic
that
even
Dowd
could
not
be
trusted
to
know
.
He
reverted
more
and
more
completely
to
his
own
proper
world
.
And
the
first
shock
of
discovering
that
greater
London
which
"
is
n't
in
it
"
passed
away
by
imperceptible
degrees
.
Things
that
had
been
as
vivid
and
startling
as
new
wounds
became
unstimulating
and
ineffective
with
repetition
.
He
got
used
to
the
change
from
Belgravia
to
East
Ham
,
from
East
Ham
to
Belgravia
.
He
fell
in
with
the
unusual
persuasion
in
Belgravia
,
that
,
given
a
firm
and
prompt
Home
Secretary
,
East
Ham
could
be
trusted
to
go
on
—
for
quite
a
long
time
anyhow
.
One
cannot
sit
down
for
all
one
's
life
in
the
face
of
insoluble
problems
.
He
had
a
motor-car
now
that
far
outshone
Magnet
's
,
and
he
made
the
transit
from
west
to
east
in
the
minimum
of
time
and
with
the
minimum
of
friction
.
It
ceased
to
be
more
disconcerting
that
he
should
have
workers
whom
he
could
dismiss
at
a
week
's
notice
to
want
or
prostitution
than
that
he
should
have
a
servant
waiting
behind
his
chair
.
Things
were
so
.
The
main
current
of
his
life
—
and
the
main
current
of
his
life
flowed
through
Marjorie
and
his
home
—
carried
him
on
.
Rubber
was
his
,
but
there
were
still
limitless
worlds
to
conquer
.
He
began
to
take
up
,
working
under
circumstances
of
considerable
secrecy
at
Solomonson
's
laboratories
at
Riplings
,
to
which
he
would
now
go
by
motor-car
for
two
or
three
days
at
a
time
,
the
possibility
of
a
cheap
,
resilient
and
very
tough
substance
,
rubber
glass
,
that
was
to
be
,
Solomonson
was
assured
,
the
road
surface
of
the
future
.
The
confidence
of
Solomonson
had
made
it
impossible
for
Trafford
to
alter
his
style
of
living
almost
directly
upon
the
conclusion
of
their
agreement
.
He
went
back
to
Marjorie
to
broach
a
financially
emancipated
phase
.
They
took
a
furnished
house
at
Shackleford
,
near
Godalming
in
Surrey
,
and
there
they
lived
for
nearly
a
year
—
using
their
Chelsea
home
only
as
a
town
apartment
for
Trafford
when
business
held
him
in
London
.
And
there
it
was
,
in
the
pretty
Surrey
country
,
with
the
sweet
air
of
pine
and
heather
in
Marjorie
's
blood
,
that
their
second
child
was
born
.
It
was
a
sturdy
little
boy
,
whose
only
danger
in
life
seemed
to
be
the
superfluous
energy
with
which
he
resented
its
slightest
disrespect
of
his
small
but
important
requirements
.
When
it
was
time
for
Marjorie
to
return
to
London
,
spring
had
come
round
again
,
and
Trafford
's
conceptions
of
life
were
adapting
themselves
to
the
new
scale
upon
which
they
were
now
to
do
things
.
While
he
was
busy
creating
his
factory
in
the
East
End
,
Marjorie
was
displaying
an
equal
if
a
less
original
constructive
energy
in
Sussex
Square
,
near
Lancaster
Gate
,
for
there
it
was
the
new
home
was
to
be
established
.
She
set
herself
to
furnish
and
arrange
it
so
as
to
produce
the
maximum
of
surprise
and
chagrin
in
Daphne
,
and
she
succeeded
admirably
.
The
Magnets
now
occupied
a
flat
in
Whitehall
Court
,
the
furniture
Magnet
had
insisted
upon
buying
himself
with
all
the
occult
cunning
of
the
humorist
in
these
matters
,
and
not
even
Daphne
could
blind
herself
to
the
superiority
both
in
arrangement
and
detail
of
Marjorie
's
home
.
That
was
very
satisfactory
,
and
so
too
was
the
inevitable
exaggeration
of
Trafford
's
financial
importance
.
"
He
can
do
what
he
likes
in
the
rubber
world
,
"
said
Marjorie
.
"
In
Mincing
Lane
,
where
they
deal
in
rubber
shares
,
they
used
to
call
him
and
Sir
Rupert
the
invaders
;
now
they
call
them
the
Conquering
Heroes
...
.
Of
course
,
it
's
mere
child
's
play
to
Godwin
,
but
,
as
he
said
,
'
We
want
money
.
'
It
wo
n't
really
interfere
with
his
more
important
interests
...
.
"
I
do
not
know
why
both
those
sisters
were
more
vulgarly
competitive
with
each
other
than
with
any
one
else
;
I
have
merely
to
record
the
fact
that
they
were
so
.
The
effect
upon
the
rest
of
Marjorie
's
family
was
equally
gratifying
.
Mr.
Pope
came
to
the
house-warming
as
though
he
had
never
had
the
slightest
objection
to
Trafford
's
antecedents
,
and
told
him
casually
after
dinner
that
Marjorie
had
always
been
his
favourite
daughter
,
and
that
from
the
first
he
had
expected
great
things
of
her
.
He
told
Magnet
,
who
was
the
third
man
of
the
party
,
that
he
only
hoped
Syd
and
Rom
would
do
as
well
as
their
elder
sisters
.
Afterwards
,
in
the
drawing-room
,
he
whacked
Marjorie
suddenly
and
very
startlingly
on
the
shoulder-blade
—
it
was
the
first
bruise
he
had
given
her
since
Buryhamstreet
days
.
"
You
've
made
a
man
of
him
,
Maggots
,
"
he
said
.
The
quiet
smile
of
the
Christian
Scientist
was
becoming
now
the
fixed
expression
of
Mrs.
Pope
's
face
,
and
it
scarcely
relaxed
for
a
moment
as
she
surveyed
her
daughter
's
splendours
.
She
had
triumphantly
refused
to
worry
over
a
rather
serious
speculative
disappointment
,
but
her
faith
in
her
prophet
's
spiritual
power
had
been
strengthened
rather
than
weakened
by
the
manifest
insufficiency
of
his
financial
prestidigitations
,
and
she
was
getting
through
life
quite
radiantly
now
,
smiling
at
(
but
not
,
of
course
,
giving
way
to
)
beggars
,
smiling
at
toothaches
and
headaches
,
both
her
own
and
other
people
's
,
smiling
away
doubts
,
smiling
away
everything
that
bows
the
spirit
of
those
who
are
still
in
the
bonds
of
the
flesh
...
.
Afterwards
the
children
came
round
,
Syd
and
Rom
now
with
skirts
down
and
hair
up
,
and
rather
stiff
in
the
fine
big
rooms
,
and
Theodore
in
a
high
collar
and
very
anxious
to
get
Trafford
on
his
side
in
his
ambition
to
chuck
a
proposed
bank
clerkship
and
go
in
for
professional
aviation
...
.
It
was
pleasant
to
be
respected
by
her
family
again
,
but
the
mind
of
Marjorie
was
soon
reaching
out
to
the
more
novel
possibilities
of
her
changed
position
.
She
need
no
longer
confine
herself
to
teas
and
afternoons
.
She
could
now
,
delightful
thought
!
give
dinners
.
Dinners
are
mere
vulgarities
for
the
vulgar
,
but
in
the
measure
of
your
brains
does
a
dinner
become
a
work
of
art
.
There
is
the
happy
blending
of
a
modern
and
distinguished
simplicity
with
a
choice
of
items
essentially
good
and
delightful
and
just
a
little
bit
not
what
was
expected
.
There
is
the
still
more
interesting
and
difficult
blending
and
arrangement
of
the
diners
.
From
the
first
Marjorie
resolved
on
a
round
table
,
and
the
achievement
of
that
rare
and
wonderful
thing
,
general
conversation
.
She
had
a
clear
centre
,
with
a
circle
of
silver
bowls
filled
with
short
cut
flowers
and
low
shaded
,
old
silver
candlesticks
adapted
to
the
electric
light
.
The
first
dinner
was
a
nervous
experience
for
her
,
but
happily
Trafford
seemed
unconscious
of
the
importance
of
the
occasion
and
talked
very
easily
and
well
;
at
last
she
attained
her
old
ambition
to
see
Sir
Roderick
Dover
in
her
house
,
and
there
was
Remington
,
the
editor
of
the
Blue
Weekly
and
his
silent
gracious
wife
;
Edward
Crampton
,
the
historian
,
full
of
surprising
new
facts
about
Kosciusko
;
the
Solomonsons
and
Mrs.
Millingham
,
and
Mary
Gasthorne
the
novelist
.
It
was
a
good
talking
lot
.
Remington
sparred
agreeably
with
the
old
Toryism
of
Dover
,
flank
attacks
upon
them
both
were
delivered
by
Mrs.
Millingham
and
Trafford
,
Crampton
instanced
Hungarian
parallels
,
and
was
happily
averted
by
Mary
Gasthorne
with
travel
experiences
in
the
Carpathians
;
the
diamonds
of
Lady
Solomonson
and
Mrs.
Remington
flashed
and
winked
across
the
shining
table
,
as
their
wearers
listened
with
unmistakable
intelligence
,
and
when
the
ladies
had
gone
upstairs
Sir
Rupert
Solomonson
told
all
the
men
exactly
what
he
thought
of
the
policy
of
the
Blue
Weekly
,
a
balanced
,
common-sense
judgment
.
Upstairs
Lady
Solomonson
betrayed
a
passion
of
admiration
for
Mrs.
Remington
,
and
Mrs.
Millingham
mumbled
depreciation
of
the
same
lady
's
intelligence
in
Mary
Gasthorne
's
unwilling
ear
.
"
She
's
passive
,
"
said
Mrs.
Millingham
.
"
She
bores
him
...
.
"
For
a
time
Marjorie
found
dinner-giving
delightful
—
it
is
like
picking
and
arranging
posies
of
human
flowers
—
and
fruits
—
and
perhaps
a
little
dried
grass
,
and
it
was
not
long
before
she
learnt
that
she
was
esteemed
a
success
as
a
hostess
.
She
gathered
her
earlier
bunches
in
the
Carmel
and
Solomonson
circle
,
with
a
stiffening
from
among
the
literary
and
scientific
friends
of
Trafford
and
his
mother
,
and
one
or
two
casual
and
undervalued
blossoms
from
Aunt
Plessington
's
active
promiscuities
.
She
had
soon
a
gaily
flowering
garden
of
her
own
to
pick
from
.
Its
strength
and
finest
display
lay
in
its
increasing
proportion
of
political
intellectuals
,
men
in
and
about
the
House
who
relaxed
their
minds
from
the
tense
detailed
alertness
needed
in
political
intrigues
by
conversation
that
rose
at
times
to
the
level
of
the
smarter
sort
of
article
in
the
half-crown
reviews
.
The
women
were
more
difficult
than
the
men
,
and
Marjorie
found
herself
wishing
at
times
that
girl
novelists
and
playwrights
were
more
abundant
,
or
women
writers
on
the
average
younger
.
These
talked
generally
well
,
and
one
or
two
capable
women
of
her
own
type
talked
and
listened
with
an
effect
of
talking
;
so
many
other
women
either
chattered
disturbingly
,
or
else
did
not
listen
,
with
an
effect
of
not
talking
at
all
,
and
so
made
gaps
about
the
table
.
Many
of
these
latter
had
to
be
asked
because
they
belonged
to
the
class
of
inevitable
wives
,
sine-qua-nons
,
and
through
them
she
learnt
the
value
of
that
priceless
variety
of
kindly
unselfish
men
who
can
create
the
illusion
of
attentive
conversation
in
the
most
uncomfortable
and
suspicious
natures
without
producing
backwater
and
eddy
in
the
general
flow
of
talk
.
Indisputably
Marjorie
's
dinners
were
successful
.
Of
course
,
the
abundance
and
æsthetic
achievements
of
Mrs.
Lee
still
seemed
to
her
immeasurably
out
of
reach
,
but
it
was
already
possible
to
show
Aunt
Plessington
how
the
thing
ought
really
to
be
done
,
Aunt
Plessington
with
her
narrow
,
lank
,
austerely
served
table
,
with
a
sort
of
quarter-deck
at
her
own
end
and
a
subjugated
forecastle
round
Hubert
.
And
accordingly
the
Plessingtons
were
invited
and
shown
,
and
to
a
party
,
too
,
that
restrained
Aunt
Plessington
from
her
usual
conversational
prominence
...
.
These
opening
years
of
Trafford
's
commercial
phase
were
full
of
an
engaging
activity
for
Marjorie
as
for
him
,
and
for
her
far
more
completely
than
for
him
were
the
profounder
solicitudes
of
life
lost
sight
of
in
the
bright
succession
of
immediate
events
.
Marjorie
did
not
let
her
social
development
interfere
with
her
duty
to
society
in
the
larger
sense
.
Two
years
after
the
vigorous
and
resentful
Godwin
came
a
second
son
,
and
a
year
and
a
half
later
a
third
.
"
That
's
enough
,
"
said
Marjorie
,
"
now
we
've
got
to
rear
them
.
"
The
nursery
at
Sussex
Square
had
always
been
a
show
part
of
the
house
,
but
it
became
her
crowning
achievement
.
She
had
never
forgotten
the
Lee
display
at
Vevey
,
the
shining
splendours
of
modern
maternity
,
the
books
,
the
apparatus
,
the
space
and
light
and
air
.
The
whole
second
floor
was
altered
to
accommodate
these
four
triumphant
beings
,
who
absorbed
the
services
of
two
nurses
,
a
Swiss
nursery
governess
and
two
housemaids
—
not
to
mention
those
several
hundred
obscure
individuals
who
were
yielding
a
sustaining
profit
in
the
East
End
.
At
any
rate
,
they
were
very
handsome
and
promising
children
,
and
little
Margharita
could
talk
three
languages
with
a
childish
fluency
,
and
invent
and
write
a
short
fable
in
either
French
or
German
—
with
only
as
much
misspelling
as
any
child
of
eight
may
be
permitted
...
.
Then
there
sprang
up
a
competition
between
Marjorie
and
the
able
,
pretty
wife
of
Halford
Wallace
,
most
promising
of
under-secretaries
.
They
gave
dinners
against
each
other
,
they
discovered
young
artists
against
each
other
,
they
went
to
first-nights
and
dressed
against
each
other
.
Marjorie
was
ruddy
and
tall
,
Mrs.
Halford
Wallace
dark
and
animated
;
Halford
Wallace
admired
Marjorie
,
Trafford
was
insensible
to
Mrs.
Halford
Wallace
.
They
played
for
points
so
vague
that
it
was
impossible
for
any
one
to
say
which
was
winning
,
but
none
the
less
they
played
like
artists
,
for
all
they
were
worth
...
.
Trafford
's
rapid
prosperity
and
his
implicit
promise
of
still
wider
activities
and
successes
brought
him
innumerable
acquaintances
and
many
friends
.
He
joined
two
or
three
distinguished
clubs
,
he
derived
an
uncertain
interest
from
a
series
of
week-end
visits
to
ample
,
good-mannered
households
,
and
for
a
time
he
found
a
distraction
in
little
flashes
of
travel
to
countries
that
caught
at
his
imagination
,
Morocco
,
Montenegro
,
Southern
Russia
.
I
do
not
know
whether
Marjorie
might
not
have
been
altogether
happy
during
this
early
Sussex
Square
period
,
if
it
had
not
been
for
an
unconquerable
uncertainty
about
Trafford
.
But
ever
and
again
she
became
vaguely
apprehensive
of
some
perplexing
unreality
in
her
position
.
She
had
never
had
any
such
profundity
of
discontent
as
he
experienced
.
It
was
nothing
clear
,
nothing
that
actually
penetrated
,
distressing
her
.
It
was
at
most
an
uneasiness
.
For
him
the
whole
fabric
of
life
was
,
as
it
were
,
torn
and
pieced
by
a
provocative
sense
of
depths
unplumbed
that
robbed
it
of
all
its
satisfactions
.
For
her
these
glimpses
were
as
yet
rare
,
mere
moments
of
doubt
that
passed
again
and
left
her
active
and
assured
.
It
was
only
after
they
had
been
married
six
or
seven
years
that
Trafford
began
to
realize
how
widely
his
attitudes
to
Marjorie
varied
.
He
emerged
slowly
from
a
naïve
unconsciousness
of
his
fluctuations
,
—
a
naïve
unconsciousness
of
inconsistency
that
for
most
men
and
women
remains
throughout
life
.
His
ruling
idea
that
she
and
he
were
friends
,
equals
,
confederates
,
knowing
everything
about
each
other
,
co-operating
in
everything
,
was
very
fixed
and
firm
.
But
indeed
that
had
become
the
remotest
rendering
of
their
relationship
.
Their
lives
were
lives
of
intimate
disengagement
.
They
came
nearest
to
fellowship
in
relation
to
their
children
;
there
they
shared
an
immense
common
pride
.
Beyond
that
was
a
less
confident
appreciation
of
their
common
house
and
their
joint
effect
.
And
then
they
liked
and
loved
each
other
tremendously
.
They
could
play
upon
each
other
and
please
each
other
in
a
hundred
different
ways
,
and
they
did
so
,
quite
consciously
,
observing
each
other
with
the
completest
externality
.
She
was
still
in
many
ways
for
him
the
bright
girl
he
had
admired
in
the
examination
,
still
the
mysterious
dignified
transfiguration
of
that
delightful
creature
on
the
tragically
tender
verge
of
motherhood
;
these
memories
were
of
more
power
with
him
than
the
present
realities
of
her
full-grown
strength
and
capacity
.
He
petted
and
played
with
the
girl
still
;
he
was
still
tender
and
solicitous
for
that
early
woman
.
He
admired
and
co-operated
also
with
the
capable
,
narrowly
ambitious
,
beautiful
lady
into
which
Marjorie
had
developed
,
but
those
remoter
experiences
it
was
that
gave
the
deeper
emotions
to
their
relationship
.
The
conflict
of
aims
that
had
at
last
brought
Trafford
from
scientific
investigation
into
business
,
had
left
behind
it
a
little
scar
of
hostility
.
He
felt
his
sacrifice
.
He
felt
that
he
had
given
something
for
her
that
she
had
had
no
right
to
exact
,
that
he
had
gone
beyond
the
free
mutualities
of
honest
love
and
paid
a
price
for
her
;
he
had
deflected
the
whole
course
of
his
life
for
her
and
he
was
entitled
to
repayments
.
Unconsciously
he
had
become
a
slightly
jealous
husband
.
He
resented
inattentions
and
absences
.
He
felt
she
ought
to
be
with
him
and
orient
all
her
proceedings
towards
him
.
He
did
not
like
other
people
to
show
too
marked
an
appreciation
of
her
.
She
had
a
healthy
love
of
admiration
,
and
in
addition
her
social
ambitions
made
it
almost
inevitable
that
at
times
she
should
use
her
great
personal
charm
to
secure
and
retain
adherents
.
He
was
ashamed
to
betray
the
resentments
thus
occasioned
,
and
his
silence
widened
the
separation
more
than
any
protest
could
have
done
...
.
For
his
own
part
he
gave
her
no
cause
for
a
reciprocal
jealousy
.
Other
women
did
not
excite
his
imagination
very
greatly
,
and
he
had
none
of
the
ready
disposition
to
lapse
to
other
comforters
which
is
so
frequent
a
characteristic
of
the
husband
out
of
touch
with
his
life
's
companion
.
He
was
perhaps
an
exceptional
man
in
his
steadfast
loyalty
to
his
wife
.
He
had
come
to
her
as
new
to
love
as
she
had
been
.
He
had
never
in
his
life
taken
that
one
decisive
illicit
step
which
changes
all
the
aspects
of
sexual
life
for
a
man
even
more
than
for
a
woman
.
Love
for
him
was
a
thing
solemn
,
simple
,
and
unspoilt
.
He
perceived
that
it
was
not
so
for
most
other
men
,
but
that
did
little
to
modify
his
own
private
attitude
.
In
his
curious
scrutiny
of
the
people
about
him
,
he
did
not
fail
to
note
the
drift
of
adventures
and
infidelities
that
glimmers
along
beneath
the
even
surface
of
our
social
life
.
One
or
two
of
his
intimate
friends
,
Solomonson
was
one
of
them
,
passed
through
"
affairs
.
"
Once
or
twice
those
dim
proceedings
splashed
upward
to
the
surface
in
an
open
scandal
.
There
came
Remington
's
startling
elopement
with
Isabel
Rivers
,
the
writer
,
which
took
two
brilliant
and
inspiring
contemporaries
suddenly
and
distressingly
out
of
Trafford
's
world
.
Trafford
felt
none
of
that
rage
and
forced
and
jealous
contempt
for
the
delinquents
in
these
matters
which
is
common
in
the
ill-regulated
,
virtuous
mind
.
Indeed
,
he
was
far
more
sympathetic
with
than
hostile
to
the
offenders
.
He
had
brains
and
imagination
to
appreciate
the
grim
pathos
of
a
process
that
begins
as
a
hopeful
quest
,
full
of
the
suggestion
of
noble
possibilities
,
full
of
the
craving
for
missed
intensities
of
fellowship
and
realization
,
that
loiters
involuntarily
towards
beauties
and
delights
,
and
ends
at
last
too
often
after
gratification
of
an
appetite
,
in
artificially
hideous
exposures
,
and
the
pelting
misrepresentations
of
the
timidly
well-behaved
vile
.
But
the
general
effect
of
pitiful
evasions
,
of
unavoidable
meannesses
,
of
draggled
heroics
and
tortuously
insincere
explanations
confirmed
him
in
his
aversion
from
this
labyrinthine
trouble
of
extraneous
love
...
.
But
if
Trafford
was
a
faithful
husband
,
he
ceased
to
be
a
happy
and
confident
one
.
There
grew
up
in
him
a
vast
hinterland
of
thoughts
and
feelings
,
an
accumulation
of
unspoken
and
largely
of
unformulated
things
in
which
his
wife
had
no
share
.
And
it
was
in
that
hinterland
that
his
essential
self
had
its
abiding
place
...
.
It
came
as
a
discovery
;
it
remained
for
ever
after
a
profoundly
disturbing
perplexity
that
he
had
talked
to
Marjorie
most
carelessly
,
easily
and
seriously
,
during
their
courtship
and
their
honeymoon
.
He
remembered
their
early
intercourse
now
as
an
immense
happy
freedom
in
love
.
Then
afterwards
a
curtain
had
fallen
.
That
almost
delirious
sense
of
escaping
from
oneself
,
of
having
at
last
found
some
one
from
whom
there
need
be
no
concealment
,
some
one
before
whom
one
could
stand
naked-souled
and
assured
of
love
as
one
stands
before
one
's
God
,
faded
so
that
he
scarce
observed
its
passing
,
but
only
discovered
at
last
that
it
had
gone
.
He
misunderstood
and
met
misunderstanding
.
He
found
he
could
hurt
her
by
the
things
he
said
,
and
be
exquisitely
hurt
by
her
failure
to
apprehend
the
spirit
of
some
ill-expressed
intention
.
And
it
was
so
vitally
important
not
to
hurt
,
not
to
be
hurt
.
At
first
he
only
perceived
that
he
reserved
himself
;
then
there
came
the
intimation
of
the
question
,
was
she
also
perhaps
in
such
another
hinterland
as
his
,
keeping
herself
from
him
?
He
had
perceived
the
cessation
of
that
first
bright
outbreak
of
self-revelation
,
this
relapse
into
the
secrecies
of
individuality
,
quite
early
in
their
married
life
.
I
have
already
told
of
his
first
efforts
to
bridge
their
widening
separation
by
walks
and
talks
in
the
country
,
and
by
the
long
pilgrimage
among
the
Alps
that
had
ended
so
unexpectedly
at
Vevey
.
In
the
retrospect
the
years
seemed
punctuated
with
phases
when
"
we
must
talk
"
dominated
their
intercourse
,
and
each
time
the
impulse
of
that
recognized
need
passed
away
by
insensible
degrees
again
—
with
nothing
said
.
Marjorie
cherished
an
obstinate
hope
that
Trafford
would
take
up
political
questions
and
go
into
Parliament
.
It
seemed
to
her
that
there
was
something
about
him
altogether
graver
and
wider
than
most
of
the
active
politicians
she
knew
.
She
liked
to
think
of
those
gravities
assuming
a
practical
form
,
of
Trafford
very
rapidly
and
easily
coming
forward
into
a
position
of
cardinal
significance
.
It
gave
her
general
expenditure
a
quality
of
concentration
without
involving
any
uncongenial
limitation
to
suppose
it
aimed
at
the
preparation
of
a
statesman
's
circle
whenever
Trafford
chose
to
adopt
that
assumption
.
Little
men
in
great
positions
came
to
her
house
and
talked
with
opaque
self-confidence
at
her
table
;
she
measured
them
against
her
husband
while
she
played
the
admiring
female
disciple
to
their
half-confidential
talk
.
She
felt
that
he
could
take
up
these
questions
and
measures
that
they
reduced
to
trite
twaddle
,
open
the
wide
relevancies
behind
them
,
and
make
them
magically
significant
,
sweep
away
the
encrusting
pettiness
,
the
personalities
and
arbitrary
prejudices
.
But
why
did
n't
he
begin
to
do
it
?
She
threw
out
hints
he
seemed
blind
towards
,
she
exercised
miracles
of
patience
while
he
ignored
her
baits
.
She
came
near
intrigue
in
her
endeavor
to
entangle
him
in
political
affairs
.
For
a
time
it
seemed
to
her
that
she
was
succeeding
—
I
have
already
told
of
his
phase
of
inquiry
and
interest
in
socio-political
work
—
and
then
he
relapsed
into
a
scornful
restlessness
,
and
her
hopes
weakened
again
.
But
he
could
not
concentrate
his
mind
,
he
could
not
think
where
to
begin
.
Day
followed
day
,
each
with
its
attacks
upon
his
intention
,
its
petty
just
claims
,
its
attractive
novelties
of
aspect
.
The
telephone
bell
rang
,
the
letters
flopped
into
the
hall
,
Malcom
the
butler
seemed
always
at
hand
with
some
distracting
oblong
on
his
salver
.
Dowd
was
developing
ideas
for
a
reconstructed
organization
of
the
factory
,
Solomonson
growing
enthusiastic
about
rubber-glass
,
his
house
seemed
full
of
women
,
Marjorie
had
an
engagement
for
him
to
keep
or
the
children
were
coming
in
to
say
good-night
.
To
his
irritated
brain
the
whole
scheme
of
his
life
presented
itself
at
last
as
a
tissue
of
interruptions
which
prevented
his
looking
clearly
at
reality
.
More
and
more
definitely
he
realized
he
wanted
to
get
away
and
think
.
His
former
life
of
research
became
invested
with
an
effect
of
immense
dignity
and
of
a
steadfast
singleness
of
purpose
...
.
But
Trafford
was
following
his
own
lights
,
upon
his
own
lines
.
He
was
returning
to
that
faith
in
the
supreme
importance
of
thought
and
knowledge
,
upon
which
he
had
turned
his
back
when
he
left
pure
research
behind
him
.
To
that
familiar
end
he
came
by
an
unfamiliar
route
,
after
his
long
,
unsatisfying
examination
of
social
reform
movements
and
social
and
political
theories
.
Immaturity
,
haste
and
presumption
vitiated
all
that
region
,
and
it
seemed
to
him
less
and
less
disputable
that
the
only
escape
for
mankind
from
a
continuing
extravagant
futility
lay
through
the
attainment
of
a
quite
unprecedented
starkness
and
thoroughness
of
thinking
about
all
these
questions
.
This
conception
of
a
needed
Renascence
obsessed
him
more
and
more
,
and
the
persuasion
,
deeply
felt
if
indistinctly
apprehended
,
that
somewhere
in
such
an
effort
there
was
a
part
for
him
to
play
...
.
Life
is
too
great
for
us
or
too
petty
.
It
gives
us
no
tolerable
middle
way
between
baseness
and
greatness
.
We
must
die
daily
on
the
levels
of
ignoble
compromise
or
perish
tragically
among
the
precipices
.
On
the
one
hand
is
a
life
—
unsatisfying
and
secure
,
a
plane
of
dulled
gratifications
,
mean
advantages
,
petty
triumphs
,
adaptations
,
acquiescences
and
submissions
,
and
on
the
other
a
steep
and
terrible
climb
,
set
with
sharp
stones
and
bramble
thickets
and
the
possibilities
of
grotesque
dislocations
,
and
the
snares
of
such
temptation
as
comes
only
to
those
whose
minds
have
been
quickened
by
high
desire
,
and
the
challenge
of
insoluble
problems
and
the
intimations
of
issues
so
complex
and
great
,
demanding
such
a
nobility
of
purpose
,
such
a
steadfastness
,
alertness
and
openness
of
mind
,
that
they
fill
the
heart
of
man
with
despair
...
.
There
were
moods
when
Trafford
would
,
as
people
say
,
pull
himself
together
,
and
struggle
with
his
gnawing
discontent
.
He
would
compare
his
lot
with
that
of
other
men
,
reproach
himself
for
a
monstrous
greed
and
ingratitude
.
He
remonstrated
with
himself
as
one
might
remonstrate
with
a
pampered
child
refusing
to
be
entertained
by
a
whole
handsome
nursery
full
of
toys
.
Other
men
did
their
work
in
the
world
methodically
and
decently
,
did
their
duty
by
their
friends
and
belongings
,
were
manifestly
patient
through
dullness
,
steadfastly
cheerful
,
ready
to
meet
vexations
with
a
humorous
smile
,
and
grateful
for
orderly
pleasures
.
Was
he
abnormal
?
Or
was
he
in
some
unsuspected
way
unhealthy
?
Trafford
neglected
no
possible
explanations
.
Did
he
want
this
great
Renascence
of
the
human
mind
because
he
was
suffering
from
some
subtle
form
of
indigestion
?
He
invoked
,
independently
of
each
other
,
the
aid
of
two
distinguished
specialists
.
They
both
told
him
in
exactly
the
same
voice
and
with
exactly
the
same
air
of
guineas
well
earned
:
"
What
you
want
,
Mr.
Trafford
,
is
a
change
.
"
Trafford
brought
his
mind
to
bear
upon
the
instances
of
contentment
about
him
.
He
developed
an
opinion
that
all
men
and
many
women
were
potentially
at
least
as
restless
as
himself
.
A
huge
proportion
of
the
usage
and
education
in
modern
life
struck
upon
him
now
as
being
a
training
in
contentment
.
Or
rather
in
keeping
quiet
and
not
upsetting
things
.
The
serious
and
responsible
life
of
an
ordinary
prosperous
man
fulfilling
the
requirements
of
our
social
organization
fatigues
and
neither
completely
satisfies
nor
completely
occupies
.
Still
less
does
the
responsible
part
of
the
life
of
a
woman
of
the
prosperous
classes
engage
all
her
energies
or
hold
her
imagination
.
And
there
has
grown
up
a
great
informal
organization
of
employments
,
games
,
ceremonies
,
social
routines
,
travel
,
to
consume
these
surplus
powers
and
excessive
cravings
,
which
might
otherwise
change
or
shatter
the
whole
order
of
human
living
.
He
began
to
understand
the
forced
preoccupation
with
cricket
and
golf
,
the
shooting
,
visiting
,
and
so
forth
,
to
which
the
young
people
of
the
economically
free
classes
in
the
community
are
trained
.
He
discovered
a
theory
for
hobbies
and
specialized
interests
.
He
began
to
see
why
people
go
to
Scotland
to
get
away
from
London
,
and
come
to
London
to
get
away
from
Scotland
,
why
they
crowd
to
and
fro
along
the
Riviera
,
swarm
over
Switzerland
,
shoot
,
yacht
,
hunt
,
and
maintain
an
immense
apparatus
of
racing
and
motoring
.
Because
so
they
are
able
to
remain
reasonably
contented
with
the
world
as
it
is
.
He
perceived
,
too
,
that
a
man
who
has
missed
or
broken
through
the
training
to
this
kind
of
life
,
does
not
again
very
readily
subdue
himself
to
the
security
of
these
systematized
distractions
.
His
own
upbringing
had
been
antipathetic
to
any
such
adaptations
;
his
years
of
research
had
given
him
the
habit
of
naked
intimacy
with
truth
,
filled
him
with
a
craving
for
reality
and
the
destructive
acids
of
a
relentless
critical
method
.
He
began
to
understand
something
of
the
psychology
of
vice
,
to
comprehend
how
small
a
part
mere
sensuality
,
how
large
a
part
the
spirit
of
adventure
and
the
craving
for
illegality
,
may
play
,
in
the
career
of
those
who
are
called
evil
livers
.
Mere
animal
impulses
and
curiosities
it
had
always
seemed
possible
to
him
to
control
,
but
now
he
was
beginning
to
apprehend
the
power
of
that
passion
for
escape
,
at
any
cost
,
in
any
way
,
from
the
petty
,
weakly
stimulating
,
competitive
motives
of
low-grade
and
law-abiding
prosperity
...
.
For
a
time
Trafford
made
an
earnest
effort
to
adjust
himself
to
the
position
in
which
he
found
himself
,
and
make
a
working
compromise
with
his
disturbing
forces
.
He
tried
to
pick
up
the
scientific
preoccupation
of
his
earlier
years
.
He
made
extensive
schemes
,
to
Solomonson
's
great
concern
,
whereby
he
might
to
a
large
extent
disentangle
himself
from
business
.
He
began
to
hunt
out
forgotten
note-books
and
yellowing
sheets
of
memoranda
.
He
found
the
resumption
of
research
much
more
difficult
than
he
had
ever
supposed
possible
.
He
went
so
far
as
to
plan
a
laboratory
,
and
to
make
some
inquiries
as
to
site
and
the
cost
of
building
,
to
the
great
satisfaction
not
only
of
Marjorie
but
of
his
mother
.
Old
Mrs.
Trafford
had
never
expressed
her
concern
at
his
abandonment
of
molecular
physics
for
money-making
,
but
now
in
her
appreciation
of
his
return
to
pure
investigation
she
betrayed
her
sense
of
his
departure
.
But
in
his
heart
he
felt
that
this
methodical
establishment
of
virtue
by
limitation
would
not
suffice
for
him
.
He
said
no
word
of
this
scepticism
as
it
grew
in
his
mind
.
Marjorie
was
still
under
the
impression
that
he
was
returning
to
research
,
and
that
she
was
free
to
contrive
the
steady
preparation
for
that
happier
day
when
he
should
assume
his
political
inheritance
.
And
then
presently
a
queer
little
dispute
sprang
up
between
them
.
Suddenly
,
for
the
first
time
since
he
took
to
business
,
Trafford
found
himself
limiting
her
again
.
She
was
disposed
,
partly
through
the
natural
growth
of
her
circle
and
her
setting
and
partly
through
a
movement
on
the
part
of
Mrs.
Halford
Wallace
,
to
move
from
Sussex
Square
into
a
larger
,
more
picturesquely
built
house
in
a
more
central
position
.
She
particularly
desired
a
good
staircase
.
He
met
her
intimations
of
this
development
with
a
curious
and
unusual
irritation
.
The
idea
of
moving
bothered
him
.
He
felt
that
exaggerated
annoyance
which
is
so
often
a
concomitant
of
overwrought
nerves
.
They
had
a
dispute
that
was
almost
a
quarrel
,
and
though
Marjorie
dropped
the
matter
for
a
time
,
he
could
feel
she
was
still
at
work
upon
it
.
CHAPTER
THE
SECOND
Trafford
Decides
to
Go
A
Haunting
desire
to
go
away
into
solitude
grew
upon
Trafford
very
steadily
.
He
wanted
intensely
to
think
,
and
London
and
Marjorie
would
not
let
him
think
.
He
wanted
therefore
to
go
away
out
of
London
and
Marjorie
's
world
.
He
wanted
,
he
felt
,
to
go
away
alone
and
face
God
,
and
clear
things
up
in
his
mind
.
By
imperceptible
degrees
this
desire
anticipated
its
realization
.
His
activities
were
affected
more
and
more
by
intimations
of
a
determined
crisis
.
One
eventful
day
it
seemed
to
him
that
his
mind
passed
quite
suddenly
from
desire
to
resolve
.
He
found
himself
with
a
project
,
already
broadly
definite
.
Hitherto
he
had
n't
been
at
all
clear
where
he
could
go
.
From
the
first
almost
he
had
felt
that
this
change
he
needed
,
the
change
by
which
he
was
to
get
out
of
the
thickets
of
work
and
perplexity
and
distraction
that
held
him
captive
,
must
be
a
physical
as
well
as
a
mental
removal
;
he
must
go
somewhere
,
still
and
isolated
,
where
sustained
detached
thinking
was
possible
...
.
His
preference
,
if
he
had
one
,
inclined
him
to
some
solitude
among
the
Himalaya
Mountains
.
That
came
perhaps
from
Kim
and
the
precedent
of
the
Hindoo
's
religious
retreat
from
the
world
.
But
this
retreat
he
contemplated
was
a
retreat
that
aimed
at
a
return
,
a
clarified
and
strengthened
resumption
of
the
world
.
And
then
suddenly
,
as
if
he
had
always
intended
it
,
Labrador
flashed
through
his
thoughts
,
like
a
familiar
name
that
had
been
for
a
time
quite
unaccountably
forgotten
.
The
word
"
Labrador
"
drifted
to
him
one
day
from
an
adjacent
table
as
he
sat
alone
at
lunch
in
the
Liberal
Union
Club
.
Some
bore
was
reciting
the
substance
of
a
lecture
to
a
fellow-member
.
"
Seems
to
be
a
remarkable
country
,
"
said
the
speaker
.
"
Mineral
wealth
hardly
glanced
at
,
you
know
.
Furs
and
a
few
score
Indians
.
And
at
our
doors
.
Practically
—
at
our
doors
.
"
Trafford
ceased
to
listen
.
His
mind
was
taking
up
this
idea
of
Labrador
.
He
wondered
why
he
had
not
thought
of
Labrador
before
.
He
had
two
or
three
streams
of
thought
flowing
in
his
mind
,
as
a
man
who
muses
alone
is
apt
to
do
.
Marjorie
's
desire
to
move
had
reappeared
;
a
particular
group
of
houses
between
Berkeley
Square
and
Park
Lane
had
taken
hold
of
her
fancy
,
she
had
urged
the
acquisition
of
one
upon
him
that
morning
,
and
this
kept
coming
up
into
consciousness
like
a
wrong
thread
in
a
tapestry
.
Moreover
,
he
was
watching
his
fellow-members
with
a
critical
rather
than
a
friendly
eye
.
A
half-speculative
,
half-hostile
contemplation
of
his
habitual
associates
was
one
of
the
queer
aspects
of
this
period
of
unsettlement
.
They
exasperated
him
by
their
massive
contentment
with
the
surface
of
things
.
They
came
in
one
after
another
patting
their
ties
,
or
pulling
at
the
lapels
of
their
coats
,
and
looked
about
them
for
vacant
places
with
a
conscious
ease
of
manner
that
irritated
his
nerves
.
No
doubt
they
were
all
more
or
less
successful
and
distinguished
men
,
matter
for
conversation
and
food
for
anecdotes
,
but
why
did
they
trouble
to
give
themselves
the
air
of
it
?
They
halted
or
sat
down
by
friends
,
enunciated
vapid
remarks
in
sonorous
voices
,
and
opened
conversations
in
trite
phrases
,
about
London
architecture
,
about
the
political
situation
or
the
morning
's
newspaper
,
conversations
that
ought
,
he
felt
,
to
have
been
thrown
away
unopened
,
so
stale
and
needless
they
seemed
to
him
.
They
were
judges
,
lawyers
of
all
sorts
,
bankers
,
company
promoters
,
railway
managers
,
stockbrokers
,
pressmen
,
politicians
,
men
of
leisure
.
He
wondered
if
indeed
they
were
as
opaque
as
they
seemed
,
wondered
with
the
helpless
wonder
of
a
man
of
exceptional
mental
gifts
whether
any
of
them
at
any
stage
had
had
such
thoughts
as
his
,
had
wanted
as
acutely
as
he
did
now
to
get
right
out
of
the
world
.
Did
old
Booch
over
there
,
for
example
,
guzzling
oysters
,
cry
at
times
upon
the
unknown
God
in
the
vast
silences
of
the
night
?
But
Booch
,
of
course
,
was
a
member
or
something
of
the
House
of
Laymen
,
and
very
sound
on
the
thirty-nine
articles
—
a
man
who
ate
oysters
like
that
could
swallow
anything
—
and
in
the
vast
silences
of
the
night
he
was
probably
heavily
and
noisily
asleep
...
.
Blenkins
,
the
gentlemanly
colleague
of
Denton
in
the
control
of
the
Old
Country
Gazette
,
appeared
on
his
way
to
the
pay-desk
,
gesticulating
amiably
en-route
to
any
possible
friend
.
Trafford
returned
his
salutation
,
and
pulled
himself
together
immediately
after
in
fear
that
he
had
scowled
,
for
he
hated
to
be
churlish
to
any
human
being
.
Blenkins
,
too
,
it
might
be
,
had
sorrow
and
remorse
and
periods
of
passionate
self-distrust
and
self-examination
;
maybe
Blenkins
could
weep
salt
tears
,
as
Blenkins
no
doubt
under
suitable
sword-play
would
reveal
heart
and
viscera
as
quivering
and
oozy
as
any
man
's
.
But
to
Trafford
's
jaundiced
eyes
just
then
,
it
seemed
that
if
you
slashed
Blenkins
across
he
would
probably
cut
like
a
cheese
...
.
Now
,
in
Labrador
—
—
...
.
So
soon
as
Blenkins
had
cleared
,
Trafford
followed
him
to
the
pay-desk
,
and
went
on
upstairs
to
the
smoking-room
,
thinking
of
Labrador
.
Long
ago
he
had
read
the
story
of
Wallace
and
Hubbard
in
that
wilderness
.
There
was
much
to
be
said
for
a
winter
in
Labrador
.
It
was
cold
,
it
was
clear
,
infinitely
lonely
,
with
a
keen
edge
of
danger
and
hardship
and
never
a
letter
or
a
paper
.
One
could
provision
a
hut
and
sit
wrapped
in
fur
,
watching
the
Northern
Lights
...
.
"
I
'm
off
to
Labrador
,
"
said
Trafford
,
and
entered
the
smoking-room
.
It
was
,
after
all
,
perfectly
easy
to
go
to
Labrador
.
One
had
just
to
go
...
.
As
he
pinched
the
end
of
his
cigar
,
he
became
aware
of
Blenkins
,
with
a
gleam
of
golden
glasses
and
a
flapping
white
cuff
,
beckoning
across
the
room
to
him
.
With
that
probable
scowl
on
his
conscience
Trafford
was
moved
to
respond
with
an
unreal
warmth
,
and
strolled
across
to
Blenkins
and
a
group
of
three
or
four
other
people
,
including
that
vigorous
young
politician
,
Weston
Massinghay
,
and
Hart
,
K.C.
,
about
the
further
fireplace
.
"
We
were
talking
of
you
,
"
said
Blenkins
.
"
Come
and
sit
down
with
us
.
Why
do
n't
you
come
into
Parliament
?
"
"
I
've
just
arranged
to
go
for
some
months
to
Labrador
.
"
"
Industrial
development
?
"
asked
Blenkins
,
all
alive
.
"
No.
Holiday
.
"
No
Blenkins
believes
that
sort
of
thing
,
but
of
course
,
if
Trafford
chose
to
keep
his
own
counsel
—
—
"
Well
,
come
into
Parliament
as
soon
as
you
get
back
.
"
Trafford
had
had
that
old
conversation
before
.
He
pretended
insensibility
when
Blenkins
gestured
to
a
vacant
chair
.
"
No
,
"
he
said
,
still
standing
,
"
we
settled
all
that
.
And
now
I
'm
up
to
my
neck
in
—
detail
about
Labrador
.
I
shall
be
starting
—
before
the
month
is
out
.
"
Blenkins
and
Hart
simulated
interest
.
"
It
's
immoral
,
"
said
Blenkins
,
"
for
a
man
of
your
standing
to
keep
out
of
politics
.
"
"
It
's
more
than
immoral
,
"
said
Hart
;
"
it
's
American
.
"
"
Solomonson
comes
in
to
represent
the
firm
,
"
smiled
Trafford
,
signalled
the
waiter
for
coffee
,
and
presently
disentangled
himself
from
their
company
.
For
Blenkins
Trafford
concealed
an
exquisite
dislike
and
contempt
;
and
Blenkins
had
a
considerable
admiration
for
Trafford
,
based
on
extensive
misunderstandings
.
Blenkins
admired
Trafford
because
he
was
good-looking
and
well-dressed
,
with
a
beautiful
and
successful
wife
,
because
he
had
become
reasonably
rich
very
quickly
and
easily
,
was
young
and
a
Fellow
of
the
Royal
Society
with
a
reputation
that
echoed
in
Berlin
,
and
very
perceptibly
did
not
return
Blenkins
'
admiration
.
All
these
things
filled
Blenkins
with
a
desire
for
Trafford
's
intimacy
,
and
to
become
the
associate
of
the
very
promising
political
career
that
it
seemed
to
him
,
in
spite
of
Trafford
's
repudiations
,
was
the
natural
next
step
in
a
deliberately
and
honourably
planned
life
.
He
mistook
Trafford
's
silences
and
detachment
for
the
marks
of
a
strong
,
silent
man
,
who
was
scheming
the
immense
,
vulgar
,
distinguished-looking
achievements
that
appeal
to
the
Blenkins
mind
.
Blenkins
was
a
sentimentally
loyal
party
Liberal
,
and
as
he
said
at
times
to
Hart
and
Weston
Massinghay
:
"
If
those
other
fellows
get
hold
of
him
—
—
!
"
Blenkins
was
the
fine
flower
of
Oxford
Liberalism
and
the
Tennysonian
days
.
He
wanted
to
be
like
King
Arthur
and
Sir
Galahad
,
with
the
merest
touch
of
Launcelot
,
and
to
be
perfectly
upright
and
splendid
and
very
,
very
successful
.
He
was
a
fair
,
tenoring
sort
of
person
with
an
Arthurian
moustache
and
a
disposition
to
long
frock
coats
.
It
had
been
said
of
him
that
he
did
n't
dress
like
a
gentleman
,
but
that
he
dressed
more
like
a
gentleman
than
a
gentleman
ought
to
dress
.
It
might
have
been
added
that
he
did
n't
behave
like
a
gentleman
,
but
that
he
behaved
more
like
a
gentleman
than
a
gentleman
ought
to
behave
.
He
did
n't
think
,
but
he
talked
and
he
wrote
more
thoughtfully
in
his
leaders
,
and
in
the
little
dialogues
he
wrote
in
imitation
of
Sir
Arthur
Helps
,
than
any
other
person
who
did
n't
think
could
possibly
do
.
He
was
an
orthodox
Churchman
,
but
very
,
very
broad
;
he
held
all
the
doctrines
,
a
distinguished
sort
of
thing
to
do
in
an
age
of
doubt
,
but
there
was
a
quality
about
them
as
he
held
them
—
as
though
they
had
been
run
over
by
something
rather
heavy
.
It
was
a
flattened
and
slightly
obliterated
breadth
—
nothing
was
assertive
,
but
nothing
,
under
examination
,
proved
to
be
altogether
gone
.
His
profuse
thoughtfulness
was
not
confined
to
his
journalistic
and
literary
work
,
it
overflowed
into
Talks
.
He
was
a
man
for
Great
Talks
,
interminable
rambling
floods
of
boyish
observation
,
emotional
appreciation
,
and
silly
,
sapient
comment
.
He
loved
to
discuss
"
Who
are
the
Best
Talkers
now
Alive
?
"
He
had
written
an
essay
,
Talk
in
the
Past
.
He
boasted
of
week-ends
when
the
Talk
had
gone
on
from
the
moment
of
meeting
in
the
train
to
the
moment
of
parting
at
Euston
,
or
Paddington
,
or
Waterloo
;
and
one
or
two
hostesses
with
embittered
memories
could
verify
his
boasting
.
He
did
his
best
to
make
the
club
a
Talking
Club
,
and
loved
to
summon
men
to
a
growing
circle
of
chairs
...
.
Trafford
had
been
involved
in
Talks
on
one
or
two
occasions
,
and
now
,
as
he
sat
alone
in
the
corridor
and
smoked
and
drank
his
coffee
,
he
could
imagine
the
Talk
he
had
escaped
,
the
Talk
that
was
going
on
in
the
smoking
room
—
the
platitudes
,
the
sagacities
,
the
digressions
,
the
sudden
revelation
of
deep
,
irrational
convictions
.
He
reflected
upon
the
various
Talks
at
which
he
had
assisted
.
His
chief
impression
of
them
all
was
of
an
intolerable
fluidity
.
Never
once
had
he
known
a
Talk
thicken
to
adequate
discussion
;
never
had
a
new
idea
or
a
new
view
come
to
him
in
a
Talk
.
He
wondered
why
Blenkins
and
his
like
talked
at
all
.
Essentially
they
lived
for
pose
,
not
for
expression
;
they
did
not
greatly
desire
to
