THE NEW MACHIAVELLI

"It's not playing the game," he said.

"What do you know?"

"Everything that matters."

"Some games," I said, "are too hard to play."

There came a pause between us.

"I didn't know you were watching all this," I said.

"Yes," he answered, after a pause, "I've watched."

"Sorry-sorry you don't approve."

"It means smashing such an infernal lot of things, Remington."

I did not answer.

"You're going away then?"

"Yes."

"Soon?"

"Right away."

"There's vour wife."

"I know."

"Shoesmith-whom you're pledged to in a ma

him out and made him conspicuous. Every one will know. Oh! of

course-it's nothing to you. Honour-"

"I know."

"Common decency."

I nodded.

"All this movement of ours. That's what I care for most…

It's come to be a big thing, Remington."

"That will go on."

"We have a use for you-no one else quite fills it. No one…

I'm not sure it will go on."

"Do you think I haven't thought of all these things?"

He shrugged his shoulders, and rejected two papers unread.

"I knew," he remarked, "when you came back from America. You were

alight with it." Then he let his bitterness gleam for a moment.

"But I thought you would stick to your bargain."

"It's not so much choice as you think," I said.

"There's always a choice."

"No," I said.

He scrutinised my face.

"I can't live without her-I can't work. She's all mixed up with

this-and everything. And besides, there's things you can't

understand. There's feelings you've never felt… You don't

understand how much we've been to one another."

Britten frowned and thought.

"Some things one's GOT to do," he threw out.

"Some things one can't do."

"These infernal institutions-"

"Some one must begin," I said.

He shook his head. "Not YOU," he said. "No!"

He stretched out his hands on the desk before him, and spoke again.

"Remington," he said, "I've thought of this business day and night

too. It matters to me. It matters immensely to me. In a way-it's

a thing one doesn't often say to a man-I've loved you. I'm the

sort of man who leads a narrow life… But you've been

something fine and good for me, since that time, do you remember?

when we talked about Mecca together."

I nodded.

"Yes. And you'll always be something fine and good for me anyhow.

I know things about you,-qualities-no mere act can destroy them..

.. Well, I can tell you, you're doing wrong. You're going on now

like a man who is hypnotised and can't turn round. You're piling

wrong on wrong. It was wrong for you two people ever to be lovers."

He paused.

"It gripped us hard," I said.

"Yes!-but in your position! And hers! It was vile!"

"You've not been tempted."

"How do you know? Anyhow-having done that, you ought to have stood

the consequences and thought of other people. You could have ended

it at the first pause for reflection. You didn't. You blundered

again. You kept on. You owed a certain secrecy to all of us! You

didn't keep it. You were careless. You made things worse. This

engagement and this publicity!-Damn it, Remington!"

"I know," I said, with smarting eyes. "Damn it! with all my heart!

It came of trying to patch… You CAN'T patch."

"And now, as I care for anything under heaven, Remington, you two

ought to stand these last consequences-and part. You ought to

part. Other people have to stand things! Other people have to

part. You ought to. You say-what do you say? It's loss of so

much life to lose each other. So is losing a hand or a leg. But

it's what you've incurred. Amputate. Take your punishment-After

all, you chose it."

"Oh, damn!" I said, standing up and going to the window.

"Damn by all means. I never knew a topic so full of justifiable

damns. But you two did choose it. You ought to stick to your

undertaking."

I turned upon him with a snarl in my voice. "My dear Britten!" I

cried. "Don't I KNOW I'm doing wrong? Aren't I in a net? Suppose

I don't go! Is there any right in that? Do you think we're going

to be much to ourselves or any one after this parting? I've been

thinking all last night of this business, trying it over and over

again from the begi

back from America-I grant you THAT-but SINCE, there's never been a

step that wasn't forced, that hadn't as much right in it or more, as

wrong. You talk as though I was a thing of steel that could bend

this way or that and never change. You talk as though Isabel was a

cat one could give to any kind of owner… We two are things

that change and grow and alter all the time. We're-so interwoven

that being parted now will leave us just misshapen cripples…

You don't know the motives, you don't know the rush and feel of