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 11UE LOV1 

 
 TRUE LOVE
 
 TRUE LOVE 
 
 BY 
 
 ALLAN MONKHOUSE 
 
 "Let me not to the marriage of true minds 
 Admit impediments." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT 1920 
 
 BY 
 HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
 
 8%e 6utnn & 9obcn Companp 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 RAH WAY NEW JERSEY
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 
 CHAl'TER PAGK 
 
 I. FRIENDS AND RIVALS 3 
 
 II. MARY AND GEOFFREY 19 
 
 III. MARY AND SIBYL 37 
 
 IV. REHEARSAL . . . . . . 49 
 
 V. LOYALTIES 61 
 
 VI. PERFORMANCE 77 
 
 VII. THE Two WORLDS 9 2 
 
 PART II 
 
 VIII. SUMMER ..109 
 
 IX. THE EVE .128 
 
 X. THE WAR'S HERE 144 
 
 XI. RECRIMINATIONS 157 
 
 XII. THE OTHER EXTREME .... 170 
 
 XIII. PREPARING TO PLUNGE .... 185 
 
 XIV. ANTI-CLIMAX . . . . . .198 
 
 XV. FOOLS IN COUNCIL '. 214 
 
 XVI. COTERIE . . . . . .228 
 
 v
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVII. AT LAST . 239 
 
 XVIII. THE IDEA . . . . . . .263 
 
 XIX. LOVERS AND FRIENDS . . . . 274 
 
 XX. STIRRUP-CUP . ... . .286 
 
 XXI. TRAINING . ... . . . 3<>4 
 
 XXII. MORE LETTERS ...... 3 1 ? 
 
 XXIII. HONEYMOON . . . . . . 3 2 9 
 
 XXIV. " FROM THE TRENCHES " . . . 345 
 XXV. LAST LETTERS 3 6 4 
 
 XXVI. SPECTATORS ......
 
 PART I
 
 CHAPTER I 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 
 
 LEAVING the Herald office, Arden paused before tak- 
 ing the step down to the street, and looked about him. 
 He was faintly conscious of the familiarities ; the or- 
 nate bulk of the Exchange, now in process of expan- 
 sion, the lines of other buildings, the clanging trams, 
 all the hurrying, changing forms which, at the instiga- 
 tion of Imalian, he had sometimes tried to see in terms 
 of the new art. Imalian, of course, did not call it the 
 new art, for to use an expression so crude would have 
 vexed his connoisseurship ; if you used it his kindly 
 indulgence reduced your irony to a mere facetious- 
 ness. It was not Imalian that Arden wanted now, 
 though a thought of that romantic Eastern crossed his 
 mind. Imalian stood for deep and secret things. A 
 man of the world, but he discoursed of prints or of 
 bookbindings with that strange and secret look of his 
 which suggested something infinitely beyond them. 
 Bonsor did not likf it ; Bonsor resented it ; " You can- 
 not trust the fellow," he said. It is true that the repu- 
 tation of Imalian's firm stood high in Manchester and 
 that there was nothing positively against the man, but 
 these Easterns may be honest for some inscrutable 
 reason not founded on the rock. Bonsor rolled out 
 his denunciation of Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics 
 such a phrase was a godsend to him and he had no 
 
 3
 
 4 TRUE LOVE 
 
 use for minor distinctions. Imalian looked gray and 
 stony when Turks were mentioned, but there was no 
 denying that he was a Turkish subject. He was not 
 precisely a Jew but he belonged to that lot; probably 
 he was both an infidel and a heretic. Bonsor was an 
 Englishman. " I am simply an Englishman," he said, 
 and, up to a point, he could not trust Mr. Lloyd 
 George. If Imalian should be put up for the Club it 
 would be his duty to blackball him. In confidence he 
 would tell you that he did not like foreigners of any 
 kind. It was later that he developed an enthusiasm 
 for the French, Russians, and Serbians an enthusiasm 
 which, before it wilted, reduced his favorite formula 
 of " make the foreigner pay " to a hazy advocacy of 
 a graduated tariff. But he certainly did not want 
 them at the Club ; " Let us be among ourselves," he 
 said. And it was later, too, though before the Ameri- 
 cans " came in," that he heard on good authority that 
 President Wilson had Jewish blood in him. 
 
 Well, Arden did not want Imalian to-day, and he 
 certainly did not want Bonsor, but he wanted some- 
 body. The busy street produced all sorts of useless 
 figures, and it came to him that it was Tim Burke he 
 wanted. He remembered BurkeV saying that when 
 you want a thing the best plan is to take the simplest 
 means of getting it, and, obvious as this is, it is not 
 realized by those who conduct their lives on a com- 
 plicated system of denials. Arden turned back into 
 the office and telephoned to his friend. Ten minutes 
 afterwards they entered a tea-shop together. As they 
 plunged downstairs to the smoke-room, Arden bowed
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 5 
 
 to a young lady seated alone at a table in the upper 
 room. 
 
 Perhaps it was a sign of the sympathetic nature 
 which made of Burke a likely confidant that, before 
 they were settled, he should say : " Look here ! I'll let 
 you off." 
 
 "Let me off?" 
 
 " You'd rather go and talk to that young woman 
 than stay with me in this reeky hole." 
 
 " It's impossible, Tim." It was Tim in moments of 
 friendly effusiveness. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well, don't you see that if I were such a black- 
 guard as to leave you, I couldn't join her. It would 
 be so marked." 
 
 Burke grinned. "You did think of it, then?" 
 
 " Not as a thing that could be done." 
 
 " You'll never be much good while you're afraid of 
 doing things that are marked." 
 
 " Of course, I never thought of it. Not in that way. 
 It only crossed my mind that in this cursed world you 
 can't have everything. I'd like to talk to the girl well 
 enough, but I wouldn't leave you for untold gold. 
 One has to miss things. Think of what we're missing 
 as we sit here! An infinity of charming girls who 
 would like to talk to us, every kind of adventure, all 
 the excitements of the world, even mild, pleasant, 
 suburban things that are very nice in their way. And 
 all I've got is you, you old devil. Don't you ever feel 
 like that?" 
 
 "Who is she?"
 
 6 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " That's nothing. I hardly know her. She's Sibyl 
 Drew." 
 
 " I seem to know the name." 
 
 " I must tell her that." 
 
 "A celebrity?" 
 
 " Local." 
 
 " She looks not very like an actress." 
 
 " You're getting too subtle, Tim. You're spoiling 
 my idea of you." 
 
 "One's to keep within that?" 
 
 " Let's have something solid and settled." 
 
 " Is she an actress ? " 
 
 " At the Playgoers' Theater. Yes." 
 
 " Ah ! The Repertory Show ? " 
 
 " Merely that." 
 
 " I don't seem to get the hang of these repertory 
 people. Bit holy aren't they? Of course they did 
 your play." 
 
 " They're just like anybody else. The actors, I 
 mean. Of course a particular man or woman may be 
 different." 
 
 "She's different?" 
 
 " I dare say. I came here to talk about something 
 else." 
 
 " Fire away." 
 
 But he didn't seem in a hurry to do that. He toyed 
 with cigarettes while Burke pulled at his pipe with a 
 judicial air; Tim was rather like a comical old judge 
 who would let you off with an admonition if he could 
 do it decently. He was an Irishman with no nonsense 
 about him, and it seemed that his share of romance
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 7 
 
 and the Celtic fervors was distributed all over his 
 body and soul; it relieved his stolidities but it didn't 
 make much show at any particular spot. He had been 
 an engineer on a ship, and now that he was a sort 
 of one on land he had an office where those who 
 wanted to consult him could, and he was the engineer- 
 ing expert of the Herald he retained something of 
 the sailor's charm, for the engine-room is not very far 
 from the deck. He was not quite in his place in an 
 office, but he was a man who could settle down any- 
 where. He was a calm Irishman. 
 
 Arden began to talk about his colleagues on the 
 Herald, and particularly of the remarkable feat which, 
 long ago, had been performed by Attar. Perhaps 
 Attar exaggerated for the purposes of narration, but 
 there was a time when it seemed that he was not get- 
 ting on very well at " the office." His subjects did not 
 inspire him, he made mistakes through an excess of 
 discretion, he was not a good drudge, and his later 
 brilliance was somewhere locked up in him. It was 
 a crisis in his life when he got a note from the editor 
 to ask him to call and have a talk about his work. 
 No mere wigging in the editor's room this time, but a 
 conference in his home, and there was an ominous 
 friendliness about the invitation. Lindsay was the 
 kindest and most generous of men, the most con- 
 siderate of editors, but the Herald was his passion 
 and he could be ruthless in its service. It was the 
 symbol of the aspirations of a political idealist who 
 would bring his aspirations to the test of reason. Young 
 men preoccupiod with their own brilliant careers and
 
 8 TRUE LOVE 
 
 without loyalty to the Herald and what it stood for 
 would not find Lindsay pliable. Attar was conscious 
 of good intentions, but he did not relish the notion of 
 an intimate talk with so formidable a friend. He was 
 consciously vulnerable. 
 
 And yet the interview had been a splendid success 
 for Attar. At Lindsay's first hint he had led off with 
 a sort of confession that ranged from analysis to 
 aspiration, and it was followed up by positive pro- 
 posals. If Attar had been a fool or a vulgarian he 
 would have said that he had got round the old man, 
 but it would be more truthful to say that he had found 
 himself. He had set out, soberly enough, in a tram, 
 but he returned gaily in a hansom it was before the 
 days of taxis and the miracle, the glowing, stupen- 
 dous miracle, was that he had accomplished a rise in 
 salary ; that was the sign and the height of his achieve- 
 ment. The fine flower of it came immediately, for 
 the elated fellow retained the hansom, at great ex- 
 pense, for a drive into the farther suburbs. " He 
 rushed into a drawing-room," said Arden, " I am 
 giving you my impressions of it he scattered a tea- 
 party, isolating the beauteous, the desired one. He 
 was accepted, and, as you know, he has lived happy 
 and glorious ever after. A remarkable triumph." 
 
 " A triumph for Lindsay," said Burke. 
 
 " And there's something in that, Tim." 
 
 " Where do you come in ? " said Burke. " Have 
 you taken to riding about in taxis ? " 
 
 " No," said Arden, " my interview was not such a 
 howling success."
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 9 
 
 "Got the sack?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "How then?" 
 
 " Released with a caution." 
 
 "Why didn't you burst out like Attar?" 
 
 " I should have done it so badly." 
 
 " Which ? The talking or the doing ? " 
 
 " I suppose both." 
 
 " I expect Lindsay thinks you're better than you 
 make out." 
 
 " He said something of the kind." 
 
 "All right, then?" 
 
 " Hardly." 
 
 And then Arden enlarged to the grave, good fellow 
 about it all. Lindsay had told him in the kindest 
 manner that he was not getting on. It was an age of 
 specialization and he wasn't specializing. Burke 
 grinned, interjecting, "Why! you chaps tackle every 
 subject. How can you specialize on 'em all? " Arden 
 explained that among them they were supposed to 
 cover the ground. He had one or two minor subjects 
 and wrote on them passably, but, as Lindsay said, he 
 hadn't attacked any big thing constructively or even 
 ardently. " Of course," he had continued, " you're 
 all right here. You do a fair amount of useful work. 
 
 But " was it quite good enough to degenerate into 
 
 a useful, hack writer? The interview had been de- 
 pressing. 
 
 " It seems to me that the next word is with you," 
 said Burke. 
 
 And then Arden began to review his inefficiencies.
 
 10 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and humiliations, while Burke contributed grunts that 
 varied on a narrow scale. Arden had been pitch- 
 forked into journalism ill-equipped ; without adequate 
 training in economics or history or anything else. His 
 schooling had been cut short early, he had pursued 
 " business " half-heartedly while casual, copious read- 
 ing tended to a sort of culture. And, really, he was 
 finding the pace too hot. He hadn't the boundless 
 energy to overhaul the others. " I'm not of the jeal- 
 ous, emulous disposition," he said. " Oh, dear ! My 
 timidities, niceties, covert advances, reticences, humili- 
 ties. Yes, and my bursts of arrogance when I feel as 
 good as any of 'em. After all, I've done a lot. I've 
 emerged at least." 
 
 He had accomplished one great dead lift to get him- 
 self where he was, and now he was called on for 
 another and another. It wasn't as though he were a 
 genius. He had a certain capacity for taking pains 
 but not an infinite one. When Lindsay wanted a new 
 man on the staff he wrote to some bigwig at Oxford 
 and asked for a list of the best young men about. 
 Brilliant young double-firsts tumbled over one an- 
 other to get on the Herald, but they had to be some- 
 thing better than double-firsts to stay there. Yes, the 
 pace was hot. 
 
 " You want a better conceit of yourself ? " said 
 Burke. 
 
 Was that it? Was he failing through modesty? 
 Certainly he was not going to succeed in the world 
 by a brazen effrontery of the Mr. Stryver kind. And 
 that couldn't be done on such a paper as the Herald.
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 11 
 
 Outside, success might come with % fairly good article 
 well-advertised, for that is the way of the world; the 
 foodstuffs advertised on the hoardings are not at all 
 bad, the men who are pushing to the front have some 
 talent to exercise when they get there. On the Herald 
 there wasn't much pushing to be done. You had to 
 make your way by veritable brainwork; even the re- 
 porters never got a fair chance with headlines. And 
 always there was the close, not unfriendly, but real, 
 persistent criticism of one's colleagues. In the early 
 days he had found the idea of this vastly exhilarating. 
 " So that I draw the breath of finer air " he had 
 quoted Meredith " station is naught." It was one 
 of the jocular traditions of the office and not with- 
 out some foundation that George Meredith had been 
 refused a job there. He wasn't quite good enough. 
 So the young intellectuals would put it to heavy out- 
 siders. They played at being prigs. Never was such 
 a set of boys. They were boys even when they verged 
 on middle-age, and they would write like boys. It 
 came of the inspiration of the great Secretan, who was 
 an article of religion in the office, and of a religion un- 
 staled. His ideals were austere, and he made fun with 
 a charming buoyancy. Of course he was a scholar 
 and brilliance was mated with experience. He worked 
 in politics without being precisely a politician. That 
 was more in the way of the great Round, whose 
 ability was considered an unfair dispensation of Provi- 
 dence. And then there was Brecher, of Semitic origin 
 and lively coloring, which caused him to be known 
 affectionately as the Pink 'Un. It was an office joke
 
 12 TRUE LOVE 
 
 that certain tyrannical rulers of the near East had 
 put a price upon his head. 
 
 A good deal of intellectual ragging went on amongst 
 them all, with perhaps the exception of Secretan, who 
 had always wit enough to extricate himself from the 
 claims that might trespass upon his precious reserve. 
 He was immensely generous and profoundly critical. 
 He kept himself in a timid, arrogant seclusion, and 
 you could imagine or you couldn't what an over- 
 whelming thing his friendship must be. Once he had 
 startled Arden by saying that a writer should be able 
 to perceive a distinct improvement in his style every 
 six months ; perhaps Arden had added the word " dis- 
 tinct " himself, for to Secretan it would be redundant. 
 His precious style which was as natural as a school- 
 boy's chatter! These guarded egoisms seem to make 
 loose, careless fellows of the rest of us. Masefield 
 wanted Synge to add an explanatory stanza to a 
 ballad. " Yes," said Synge, " but I can't take your 
 advice, because then it would not be quite my own." 
 You can be jealous of the interference of your an- 
 cestors. 
 
 Arden had not lost his early loyalties and admira- 
 tions as he came to know these men better. The 
 mutual admirations of the Herald were a stock jest, 
 but they could not become mere attitudes while the 
 men worked side by side and critically. Life cannot 
 be all ideals and generosities and these men, after all, 
 were struggling with one another, if not for a living, 
 for the pride of place. That was the point. They 
 were rivals and friends, and Arden could carry on his
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 13 
 
 conception of a generous rivalry^till he imagined a 
 strife to the death in which friendship would remain. 
 It was a fanciful conception, but in the time to come it 
 was to help him when he and one dear to him needed 
 help. 
 
 He did not draw it quite as fine as this to Burke, 
 who was a man to scent nonsense afar and might grow 
 just a little restive under the exposition of ideals. But 
 Burke was the man to see a thing apart from its froth 
 or fringes, and, what was more to the point, to make 
 his friend see it so. " You see," said Arden, " it 
 would be rather horrible to be excluded. There are 
 times when a man craves kindness, and then he begins 
 to fear it. I don't like the idea of the time when 
 people say, ' Is old Arden still there ? ' And at the 
 end of a long vista I see myself retiring with the 
 honors of service and a casual goodwill. My dear 
 chap, there are days when I feel played out because 
 I know that I shall be played out. I'm getting soft. 
 All my fiery indiscretions are left behind. Am I 
 mature and wise or blunted? The theaters now 
 do you ever read my notices? I'm getting old and 
 tired and kind." 
 
 " You've just lost your first wind." 
 
 " That's all that's any good." 
 
 " Rubbish," said Burke. 
 
 " You've got to work when you're fresh or in 
 spurts." 
 
 " Over a four-mile course? " 
 
 " That's no analogy." 
 
 " I'm not done," continued Arden. " Don't think I
 
 14 TRUE LOVE 
 
 mean that. Let a man have the luxury of a good 
 cry. I'm too dogged to yield, but one has stagnation 
 and repetition periods. I try to be honest with my- 
 self. I can be interested in politics or anything else 
 when they're kindled. It's the intellectual problems 
 that I revolt from. If they were human and dramatic, 
 now!" 
 
 " You seem always to have plenty of work to do," 
 said Burke. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not idle. In fact, I'm a drudge. That's 
 the devil of it. I'm a drudge with tke indolence of 
 the drudge. I want a new start." 
 
 " Then take one." 
 
 " The indolence of the drudge." 
 
 " I've heard you fellows say," said Burke, " that if 
 you want to know anything you must begin to write 
 about it." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Just start doing something." 
 
 " I'm always doing something," said Arden. " I'm 
 at it all day long." 
 
 " Then there's nothing the matter. It's what they 
 call neurasthenia." 
 
 Imalian came in, and after his gentle greetings he 
 mentioned that the little Drew person from the Play- 
 goers' was upstairs. He spoke of her approvingly, as 
 he would of a fine piece of china or the book which 
 he presently produced; these things appealed to his 
 taste. He would share the simple pleasures of the 
 collector with you, and you could believe that he had 
 found quite a tolerable game, but sometimes there
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 15 
 
 was that in his handling, or the deep, abstracted gaze 
 at the precious object which justified him; your sug- 
 gestion that you went straight to the spirit of the thing 
 while he delayed over mummified forms was alto- 
 gether too crude; it died away. He added one thing 
 to another and perhaps he had a ritual of appreciation ; 
 to see him move among his collections made it possible 
 to believe that. It was a surprise to discover that he 
 was extremely modern. He seemed to know just 
 where the young pioneers of the arts had arrived or 
 thought they had. A good deal he would brush aside 
 quietly; when he stopped to ponder you would stop 
 too; rarely, he gave the decisive word. 
 
 Imalian spoke politely about Arden's one-act play. 
 It had been a rather lurid affair, and he dwelt on one 
 or two curious and intimate things in it. The big, 
 rhetorical effect didn't interest him or he took it for 
 granted. Arden had the half-resentful, half-whimsi- 
 cal idea of luring him on to talk of Othello. And, 
 doubtless, he would have been equal to that. The 
 easy, emotional rush to the grandiose was not his way, 
 but may you not conceive even Othello as the light- 
 nings playing over a deep, still pool ? 
 
 Miss Drew had not been in Arden's play, and 
 Imalian was very much interested to hear that she 
 would have the chief part in his forthcoming comedy. 
 This was a full-sized, four-act affair, and was soon to 
 be put in rehearsal. He wanted to know whether the 
 actress's study of the part involved long conferences 
 with the author; it was pleasant raillery, and they 
 were all conscious of the little woman drinking her
 
 16 TRUE LOVE 
 
 tea upstairs. She was something of a discovery, she 
 had had no great success yet, but she had given hints 
 of capacity and she didn't look like a woman who 
 would fail. Imalian was curious to know whether 
 Arden approved of her for his heroine, and it was 
 a pretty obvious thing to say he would know better 
 after two or three rehearsals. Being in the state of 
 self-consciousness that induces talking, Arden said 
 that she was rather small. Imalian pondered this re- 
 mark, so devoid of brilliance he was not very tall 
 himself and invited Arden to explain how it mat- 
 tered. This was not easy, and he could but plead some 
 hazy mental picture of a more commanding figure. 
 " Ah ! the poses ! " said Imalian, and hastened to agree 
 that they mattered, suggesting, however, that every 
 one was big on, a stage, though, obviously, some were 
 bigger than others. They trailed off into some dis- 
 cussion of the great Irving's inches. 
 
 Imalian bent a kindly glance on Burke with some 
 remark, indicating Arden, about these men with two 
 strings to their bow. Imalian and Burke had not 
 many points of contact, perhaps, but Burke sat there 
 pulling at his pipe, not disapprovingly. He saw no 
 harm in Imalian, who probably regarded him as a 
 good specimen of a type which he did not greatly 
 affect. He did not collect Toby Jugs, for instance, or 
 Rowlandsons the instances are barely relevant but 
 any one could tell that there was a good deal in Burke 
 under the surface. Arden had thought of them as 
 two men not destined to get at one another and they 
 did not commonly make the effort. Now, however,
 
 FRIENDS AND RIVALS 17 
 
 Burke did respond to the other's remark. " I'm an 
 Irishman," he said, " but I'll tell "you a story about 
 Burns. You know that he was a good plowman. 
 Well, there was a lad on the farm who did his best 
 to emulate him, and at the end of a day's work he 
 came to Burns and said, ' I kept up with you to-day.' 
 And Burns said, ' Yes, but I've made a sang.' " 
 
 Imalian nodded approvingly. " Poor lad," he said. 
 " It didn't seem quite fair." 
 
 " Let's hope he didn't think much of sangs," said 
 Arden. 
 
 " Now, as to the application," said Burke ; " are this 
 fellow's songs any good ? " He pointed at Arden with 
 his pipe. 
 
 Imalian complimented him on the story. " And so 
 cunning of you," he said, " to emphasize the essential 
 word by making it the only Scottish one." 
 
 Burke disclaimed. " It's the only one I recollected," 
 he said. 
 
 "You got right instinctively," said Imalian, and 
 Arden saw him for a moment as a suave Oriental. 
 
 " Are his plays good enough ? " said Burke. 
 
 " The only one I've seen was very successful," said 
 Imalian. As Burke seemed to be waiting, he added, 
 " Good enough for what ? " 
 
 " To leave all and follow them." 
 
 Arden intervened. " Let him see them first, at 
 least," he said, " and even then Imalian is not the man 
 for downright opinion. You've got to cultivate him. 
 He hasn't got himself made up in little packets." 
 
 " Surely he can give an opinion," said Burke.
 
 18 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I'm a plastic artist," said Imalian genially. " Not 
 articulate." 
 
 " For instance," said Burke with a certain ruthless- 
 ness, " is there any money to be made by these plays 
 of his?" 
 
 Imalian gave the point polite consideration. 
 " Somehow," he said, " I've got into the way of asso- 
 ciating art with the spending of money." 
 
 Burke grunted and got up. They all got up and 
 passed upstairs. Each of them glanced at the place 
 which Miss Drew had vacated.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 
 
 GEOFFREY ARDEN lived with his sister Mary in a little 
 house, something between a survival and an eccen- 
 tricity, that broke the line of Grayling Street which 
 connected the Oxford Road with Upper Brook Street. 
 The street's name was a mystery, but a slightly stimu- 
 lating one, and they took a good deal of pleasure in 
 the individuality of their house, standing back from 
 the road in a quite appreciable garden, which was kept 
 decent rather than gay. The house had a number, but 
 you could find it without, which was something to 
 be thankful for in a street generally uniform, and it 
 had a stucco front and gables, a respectable amount of 
 antiquity, some tradition of learned occupants, and 
 low, rather quaint rooms. It was considered to suit 
 the Ardens, and particularly Mary Arden, who was 
 so full of sympathy for her fellow-creatures and so 
 rarely got into line with them. It had seemed the 
 obvious thing when Geoffrey joined the Herald, that 
 she should come to keep house for him, for she was 
 the only other unattached member of one of those 
 families which for years seem almost impervious to 
 change and then scatter and dissolve. Mary and 
 Geoffrey had lived most of their lives in another Man- 
 
 19
 
 20 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Chester suburb, and most of their education had been 
 received in Manchester. 
 
 They lived together as a matter of course, and yet 
 each had doubts and reticences about it. They had 
 sympathies and affections profoundly, and yet all 
 sorts of tricks of reserve had grown between them. In 
 the old days, the family had been a pretty voluble one, 
 and the ardent young people had taken some pride in 
 the exclusion of what they called sentimentality. Per- 
 haps something had gone with it, and Geoffrey could 
 recall with amusement disputations on pure tragedy, 
 utilitarianism, or the survival of the fittest. They 
 seemed to leave little room for tenderness, and it was 
 Mary who would commonly put in some plea against 
 the logicians. She had a way of her own in taking 
 the world; she would not accept easy conclusions 
 against it. 
 
 Yet at times she would blaze out into a Sermon on 
 the Mount to the disconcertment of any man of the 
 world irony. She drove athwart Geoffrey's moods, 
 and he found himself involved in passionate argu- 
 ments with her, half-agreeing sometimes and roused 
 to an extreme of antagonism by the mere irritant de- 
 tail. She had had about her so often and so long, 
 those who did not see as she saw that now she would 
 assume opposition and break defiantly into it. She was 
 intensely democratic, but she was intensely conserva- 
 tive too. She would not accept the inevitable; she 
 would not make terms with the devilish. The jokes 
 were against her, but she had a disarming perception 
 of them. Her courtesies with servants had sometimes
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 21 
 
 run to curious extremes, and she had to give up shak- 
 ing hands with them when it appeared that they did 
 not like it. She had been known to insist on giving a 
 market woman the fantastical price named in the pre- 
 liminary palaver, for it was plainly wrong that you 
 should give a poor woman less than a fair price be- 
 cause the exigencies of the market favored you. A 
 moral problem bothered her when Geoffrey suggested 
 that it was his money she had spent. She was not of 
 this world, it seemed, or she was penetratingly of it. 
 
 Walking home that day, after his talk with Burke 
 and Imalian, Geoffrey imagined himself discussing his 
 prospects, his life, everything, with Mary. She would 
 be immensely sympathetic, he knew; she would want 
 to go deep with him. And he was so vague about it 
 all ; he didn't know what he wanted or what he could 
 do. He was drifting, and to drift is a great pre- 
 possession. Sometimes when he had talked with Mary 
 about himself he had felt like the young man with 
 great possessions when that unreasonable demand was 
 made upon him. If he had only had a clear con- 
 ception of what he must leave and what follow! 
 Mary might help to clarify, but it seemed almost im- 
 possible to overcome his reluctance to speak to her. 
 Perhaps it was indolence at the heart of him. Rude 
 circumstance has made great men of those who would 
 never have been stimulated from within. 
 
 He found Mary in the little front garden which had 
 hardly yet escaped from its winter dankness. She 
 was pottering about, encouraging the spring flowers 
 with little kindnesses ; she was an impulsive gardener.
 
 22 TRUE LOVE 
 
 As he approached he could see her bending over her 
 work and then she straightened herself and looked 
 about questioningly. She had this way of questioning 
 her environment; she was never dull; it might have 
 been a startling world. She gazed at the sky and then 
 at the darkling houses about her as if with appre- 
 hension. She was young, much younger than Geof- 
 frey, and dowdily, demurely garbed. You could be- 
 lieve that her clothes had been put away in lavender ; 
 she was one of those persons who could tend a herb 
 garden without any degree of affectation. She was 
 timid and very determined, meek and unyielding. 
 
 It was light enough for Geoffrey to see the startled, 
 deprecating look with which she so often accosted 
 him. He had sometimes been irritated by it, for it 
 seemed to accuse him of a sort of brutality. It was 
 incredible, but they had their quarrels. Her eyes 
 would flash, her hands clench, she would speak 
 vehemently and rapidly. And he would ride rough- 
 shod over her; to his chagrin, he would lose his 
 temper and the thread of his argument. All the time 
 they agreed fundamentally or might have done so. 
 It was annoying that he should be forced into the 
 illiberal attitude by her extravagances. So they ap- 
 peared to him, and it may be feared that sometimes 
 he listened to her with the ears of horrified conven- 
 tion, for he had the social sense and she had not. 
 Of course she thought a great deal of him, he was a 
 prime figure in her world, as she in his, and he had to 
 guard against her assumptions of his importance. 
 And now they met with the consciousness of a hot
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 23 
 
 discussion on capital punishment^ in which he had 
 gone further than he should in defense of law and 
 she had classed judges and hangmen together as the 
 true murderers. It had ended with some shy, emo- 
 tional apologies which had the effect of an impalpable 
 barrier between them. He wanted to tell her of his 
 interview with Lindsay, and he didn't want to tell her. 
 
 He began to roll the lawn, and she went on with her 
 coaxing and tidying. He pushed and pulled himself 
 into good humor, and presently they went into the 
 house in a state of natural amity. The light of a 
 pleasant fire flickered over the walls, and the books 
 always looked homely. Here was quietude, a safe 
 retreat; life here with Mary would go on deepening 
 without change. Deepening? There was the point. 
 
 He began rather abruptly to tell her of what Lind- 
 say had said, and she seemed to listen with her startled 
 eyes, interrupting little but always with something on 
 his side; an inference or assumption making for his 
 value or importance. Her loyalty was touching and 
 it provoked doubts ; a man may be a good fellow and 
 shrink from impossible standards ; he may ever decline 
 the measure and exceed it. He began to feel harried. 
 He was having a severe day; first Lindsay and now 
 Mary. Lindsay had said : " I can't trust you if you 
 don't trust yourself," and he had replied : " You may 
 trust me for a bit more than I pretend to." At that 
 Lindsay had bowed his head in meditation and then 
 nodded assent. 
 
 Geoffrey told Mary this and she said : " It's only 
 that you're humble."
 
 24 TRUE LOVE 
 
 "If you would excel you must not be humble," he 
 said. 
 
 She shook her head impatiently at this, and they 
 both recalled a half serious, paradoxical argument in 
 which he had enlarged on the arrogance of Christ. 
 He had no wish to pursue it. " I suppose," he said, 
 " there are times in life when what one wants is a 
 bit of hard thinking and a decision. I've drifted 
 into a place where politics are necessary. You 
 must be interested in politics and keen on your 
 side." 
 
 " Well, if your side is the people's side " she 
 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, I'm sound enough, I'm all right ; but this con- 
 tinual holding your own in argument isn't my line. 
 I suppose it's not caring enough about the ultimate 
 results, it's not applying imagination to the particular 
 thing. Politics, you know, are most awfully exclu- 
 sive. If you are to be effectual you must be ruthless 
 to the other side. You must be adamant. You must 
 understand their case so that you can guy it. A politi- 
 cal movement is justified by a slight balance in its 
 favor. But who would believe in you if you summed 
 up so? You must make it overwhelming; a case so 
 clear that it's half rhetoric. It's possible on paper, but 
 not when you come to talk to people." 
 
 " There are many things to be done that are clear 
 enough," she said. 
 
 " Yes, but they're not the things that come next. 
 They're not what we're up against." 
 
 " Make them so."
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 25 
 
 " Try, and you spend your liie preaching in the 
 wilderness." 
 
 " A noble life." 
 
 " Or is it pure selfishness?" 
 
 " Are you different from the others the men you 
 work with ? " 
 
 " I suppose I'm a dilettante beside them." 
 
 " That's hateful." 
 
 " Yes, I hate to be a dilettante." 
 
 "Then, why ?" 
 
 " But I shouldn't hate to be an artist" 
 
 She was silent, and he went on : " These political 
 meetings seem stupid and inhuman to me. I can't 
 keep on one side. Or I can only do it when I get 
 irritated. That simplifies matters." 
 
 " Then you should be irritated by all the injustice 
 of the world. Irritated? Angry. Indignant." 
 
 Their talk was getting on to old lines, and he had 
 no heart for disputation. Mary, as he told her in 
 jocose moods, was a Red Republican, a Jacobin, for 
 whom the mere liberalism of the Herald was too mild. 
 And if he suggested that it is those who care for 
 reform who will compromise, she went off on some 
 excursion of the fiery ideal. The mere sanities did 
 not appeal to her, and, indeed, they are so often merely 
 indolence. She was not satisfied to believe that wis- 
 dom may be with the extreme; surely it must be; 
 she was impatient of those who would falter or halt 
 in the generous impulse; in labor and sacrifice she 
 would always be with the extreme. And Geoffrey 
 sympathized with her there. You may yield to an-
 
 26 TRUE LOVE 
 
 other's power when you would not to another's will. 
 Poor Mary! She dwelt apart among her ideals, and 
 she might have been a pretty girl wielding a tennis 
 racquet. Men looked at her, advanced, and retired 
 disconcerted or abashed. Women found some re- 
 proach in one who would not make the best of her- 
 self, and sometimes presumed to pity her. She was 
 extremely courteous if you did not vex her, she was 
 apt for the humor of the occasion, but she rarely 
 contributed to the social jollification. Geoffrey did 
 appreciate her, and if she had died he would have 
 canonized her. 
 
 " I sometimes think I'm a poor creature, Mary," 
 he said " It's that you are not," she interrupted 
 " but I've doubts, I can't go for things bald-headed, 
 like you." " I only talk of it," she said generously 
 " I suppose I shall always drift unless, indeed, I could 
 become, as Secretan says, passionate on both sides." 
 "What did Mr. Secretan mean?" 
 " Well, it's the artist who's that or may be." 
 " But he can't escape right and wrong," she said. 
 " His villains are right if they're good villains." 
 " Will you let me read your play now ? " she said. 
 This was more to the point than abstract argu- 
 ment, and he thought now that he would like her to 
 read it. He began to talk about his intentions in the 
 play and where his difficulties had been. She pro- 
 posed that he should read it to her with what com- 
 mentary he pleased, and he liked the idea and then 
 shrank from it in his reticent, self-conscious, meticu- 
 lous way. With a shy jocularity she suggested herself
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 27 
 
 as a touchstone after the kind of Moliere's old woman. 
 He could not bring himself to agree to her proposal, 
 but he held on to the tail of the subject, and they 
 drifted to talk of the old days when they used to vie 
 with one another in learning verse yards and yards 
 of verse. She would murmur her pieces in her bed- 
 chamber, while he spouted his about the house; 
 broadly, he was for the dramatic and she for the 
 lyrical or elegiac. She had had a curious little secret 
 rivalry with him, for all her generosity. She was 
 proud of him but that did not save him from flashes 
 of her contempt. For, as a youth, he was inveterately 
 grandiose and, in the particular connection, stagey. 
 He used to make pencil drawings of big scenes 
 Hamlet shouting, "How now! A rat?" and poking 
 his sword into the arras, or Othello taking lago by 
 the throat and he would put his figures on a stage 
 with footlights in front of them. Mary ridiculed this, 
 and he stuck to the custom rather disingenuously, for 
 he began to see the absurdity of it. But he did not 
 draw much ; he preferred to do the scenes " in the 
 round " with himself as the principal. Mary had been 
 induced to play Ophelia to his Hamlet in the " Get 
 thee to a nunnery " scene, but this was in private and 
 she would not do it before the family. He wanted 
 her to be the Queen in Hamlet, too, and submit to the 
 fiery denunciation of those speeches that are so sadly 
 curtailed in the acting versions the " Unpeg the 
 basket on the house's top," and so on but she shrank 
 from that; she felt the gloom and horror of that 
 colloquy while he exulted in its rhetoric. And they
 
 28 TRUE LOVE 
 
 did not go together very well, for it was natural for 
 her to under-act whether in her life or a play and 
 he would roll out the speeches royally. The family 
 was more than indulgent to him, and he was some- 
 times called upon for the choice bits of his repertory 
 even when friends were there. He would resist; he 
 wanted not to do it but he wanted to do it, and some- 
 times he would and sometimes he would not. Finally, 
 it might be, he would give them Hamlet's " Oh, what a 
 rogue and peasant slave am I ! " or even Othello's 
 speech to the council. Once at a small entertainment 
 he had recited " The Dream of Eugene Aram," and 
 the rumor ran that a lady had gone out; it was too 
 tremendous. And yet he had failed to burst open his 
 collar or to make himself look a wreck as it was said 
 Irving did, and this was disappointing. 
 
 The glamour of the theater had come upon him, and 
 if he strutted and mouthed there was something of a 
 child's sincerity informing it all. It was Shakespeare 
 no less that he affected, and Shakespeare is the 
 greatest of boys' companions. The sound and fury 
 compelled him, but streaks of the passion began to run 
 through him; he nursed lines and phrases, and some, 
 in his later judgment, were middling and some su- 
 preme. When he went to the theater he was not 
 wholly uncritical, and, indeed, he had a secret con- 
 viction that he could say the speeches better than these 
 actors did, though he admired the management of 
 their arms and legs. And, really, actors in the classic 
 parts have some queer intonations and stresses that an 
 intelligent schoolboy might avoid. Of course, he
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 29 
 
 yielded to the spell of Irving, and b^gan to imitate him 
 consciously and unconsciously. If occasion had 
 served he might have become an actor himself, and 
 he had a dim notion of going to see some famous 
 manager, compelling his attention, and astonishing him 
 by the power and tenderness of his recitations. 
 
 Mary used to go with him to the theater sometimes, 
 and they did not always admire the same things. It 
 was faintly irritating when she picked out some ob- 
 scure little detail as it seemed to him for the praise 
 that he would lavish on the tirades or some explosive 
 scene. But sometimes they agreed thrillingly. She 
 told him he was a poseur, and as he was not entirely 
 unconscious of it his innocent gestures of the heroic 
 or diabolical yielded to something more subtle of their 
 kind. Boys who get beyond the simple appetites do 
 commonly have a period of physical and mental pos- 
 turing, for they imitate what seems good to them. 
 Geoffrey thought himself a superior young fellow, no 
 doubt, and alternately he scorned those about him 
 who could not share what he thought his deeper life, 
 and made pathetic advances to them. For he was 
 a companionable fellow, on the whole, and liked fun 
 well enough. He had some decent and fairly sincere 
 phases of self-abasement. Having acquired the trick 
 of introspection he was dashed sometimes at the pov- 
 erty of what he found within; he examined himself 
 from without and found much to correct. He con- 
 sidered himself too much it was a relief sometimes 
 to have hearty reactions among hearty people. Even 
 in his schooldays, he had been a little over-conscious
 
 30 TRUE LOVE 
 
 of his personality. With others beating him in one 
 thing or another, he had framed the question : " How 
 am I better than others ? " And yet when chance had 
 thrown in his way that glibly-used phrase, noblesse 
 oblige, he had made of it a secret possession. They 
 might be more learned or stronger or swifter than he, 
 but he had himself, after all ; he had a kind of faith. 
 Presently he was to realize some of the dangers of 
 egoism, and when he read Meredith's great exposure 
 it was with an amazed perception of the pitfalls that 
 he had not always avoided. If he had had an inner 
 light it was left burning before a shrine while he 
 stumbled in the darkness. 
 
 Geoffrey had been to an expensive preparatory 
 school where all was jolly and correct, but a neces- 
 sary cutting down of expenses " condemned " him to 
 the Grammar School. Yet to conceive this as con- 
 demnation was unworthy, for it is a great school and 
 worthy of the best. But he had moments of dark 
 resentment, and as a boy dimly conceived himself as 
 a tragic figure overburdened. He was not altogether 
 unconscious of his absurdities and arrogances; some 
 touch of humility may make the difference between 
 arrogant and noble. At the Grammar School he 
 found himself beaten in .scholarship by Jews and 
 Armenians, and his national pride revolted. He began 
 to work hard, and if he did not always hold his own 
 in class he was not far behind. He tried not to regard 
 foreigners as aliens; he was determined to be lib- 
 eral. 
 
 He had friendships, if not enduring ones, and once
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 31 
 
 an intimacy with one of the older boys soon to pass 
 on to the University, became a subject of badinage or 
 reproach in the family. He was accused of copying 
 Linton, and this became one of the small impulsions 
 in a determination to be himself. For when he turned 
 upon Linton for lights with which he was accustomed 
 to inspect himself, he found it wouldn't do at all. 
 Linton might be all very well for Linton, yet now he 
 perceived a danger in these easy boyish imitations. 
 But may you not imitate the heroic figures of history ? 
 He realized that even his inner life his spiritual life, 
 as he presumed to phrase it had been made up of 
 imitations. All these mouthings and recitations of his 
 had been imitations. He had proposed to interpret 
 Othello and Hamlet, and he had imitated Irving. It 
 was very discouraging. 
 
 And now when Mary proposed to him that he 
 should read his play to her he cast back to these old 
 times when, as it seemed to him now, she was so 
 simply and completely herself, while he splashed about 
 among big figures and resounding phrases. Once he 
 had sat silent while she repeated the whole of the 
 "Adonais," and he had thought she did it rather 
 spiritlessly, but nevertheless he was humbled; he had 
 felt himself loud and shallow and rhetorical. He did 
 not understand that element of assertion, of defiance, 
 that had prompted her to the feat. His compliments 
 upon it had been too extreme for perfect sincerity, 
 and she had resented comparisons leveled at his own 
 superficial performances. He had been bitter with 
 himself, rather than generous to her, and they had
 
 32 TRUE LOVE 
 
 had a queer, strained disputation in which neither was 
 quite sincere. But they had had many disputations 
 which, in the things of the theater, ranged from Ibsen 
 and A Doll's House to The Only Way, in which and 
 its kind she persisted in finding, or at least in seeking, 
 some sort of sincerity, while he would sweep them 
 aside as negligible and worse. 
 
 These things were in his mind as faint repulsions, 
 and he felt that he would not read the play to her, 
 especially as it is so bothering to read a play because 
 you must decide whether to differentiate the speakers 
 by alterations of tone or to repeat distractingly the 
 names before each speech. It was a trifle to sway 
 him, but he recollected too that he had found her 
 vague and unsatisfying about his one-act play. He 
 had wanted her to say that it was good, and he could 
 have accepted a decision that it was bad, but Mary 
 was not one to be pinned down like that. She would 
 not translate implications and inferences into down- 
 right praise, and he was ashamed to desire it. Re- 
 hearsals and performance had made an exciting little 
 episode and the play had gone uncommonly well. 
 It was a rather tremendous affair " too big for its 
 boots," as he said deprecatingly with a pistol shot 
 and a shrill note of tragedy ; it was not exactly crude, 
 but it was pretentious. In a humble mood he might 
 have said that it was like himself, and perhaps Mary 
 thought that, but she could not think it finally and 
 cruelly. He hated the idea of the spurious master- 
 piece, and wished the play had been modest and fine. 
 But he had the sense of the theater; he was sure of
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 33 
 
 that, and, like every quality worth having, it is a 
 danger too. 
 
 It pleased him that the actors should find his lines 
 uncommonly hard to learn. They complained that his 
 speeches went jerkily and that you couldn't tell what 
 was coming next. It seemed that there was a conven- 
 tional diction of the drama, in which a sentence begun 
 might fairly be expected to finish itself, but that Arden 
 had a way of pulling you up and going off into some- 
 thing else. He was slightly uncomfortable when one 
 of them used the word " staccato " to describe what he 
 meant. " But, of course," said Mr. Upjohn, " it's be- 
 cause you're original." This was pleasant, though 
 Arden didn't know precisely what he meant. They 
 were all very nice about the little play and very polite, 
 and the principals assured him that they liked the 
 parts and could make something of them. The man- 
 ager was deferential and encouraged him to make sug- 
 gestions or even, if he pleased, to take a leading part 
 in directing the rehearsal. Clearly, however, this was 
 not expected, and Arden was far too uncertain of 
 what he wanted, to do anything of the sort. He sat 
 at a little table close up to the middle of the footlights 
 with the manager, who was the producer, and enjoyed 
 the queer experience. It seemed, however, that noth- 
 ing was further from the minds of any of them than 
 his play as he had conceived it. What did matter 
 enormously was the position of the chairs and tables, 
 and whether, for instance, if Miss Framlingham took 
 three paces to the left it would be possible for Mr. 
 Upjohn to avoid the sofa without disturbing Mr,
 
 34 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Elleray. When they did get to the lines, the actors 
 had to be pulled up frequently because they laid the 
 stress on conjunctions or prepositions, leaving the 
 passionate adjectives and portly nouns enfeebled. 
 They went astray like children, and yet Arden could 
 perceive that they had the root of the thing in them. 
 The chief concern was with primitive points of tech- 
 nique, but the spirit shone through sometimes in an 
 exquisite intonation or a gesture that shaped his mean- 
 ing. Once or twice he intervened with an explana- 
 tion of what he had intended, and the actor listened 
 indulgently while the producer brooded over the fur- 
 niture. 
 
 It was queer and fascinating, and he began to see 
 the charms of the stage in its undress. The place was 
 gaunt and lofty and complicated, and everything 
 seemed unfinished and ramshackle. He was to dis- 
 cover what an amazing faculty actors have for closing 
 up the gaps and making a plausible presentment. That 
 is what they do. They are not students. They are 
 like an architect whose concern is all with the fagade. 
 You might as well study human nature in fashion 
 plates as in the theater. It is a discredited institution 
 nowadays it has got so far on the road to reform 
 but it is good fun and you may easily persuade your- 
 self that it has great possibilities. And, of course, it 
 has if you have the patience to wait a generation or 
 two. Arden thought of it sometimes as a good idealist 
 should, and sometimes it was all little more than a 
 lark. 
 
 While his one-act play had been rehearsing a little
 
 MARY AND GEOFFREY 35 
 
 lady had peered in at them and v smiled comprehen- 
 sively, and he was told that it was Miss Drew. De- 
 cidedly the theater is romantic. And does it not strike 
 to the center of things? It explores personality, it 
 gives personality its chance. That tiresome attach- 
 ment to a particular series of events which we call 
 politics seemed very much less than worth while. 
 Miss Drew was rather a neat little creature; he had 
 conceived actresses as much more flamboyant than 
 that. 
 
 He had wondered whether the theater might be a 
 possible way out for him. Every young man who 
 does not pay strict attention to business dreams some- 
 times of the stroke of luck not unconnected with 
 latent ability which shall knock business silly. These 
 repertory theaters have no money in them, perhaps, 
 but they give you a start, and they accustom you to 
 aim at some sort of quality. Arden had not the in- 
 tention to write bad plays for money, but it did seem 
 to him that there was room between the impracticable 
 idealist and the people who thrive on popular rubbish. 
 He had no difficulty in making up sententious for- 
 mulas about it, and he sometimes fired them off at 
 Mary. " Art must be conditioned and limited," he 
 would say, and she wasn't very much impressed; she 
 wanted to know what he felt and thought. It was 
 more to the point when he told her that Miss Drew, 
 who was to have the principal part in his comedy, was 
 in lodgings not very far from them. " You'd like me 
 to call? " she said thoughtfully, and he had affected to 
 consider it he was not above humbugging himself
 
 36 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and to decide that it might be useful to get into touch. 
 " You could explain to her what it all means," said 
 Mary playfully, and he had become sententious again 
 about the actor's instinct and his incapacity for 
 thought and judgment. Mary had listened rather 
 skeptically, and said " They can't all be like that," 
 and he had laughed and agreed, realizing that he was 
 putting a thin layer of words over a pleasurable emo- 
 tion. Mary became rather somber, for besides being 
 extremely liberal she was extremely puritan, and call- 
 ing upon young actresses was not in her line. Yet 
 she was happier when she thought of kindnesses to a 
 poor lonely girl in lodgings, and though this aspect 
 hardly belonged to Geoffrey's idea of Miss Drew, he 
 did not discourage it. Certainly she would call. And, 
 as it was impossible for Mary to maintain an attitude 
 involving patronage, she asked Geoffrey if he sup- 
 posed that a brilliant young person like that really 
 wanted to see her. " You are my sister, you see," 
 he said with bold jocularity, and she thought she did 
 see.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 MARY AND SIBYL 
 
 THE new comedy was a very different matter from 
 the one-act play. Geoffrey had judged that shrewdly 
 and justly, but he couldn't make out how good Alice 
 Dean was. He was ordinarily a slow writer, but he 
 had got on surprisingly fast with the first act, and he 
 seemed to have made the discovery that it is easy to 
 write plays. It was an illusion, no doubt, but not 
 wholly an illusion. His experiments in novel writing 
 had proved immensely laborious, for he ruminated and 
 weighed and balanced, and he had every trick of 
 delay. Now and then the dialogue had run on a little, 
 but he knew the dangers of dialogue, and had digested 
 the dictum of a famous novelist, that it must not be 
 used when narrative would do as well. And now in 
 playwriting he might revel in unrestricted dialogue, or 
 so, at first, it seemed. Of course it was not so simple 
 as that, but he had some good half -hours and was 
 sometimes a little alarmed at his facility. One speech 
 provoked another, and his characters seemed to do 
 the work themselves. It was early in the play that 
 he got his great encouragement. The preliminaries 
 were over, and he had manoeuvered his people into 
 position. And then, rapidly, he wrote down half a 
 dozen speeches, pruned one of them and stopped. He 
 
 37
 
 38 TRUE LOVE 
 
 could do no more, he dare do no more then. It was 
 greatly exciting. There had been a revelation, and 
 the play, he saw, was not going to be quite what he 
 thought; his first conception of it had been hard and 
 unkindly. He read the passage over and over as a 
 composer might test his air, finding it sufficient and 
 impeccable. Oh, the life of the artist was the only one 
 worth living! 
 
 He got out into the open air and, pacing about the 
 little garden in the spring morning, he felt extraordi- 
 narily happy. His mind soared away from the play 
 vaguely into the new life. The world was all before 
 him and there was no hurry about the choice. All was 
 easy; the big things were easy. He had found him- 
 self. 
 
 Seeing Mary at the window, he had the impulse 
 to tell her of his great discovery, but even then shy- 
 ness intervened and he couldn't do that. She had 
 known that he was at work and must be wondering 
 what he had come out for. But, of course, writers 
 do pace about the garden looking for ideas, and it 
 was not the first time he had done such a thing the 
 difference was that the idea had come and was too big 
 to live under a roof. Still, he couldn't very well spend 
 the morning in the garden, though he was reluctant 
 to go back to his work. And then it occurred to him 
 that he ought to have pursued the vein, he ought to 
 have taken his fortune at the tide. He hastened back 
 to his room and read the passage again, though it was 
 completely in his mind. There was no doubt about 
 it ; he never had any doubt about it. He made a small
 
 MARY AND SIBYL 39 
 
 correction. Then he squared up to the thing again 
 and invited his characters to speak. They were silent. 
 Their intense life had corresponded with his mood 
 but both had sunk. He must come back to it when his 
 energy was renewed. 
 
 The energy and the excitement were intermittent, 
 but they did not die away. He wrote the first act 
 under their influence, and good things kept coming 
 easily, and sometimes, perhaps, things not so good. 
 Then he toiled at his second act under deep dis- 
 couragement, feeling that he had no more than a 
 mechanical design for his play. He wished that he 
 was Anthony Trollope and could go on doing a satis- 
 factory day's work every time no doubt Trollope had 
 his ups and downs but he couldn't spread out his in- 
 spiration evenly. He would do splendidly or so the 
 illusion went and he would dry up or labor aridly. 
 It meant that he had not learnt to work, to control 
 himself. And, of course, he told himself that there is 
 a difference between Anthony Trollope and the 
 modern writer who puts quality before copiousness. 
 The modern way is the more exhausting, unless, in- 
 deed, you are so easily discouraged that it is all rest 
 and recreation; and it has its dangers of strain and 
 emphasis. You cannot carry on a novel or a play by 
 a series of lyrical inspirations, and yet Geoffrey was 
 conscious of passages in which he had had something 
 of the kind. His second act suddenly became alive 
 with what he felt to be a strange and vital idea. He 
 was excited again and the idea controlled him. It 
 carried him beyond the seemliness of the conventions,
 
 40 TRUE LOVE 
 
 but he knew it was sincere and thought it was beauti- 
 ful. He began the third act in good heart and it ran 
 well, theatrically. Yes ; he felt the jolly, sprightly life 
 of the theater in it, and the idea was not dead, though 
 it was overlaid with wit and fun. The fourth act was 
 simple and satisfying; it gave the plain word with 
 dignity, he hoped. 
 
 He would not be ashamed for Mary to see this 
 play, but all art is lonely work. The others see the 
 wit and catch the ideas but not as the artist sees them. 
 They may agree, but even sympathies and enthusiasms 
 are perfunctory to his complex apprehensions of his 
 own work; even if it were rigid, his mold is one and 
 theirs another. He was conscious that what he did 
 fell far short of ideals, but you will make a priggish 
 affair of it if you are always bothering about ideals. 
 He was half in love with the theater, and its glamour 
 confused the Hymn to Beauty that he would have had 
 clear and noble. And comedy cannot be entirely noble. 
 At times he felt himself a poseur, and his almost 
 austere conceptions of comedy were queerly con- 
 founded with traditions of claptrap. The theater is 
 practical, and even an idealistic manager has got to 
 make things go ; he has to work upon actors who are 
 plastic, but run easily into molds. Even at a reper- 
 tory theater, ideals are not very conspicuous at 
 rehearsal. 
 
 The cast for Alice Dean had been tentatively ar- 
 ranged. Miss Drew was to play Alice, and Elleray 
 the man. Geoffrey was away for a week's holiday 
 when he heard that the play was to be put into
 
 MARY AND SIBYL 41 
 
 rehearsal immediately, and then followed Elleray's 
 letter. He read it after breakfast under a walnut- 
 tree in a pleasant garden a few miles from Oxford, 
 and an interested hostess did her best to sympathize 
 with his snorts and jeers. For the letter was a re- 
 quest to be permitted to " alter a few lines " with the 
 object of " making the part more sympathetic." It 
 was not so much that Elleray wanted to put things in, 
 but he did very positively wish to take things out. He 
 could not give details in the letter, but Geoffrey might 
 " rest assured that the greatest discretion would be 
 observed," and that the character would emerge much 
 more to the taste of the audience than in its original 
 condition. Geoffrey's accents of scornful incredulity 
 presently provoked a peal of laughter from the lady. 
 He made a rather sharp bass second to it, but was 
 slightly dashed when he realized that she had laughed 
 at him. The enormity of the offense was not denied, 
 but, after all, it did not exceed the comic measure, 
 and in a second duet of laughter he was more 
 in tune. Presently he was concocting telegrams, 
 and the one despatched was but mildly ironi- 
 cal. 
 
 He got back to Manchester, and presently he was 
 taking tea and muffins with Elleray in the " garden " 
 of the big hotel. They were friendly to excess, and 
 Arden was wondering whether they would be at one 
 another's throats presently. They trifled over ciga- 
 rettes till Arden picked up the bundle of cues and 
 speeches which Elleray had rather ostentatiously laid 
 on the tea-table. He glanced over a page or two, and
 
 42 TRUE LOVE 
 
 it seemed to him that there was going to be a devil of 
 a row. All sorts of salient things were roughly scored 
 out in pencil, and his first impulse to kick over the 
 apple cart irrevocably was succeeded by a rather pleas- 
 ant feeling of power ; nothing could shake him and at 
 the moment he cared very little whether they did the 
 play or not. So he found no difficulty in being mild 
 and amiable and treating Elleray as a reasonable being. 
 He gave a little sketch of the general intention, to 
 which Elleray listened with a slight sulkiness, and then 
 they went through the part in detail. There is a good 
 deal of the childlike in actors and perhaps this one 
 had been a petted child. Geoffrey flattered, per- 
 suaded, directed, and his task was easier than he had 
 anticipated. Once or twice he had to be firm, once 
 or twice he made trifling concessions with an air of 
 deferring to a mature judgment, and generally he 
 showed Elleray how good the lines were which had 
 been crossed out, and how remarkably they would tell 
 when they were delivered exquisitely as they would 
 be. Geoffrey was not quite sure whether he was act- 
 ing despicably or with refinement of kindliness and 
 wisdom. Neither explicitly drew the inference that 
 Elleray had been a fool, but this was somewhere in 
 the consciousness common to them. The lines were 
 restored, Elleray having thoughtfully provided him- 
 self with a piece of india-rubber. They parted amic- 
 ably, though Elleray managed to convey presage of 
 disaster to the play. "Well, it'll be a rare pleasure 
 to me to see you play the part," said Geoffrey. He 
 had certainly exercised self-control, and when the
 
 MARY AND SIBYL 43 
 
 actor had left him : " Who says Km not a strong 
 man ? " he demanded of the universe. 
 
 With hesitations and misgivings, Mary had decided 
 to call on Miss Drew, and it was really almost an 
 heroical undertaking for her. After touching lightly 
 on the possibility or desirability of it, Geoffrey had 
 said no more about the matter, but Mary knew it was 
 in his mind and she was too loyal to dismiss it from 
 hers. Miss Drew was not at home, and so an invi- 
 tation to tea followed. This, however, was a conse- 
 quence of a hint after poor Mary had thought herself 
 decently out of it for the time. However, the two got 
 on rather pleasantly together, as foes might during 
 an armistice in the days of chivalry. Mary could not 
 but approve of Miss Drew's quiet manners which had 
 nothing about them of stage meretriciousness, and 
 Geoffrey was only doubtful whether Mary wasn't a 
 little too markedly kind. If he had been away they 
 might have got nearer to intimacy. They talked scrap- 
 pily during tea and seemed to be a thousand miles 
 from any vital interest. " This woman has got to 
 justify herself," said Geoffrey heavily to himself. She 
 was going to play Alice Dean, and so he waited for 
 some convincing display of ability. It was stupid of 
 him, for he was intensely conscious of her and he 
 wasn't just a boy falling in love ; he was critical and 
 he was stimulated. It did occur to him that he wasn't 
 being very brilliant himself. 
 
 Cigarettes were produced, and they thawed a little 
 over the paradoxical circumstance that Mary smoked 
 and Miss Drew didn't. Mary began to explain how
 
 44 TRUE LOVE 
 
 she came to smoke, and Sibyl how it was that she did 
 not, while Geoffrey made shy comments about bridg- 
 ing the chasm and taking the edge off yourself. Then 
 he plunged suddenly into the subject in their minds, 
 and asked Miss Drew how she liked the play and 
 the part, what her opinions were or her resentments, 
 whether it was going to be an interest or a bore. He 
 talked away, giving her a little time to prepare, but 
 presently he stopped and confronted her. She did not 
 reply at once, and the others waited as if for a mo- 
 mentous decision; and then she turned to Mary and 
 said: "Do you like it?" 
 
 Mary was startled and for a moment, confused. 
 Then she said colorlessly : " I haven't read it" 
 
 Sibyl looked from one to the other and then wished 
 she hadn't done so. She was conscious of the other 
 woman's jealousy, and Mary had hardly the desire to 
 conceal it. Geoffrey was full of his play, and of that 
 part of it which this girl would represent. It was 
 now his strongest interest, and Mary felt that she was 
 outside it. Doubtless he wanted to talk to this Miss 
 Drew intimately and searchingly, and to pour out his 
 own ideas and intentions. She wanted to leave them 
 to it, and yet she felt incapable of going away on 
 the right note. What was the right note? She re- 
 sented her exclusion bitterly, but she would like to 
 be coolly friendly about it coolly, not coldly and 
 she was afraid that if she got up to go she 
 would cry. There was hardly a pause before 
 Geoffrey said : " It's queer that Mary hasn't read 
 it."
 
 MARY AND SIBYL 45 
 
 " But you never gave me the chance," she said 
 mildly. 
 
 " No. And the curious thing is," he said, turning 
 to Sibyl, " that she's a good critic and could help. I 
 don't mean a good critic, but she sees things that 
 others don't." 
 
 " Then why didn't you make her read it ? " 
 
 "Why?" said Geoffrey. "Why do we boggle 
 everything? Why do we miss our chances and do 
 the wrong things? And the literary man, the play- 
 writer, is a shrinking, sensitive creature." 
 
 " I thought he was as bold as brass," said Sibyl. 
 
 " Shrinking from what ? " said Mary. She under- 
 stood well enough but she nursed her resentment. 
 And she didn't want this woman to come to her as- 
 sistance. In her heart she was afraid of liking her, 
 and she would have been eagerly friendly at any sign 
 of weakness or friendlessness. Miss Drew appeared 
 rather a competent little person; she was decidedly 
 handsome and not at all prepared to be pathetic. 
 Geoffrey didn't make any reply to their last remarks, 
 and Mary rose with quite a well-executed little laugh, 
 and said that she would leave them to thresh out the 
 character together. But Sibyl demurred. She said, 
 " I'll come again when Miss Arden has read it if 
 you'll let me. I shall want her to help me against 
 you." This was not perfectly intelligible, and Mary 
 was in the mood which a downright man might have 
 expressed in " Damn your magnanimities." Geoffrey 
 said, " What's wrong with Alice ? " 
 
 A kind of madness prompted Mary to say, " Is your
 
 46 TRUE LOVE 
 
 name Alice? " She didn't positively know she didn't 
 more than half know that it was the name of the 
 woman in the play. Geoffrey explained rather dog- 
 gedly, and then there was a little sharp laughter. 
 Mary sat down again and said to Sibyl, " What is it 
 you want with me ? How am I to help you ? " 
 
 " It's his view of women of a woman," Sibyl said. 
 " There are things I resent." She paused and then 
 said, " That's all." 
 
 "You don't want me to alter it?" said Geoffrey 
 with an alarmed side-glance of his mind upon Elleray. 
 She laughed and said, " Would you ? " while Mary 
 tried to look politely detached. 
 
 " I'm always open to reason," he said. 
 
 " I thought the artist needn't be," said Sibyl, and 
 then he tried to explain how reason, taste, emotion 
 all combined into a sort of dogmatism on which you 
 would stake your life. " When you get things right, 
 you know it," said Geoffrey. 
 
 She began to pay him pretty compliments on the 
 play and he became restive. Then, "Of course I 
 know it's awfully good," she said, " and different from 
 a lot of the stuff we have to do." He couldn't get 
 much out of her, and soon she went away. 
 
 " A pretty little woman," said Mary lightly, and she 
 was conscious, Geoffrey was conscious, that this 
 wouldn't quite do, that it wasn't so easy as that. Sibyl 
 had impressed her not by what she had done or said 
 but by her reserves. A pretty woman with an air of 
 reserve may become a piquant experience and Miss 
 Drew certainly wasn't a chattering nonentity. To,
 
 MARY AND SIBYL 47 
 
 pursue her into her fastnesses might J)e rare sport for 
 the subtle wooer, and if it turned out all means and 
 no particular end, if the fastnesses were empty, it 
 might be difficult to find a way back. Mary's thoughts 
 might hardly be phrased so, and yet she and Geoffrey 
 had something like this in common. He had not 
 reached the tender and chivalrous state of love there 
 was, indeed, a little canniness left and she was 
 almost afraid to discover that Sibyl was human and 
 beautiful. Poor Mary was ready to despise herself, 
 and yet would cling to cautions and distrusts that did 
 represent something of danger to her brother. What 
 could she give him of romance and of the ecstasies? 
 She gave a timid affection, she was capable of a 
 dogged devotion, if he chose a life of acquiescences 
 she would minister to his comfort. For herself, the 
 celibate's life seemed ordained, though deep in her 
 heart, it may be, amazement and resentment were 
 buried. She had a brother and was missing him in 
 this intricate maze of feelings and repulsions. And 
 then these women from outside come blundering in 
 and they are baited with the trivial femininities ; be- 
 hind, perhaps, are the glories, the appetites, the des- 
 tinies. 
 
 She and Geoffrey sat at dinner together that even- 
 ing and he said, " You really must read that play. 
 It's absurd that I shouldn't have made you do it 
 before." And she said, " Oh, yes ; I'd like to." 
 
 And then they discussed Miss Drew and agreed that 
 though she might lack stage presence Mary smiled 
 secretly while she used this phrase she had an at-
 
 48 TRUE LOVE 
 
 tractive personality and should give an incisive per- 
 formance. They agreed that the rehearsals would be 
 interesting and the first night exciting, that they would 
 have dinner at the German restaurant before the play, 
 and that it would be jolly to make up a little party. 
 They were pleased and merry, and she liked to see 
 him kindle frankly in a sort of schoolboy anticipation 
 and excitement. Some word about the play itself 
 checked him and he fell into a brooding ; she saw him 
 then as deep and sincere, the uncompromising artist. 
 She had her pride in him, but the wider and higher 
 he flew the farther she would be left behind. She 
 had lost him; and she was too late; she had never 
 had him.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 REHEARSAL 
 
 IT still seemed a queer adventure for Geoffrey Arden 
 to make inquiries at a stage-door, and the highly re- 
 spectable commissionaire looked at him with suspicion 
 till he gave his name, upon which he was rather fussily 
 conducted down stairs, and along crooked ways into 
 the bowels of the earth. He passed through some 
 gaunt, ill-defined spaces and encountered one or two 
 groups of ladies and men, who glanced at him curi- 
 ously, before proceeding with what appeared to be 
 desultory conversations. Then he emerged upon the 
 stage and was confronted with the empty circles and 
 the gaping pit. It was strange and grandiose and 
 artificial, and perhaps it was something artificial in 
 his mood that prompted the idea that here was a sub- 
 ject for a sonnet; a sonnet with hollow echoes and 
 reverberations. The idea was in the easy, vague phase 
 and he had not time to pursue it. Upjohn, who was 
 the producer for the occasion, effected a few casual 
 introductions, and polite inanities followed. Then 
 Miss Drew appeared, looking very much like a young 
 lady setting off to shop in St. Ann's Square, and she 
 and Geoffrey shook hands. They had not, so far, got 
 very deep into the recesses of Alice Dean's character, 
 and Geoffrey wanted to say something illuminating 
 
 49
 
 50 TRUE LOVE 
 
 about it. She asked him a question or two, but he felt 
 something of the restiveness of the dramatist called 
 upon to explain what happens off the stage. He re- 
 alized suddenly that he didn't know very much about 
 it, and so he took the bold line that it wasn't his 
 business. " That's for you," he said ; " I dare say 
 my explanations would only confuse you." 
 
 " But I may see it all wrong." 
 
 " Then I've failed." 
 
 There was a sham air of finality about this, but he 
 went on : " You must see it whole. It must be your 
 conception." 
 
 " But it must be part you and part me," she said. 
 
 There was a flattering intimacy about this, and he 
 smiled acquiescence. Yet why was he saying these 
 things to her? Was it sheer inspiration of the mean- 
 ingless accident of wayward talk? He had intended 
 to drill her into his notions of the part. And yet, 
 no doubt, she was a young woman with a will 
 who had every intention of doing things her own 
 way. 
 
 There was a mild little marshaling of ideas, some 
 experimental talk that didn't matter greatly. They 
 were two young people happy together, and if some- 
 thing from their graver lives intruded it was but as 
 the rare flavoring to a common dish. Geoffrey now 
 was not serious as when he wrote the play. She was 
 not serious as presently she would be, grappling with 
 her part. 
 
 Elleray appeared, and his air was one of intense 
 preoccupation. He was, indeed, immersed in the tech-
 
 REHEARSAL 51 
 
 nicalities of his work, overwhelmedjby the mere neces- 
 sity of learning words. At night he would be acting 
 a half-assimilated part, now he was to struggle with 
 " this half-baked stuff of Arden's," already the next 
 week's big thing was hammering at his mind. To be 
 leading actor in a repertory company is an important 
 way of living, but not a comfortable one. Allowances 
 must be made for Elleray, whose talent was perpetu- 
 ally in the forcing house. It seemed that he never 
 could rest except when he was acting; then he could 
 achieve marvels of reticence or immobility. To-day 
 he appeared at the same time to be inscrutable and 
 communicative. The communications were mainly 
 about lapses in management or failures to appreciate 
 his point of view. Miss Drew regarded him humor- 
 ously. 
 
 Upjohn came to Arden, scrip in hand, and con- 
 sulted him about one or two points in the action. The 
 scrip was scored with many pencil markings and mem- 
 oranda, and Geoffrey said apologetically that he was 
 afraid his stage directions didn't help much. They 
 were extremely meager, and he thought that perhaps 
 the producer would rejoice in a comparatively free 
 hand. He put this point to Upjohn, who said : " Some- 
 body's got to do it," with the air of an overworked 
 man. And Geoffrey's heart sank at the idea that he 
 was not very thorough. Perhaps he should have care- 
 fully scored every action and movement like those 
 modern dramatists who knew the color of their hero- 
 ines' eyes, and how many steps down the stage they 
 take before they say " Good-morning." Perhaps he
 
 52 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ought to have insisted on being his own producer, and 
 on molding all the performances to his own full and 
 perfect conception. It is depressing to think that you 
 aren't thorough, but, after all, there are different kinds 
 of vision. You may be satisfied with the heart of 
 the thing. You may toss your work to the actors, 
 knowing that a little more or a little less of their 
 control doesn't matter. Heavens! Where would the 
 novelists and poets be if they were to be made re- 
 sponsible for all the expositions of their work? No; 
 it wasn't a very close analogy. But where are Shake- 
 speare's stage directions? 
 
 Geoffrey didn't say all this to Upjohn, but he 
 thought some of it afterwards. He had a vague idea 
 that Upjohn might say that the play was a splendid 
 one and should be a great success, or that it was won- 
 derfully subtle and deserved it. However, it didn't 
 occur to Upjohn to say anything of the kind, and, 
 indeed, you must not look for the expert to do his 
 handlings of masterpieces reverently. He has to get 
 through with his job, and a masterpiece may stand 
 for overwork and exhaustion and the need of a holi- 
 day. Upjohn was a man who would naturally have 
 brought things to a high state of refinement leisurely, 
 and here he was, condemned to vigorous half -meas- 
 ures. He had the air of a disturbed dreamer, a man 
 called up in an emergency and doing his best. 
 No doubt he conceived himself as an artist, but 
 he was a harassed one, compromising right and 
 left. 
 
 Most of the actors scattered about had the appear-
 
 REHEARSAL 53 
 
 ance of slackness and leisure ; they were ready to play 
 a little at life when they were ^ffot wanted on the 
 stage. But there was a cry of "Alice Dean; Act I.," 
 and everything became more businesslike. The idle 
 actors left the scene, those who were " on " got into 
 position; Geoffrey and Upjohn seated themselves at 
 the table by the footlights and a stage-manager hov- 
 ered about at Upjohn's disposal. The producer should 
 be an absolute dictator, and if an actor is a bigger 
 man than he, it is bad form to presume upon it. To 
 Arden it seemed that much of what Upjohn did and 
 said was open to question, but it wasn't questioned. 
 It was an early rehearsal and so the actors were per- 
 mitted to carry their parts in their hands. Some 
 simply read them, some refreshed their memories 
 continually, Miss Drew seemed to know her words. 
 She did not act much, but her recital had some prom- 
 ising modulations. She begins, Geoffrey thought, by 
 being perfectly intelligent. He was uneasy. To be 
 intelligent is a good deal, but it is not to act and she 
 kept on this plane of understanding astonishingly. He 
 was assured of her sympathy, then? Not quite. He 
 was only sure that she understood a great deal ; per- 
 haps she was even capable of finding him out. He was 
 missing details and he answered stupidly when Upjohn 
 appealed to him about some small point ; Upjohn was 
 punctilious in appealing to the author over what did 
 not matter. With something between impatience and 
 humility Arden intimated that he hadn't mastered the 
 technique of furniture, and Upjohn responded with 
 some platitude about the need for the material even
 
 54 TRUE LOVE 
 
 in the intellectual drama. It was intended rather to 
 appease than to provoke, but Arden was impelled to 
 say: "Do you realize that this play is crammed with 
 emotion?" He said it out loud so that the actors 
 could hear. 
 
 Upjohn looked startled, and, indeed, the interjection 
 was excessive. Miss Drew had provoked it, and 
 Geoffrey subsided with a murmur about intelligence 
 not being everything. There was a slight, awkward 
 pause, and Upjohn, mystified, said, "Well, well to 
 resume " and they went on again. Geoffrey was con- 
 scious that Miss Drew had looked at him inquiringly ; 
 it was more than that, it was protestingly. And then 
 she began to act furiously. She poured emotion into 
 it, she used large gesture. She made it all too rhetori- 
 cal. He was startled, and the other actors seemed a 
 little astonished, but they responded in some degree, 
 and the play began to take on life. Upjohn was puz- 
 zled, and muttered something about " letting herself 
 go a bit." She was like an athlete exercising gently 
 who suddenly extends himself and puts on the pace. 
 Geoffrey was not sure how much he liked it. She 
 went beyond him, she seemed to be neither Alice Dean 
 nor Miss Sibyl Drew. He was vaguely jealous, he 
 hadn't time to judge or think, and he couldn't trust 
 his impressions. It was stimulating, and he perceived 
 that these rehearsals were going to be difficult and 
 fearfully interesting. He was losing his hold on the 
 play. It had seemed to have a finality of form, a 
 kind of perfection, and now this girl was shattering 
 and rending and making a flux of what had been hard
 
 REHEARSAL 55 
 
 and stable. " Confound these actors ! " he said to him- 
 self disingenuously. 
 
 At the end of the act there was a short interval 
 while Upjohn addressed various cautions or incite- 
 ments to particular actors. Geoffrey went up to Miss 
 Drew, who met him smilingly, and waited for him to 
 speak. 
 
 He said : " I don't understand you yet." 
 
 " You mean I don't understand Alice Dean ? " 
 
 He reflected. Then, " Or is it that I don't under- 
 stand her?" 
 
 " Well, now, that's generous," she said. 
 
 "You actors are a disturbing element. I think 
 I shall go in for marionettes like Gordon 
 Craig." 
 
 " What jolly rehearsals you'll have," she said, and 
 he followed her glance up at the flies with its sugges- 
 tion of strings and wires and wretched little dolls 
 at the end of them. They laughed together, and she 
 shuddered a little, at which he wondered passingly 
 whether she was acting now, and whether there was 
 in her mind, as in his, a vision of arid, jerking dolls 
 in the empty theater and all the actors dead. There 
 was quite a pause before he answered : " I admit that 
 this is better fun." 
 
 "Did you like it?" she said "just now?" 
 
 "It?" 
 
 " When I Alice Dean, you know. You thought 
 we had gone to sleep." 
 
 " Oh, but really " he began deprecatingly. 
 
 "We have to please you," she said, and when he
 
 56 TRUE LOVE 
 
 came to think of her and this speech afterwards, he 
 could not make up his mind at all what proportions 
 to give it of irony, pride, or humility. 
 
 He said: "Does the author really matter?" and 
 she : " You think we have no conscience ? " 
 
 At that Upjohn came bustling up and the rehearsal 
 went on. It continued for hours, and Geoffrey went 
 out for a sandwich when he heard that there was 
 no lunch interval. He didn't know whether the actors 
 fasted or lunched in corners at odd moments, but 
 when he returned they were still rehearsing and he 
 felt apologetic. The rehearsal ended after three 
 o'clock, and then the cheerful, overworked creatures 
 melted rapidly away. The time of the next rehearsal 
 was announced, and Geoffrey perceived that Upjohn 
 was intent on extrication from his company. This 
 was accomplished, and Geoffrey wandered vaguely 
 down the back street on which the stage-door opened. 
 He had not the definite intention of intercepting Miss 
 Drew, but when he turned and saw her slowly ap- 
 proaching, he knew what he wanted. She seemed 
 neither to avoid nor seek his company. He suggested 
 tea with some doubt whether it ought not to be lunch. 
 She looked at him thoughtfully, then at the watch on 
 her wrist, and then she gazed for a time at the sky 
 over the tops of the warehouses ; for the moment she 
 reminded him of Mary. She consented simply, and 
 they went into what was called the garden of the big 
 hotel. It was occupied thinly and drearily by belated 
 lunchers and nondescript idlers; it had a slightly 
 rakish air; it was not a happy environment. How-
 
 REHEARSAL 57 
 
 ever, the teapot made a difference, and they talked 
 pleasantly without hurrying to the importances. 
 
 Presently she leaned over the table and said : " You 
 did think me stupid." 
 
 " Not at all," he said. " I thought you were all very 
 intelligent. But " he paused " you seemed to he 
 missing everything." 
 
 " Seeing things and not feeling them ? " she said. 
 
 " Well, if I must be honest " 
 
 " Oh, let's be honest ! " she cried. 
 
 " Then," he said with a rather shaky sternness, " I 
 felt it more of you than the others. I don't know that 
 they were so very intelligent. But you seemed to 
 understand and yet you made me feel that there 
 wasn't much in it until " 
 
 "Until?" 
 
 " Until you burst out." 
 
 "You liked that?" 
 
 " Well, it was strange." 
 
 " Don't you like things strange ? " 
 
 He said : " It's my play." 
 
 " And if I said it's my part? " 
 
 " Of course, I'm quite unreasonable," he said. " You 
 were splendid." 
 
 " When I burst out, as you call it," she said, " I was 
 angry. I thought you should let us get at it our own 
 way. We were only reading our parts this morning." 
 
 He assented, and then he began to develop a little 
 lecture on the actor and the play; it was partly theo- 
 retical and partly felt. He told her that there is a 
 natural opposition between actor and author. "We
 
 58 TRUE LOVE 
 
 want you to interpret," he said, "and you want to 
 create. You think your personalities are the thing, 
 but it's our ideas that matter." He tried to escape 
 heaviness by suggesting the play as the child of his 
 fancy adventuring among ruffians, "and you, no 
 doubt," he said, " think you're doctors trying to save 
 a ricketty child." 
 
 She listened sullenly, and he felt that he was not 
 getting on brilliantly. " You're the very superior sort 
 of author," she said. " I've met one or two of your 
 kind. You write a comedy, and then implore the 
 actors not to spoil it by being funny; and if it's a 
 tragedy, you want them to keep pleasant all the time." 
 
 He laughed unaffectedly at that and it thawed her 
 a little, but he persisted in forcing this notion of the 
 essential opposition. Perhaps he was proud of the 
 idea; perhaps the deepening of his relation with her 
 engendered a kind of revulsion. He was over-austere, 
 he was rather ridiculous. Suddenly he saw her as a 
 pathetic, lonely figure. He remembered with shame 
 the theory of some bold talker that the actress to be 
 supreme must be, among other things, a courtesan. 
 
 Poor girl. What an affront to her fine delicacy that 
 such a thought should cross his mind ! She was alone. 
 These actresses are strangely detached. If they have 
 mothers and fathers these are appendages. 
 
 He wanted to be nice to her, and this took the 
 primitive form of a generous order for cakes. She 
 was his match in wits, she appeared highly competent 
 and self-contained, and yet, at times, she appealed 
 to him as a child. He just wanted to gratify her and
 
 REHEARSAL 69 
 
 he said: "What a beautiful enunciation you have! 
 It's almost like that of a foreigner" 
 
 " A foreigner ? " she said, and he feared that he had 
 offended, but she smiled obscurely. " You would not 
 make an alliance with a foreigner? " she said. 
 
 "An alliance?" 
 
 Hurriedly she said, "Yes. An artistic alliance. 
 We actors are foreigners to you." 
 
 He felt extraordinarily friendly to her, and it needed 
 all his native caution and his acquired punctilio to 
 prevent his saying something excessive, rash, or pre- 
 mature. It is difficult to keep the wit cold when you 
 speak about alliance with a mysterious, intriguing, 
 young woman. So she appeared to him, and perhaps 
 the childlike in her was a most dangerous quality. 
 Happily, he hit a note sincere and friendly. " I've 
 been captious," he said, " and I'm a fool. You're a 
 wonderful actress and I'm as pleased as Punch to 
 have you in my play. Will you believe that I'm enjoy- 
 ing it tremendously ? I'm grateful to you. I'm grate- 
 ful, really." 
 
 He leaned over the table and looked frankly, smil- 
 ingly, into her eyes. He was startled to see them fill 
 with tears. She looked away quickly, but she could 
 not disguise the fact nor he his commiseration. " Have 
 I been very brutal ? " he said, and she shook her head. 
 She stretched out her hand and he was startled again 
 at the idea that she was going to shake hands with 
 him. Fortunately, he had not time to commit him- 
 self to this idea, for she merely took a cake from the 
 dish, a handsome little cake with pink sugar on it.
 
 60 TRUE LOVE 
 
 He found this curiously affecting. He thought she 
 didn't want the cake and interpreted it, rightly enough, 
 as a pathetic little clutch at composure. 
 
 " I'm not without emotion, you see," she said pres- 
 ently. And then she added : " I go like that when 
 people are kind to me." 
 
 " But " he said, and she interrupted him : " Oh, 
 
 don't think I mean that people are unkind. I've a jolly 
 time, I can tell you." 
 
 And then she began to speak most handsomely about 
 his play, and they were bathed in a very uncritical 
 glow of mutual admiration. It was delightful, and 
 nature's subtle allurements were at work beautifully 
 between them. So generous they were, so pleased 
 with one another, and they parted in the utmost amity. 
 " I was rather brutal," he said, and " No, but I was 
 sulky," she said. Perhaps they were sane enough to 
 see some comic aspects of it when they cooled.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 LOYALTIES 
 
 GEOFFREY went to several rehearsals and always found 
 it interesting, but it began to appear that all was not 
 going well. The day of production approached, but 
 the actors didn't know their parts, and the action, to 
 put it moderately, was ragged. Men and ladies in 
 the company came up to Geoffrey occasionally to dis- 
 cuss their parts, and sometimes they made a fine show 
 of interest in the psychology of the characters. " Psy- 
 chology " was a favorite word when Geoffrey was 
 about, though he shuddered when he heard it. He 
 was at a loss to explain the deep inwardness of his 
 minor characters, but it seemed that rather perfunc- 
 tory explanations would do. Everybody was very 
 polite to him ; with the exception of Miss Drew they 
 were all rather solemn, and he realized that the play 
 was regarded as a doubtful, if not a desperate, experi- 
 ment. It was a little unconventional in its naturalism 
 no doubt, though there was not a loose nor a lewd 
 word in it, and even Miss Drew, who stood up for her 
 fellows, admitted that actors are the most conventional 
 of people. The head and front of the trouble was 
 Elleray, who maintained an air of profound dissatis- 
 faction, emitting at times slight interjections of dis- 
 tress. Having given way he now played the role of 
 
 61
 
 62 TRUE LOVE 
 
 victim with politeness, resignation, and a subdued an- 
 guish. 
 
 It was amusing, but it was not very comfortable. 
 Upjohn grew portentous, and there was a good deal 
 of gossiping in corners which Geoffrey sometimes 
 broke in upon jocosely. He heard a whisper of with- 
 drawal, and asked Upjohn what it meant. Upjohn 
 was in genuine distress. Withdrawal would be a 
 reflection on his attempt at production, it would in- 
 volve all sorts of uncomfortablenesses, and, besides, 
 Upjohn was a sensitive man, very much alive to the 
 obligations and the courtesies. He hinted that Elleray 
 was still sulking over his part, and lamenting the ab- 
 sence of those sympathetic touches that make the 
 whole pit kin. Resisting an inclination to consign 
 Elleray to blazes, Geoffrey sought him out and warmly 
 congratulated him on his insight, his execution, and 
 his effectiveness generally. " It's going to be one of 
 the triumphs of your career," he said. He laid it on 
 thick, but not too thick. Elleray responded, and, fine 
 actor as he was, there was no difficulty in finding 
 things to praise. Yet Geoffrey knew that there was 
 a large infusion of insincerity in this attitude of his, 
 and, illogically enough, he justified himself by his bit- 
 terness. His tongue bulged in his cheek, he was 
 seething with vexation and contempt. He went 
 round the company with assurances that they were 
 doing it all thundering well and everybody was 
 pleased. 
 
 And, of course, he believed his play to be all right. 
 One day he went home to Mary and she asked, timidly,
 
 LOYALTIES 63 
 
 how it was going on. He wanted- to talk about it. 
 " It's going on splendidly," he said, " and the duffers 
 think it's a failure." 
 
 " The duffers ? " said Mary. " You don't mean that 
 Miss Drew " 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no ! " said Geoffrey in alarm. " She's 
 loyal enough." 
 
 " Loyal ? " said Mary. " Is it a question of loy- 
 alty?" 
 
 She was perturbed at the idea of another woman 
 being loyal to Geoffrey. He proceeded to explain 
 certain differences to be observed in the company. 
 Miss Drew was acting beautifully, and, while putting 
 all her individuality into the part, was always ready 
 to do what she was told. And here, he explained, you 
 perceive the true artist who, indeed, may be a slave. 
 He (or she) is troubled little by the mere tyrannies 
 if you will only leave his (or her) mind to work out 
 its salvation. An illustration came in a dim remem- 
 brance of the worker in stone that Ruskin writes 
 about. There he is perched high above the world 
 carving his bits of detail on the Gothic cathedral. 
 He is an artist of riotous fancy, living his life of 
 ecstatic happiness apart from the world. When he 
 descends to the earth he may be a person of no con- 
 sideration, he may be thrust about, struck, kicked, 
 treated with contumely. He smiles; he has cheated 
 these fools. 
 
 He ran on in this strain, leaving Miss Drew behind. 
 Mary said : " But in the world he becomes subtle and 
 insincere."
 
 64 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Perhaps," said Geoffrey, and then, remembering, 
 he said, " She's staunch enough." 
 
 Staunch enough. Loyal enough. Mary did not like 
 it, and when she did not like a thing she must try to 
 be just to it. " You're lucky to have Miss Drew," she 
 said. " She seems a person who could understand. 
 Oh, she could understand things deeply!" 
 
 " I'm glad you like her, Mary," he said. 
 
 " Like her? " said Mary, startled. " Why shouldn't 
 I like her?" 
 
 " Well, it's a great thing to be liked by you." 
 
 She blushed happily. She would have left it at that, 
 but the invincible sincerity in her would not have it 
 so. " I don't know her very well, you see. I admire 
 her, of course, but as to liking that will come, I dare 
 say or would if I saw much of her." 
 
 He was silent. He was conscious of the feminine 
 resentments. They are exploited in a thousand vul- 
 garities that catch the eye in comic papers or are 
 bandied to and fro by the facetious. Behind them lies 
 a little truth, but it is not truth till all the womanly 
 generosity and renunciation are taken into the account. 
 A man must be cautious when he speaks to his sister 
 of another woman for whom he begins to care. A 
 sister may blurt out things or she may be conspicuously 
 cautious. 
 
 They returned to the play and it appeared that, 
 vital as was Miss Drew's part, the body and bones 
 of it must be upheld by Elleray. Of him Geoffrey 
 could speak freely and humorously. He was another 
 manifestation of the artistic temperament. His no-
 
 LOYALTIES 65 
 
 tion seemed to be that this was a kind of season ticket 
 for even the most extravagant excursions. In what- 
 ever way you made a fool of yourself you had only 
 to say " artist " and the officials of the world if they 
 knew their business retired respectfully or said 
 " Pass." It was a little awkward, certainly, when 
 artist clashed on artist in matters of business. They 
 were apt in that case to develop business qualities. 
 
 Like most actors, Elleray wanted a fuss made about 
 him and it was natural enough that he should. The 
 advertiser and the artist become inextricably mixed, 
 and the advertiser wishes to be regarded with affec- 
 tion. Actors have a pathetic desire to be regarded 
 with affection, and in consequence they lose a little in 
 austerity. Who has not seen a popular lady before 
 the curtain making love to her audience en masse? 
 And when the big man comes to a town he is a good 
 deal occupied with thoughts of his reception. It seems 
 to matter more that there should be a roar of applause 
 when he comes on, than that some obscure person in 
 a back row should perceive the fineness of his art. 
 And so Elleray, craving affectionate sympathy, didn't 
 like at all that he should have to betray ugly, sinister 
 qualities in his parts. It was nothing to him that they 
 should contribute to a beautiful whole, and in this 
 he was supported by his customers in the pit who 
 care very little about these wholes. A straightforward 
 villain to be knocked on the head is intelligible, but 
 how dangerous are these half-sympathies! How in- 
 sidious is the art that would confuse a moral issue! 
 Besides, there are certain unalterable grooves for the
 
 66 TRUE LOVE 
 
 sympathetic spirit; the emotions have their channels. 
 The classical example is given by Mr. Bernard Shaw, 
 who had been away for a holiday and returned to 
 the theater to find his " Devil's disciple " kissing a 
 strand of the lady's hair surreptitiously. The point 
 of the play is that he should do nothing of the kind, 
 but Mr. Forbes Robertson always used to do it in 
 Hamlet. 
 
 Geoffrey talked himself into a good humor with 
 Elleray. He wasn't going to play the part quite as 
 it should be, perhaps; he was broader, bolder, more 
 impudent in his audacities than Geoffrey's conception 
 warranted. Subtlety of decadence was hardly in his 
 line, nor did he quite perceive the fineness of spirit 
 that penetrates through failure and foulness to the 
 essential understanding ; on the technical side, Geoffrey 
 put it, he didn't drawl enough. But Elleray, like all 
 fine actors, was an instinctive opportunist, and Geof- 
 frey could see with half an eye how he would make the 
 thing go. Indeed, Elleray had begun to perceive this 
 himself, and lamentations pointing to abandonment 
 of the part changed insensibly to an heroic intention to 
 endure the burden to the end. 
 
 "I do hope they'll do it well," said Mary. She 
 would have said that she hoped it would succeed, but 
 that this might have been taken to suggest some doubt 
 of him; failure, she would imply, could only be from 
 lapses of the actors or stupidity in the public. And 
 Geoffrey, in a revulsion of self-confidence, assured 
 her that the play was " actor-proof " ; that positive 
 failure was impossible.
 
 LOYALTIES 67 
 
 " But good things do fail ? " she -said, and he knew 
 that she feared his disappointment. 
 
 " Not if they're good in the right way," he said, 
 braving platitude, but he added : " Of course, I don't 
 mean that it's going to be a howling success. The 
 point is that these theatrical people don't know their 
 trade. They don't know good from bad and they 
 don't know success from failure except by results.'* 
 
 " But isn't that the way one does know it ? " she 
 said, and " I'm a bit of a pro at this game, Mary," he 
 said. His confidence was surprising. 
 
 Still fearing his disappointment, she insinuated a 
 doubt of the repertory theater and its highly respecta- 
 ble audiences. " Don't fear failure for me," he said ; 
 "you might as well fear success." And then he 
 quoted : 
 
 " But, bright God 
 O' the lyre what bully-drawlers they applaud.'* 
 
 Quite in high spirits he explained what Meredith 
 meant by bully-drawlers, and he professed himself 
 content to hang back in the race for a time, as Mere- 
 dith did, knowing that he would come with a rush 
 at the finish. Mary found him delightfully young. 
 
 To her surprise he began to talk about Miss Drew ; 
 to her surprise because they were both developing 
 self-consciousness in relation to her. He praised her 
 and insinuated that he didn't know much about her. 
 The question of her artistic evolution interested him. 
 Decidedly he was young, thought the experienced
 
 68 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Mary. He mixed up Miss Drew with her profession 
 generally, and talked vague depreciation of it. " They 
 accept American claptrap as though it were Shake- 
 speare," he said, "and when you speak to a woman 
 about color she thinks you mean what she calls art 
 shades." He suggested that the vagabondish still 
 hung about them, that they were naturally isolated, 
 homeless; even that their continual pretenses at hu- 
 manity left them inhuman. It was an airy perform- 
 ance, and at first Mary found it rather pleasing. It 
 was devised for her reassurance, but he was like a boy 
 accused of being lovelorn who affirms that the lady 
 squints. 
 
 And Mary began to despise herself, and even to 
 despise him. What is the good of these stupid con- 
 cessions of the ultrasympathetic, these despicable 
 agreements with the last comer? Geoffrey wanted to 
 convey to her, no doubt, that he had not gone far 
 with this young lady, that he was alive to the need 
 of caution, that he was no fool. He was kind, but 
 it was not a noble kindness, it was not what she 
 looked for in him. He persisted fatuously and came 
 back to the particular. "Of course she can act," he 
 concluded. 
 
 " She is an exquisite creature," Mary flashed out. 
 " You know that she is beautiful." 
 
 And he did know it. He looked back along the 
 track he had come and despised himself. Mary spoke 
 again: "You're just trying to please me," she said, 
 " and I'm not as bad as that." 
 
 She was heated, indignant ; he knew her mood. And
 
 LOYALTIES 69 
 
 he was angry too, though it was with himself, and 
 only the overflow, the splashes, fell on her. This angry 
 irritation rose up like a flood and swept him away 
 from all chance of full and generous surrender. It 
 was impossible to talk to Mary quite simply about 
 Sibyl, and perhaps Mary could not have talked simply 
 to him when her generous ardor had cooled. The 
 silence that fell between them was heavy with re- 
 sentment, and yet, perhaps, they had come nearer to 
 an understanding. Geoffrey took his pipe and rumi- 
 nated in the somber little garden, where the afternoon 
 sun shed chinks or bands of light between the houses. 
 He did some trifling adjustment to bed or walk now 
 and then, and presently, seeing Mary near an open 
 window, he called out some comment on affairs of the 
 garden. She responded evenly, and both were re- 
 lieved to realize that deeper understanding need not 
 involve immediate explanation. They were shy crea- 
 tures ; it was their way to leave the final words unsaid. 
 He had declared that Sibyl was loyal, but he had 
 failed miserably in loyalty to her. At least he had 
 failed in the forms of it, and Mary had shattered his 
 flimsy construction. Mary was a gentle, magnanimous, 
 fiery woman ; a touchstone for the verities. He found 
 in his heart a dread that somewhere Sibyl might be 
 found wanting; that Mary's sincerity of advocacy 
 might change to a disconcerting sincerity of condemna- 
 tion. Then the real test of his loyalty might come and 
 he would not be found wanting. But what did this 
 imply? A loyalty to the woman or to his infatuated 
 conception of her? And here he was again disloyal,
 
 70 TRUE LOVE 
 
 he was ready to believe ill of her. Well, the lover is a 
 doubter and a critic; love may pretend to blindness, 
 but it is never blind. He was playing with the idea, 
 of course. There was no question of love, surely. 
 She was romantic, incalculable; very different from 
 Milly Warde. This reflection was prompted by the 
 appearance of Miss Warde, who looked into the gar- 
 den as she was passing, and halted in a friendly man- 
 ner when she saw him. There was not much privacy 
 in the Arden's front garden, though they had a pre- 
 cious little bit at the side where they were screened 
 from passers and neighbors, with room at least for a 
 tea-table. It was a good place when the sun blazed, 
 but otherwise too shady or even shivery; they had 
 done their best to bring color into it, to make it some- 
 thing of a bower. Milly had often sat there with 
 them and contributed to the efficiency of the conversa- 
 tion. She looked very neat and perhaps a little tailor- 
 made now, but if her clothes sometimes spoke of the 
 shop, it was a good shop with little or no nonsense 
 about it. Geoffrey had been disposed to tick Milly off, 
 to classify her, but Mary would not have that, and, 
 indeed, her neatnesses were but the barriers about her 
 womanliness. It was one of Geoffrey's objections, that 
 she would have the position defined, and, as she said, 
 "Why shouldn't I?" 
 
 A handsome, friendly face should never come amiss, 
 and Milly, if not quite Browning's Pippa, did go 
 about raising people's spirits. It was Mary who had 
 given Geoffrey some idea of the fineness of this in 
 one who had her secret core of melancholy and dis-
 
 LOYALTIES 71 
 
 couragement. He and Milly were on terms of liking 
 and of badinage, and perhaps their encounters of wits 
 kept them from intimacy. He knew her to be loyal, 
 staunch; she had all that range of honorable virtues, 
 but somehow in her, they were so much a matter of 
 course that they seemed less beautiful than if they 
 had emerged from the doubtful and obscure. How 
 unfair that was! A tithe of her good qualities be- 
 decked alluringly would make a paragon. 
 
 Miss Warde looked over the gate and said cheer- 
 fully: " Meditating on some gigantic affair of State? " 
 That was the sort of thing she did ; that was a charac- 
 teristic opening. Perhaps " Good-day " would have 
 been better, but the instinct to decorate is commonly 
 too strong. He replied in similar vein and invited 
 her to come in. " On the whole," as she said, she de- 
 cided to do so because she had been wanting to talk to 
 Mary. So Geoffrey, pursuing the cheerfully facetious 
 vein, called out : " Mary, a person here wants to talk 
 to you," and Mary, recognizing his tone, knew who 
 it was. She came into the garden and was confronted 
 with the downright Milly, who was always welcome. 
 " I've been thinking it over," said Milly, " and I've 
 decided to train for a nurse." 
 
 It was sudden, but they were accustomed to sud- 
 denness from her. It appeared that she was walking 
 along the main road on her way to the fishmonger 
 and considering whether to get cod steak, which her 
 father liked but which they had had often lately, or 
 mackerel, which he tolerated " as a change," when it 
 struck her that she would positively become a nurse.
 
 72 TRUE LOVE 
 
 She ordered mackerel, this being slightly the more 
 austere proceeding, and then turned down Grayling 
 Street to think about Mary. " I wasn't sure that I 
 should come in," she said, " but I saw Geoffrey hard 
 at work in the garden and I knew he required a rest." 
 
 " But how can you decide like that ? " said Mary. 
 
 " It's easier quick than slow," said Milly. 
 
 Mary frowned, for these decisions of Milly sug- 
 gested irreverence for the constituted order of things. 
 She preferred the method of infinite balancings and 
 a sort of conscientious inaction. And now she dreaded 
 what Milly would say next, for this was likely to 
 involve her. There was no escape. " Now, Mary," 
 said the downright one, " it's time for you to decide." 
 Poor Mary was not ready for anything of the kind. 
 Milly's decision made a new situation, and she wanted 
 to consider it quietly and exhaustively, and certainly 
 she didn't want to talk of it now with Geoffrey or 
 before him. 
 
 " To decide what ? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 And then it all came out. Milly was explicit and 
 Mary was qualified. Milly was the coach and Mary 
 the brake. The question as it affected Geoffrey was 
 no less than whether Mary should leave him and set 
 off with Milly to be a nurse. He was a little startled 
 to find that they had talked about it and that Mary 
 had at least considered the possibility. The instinctive 
 feeling of the pampered male was dismissed very soon. 
 There must be no question of desertion or disloyalty ; 
 Mary was free to pursue her vocation. And his spirit 
 was touched with a curious lightness and freedom;
 
 LOYALTIES 73 
 
 his mind shot suddenly to Sibyl Drew, but he shrank 
 from definitions. " Going to deserf^me, Mary ? " he 
 said lightly, kindly. 
 
 It was a considered speech, but Mary was incapable 
 of taking it at its value. The form of words carried 
 a meaning that probed her heart. Was she disloyal? 
 Was she thinking of herself? Of course she was, for 
 she claimed her right to consideration and would have 
 repelled as indignantly any attempt of Geoffrey to 
 take more than a fair share of her life, as she would 
 a suggestion that he was capable of it. But he was 
 important in her eyes, and keeping house for him was 
 consequently important. The wish to become a nurse 
 was an inextricable mixture of conscience, sympathy, 
 and adventurousness, and the whole of these would 
 not have been enough in themselves to move hen 
 
 Geoffrey's question brought stammered disclaimers, 
 a plea for the postponement of explanations. But 
 the good, frank Milly would not let it rest there andj 
 soon made the crooked plain. " You see, Geoffrey," 
 she said, " Mary and I have taken the liberty of 
 talking about you, and considering what's best for 
 you." 
 
 " Bless your hearts ! " he said. 
 
 " And Mary has got the notion that if she goes on 
 much longer she'll become a fixture." 
 
 "But why shouldn't she be a fixture?" he said. 
 
 "Ah! but think of all the unhappy young men 
 whose sisters have stuck to them till they were hope- 
 less old bachelors ! The kind, considerate brother, the 
 ageing sister, and the marriageable young woman pin-
 
 74 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ing in obscurity. Mary thinks it's your destiny to 
 marry, and wants you to have all the joys of life. She 
 might be in the way." 
 
 " But," said Geoffrey, " wouldn't it be as well to 
 wait till this marriageable young woman is in sight ? " 
 
 " That," said Milly, " is a matter of detail." 
 
 " You don't give the cook notice till you've got an- 
 other one." 
 
 " No, but the cook gives you notice if she thinks 
 you may give it her." 
 
 " I shall give up analogies," said Geoffrey. 
 
 To Mary it was distressing that the discussion 
 should remain on a semi-facetious level. It was not 
 wanting in essentials, but Geoffrey was almost as 
 anxious as she to defer any talk that might tend to 
 development. Their association, their companionship 
 was yet something of rare value and Milly was a dis- 
 turbing, even a shattering, friend. She was partly 
 conscious of this : " I know I'm a bull in a china 
 shop," she said. 
 
 " The only live thing there," said Geoffrey. 
 
 Mary proposed that they should all go in and have 
 tea, but Milly wished to be at home when the mackerel 
 arrived, fearing that injudicious storage even for the 
 few hours before dinner might turn it into a legitimate 
 grievance in this weather; perhaps neither Mary nor 
 Geoffrey was sorry that she should go. Before she 
 did so she broached the subject of Alice Dean with 
 friendly, pertinent questions, and said she meant to 
 be there on the first night. Mary looked at Geoffrey 
 and he responded amiably by suggesting that Milly
 
 LOYALTIES 75 
 
 should go with them. It was rather good of him 
 for he wasn't quite sure that he wanted it. However, 
 she accepted, so to speak, with both hands and with 
 cries of delight. " I shall go home shouting ' In a 
 Box With the Author/ " she said, and it was hardly 
 incredible. And yet she was not inadequate as Mary's 
 friend. She was a good fellow, a good girl, no fool, 
 and she had her discretions. It appeared that she also 
 hadn't them. " I hear that Miss Drew's awfully good," 
 she said. " What do you think of her, Geoffrey ? 
 What's she like ? Been here, hasn't she ? Nice ? " 
 
 He gave Miss Drew quite a nice character and kept 
 very cool over it. She was at the back of Mary's mind 
 and it made a difference in what she thought about 
 the nursing project. She was conscious that it had 
 become slightly less desirable than when Milly had 
 first spoken of it to her, and this was unfair to 
 Geoffrey and to any one or every one. It was ex- 
 tremely desirable in the general that Geoffrey should 
 marry happily, but it became difficult in the particular. 
 She was willing in a deep, indefinable way that he 
 should marry Milly, but perhaps this was because 
 she knew or thought she knew that he would not 
 marry her. And if he did Mary might not lose him 
 entirely. She was boggling over the loyalties again, 
 for it was in her mind that it wasn't fair to Milly 
 to think of her as just a jolly mate for Geoffrey, while 
 she herself would have all she wanted of the deep 
 communions or the chances of them. But Milly would 
 not be so dangerous as others. Such thoughts could 
 hardly be formulated and they were almost like a
 
 76 TRUE LOVE 
 
 mediaeval tempting of the devil, though now he is 
 wily enough to confuse the issue and prepare special 
 baits for the magnanimous. It wanted Milly to de- 
 fine all these things, to measure them or even to ac- 
 knowledge them. Mary must be fair to herself, she 
 must not sacrifice herself to Geoffrey's slothful ease; 
 but neither must she hamper him by filling the place 
 a wife should take. She must protect him from the 
 sirens, but a really charming and virtuous siren cannot 
 fairly be discouraged, even though she should threaten 
 to take him body and soul.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PERFORMANCE 
 
 THERE may be sensitive souls or super-egoists who 
 dread the first performances of their plays, but Geof- 
 frey was normal enough to look forward to his ordeal 
 with very pleasant excitement. He had seen the dress 
 rehearsal, which was both prolonged and sketchy, and 
 had received the usual assurance that raggedness on 
 the eve meant smoothness on the day. But he was 
 hardly prepared to find the gaps closed, the crooked 
 made straight in such a generally plausible perform- 
 ance as the actors achieved. Repertory theater plays 
 may be deplorably under-rehearsed, but when it seems 
 impossible that they should hold together, these 
 professional actors achieve wonders, if not perfec- 
 tion. 
 
 The Ardens made a mild little jollity of it, and, 
 with Milly Warde, dined in the hotel restaurant and 
 quite in the public eye, for there must have been half 
 a dozen people there who knew them, and what they 
 were after. They had a bottle of not too expensive 
 fizzy wine, so that, if it wasn't quite what might 
 be expected of the Pineros and Barries before their 
 West End successes, it was festive in a modest way. 
 Geoffrey enjoyed it, with just a slight reserve of 
 irony, Mary was happy and anxious, and Milly as 
 
 77
 
 78 TRUE LOVE 
 
 jolly as a sandboy. His austere labor was over, in 
 some degree its value was presently to be assayed, and 
 now came this irrelevance of festivity like a feast 
 on a holy day. Geoffrey maintained his confidence 
 and seemed to have no apprehension of failure, though 
 he professed to be greatly interested in the degrees 
 and kinds of success. Milly was more overwhelm- 
 ingly confident, though she knew nothing of the play, 
 and Mary alone represented apprehensions and fore- 
 bodings while she tried to subdue them. Two or three 
 people came up to speak to them Bonsor vaguely 
 aggressive and Imalian inscrutably polite. They were 
 going to the play and they braced Geoffrey, for, while 
 in his own small circle he was assured of eager or 
 sympathetic advocacy, he knew that the men of the 
 world would be ready enough to turn down their 
 thumbs. Bonsor was capable of catching the senti- 
 ment of the crowd, and Imalian, Geoffrey knew, was 
 a stern critic. What he most cared about was the 
 verdict of Secretan, who was writing the notice 
 for the Herald. There he might fail. That 
 delicate, implacable critic could not be circum- 
 vented. 
 
 A little circle gathered round them in the so-called 
 garden where they took their coffee. The genial 
 Burke came up to tell them that he was prepared to 
 make terms for a claque, and that his hands were 
 hard and ready for the work. Attar, one of the wits 
 of the Herald, said something about the itching palm. 
 It appeared that relays of the staff might turn up 
 at the theater during the evening. It was all friendly,
 
 PERFORMANCE 79 
 
 stimulating, rather frothy. You cannot settle down 
 to anything in the ten minutes preceding an event. 
 Imalian remained calm, though he attempted a little 
 courteous agitation. Attar begged him to reveal what 
 the future held and they all paused to look at the 
 deep, dark, oracular young man who smiled indul- 
 gently. The time approached, and Burke's friendly 
 excitement grew a trifle excessive; he was no longer 
 the calm Irishman. He proposed to carry Geoffrey 
 shoulder-high across the street to the theater. " Splen- 
 did advertisement," he said. He offered to fight 
 Geoffrey three rounds under the Marquis of Queens- 
 berry's rules, just to get the people together. Bonsor 
 tried to frown him down, but might as well have tried 
 to reason with a champagne cork. However, time 
 was up and they all rose together and went across 
 to the theater in an animated little mob. 
 
 Behind the curtain of the box, Geoffrey looked out 
 on a fairish house which bespoke hardly more than a 
 languid interest in his play. He did not escape some 
 obvious reflections of a sub-acid, " prophet without 
 honor in his own country" kind. Manchester was 
 hardly playing up as an intellectual center, but, indeed, 
 the Playgoers' Theater had made strenuous attempts 
 to escape the stigma of intellectuality. It wanted to 
 be jolly and first-rate. It had not succeeded in catch- 
 ing even the fringe of the Manchester that aped the 
 London social fashions, but some nucleus of a faith- 
 ful, uncritical, doggedly self -improving audience had 
 been got together. On occasion it was reinforced by 
 other elements, though to-night it wanted a considera-
 
 80 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ble spur to the imagination to conceive it as seething 
 with the excitement due to the birth or revelation of 
 a masterpiece. Anyhow, they were excited enough 
 in the box, and if stalls and pit were hardly of the 
 great world they might be taken as a sort of stage 
 crowd contributing to an effect. 
 
 After an artistic little curtain-raiser, which, as Milly 
 said, was "neither here nor there," the curtain rose 
 on Alice Dean, and Geoffrey quickened to attention. 
 At first the play seemed to go confusingly fast, and 
 all sorts of deliberate intentions were slurred over 
 and lost. Geoffrey made rapid progress in the tech- 
 nique of play-writing in the first ten minutes ; he per- 
 ceived that at the start an audience's mind is all astray 
 and groping for the tangibilities; that subtlety is 
 wasted; and, presently, that when the mind grips the 
 theme it misses little, though it may misapprehend 
 much. Repertory theater actors have many first nights, 
 but they do not escape the first night shakiness and 
 queer gaps in the smoothness of performance revealed 
 a perturbed humanity. A slip by Elleray made a pas- 
 sage utterly unintelligible, and Geoffrey groaned and 
 chafed, but Elleray had taken hold of the play and 
 began to feel his power. Indeed, it was evident to 
 Geoffrey that he conceived the situation as one to be 
 saved by heroic effort. Actors like to " pull the play 
 out of the fire," and Elleray made efforts which to 
 Geoffrey's mind were excessive. He acted brilliantly 
 and became domineering and decisive except, indeed, 
 when he forgot his part. He was certainly making 
 the play go, but it became evident even to himself
 
 PERFORMANCE 81 
 
 that stimulants were unnecessary. -The play was es- 
 tablished, and Elleray began to act with more of re- 
 finement and ease. 
 
 Sibyl's early appearances had none of the acting 
 chances that the profession loves, but in the first act 
 there is a sudden spurt of emotion which came thrill- 
 ingly. In the rehearsal she had sometimes seemed to 
 make the part big and emphatic, but now it was quiet 
 and subdued. She had eliminated all irrelevant effec- 
 tiveness, and, indeed, Geoffrey thought that she might 
 have claimed to be the loyal interpreter of his bare 
 intentions. And yet the personal element remained 
 over; everything she did or said was peculiar to her. 
 There are many competent actors in the world, but 
 Geoffrey had got to the point at which competent 
 acting in itself is a bore. Acting may be the valuable 
 medium for the play, and it may be, too, an exhibition 
 of charm or personality. Geoffrey experienced a faint, 
 almost pleasurable whiff of the old jealousy; he 
 peered out at the set faces in the house and wondered 
 what share was his in their attention. And then he 
 looked at Mary and Milly, and it seemed that they 
 were intent on Sibyl, that they, at least, were not 
 thinking of the play. He was conscious of contend- 
 ing femininities, though presumably the appreciation 
 was generous enough. Milly's " wonderful " and 
 " superb " hardly seemed beyond the occasion, though 
 they were not precisely chosen. He was proud at heart 
 and justified in Sibyl. The act concluded with a re- 
 covery of the minor key after bravura passages. He 
 had prided himself on this, and she accomplished it
 
 82 TRUE LOVE 
 
 so exquisitely that even his final impression was of 
 her. The play came second. 
 
 The curtain fell to heartening applause, not quite 
 vociferous, but extended beyond the merely respect- 
 ful. The curtain bounced up two or three times and 
 the actors stood there relaxed into a beaming com- 
 placency. Geoffrey saw Sibyl's eyes turn toward 
 their box, and as the lights in the auditorium had gone 
 up he thought she might see his gesture of applause. 
 But she turned away calmly and, as it might be, sadly. 
 He saw her then as the artist immersed in her work 
 and tolerating this vulgar clamor of approval. She 
 was not one of the smirkers who posture before an 
 audience like grateful shop-walkers. 
 
 They had a little crowd in the box during the inter- 
 val, and there was quite a jabber of excited talk. 
 Geoffrey breathed more deeply and easily, knowing 
 that the cognoscenti were on his side. Imalian said 
 little, but when Milly pressed him for the explicit he 
 said: "The question is whether he can keep it up." 
 Attar brought word of something that Secretan had 
 said, and if the great Secretan had said that Geoffrey 
 had not lived in vain. Opinions differed, it seemed, 
 about Elleray's performance, but not about Miss 
 Drew's. Geoffrey overheard Mary's warm praise of 
 her. He was exultant behind a modest demeanor. 
 When the men had cleared away, Mary and Geoffrey 
 had a shy word together, and Milly's heartiness en- 
 compassed them reassuringly. Behind the curtain in 
 a theater box is a queer, snug, stuffy place, but it is 
 possible to be happy there. The time went fast.
 
 PERFORMANCE 83 
 
 " Any one can write a first act,"J5ecretan had once 
 said, and Geoffrey remembered this at the beginning 
 of his second. He had some anxious minutes, but the 
 play picked itself up as he knew it would, and pres- 
 ently all apprehensions had vanished. Whatever might 
 be the quality of the play, it appeared that he had 
 that sense of the theater without which dramatic genius 
 must dissipate itself in literature. He was intent on 
 the play, and at times the performance was secondary ; 
 at times there was almost a clear distinction between 
 the two. There came a phase of exultant egoism dur- 
 ing which he had the illusion of power. The play was 
 going well with the audience, but not as well as it went 
 in his mind, stimulated as he was by the obvious suc- 
 cess. Now and then he was touched by Sibyl and 
 grateful to her, and yet, again, he lost consciousness 
 of any personal relation. He enjoyed the applause as 
 a schoolboy would, while at the back of his mind there 
 was some reservation ; this applause was a gross sum- 
 ming-up of dubious, confused impressions; it was 
 largely irrelevant. 
 
 Yet there it was, and when the curtain fell on the 
 last act the clamor had a fairly hearty note in it. 
 Geoffrey was cool enough to measure his success, and 
 he knew that the motions of the audience were not 
 all one way; there was not the even roar of applause 
 that comes of perfect comprehension and intense stim- 
 ulation. In the box, however, life was at high pres- 
 sure, and it was Geoffrey's joy to look into Mary's 
 shining eyes. People were shouting "Author " rather 
 mechanically, and an eager manager hustled him out
 
 84 TRUE LOVE 
 
 of the box. It appeared that there was not a way 
 to the stage on this side of the houde, and Geoffrey 
 was hurried along the back of the circle. It was 
 crowded, and his progress was not dignified. He 
 bumped into Burke, whose stentorian voice seemed 
 to dominate the applause, and Burke's astonishment 
 to find him there struck Geoffrey as exquisitely funny. 
 After moments of darkness and intricacy he emerged 
 upon the stage, and it seemed that he was passed 
 from hand to hand till he stood in the center of a 
 line of actors. Sibyl, or some queer caricature of 
 Sibyl, was beside him, and Elleray, on the other side, 
 gave him a heightened smile of encouragement. The 
 curtain went up and he was propelled a little to the 
 front of the others. He bowed and, unaccustomed to 
 doing it on this scale, he feared that it had been too 
 much of a bend and a duck. The thinning audience 
 emitted a few " Bravos " Geoffrey distinctly heard 
 Burke's note the clapping was renewed and the cur- 
 tain fell. 
 
 Geoffrey was surrounded by congratulations, and, 
 again, he measured them instinctively. He had suc- 
 ceeded, but he hadn't set the Thames on fire ; perhaps 
 the actors had not yet adjusted their anticipations of 
 failure, to this very respectable measure of success. 
 Upjohn made rather a handsome, formal little speech, 
 and Elleray said they all knew that Geoffrey had it 
 in him. Geoffrey did not quite understand what this 
 meant, but he made cordial acknowledgments to the 
 actors, who rapidly dispersed to their dressing-rooms. 
 He was amused at Elleray's "told you it would be
 
 PERFORMANCE 85 
 
 all right " air, but he was far enough now from feel- 
 ing any resentment, and certainly Elleray had done 
 wonders; he had made a sort of popular success of 
 an unpopular part. 
 
 With a gentle " Good-night " and a little bow, Sibyl 
 was leaving him, having stayed to the last, but he 
 couldn't have that. The strength of his impulse over- 
 powered the remnants of his shyness, and perhaps of 
 hers, and he seized her hands. He stammered words 
 of praise that were of a quite uncritical enthusiasm. 
 Her face was strange and garish, but he looked into 
 her eyes. Her beautiful lineaments seemed height- 
 ened and florid; the painted face was a doll's, but it 
 was Sibyl's too. She was an exquisite creature rudely 
 daubed, a virgin goddess coarsely baited; to yield to 
 this lure was surely the way of life and honor. He 
 pressed her hands with the ardor of a lover, but they 
 were not alone; he was held back by the presence of 
 scene-shifters, by the scruples of one who had learnt 
 to school impulse, by the cowardly punctilios. If it 
 was to be, it could not be now. He descended to a 
 mere geniality and she became positively cheerful. 
 They exchanged the commonplaces of the situation, 
 and parted with emphatic friendliness. 
 
 And then he lost his way, and, stumbling about dim 
 passages, he had a glimpse of her again. She was 
 shutting a door when she saw him and she emerged. 
 Quite naturally she took his hand to guide him through 
 dim obstructions. He held it gently, but when she 
 indicated his safe direction he bent to kiss it. And 
 then he said : " A thousand thanks."
 
 86 TRUE LOVE 
 
 She disengaged herself and retired with another 
 low " Good-night." As he made his way to where 
 Mary and Milly awaited him, he reflected, with mixed 
 emotions, that his words had been an enormous sub- 
 traction from the deed. To kiss her hand was much, 
 but he had given her to understand that he was thank- 
 ing her for her very admirable performance. Of 
 course, he had not meant that. He had kissed her 
 tenderly, impulsively, and then the words were a sort 
 of cautious withdrawal. They must have been so, and 
 yet he did utter them sincerely. He began to feel the 
 need of some clear thinking on her behalf and his own. 
 
 He found his friends slightly impatient, and ex- 
 plained gaily that he couldn't get away from the ac- 
 tors. They went home royally in a taxi, and he re- 
 peated things that Upjohn and Elleray had said. " But 
 what did Miss Drew say ? " asked Milly, and declared 
 her to be perfectly delightful. Geoffrey frowned 
 secretly, and said that it was curious to see her face 
 all plastered with paint. He propounded the theory 
 theatrically heterodox that make-up should be 
 abandoned or only symbolical vestiges of it retained. 
 Rather boldly for he was conscious of Mary he 
 said that it was a shame to overlay such an exquisite 
 medium as Miss Drew's face. It was bold, and yet he 
 was conscious of the attempt to lead Mary astray. 
 It was instinctive, protective, and, he felt, despicable. 
 He couldn't make up his mind, and so he was in- 
 duced to these ridiculous subterfuges. 
 
 Instead of discussing the performance, as natural 
 inclination should have made him, Geoffrey began to
 
 PERFORMANCE 87 
 
 talk about technical points which could very well have 
 waited. He even imported some of his excitement 
 into the question, whether at the theater people should 
 use opera glasses, and he condemned the practice. 
 " But," said Milly, " how are we to see what that 
 exquisite medium is doing, without ? " He said that 
 you could always go to the front row of the stalls 
 if you wanted to " We couldn't all," interjected 
 Milly but it appeared that he strongly condemned 
 the front row too. " Well, then," said Milly, in the 
 tone you use to a wayward child, and he then ex- 
 plained that facial expression on the stage did not 
 matter; that it could only tell by being exaggerated 
 out of nature, and that it was the figure, the pose, 
 the gesture that did matter. 
 
 " In that case," said Milly, " Miss Drew's face 
 doesn't matter." 
 
 " Not to you, perhaps," he said, " but it does to me." 
 
 " Then," persisted she, " when you talked about an 
 exquisite medium you didn't mean for acting." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," he said brazenly. But he had the 
 happy inspiration to put things right, or nearly so, 
 with a laugh. 
 
 Their talk in the taxi had a false air of the con- 
 fidential, and when they got home they didn't go very 
 deep into things. Milly came in to supper, of course, 
 and various men dropped in and were induced to eat 
 and drink unceremoniously. It was all very jolly, and 
 they kept it up late; so late that Round called in, 
 seeing the lights, and reported that he had failed 
 to induce Secretan to come with him " Though," he
 
 88 TRUE LOVE 
 
 added, " he's all right. Don't fear." The great Round, 
 illustrious journalist, brilliant scholar, genial wit, set- 
 tled down to cold pie and claret in the small hours, 
 with a superb air of banqueting. He wouldn't let 
 Milly go or Mary talk of bedtime, and, whether he 
 said incisive things about the Greek drama, which 
 made Geoffrey feel small, or things of mere merriment 
 and gusto, he was a critic and a leader of men. There 
 was a half-jocular discussion about Geoffrey's future, 
 and whether he should " chuck " the Herald and make 
 thousands a year by his plays ; but " Why the future ? 
 Why the future ? " cried Round. " Take the present 
 with both hands. To-morrow we die. It's glorious 
 now. What more do you want ? " 
 
 There was genuine impatience in his voice, and 
 Geoffrey could believe that he spoke the words of 
 wisdom. This play of his did give them a jolly occa- 
 sion, but as a draft upon the future, what chance had 
 it of being honored? He was not the prey of illu- 
 sions. And yet, with something between wistfulness 
 and resentment, he could have wished that Round 
 might have a living interest in his affairs. Round 
 played a genial part in the chorus of adulation, and 
 yet it was unlikely that he would ever go to the play. 
 He would neither avoid it nor seek it; he was gen- 
 erous and indifferent; he had big things of his own 
 to think about and was ready to agree courteously 
 that the affairs of others might be big too! Mary 
 was puzzled by him, but his benevolence was over- 
 whelming, and it enveloped Geoffrey if it was not 
 concentrated on him. She was in uncommonly high
 
 PERFORMANCE 89 
 
 spirits and kindled charmingly. Geoffrey felt that the 
 barriers between them were down, triat misunderstand- 
 ings and reticence were overcome. And yet, when the 
 others were gone, though they were gentle and kind 
 to one another, they were shy. 
 
 With the morning came the papers, and particularly 
 Secretan's notice. It seemed to temper the critic's 
 austerity with the comrade's warmth, and Geoffrey 
 found it almost startling ; he felt like one who had been 
 assigned a post of grave responsibility. Mary knitted 
 her brows over the qualifications in the article, but 
 on the whole she decided to approve. " You see," said 
 Geoffrey, " he takes me seriously, and that's all that's 
 wanted. One only asks that." To Mary it seemed 
 that this was hardly enough, but she acquiesced. After 
 all, it was something of a relief, for it would have 
 been awful if Mr. Secretan hadn't liked Geoffrey's 
 play. And her scrupulousness was placated. " He 
 must mean what he says, because he doesn't just 
 praise you." She did not like these qualifications, and 
 yet if Secretan's notice had been a conscientious con- 
 demnation, she would have honored him for it. 
 
 For the next few days Geoffrey felt as though he 
 were living in a shop window. He was uneasily ex- 
 pectant that people would speak to him about Alice 
 Dean, and some did, but surprisingly many either 
 knew nothing about it, or avoided the subject because 
 they had no intention of going to the play. He re- 
 alized that the production of Alice Dean was not half 
 such a big event as he had felt it to be, and he was 
 slightly disconcerted to find that his importance in
 
 90 TRUE LOVE 
 
 the scheme of things was not materially increased. 
 Fortunately, he could laugh at this, though Mary 
 could imitate him only with difficulty, and her gen- 
 tleness was vexed by the coolness of acquaintances. 
 These commonly conceived the theater in terms of 
 Sir George Alexander and the West End, and it was 
 notorious that trousers imperfectly creased had been 
 seen at the Playgoers' Theater. Admittedly this was 
 a failure in technique and could not be mitigated by 
 mere strenuousness after the ideal. However, people 
 went to see Alice Dean, and it had a certain vogue; 
 as a local attempt it was not so bad, though it was 
 understood that these Herald people take themselves 
 too seriously, and constitute a sort of mutual admira- 
 tion society. Besides, such plays as Alice Dean, clever 
 as they are, miss the broad, human touch ; " a man 
 who would dissect his mother," was the verdict of one 
 sentimentalist. 
 
 Authors have a way of sneaking in to see how 
 their plays are getting on, and Geoffrey saw his, or 
 parts of it, several times in the course of the week. 
 There was a good deal of underlining, and Geoffrey 
 made some effort to curb the exuberance of his actors. 
 It could only be done by definite excisions, and he 
 had the satisfaction to eliminate the biggest laugh the 
 play afforded. This came from what seemed to him 
 an innocent line, but the audience strained it to the 
 point of lewdness. Geoffrey felt that he was in danger 
 of becoming scornful of his audience. His problem, 
 he knew, was to keep touch with the vulgar humor 
 and yet be as fine as God and the theater would let
 
 PERFORMANCE 91 
 
 him be. To accept the conventions and to put your 
 life into them is the formula. 
 
 So Alice Dean ran its week and disappeared. Even 
 while it was on, Sibyl Drew was rehearsing a fresh 
 part and conning another. Elleray confided to Geof- 
 frey that if he could play the part in London the 
 future was theirs. And, remembering what Elleray 
 used to think of the part, Geoffrey felt that he had 
 accomplished something.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 THE TWO WORLDS 
 
 GEOFFREY soon discovered that Alice Dean had not 
 advanced him far in what some of his friends would 
 call his practical career. It had not made a profound 
 impression on the general consciousness, but when 
 people met him they inquired encouragingly whether 
 he had got " anything on the stocks ? " It was not a 
 very difficult question to parry, and he found himself 
 extremely unwilling to discuss his work with genial 
 people who had no interest in it. He was ready to 
 talk to Imalian and one or two more about it, but 
 even with them he was shy until the subject was fairly 
 launched. He was secretly curious to know more of 
 what Mary thought. Among their friends it seemed 
 to be taken that he had had a success. " You will go 
 far," said one well-meaning acquaintance, and then 
 " anything on the stocks ? " They will not let you 
 rest. Everything that is done is thrust hastily behind 
 and you are incited to fresh efforts. Geoffrey's novel 
 was almost forgotten; his play well, a rocket has 
 very much the same life as a squib. Hot and hot 
 come the books from the press, but old Victorians 
 continue to occupy the niches in the classical 
 temple. 
 
 Geoffrey felt his strength or some illusion of 
 92
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 93 
 
 strength, and yet to strive with the^rnighty is to fail ; 
 to be humble is to court failure. When he talked to 
 Mary he could see his work as a spiritual experience ; 
 but he went out into the world and found himself in 
 a jostling, striving throng. He sat at his desk pursu- 
 ing the idea faithfully, and then he mixed in the 
 chatter about publishers and managers. He was in 
 love with austerity, but he had his light o' loves too. 
 Every man has his crude ambitions, and Geoffrey, too, 
 wanted to ride on the top of the wave. He had en- 
 joyed the agitations of the play-producing, and he 
 could have said to himself, " Here, at last, is life." 
 Life is the fresh experience. But life, he knew, was 
 in the hours of patient effort; so patient and so 
 arduous that it seemed a vanity to wish to be other 
 than he was, to strive to penetrate to what was remote 
 from his natural mood. Yet sometimes this effort left 
 on his work the mark of the over-laborious; some- 
 times, he hoped, he could even believe, that the mo- 
 ment of inspiration, the fullness of life came through 
 endeavor. 
 
 He turned to the routine of his work on the Herald, 
 feeling that he could perform it well and cheerfully 
 while the possibilities of this deeper experience lay be- 
 fore him. He enjoyed friendly wrangles with Burke, 
 who assured him that the arts were good if you 
 kept in the middle of the stream, but that he was far 
 more likely to find himself in a backwater; and with 
 Attar, who gave a more polished version of the case 
 for opportunism. Attar looked upon these repertory 
 theaters and limited editions with kindly indulgence,
 
 94 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and if you talked of pioneers he would ask whether 
 you would choose to be Marlowe or Shakespeare, 
 John the Baptist or Christ. The cool Attar even 
 championed the side of heart versus brain, he exalted 
 emotion over thought, the notion being that the crank 
 is always the victim of his idea, while feeling will 
 keep you in the center of things; cranks notorious 
 for excess of feeling were dismissed as impos- 
 tors. 
 
 And life Geoffrey was still young enough to think 
 about " life," or at least to talk about it life, he was 
 ready to maintain, is what you feel and think, not 
 what you do. The philosopher might press you for 
 distinctions, and the truth was that Geoffrey was in 
 love with art. " We are civilized beings," he would 
 say, and there is no need for us to seek for experi- 
 ences in the center of Africa or at the North Pole; 
 others can do this for us and give us the idea of it." 
 Perhaps there was some bitterness in this; he knew 
 that he was missing something; the renunciation had 
 more than a touch of the supercilious. A young man 
 should fall in love with his thews and his nerves. 
 You can have athletics, of course, you can stand up 
 to fast bowling, you can go rock-climbing, you can 
 swim in the sea; or you may dismiss these as trifles 
 and conceive yourself as a disembodied spirit. 
 
 His play had brought him something of the exalta- 
 tion of accomplishment and this persisted fitfully. He 
 thought that every one should be an artist, that the 
 best of life is to play at life; politics, he would say, 
 are a mere policing to that end. Meeting Brecher one
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 95 
 
 day in the corridor at the office, he^fell into a half- 
 earnest, half-ironical discussion with him. Brecher, 
 a Jew intent on Zionism, spared for the world of 
 Gentiles an efficient and generally contemptuous serv- 
 ice. Attar had described him as a machine invented 
 to save humanity, and certainly his services were per- 
 formed with a minimum of the sentiments. He 
 scorned the dilettante, and perhaps made no clear dis- 
 tinction between that and the artist. He had his re- 
 serves; his pride of race, his pride of exclusiveness ; 
 he had once told Geoffrey that never, in any circum- 
 stances, could he marry outside his race, and a chill 
 mist seemed to rise between them. Geoffrey had it in 
 his mind to say : " You can have no friend but a 
 Jew?" but he hesitated as at something irrevocable; 
 he did not like to think that with Brecher, friendship 
 was impossible, that he must stop short at admiration. 
 He had put it to him that love bloweth where it listeth, 
 that passion will have its way, and that some fair 
 young Englishwoman might capture the Jew's heart. 
 Brecher had stared at him incredulously. And, in- 
 deed, Geoffrey presently put it to himself whether, in 
 any circumstances, he himself would be likely to marry 
 a foreign woman. It was only a formal liberalism that 
 could make it seem possible. 
 
 And now he tried to explain something of his new- 
 found consciousness of art to Brecher, who listened to 
 him but stonily. Brecher was a politician, immersed 
 in the struggle, and it seemed impertinent to ask him 
 to see both sides beautifully when one of them was 
 wrong. That your love of humanity should make
 
 96 TRUE LOVE 
 
 you accept a brutishly stupid humanity, and write 
 pretty tales or draw pretty pictures of it while great 
 work was to be done, seemed frivolous to Brecher. 
 He might agree that these frivolities are inevitable and 
 that if they are done they should be well done. And 
 Brecher could crack a joke with anybody; he was a 
 rather jovial person when he unbent from his austere 
 labors, but he really must part company if you wanted 
 him to regard joking or anything of the sort as a 
 man's work. Geoffrey tried to give him his conception 
 of the " open door "of art Brecher became suddenly 
 solemn at the phrase familiar in current economics 
 and Brecher agreed that open doors were good, that 
 if art had a common language which made people 
 understand one another and live in peace, it was very 
 much to the good, but you must not mistake a means 
 for an end. And then Geoffrey asked him what the 
 end was; what was to be done when the world was 
 straightened up and the Jews were flourishing in 
 Palestine; might they take to art then? Brecher's 
 far-away look, as of one intent on something at the 
 horizon made Geoffrey feel frivolous indeed. " That 
 is for those who follow," said Brecher. Geoffrey 
 hinted at compromise should not your life have all 
 the elements adventure, service, art? Brecher had 
 lost interest in the discussion. 
 
 Geoffrey went away feeling rather uncomfortable, 
 like that young man with great possessions, for he 
 felt himself to be up against something too explicit 
 and austere for him. He had a natural turn for com- 
 fort, and Brecher was one of those who could work
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 97 
 
 in a cold room. Yet Geoffrey was not a man to 
 acquiesce in moral inferiority; always he had re- 
 sponded to ideals of devotion. You may devote your- 
 self to art, but this art of the theater is queerly con- 
 founded with the florid successes and mere jollities. 
 Perhaps in his self-communings he did himself less 
 than justice, but he had his secret grim little satis- 
 factions when publishers wrote to him about his novels 
 in the vein of polite, respectful, cautious remonstrance. 
 He was on the border line. They couldn't make out 
 whether, in rebuffing him, they ran the chance of 
 missing something, and yet they feared to commit 
 themselves to him. An innocent attempt at the per- 
 sonal relation to find the man behind the firm had 
 been received f reezingly, and yet, it seemed, there was 
 anxiety not to sever relations; your publisher is 
 haunted by the idea that he may turn away a disguised 
 angel from his door. An agent to whom he had sent 
 Alice Dean assured him that he was one of the first 
 dramatists of his time, and that all he needed was a 
 collaborator of less lofty aims; there was even an 
 offer to provide one. It was a delightful letter for 
 one with a fund of hidden egoism to receive, but it 
 was stupid, or seemed so, for Geoffrey always made 
 a clear distinction between his novels and his plays; 
 the novels were for a patient, intimate minority, the 
 plays for any one awake. And, indeed, to the novelist 
 play-writing may look an easy road to fame and for- 
 tune. " I'll grant you," said the shrewd Attar, smok- 
 ing a friendly pipe in Geoffrey's room one afternoon, 
 "that the play-writers are mostly duffers, but they
 
 98 TRUE LOVE 
 
 know the game." " And why shouldn't a genius like 
 me learn it ? " said Geoffrey. " Because it's a duffer's 
 game," said the cynic. " You've got to unlearn being 
 an austere genius." 
 
 " But what about " 
 
 " Damn Shakespeare. Shakespeare's barred." 
 
 Geoffrey had the dream that he might accomplish 
 the miracle of reconciliation. Surely, he thought, it 
 is possible to found all the beauties or a sufficiency 
 of them on a popular appeal, to make a work of fine 
 intention go with a roar. " Take a house," he said, 
 " the most beautiful and original house is the best to 
 live in. And it remains so when you've decorated it 
 beautifully." 
 
 Attar groaned. " Analogies are barred," he said. 
 "And you know that most people like their houses 
 and everything in them hideous." 
 
 " Every art," said Geoffrey, " has its conventional 
 limitations and thrives on them. The sonnet must 
 have fourteen lines. The play must have elements 
 that please a mob." 
 
 " You think of a mob as you write your lines ? " 
 
 " Let's call 'em simple human beings. But you 
 don't exactly think of them. They're there." 
 
 " You're an intricate, aloof sort of devil," said 
 Attar. " But cheapen yourself. I dare say it's what 
 you want." 
 
 " There's an immense common basis," cried Geof- 
 frey. " Big things might unite us all. A war. Some 
 mighty peril. One is aloof I dare say. Every one 
 should be. You must have a self to go home to."
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 99 
 
 "And then you dole bits of it outjn books?" said 
 Attar. 
 
 " And why not? There's lots left." 
 
 " Yes," said Attar. " That war would be very in- 
 teresting. I wonder what we should all do. What 
 would the poor old Herald do ? " 
 
 " You think it impossible?" 
 
 " Not a bit." 
 
 " There was the Boer War." 
 
 " That was a trifle. A pretty big trifle, of course, 
 but it was possible to oppose it and keep on opposing. 
 My God! Arden, think of a big European war, with 
 England struggling for existence and the Herald nag- 
 ging!" 
 
 " That's a horrible way of putting it." 
 
 " Can't you see it that way ? " 
 
 " Look here, Attar ! I don't run the political side 
 of this paper so I can speak handsomely about it. 
 Suppose we did blunder into a big war, I'd back the 
 old Herald against the field for loyalty and compe- 
 tence and common sense; and ideals thrown in, of 
 course." 
 
 " Loyalty ; yes," said Attar, " but what form would 
 it take?" 
 
 He took out his handkerchief and wiped his fore- 
 head. It was a symbolical gesture, for, certainly, he 
 was not sweating. " Give peace in our time, O 
 Lord! "he said. 
 
 " And yet," cried Geoffrey, upon an impulse that 
 mastered him, " are we never to be tried ? Are we 
 never to grunt and sweat? Are we never to descend
 
 100 TRUE LOVE 
 
 into hell? I'm peaceful enough, of course, but here 
 I am planning out my life without a kink in it. Never 
 so much cold as over shoes in snow, as old Shake- 
 speare said. Have you read Conrad's Youth? Is it 
 good enough to grow up safely in a newspaper office ? 
 Oughtn't we to be out enduring and failing, in agony 
 and bloody sweat? Oh, of course, I know there's a 
 fine, quiet austere life to be lived here, and you can 
 polish your style and get rhythm into your prose 
 and all that. And you can give a hand to remedial 
 legislation. Remedial legislation! Eh? We're miss- 
 ing something." 
 
 Attar said : " Do you want us to get up a European 
 war for you?" 
 
 " I'm irresponsible," said Geoffrey. " I'm not a 
 publicist, and so I can have a private life without 
 treachery. I can backslide with impunity." 
 
 " You're a Prussian militarist in private ? " 
 
 " No. I want it an adventure. They want to plan 
 it all as a certainty. So folks say. I know nothing 
 about it. I don't know if they exist." 
 
 "Well," said Attar, "we may find out that they 
 do exist." 
 
 " Do they? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I'm a skeptic too," said Attar. " You can make 
 out a case for certain war. I can't believe in it. I 
 may be a fool." 
 
 " Deuced uncomfortable," said Geoffrey. " I hate 
 it all." 
 
 " War's obsolete," said Attar, " and yet what are 
 we to do? The boldest, bravest thing is to take risks
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 101 
 
 for peace. To act as though you Didn't believe in 
 war " 
 
 "And where are you if it comes?" 
 
 " I don't mean that we are to disband our navy. 
 But the courageous thing is not to raise a million 
 men. If the Germans are thinking of war it would 
 start it." 
 
 " Then it's the cautious thing." 
 
 " Well, the wise thing. It's always brave to be 
 wise." 
 
 " Don't you mean it's always wise to be brave ? " 
 said Geoffrey. 
 
 Attar didn't find this worth replying to, but he 
 began again after a pause. " You may reason about 
 the future or you may feel, which is a sort of sub- 
 conscious reasoning. I mistrust both, and the future 
 rises up like a wall against me. Every shape is in the 
 block of marble. Menaces are solid and terrific things, 
 and they are lighter than smoke. Perhaps we ought 
 to muster and drill as old Roberts says. He believes 
 it ; it's a certainty for him, and to be certain is to be 
 happy." 
 
 " No, no," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Perhaps not, but that's how it strikes me." 
 
 " A gallant old man preaching to deaf ears while 
 his country rushes to destruction." 
 
 " Yes," said Attar. " The fanatics are often right. 
 It's rather jolly to be right." 
 
 " You mean to say he would like us to be de- 
 stroyed ? " 
 
 " No. Oh, no ! But there's some mitigation in
 
 102 TRUE LOVE 
 
 being right. I can never be right because I'm in- 
 veterately skeptical. One conforms sometimes and 
 shouts with the rest." 
 
 " Look here," said Geoffrey ; " if Germany got go- 
 ing with France and Russia, should we come in ? " 
 
 " Are you asking me or a leader-writer on the 
 Herald?" 
 
 " It's the same thing." 
 
 " Thank you, Arden. Yes, I think I'm loyal. I'm 
 even correct. But sometimes when you can't see 
 things, you can see a cherub who sees them. And a 
 cherub isn't evidence." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " There's a mad devil in the sanest of us. There's 
 a point at which you must join in a row." 
 
 " And we couldn't see France bleed to death." 
 
 " Arden," said Attar, " there's something in your 
 idea of the adventure. And think of us here. Even 
 here. Think of Round writing on the great Euro- 
 pean War. And Brecher, the clear head in a muddle 
 of finance, proving everybody bloody fools. And 
 Secretan! Secretan with a theme like that! You'd 
 see what a live thing style is. In justice to our col- 
 leagues we ought to foment a quarrel." 
 
 "And Lindsay?" 
 
 " Lindsay is us all, and we are all Lindsay." 
 
 " And where would remedial legislation be ? Who 
 would look after the virtuous poor in Ancoats ? " 
 
 " I don't laugh, Arden, I can't see the joke." 
 
 " It would be tragedy for Lindsay." 
 
 " He can support tragedy."
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 103 
 
 " Yes, but what did you say about a big war and 
 the Herald nagging ? " 
 
 " That was unworthy. It was as a flicker of night- 
 mare. We're bigger than that." 
 
 " But we've a faith to keep with these Ancoats 
 people." 
 
 " Yes, it'll have to be a damned good war for us 
 to back it." 
 
 They parted with a nod, and Geoffrey found himself 
 thinking about practical problems that might arise. 
 His thoughts shaped themselves into attitudes of de- 
 fense. If war came there would be a howl of execra- 
 tion against the Herald and their policy, which was 
 so much bolder than it looked. The alternative was 
 the feverish equipment of a few hundred thousand 
 men, which would not necessarily be accompanied by 
 any clear thinking on foreign policy. And, of course, 
 you cannot be safe. Safety is not one of the condi- 
 tions of live men or nations. The alarmists may be 
 right, and, indeed, unless the age of peace has come 
 they must be right some day. There was a time when 
 war with France was proclaimed to be inevitable ; then 
 it was Russia; now Germany. The point is that we 
 must be ready, but not too ready. And you can get 
 into a frame of mind in which all our vast prepara- 
 tions are as nothing; it is only the additional Dread- 
 nought or the fifty thousand men in dispute that count. 
 
 War? What is war? Can humanity stand it on a 
 great scale? Wouldn't the monstrous absurdity of it 
 force a hurried peace? We talk glibly of war, and 
 here and there on the map the nations have slaughtered
 
 104- TRUE LOVE 
 
 and haven't known how to leave off slaughtering. 
 Geoffrey hadn't thought out his principles, and he had 
 a vague belief that they had something to do with 
 Tolstoy and Christ. An infusion of these, at least, 
 but Mary had once said " An infusion ? You are 
 always for an infusion. Take it pure. Take it alto- 
 gether." But he had a hard residuum of common 
 sense and Mary hadn't; she could exist on the spirit 
 alone. He would take the middle way, hating middle 
 ways and declaring that extremes were best. He was 
 uneasy when he thought of Mary and himself with 
 war for a third. And still in his enthusiasm for art 
 he was ready to think of that as a solvent, an infallible 
 touchstone. He was ready to grapple with the great- 
 est conceivable tragedy. 
 
 It chanced that he passed the Playgoers' Theater, 
 a commonplace enough structure but with associations, 
 speaking to him already of memories. It had a dis- 
 used, irrelevant look in the daylight, and even at night 
 its brilliances were rather dingy. He stood looking at 
 it, as Rachel, in Matthew Arnold's sonnet, looked at 
 the grandiose fa9ade of the temple of her spirit. Was 
 this his life? This sort of thing? The difference be- 
 tween him and Rachel was considerable ; between the 
 historic French theater and this provincial temple of 
 the mediocrities, inconsiderable. He could idealize it 
 but was it good enough on any terms ? This talk with 
 Attar had been disturbing. Alice Dean seemed 
 shrunken and far away, and represented something 
 cold and dim in experience. It had been evolved very 
 much from his own consciousness, though a waitress
 
 THE TWO WORLDS 105 
 
 in a tea-shop had served for a "model; she had dis- 
 turbed the impression whenever she spoke. He had 
 poured into her what he knew of women parts of 
 Mary, Milly, various book learning. And the man 
 had been himself but for the grace of God; himself 
 pulled about fantastically. Our modern villains are 
 ourselves in apprehension or in irony. He had felt 
 the need of an ideal world, and the theater had helped 
 him to feel things intensely, to see them beautifully. 
 He had thought that he might bring life to the old 
 thing and carry on its great, degraded traditions. He 
 could accomplish the miracle of reconciliation; he 
 could find beauty in strange places. And what an 
 opportunity! The number of good novelists at work 
 is disconcerting to any one who looks for eminence in 
 that line, but the play-writers that the ardent young 
 man thinks worth consideration may almost be told 
 on the fingers of one hand. " Among the blind the 
 one-eyed man is king," Attar had said when this point 
 was suggested. It made Geoffrey feel a mean pre- 
 tender. And was this sham world his real one? 
 Was he still to live the placid, sedentary life of the 
 body and justify it with the high adventures of the 
 mind ? He had had the grace to be made uncomfort- 
 able by the incitements of Wells to an active citizen- 
 ship, and when he read a Kipling story about some 
 man " sticking it " in a remote, impossible Indian hill 
 station, reproachful voices would call to him. And 
 yet he would always rebel against the crude exigencies 
 of war. He idealized himself as a specialist in fine 
 relations and could feel some impatience at being
 
 106 TRUE LOVE 
 
 called upon to consider these simple, primitive ques- 
 tions of national safety. " War ! " he said to him- 
 self. " But if we are coarsened we are beaten." He 
 wished he had thought of this while Attar was 
 there.
 
 PART II
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 SUMMER 
 
 THE Archduke was murdered on June 28th, but it has 
 not been our way in these islands to bother much about 
 murders in Eastern Europe. Of course we are accus- 
 tomed to platitudes about the Balkans being a hotbed 
 of unrest, but they can accomplish a good deal of that 
 without much obvious harm to us. Mr. Chesterton 
 (or was it Mr. Belloc?) once said something funny 
 about the first man to declare that the death of Francis 
 Joseph would be the signal for upheaval in Europe, 
 but that tough old gentleman had lived so long and 
 upheavals in the future are so innocuous that we 
 didn't trouble about it. Meeting Attar again in the 
 corridor, Geoffrey had said : " Well, is your way any 
 nearer?" Round joined them, and they discussed 
 things in a desultory way and with quiet minds. Geof- 
 frey suggested that there was an immense solidity and 
 assurance about things, even Eastern Europe things. 
 The others agreed without enthusiasm, and Round 
 said, " Like the rickyard before the tramp lights his 
 pipe there." He agreed that it was not a complete 
 analogy. 
 
 It was summer, and Geoffrey sweated over his 
 games, and meditated occasionally on the embryo of 
 a masterpiece. Suddenly there came Austria's ulti- 
 
 109
 
 110 TRUE LOVE 
 
 matum to Serbia, and Russia's decision to resist. 
 Everybody told everybody that it was mighty serious, 
 but few felt it to be so. The nearer war came, the 
 more unlikely it looked. Geoffrey had a pleasant 
 Saturday afternoon at his suburban lawn tennis club, 
 and the intervals between the sets were spent in 
 mutual assurances that it was absurd and impossible. 
 Indeed, the topic was exhausted presently, for most 
 people were too shaky in their foreign politics to 
 continue. Plans for the autumn holiday were not in- 
 terrupted, and the neighborly contacts were reassur- 
 ing. Tea, gay chatter, white flannel, the flying balls, 
 the struggle for trivial masteries ; it was all reassuring. 
 Those nice people the Wibberleys, told Geoffrey that 
 they were going to Grasmere for the Bank Holiday 
 week-end, and that Miss Sibyl Drew would accom- 
 pany them. The Playgoers' season was over, and, 
 though there was the prospect of hot and tiresome 
 weeks at Blackpool and elsewhere for the poor, ex- 
 hausted actors, some respite was granted. Mrs. Wib- 
 berley talked of Sibyl's art, and entangled Geoffrey 
 in a discussion about Alice Dean. It was rather 
 pleasant, but he wasn't always quite sure what she 
 meant or whether they were talking of the same thing. 
 As to the prospects, " We cannot go to war," she said 
 with finality. 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Wibberley said: "You want a holi- 
 day, Mr. Arden," and it appeared that Geoffrey was 
 meaning to spend the next week-end somewhere in 
 the Lakes. It had just occurred to him, and as he 
 admitted that his plans were not settled and that Gras-
 
 SUMMER 111 
 
 mere always attracted him, the^rest was easy. He 
 checked Mrs. Wibberley's tentative invitation to stay 
 with them, dependent as it was on the capacity of 
 beds and the shuffling of the family, and declared 
 firmly for the hotel. Their offers of hospitality were 
 not exhausted, and he explained that he couldn't take 
 all his meals with them because the hotel folk wouldn't 
 stand it unless, indeed, he had a bottle of champagne 
 every morning for the good of the house. Mrs. Wib- 
 berley considered champagne vulgar. 
 
 Geoffrey's visit to Grasmere was a sort of failure. 
 Austria was at war with Serbia, Russia was mobiliz- 
 ing, he read the comments on Germany's ultimatum to 
 Russia as he traveled north on the Saturday morning. 
 It was brilliant summer weather, the mountains and 
 lakes called him, and there was another allurement. 
 He was happy and he was deeply disturbed. As he 
 sped on his holiday quest thousands of his fellows 
 were gathering for stern work, all over the world 
 men of action were alert and moving. Right or wrong 
 they were moving while he was gadding about. He 
 looked out of the window and the landscape was 
 familiar. It was the same, and he knew it wasn't the 
 same ;. it was a monstrous illusion. He shaped gran- 
 diose ideas of nature's great treachery which would 
 betray us with a kiss ; of placid cattle waiting for 
 their fate in a bloody old world; of death, the grave, 
 and that layer of worms all round the earth and always 
 ready. Far, far away, he and millions like him had 
 a glimpse of the ugly specter waiting at the end of a 
 long road; impelled by passion, honor, and expedi-
 
 112 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ency they would crowd along it together. And so 
 he hastened to his sweetheart in brilliant summer. 
 
 The jollities of arrival scattered apprehensions, but 
 these returned. The Wibberleys, with splendid assur- 
 ance, declared that a general European war simply 
 couldn't be ; but they declared it too often. Sibyl had 
 changed. She was gentle with him, she was almost 
 cordial, but he looked into frightened eyes. How far 
 did she see? What did she see? She was sensitive, 
 he knew, but he could have asked her what was wrong 
 and waited for something definite. Mrs. Wibberley 
 told him that the dear thing was run down and had 
 wanted a change badly. She seemed more uneasy 
 about Sibyl than what they called the political situa- 
 tion. She asked Geoffrey if he knew anything about 
 Sibyl's people. " If she should be really ill." He told 
 her that he knew nothing. The young Wibberleys, 
 two hearty schoolgirls and a little boy, were a human- 
 izing distraction. Sibyl relaxed with them, and he 
 saw her, in moments, as a careless child. 
 
 Walking from the hotel to the Wibberleys' lodgings 
 he tried to get defmiteness into a dim remembrance of 
 those frightened eyes; and surely it was of a picture. 
 Yes; the captive lady was compelled to dance with 
 the bandit chief, and she stared out of the picture into 
 your eyes, for there was no other figure. It was 
 irrelevant, of course, Miss Drew could not be afraid 
 of him. And yet he stopped for a moment, he walked 
 slowly; he wanted time to think. Perhaps, after all, 
 it was he whom she feared ; not battle and murder and 
 the mighty imbroglio, but the lover. He was pitiful
 
 SUMMER 113 
 
 and exultant, and yet then and later he was doubtful. 
 
 It was agreed that they were not to talk about war 
 and the rumors of war, but they all had relapses 
 except Sibyl. The young Wibberleys made a lark of 
 it and gave their parents openings for sententious re- 
 proval. Mrs. Wibberley counseled all to maintain 
 calmness by gazing upon " the eternal hills." Instincts 
 of politeness or acquiescence turned their eyes to Silver 
 Howe, which they regarded steadily for some mo- 
 ments without appreciable result. In the absence of a 
 humorous understanding the Wibberleys became 
 rather tiresome, and Geoffrey could not attempt to 
 detach Sibyl to laugh at her hosts. It was hot, it was 
 misty, and they were missing the holiday note. As 
 the evening deepened it became better; Mrs. Wib- 
 berley's promised calm seemed to descend upon them. 
 The hills were succeeded by the stars or fortified by 
 them. The young people went to bed and the elders 
 sat in the little garden " letting it sink in " the phrase 
 this time was Geoffrey's. 
 
 Sunday seemed to bring an uneasy respite to a 
 cracking world, but incredible rumors were thick for 
 those who would gather them, and presently it was 
 known that Germany had declared war on Russia 
 and demanded explanations from France. Geoffrey 
 breakfasted rather pleasantly at the hotel, and being 
 alone he had some advantage over agitated parties 
 which would certainly have roused Mrs. Wibberley's 
 reprobation. Without framing the positive intention, 
 he thought of plunging into love-making for a relief ; 
 he yearned for Sibyl alone, for the untrammeled op-
 
 114 TRUE LOVE 
 
 portunity. There was not much difficulty about that, 
 for though Mrs. Wibberley was far above positive 
 nods and winks she had the mild megalomania of the 
 matchmaker, and knew which way things were tend- 
 ing. There was some question of church, and Geof- 
 frey suggested that Grasmere church was an idea 
 and not an institution to be put to the proof. Mrs. 
 Wibberley determined to go and take her husband, 
 impelled, it seemed, by critical instincts ; something un- 
 usual might happen in a church and on such an oc- 
 casion. It was, after all, an Established Church, and 
 there was no trusting the Government to avoid lapses 
 in taste or discretion. The children, of course, would 
 accompany their parents, for the Wibberleys, without 
 being precisely church people imposed their liberality 
 upon the church and took in exchange such conveni- 
 ences and respectabilities as it could supply. Sibyl 
 made rather a forlorn attempt to join them and Mrs. 
 Wibberley would not have it, and Geoffrey facetiously 
 claimed a slight advantage in this " choice of evils." 
 Sibyl submitted with a good grace. 
 
 They started rather languidly, but it was a relief to 
 get in motion. Generally they were silent, for it was 
 no time for small talk and the tremendous utterance 
 did not come. They made their way up far Easdale, 
 and there they found a little patch of heather and sat 
 down among it. They had brilliant sunshine, the 
 scent of honey, the drone of bees ; it occurred to Geof- 
 frey that this was an extraordinarily correct imitation 
 of happiness. But the near murmurs sounded like 
 distant menaces and the beneficent sunshine scorched
 
 SUMMER 115 
 
 them and drove them to seek "shelter. They found 
 it with some difficulty by climbing the side of the fell 
 to a ravine over which a mountain-ash presided. Here 
 they attained shadow and seclusion, but there was a 
 babble almost a roar of falling waters, so that they 
 must strain the voice and the ear if they would con- 
 verse. He had a mad idea to overcome the waters 
 by a torrent of passionate speech, to shout against 
 them till he silenced them. The impulse was not 
 strong enough ; it was all in his mind, and the inertia 
 of the body was not to be overcome. And to bel- 
 low " I love you " against the waterfall would be 
 absurd. 
 
 This new menace in the world took from love its 
 fervor, made it impossible, or, at least, inopportune. 
 So he reflected with some calmness, but he was calm 
 enough to recall a theory of his own, that love de- 
 clared itself at the powerful crisis, not the relevant 
 one. Why, then, didn't he, like Benedick, cry " I do 
 love nothing in the world so much as you. Is not that 
 strange ? " He had tried to found a little comedy on 
 this, and the backward lover was to declare himself 
 when the kitchen chimney caught fire. And here he 
 could think of such things; a figure of comedy him- 
 self. 
 
 Sibyl rose from the rock on which she had been 
 seated, and with a frowning face led the way from 
 this retreat " It isn't that I want to talk," she said 
 when the noise was muffled, " but that takes all the 
 virtue out of our silence. I should have begun to 
 shout if we had stayed there."
 
 116 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Startled, he said, " What would you have 
 shouted?" 
 
 She looked at him inquiringly. " I suppose a primi- 
 tive human cry," she said. 
 
 They sat down again in the sunshine. " Yes," he 
 said, " we lack a common cry such as a crow or a 
 bleat. We're all different, we humans." 
 
 " But all alike." 
 
 He assented indifferently. 
 
 " These Germans. It's fighting your own kind." 
 
 He agreed. She was silent, and then " Will it 
 stop the theaters ? " she said. 
 
 He saw her pathetically as a young woman with a 
 living to make. These theatrical people are queerly 
 isolated. They drift about the world and have no 
 fixed address till they gain a palatial one. Even their 
 names are not their own. They are orphans or they 
 own snuffy old fathers and impossible mothers who 
 hang round stage-doors. No. That sort of thing must 
 be obsolete. They are artists now, of course, and of 
 the highest respectability. He recollected that Mrs. 
 Wibberley had made quite a point about it when there 
 was a question of Sibyl coming to the tennis club. 
 Miss Drew was a lady. A high degree of spirituality 
 was implied. And, indeed, Sibyl was Mrs. Wibber- 
 ley had added or amplified a gentlewoman. Pursu- 
 ing Mrs. Wibberley's vein, there seemed to be no 
 reason why she shouldn't be the daughter of a baronet, 
 for instance. He was curious about her. Here, on 
 this brilliant day, among the hills, and with the world 
 splitting in twain, he found himself checked and
 
 SUMMER 117 
 
 faintly curious. Who was she?^What was she? To 
 probe was impossible. He might have said, " Tell 
 me all about yourself," but that was the wrong order. 
 " I love you " must come first, and he couldn't say 
 that now. When she was away he could have said 
 it, and now, when she was adorably and pathetically 
 before him, he couldn't. He didn't love her enough 
 yet. He had not learnt to love. He was held back 
 by all the instinctive precautions of the idealist. He 
 was no facile lover; the delirium of joy was a thing 
 to be held in leash. Yet in this idealism he was half- 
 conscious of a strain of fatuity. He would not yield 
 to mere contact ; to the flush of the senses. Trembling 
 on the brink, the final impulse was delayed. 
 
 " I made a remark," she said ; " or, rather, I asked 
 a question." 
 
 " It started me thinking of all sorts of things," he 
 said. 
 
 " You might have thought aloud." 
 
 " Perhaps it wouldn't have been quite the same." 
 
 " You daren't tell me what you think of me," she 
 said. 
 
 She rose again. " Too hot," she said and they 
 walked on languidly. " The sun's like a policeman 
 moving us on," she said. " Vagabonds." 
 
 " Actors are vagabonds, you know," he said teas- 
 ingly. 
 
 " That's what I meant." 
 
 "You don't feel it?" 
 
 "No. You do, don't you?" 
 
 "Heavens! No."
 
 118 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Oh, I know your opinions and convictions are all 
 right. But your feelings " 
 
 " I do not feel it." 
 
 "You feel the right things, don't you?" 
 
 " Now what do you mean by that ? " 
 
 There had been a tinge of bitterness in her words 
 but now she answered gaily : " See what a high ideal 
 I've got of you ! To feel and think together is just 
 perfection, isn't it?" 
 
 " Don't," he groaned comically. She was delight- 
 ful, incisive; she was positively dangerous. She gave 
 him critical pleasure and he was becoming " cold " 
 as the children say in the hiding game. She was 
 capable of keeping him at a distance by delicacies 
 of flirtation. And he had been conscious of something 
 impending. He could have believed that she was 
 ready to tell him something. And what was there 
 to tell? 
 
 They sauntered down the pass, and it seemed that 
 both had escaped from something though it could not 
 be far away. He was disappointed and they had their 
 little jokes together. They were missing big things 
 and quite enjoying themselves. It was like keeping 
 out the Atlantic with a mop. And as they approached 
 the confines of the village he raised his arms in a 
 stiff, impatient gesture. " I'm restless," he said ; " I'm 
 immensely perturbed." It was an excuse, a defense, 
 and it startled her. She was very gentle with him ; in 
 a moment it seemed that she might have been an old 
 and affectionate friend. There was more in it than 
 that, and he felt that this was the most romantic
 
 SUMMER 119 
 
 moment of his morning. He remembered that they 
 had once discussed acting, and together they had 
 reached a tentative conclusion it was a concession 
 for him, perhaps that as it was self-expression we 
 must always be acting. In that sense she was acting 
 now, but such acting is not deception. She was always 
 doing her best. Surely she was adorable and he a 
 colossal fool. 
 
 They encountered the Wibberleys, who decided that 
 the churchgoing had proved restful. Geoffrey was 
 conscious of Mrs. Wibberley's sharp eye on them, 
 and he had a vision of himself and Sibyl propelled 
 towards the altar by this admirable couple, and the 
 good Wibberley " giving her away." However, they 
 were all friendly together, and Mrs. Wibberley led 
 them round the churchyard to Wordsworth's grave, 
 that haunt of deep meditation and of the platitudes. 
 " You cannot believe in war," she said, " here," and 
 they gazed on stone and earth and listened to the bab- 
 bling stream. It was decided that war would be an 
 affront to Wordsworth's spirit ; " do they realize 
 that ? " said Mrs. Wibberley. They accomplished some- 
 thing very like placidity. There was an air of kindli- 
 ness about it, after all. He saw these Wibberleys 
 sometimes as facile humbugs, but the worst of us is 
 deeply human. These were not the worst, and if they 
 were a little blunt, their was the bluntness of the 
 devotee. They seemed to devote themselves to noth- 
 ing in particular; to the highest taste in general or to 
 the latest of the higher fashions. Well, they were all 
 in one boat; if the mountains fell they would all be
 
 120 TRUE LOVE 
 
 squashed equally, and if the Germans came they would 
 suffer equally. Nay, it might be that he would squeal 
 while Wibberley remained heroic. What strange 
 things a great war would reveal ! It would get down 
 to some essential things. Laborious acquirements 
 call them moral or spiritual if you like would wither 
 away while good old primitive qualities flourished. 
 He meditated disloyalties to the spirit of man, per- 
 haps ; he had a glimpse of chaos. 
 
 No reverberations from a frenzied world afar dis- 
 turbed their afternon slackness. They had precious 
 moments of slackness, of the old Time running out. 
 The children vanished, and the elders sat about in 
 deckchairs and talked and dozed and stared at nature 
 and thought of the morrow. Geoffrey was induced to 
 read aloud some of the " Georgian " poetry, and it was 
 in their minds that these were young men, and that 
 when the blast of war blows in our ears man is not 
 merely a poet. It made everything so unreal, it shat- 
 tered the reflection of everything. At intervals, Mrs. 
 Wibberley assured them that there could be no war, 
 but Wibberley began to take a deep, sagacious, non- 
 committal line. 
 
 Geoffrey had no more intimate talk with Sibyl, 
 and, indeed, they did not seek it. Their next meeting 
 was uncertain, they did not know how far they had 
 gone, they might yet turn back. It seemed to him 
 that they were watching one another. It was for him 
 to take the gallant, romantic plunge, and delays and 
 hesitancies were affronts to his passion. Passion? 
 Ah, that was it An ardent man could not acquiesce
 
 SUMMER 121 
 
 in less than that. So he must be sure. He must 
 watch, he must assay, he must measure the flood. 
 Or he must wait for the fire from heaven. 
 
 On Monday morning he had a letter from Mary. 
 It reflected the perturbation of the time, and there was 
 an indignant ring in it ; the protest of the quiet person 
 disturbed by shameful, dangerous clamor. She had 
 met Round, it seemed, and he had asked when Geof- 
 frey was expected home. Round had meditated, 
 " eyeing me kindly," and then suggested that Geoffrey 
 should come on Monday, a day earlier than he was 
 due. Lindsay " might like to have him about," and 
 to a hint of the loyalties Geoffrey must respond. 
 Mary had asked Round what he thought about it all, 
 and he had shaken his head and gone away sadly. 
 Mary said that she had not understood how serious it 
 all was till she saw it in Round's face. That was a 
 symbol, an index of European upheaval. She repeated 
 that he had been very kind to her. 
 
 So Geoffrey couldn't wait till the Tuesday morning, 
 but set off after lunch on the Bank Holiday. " It 
 isn't that I matter," he explained. " A war snuffs 
 me out. But I see that I must be there. What's 
 going to happen ? " 
 
 He sent his bag on to Windermere, and set off to 
 walk in the early afternoon. They all walked a few 
 hundred yards with him. The Wibberley girls wanted 
 to go to Ambleside with him but were overruled. He 
 was quite a popular person in the little party, and had 
 cemented friendships with a handsome offering of 
 Grasmere gingerbread. How normal everything was
 
 122 TRUE LOVE 
 
 t 
 
 and how changed! Presently he strode away from 
 them and, looking back, the group seemed forlorn, 
 pathetic. Mrs. Wibberley's arm was round her boy's 
 shoulder, and in Geoffrey's agitated mood this struck 
 him as intolerably poignant. He was sorry to part 
 from them. Sibyl was not prominent, and, strangely, 
 she was not even in the front of his mind. It was a 
 simple parting from the Wibberleys, but from her it 
 was a perplexity to be considered presently. 
 
 He found that he had committed an error of judg- 
 ment. This road walk from Grasmere to Ambleside 
 was intolerable. Motor-cars, dust, stink, heat, made 
 an unlovely world of it; a reeking, blatant, violent 
 world. The ridiculous thing about it was that all 
 this was supposed to be an expression of joy in the 
 loveliness of nature. He became bitterly satirical 
 about these material agitations in the land of Words- 
 worth and, pausing, he turned to look at distant 
 hill-tops. Peace, quietism, the life of meditation were 
 best. No doubt it became infernally dull after a time. 
 He couldn't think evenly. A car driven by a man 
 in khaki missed him narrowly, and Geoffrey reflected 
 resentfully that the man was inefficient. These 
 bustling, hurtling creatures were not even efficient. 
 Was this world going to crash? And what right had 
 he to dissociate himself from it? Were they on the 
 eve of a national humiliation? The braggarts might 
 pretend to confidence and call it patriotism, but at the 
 heart of every Englishman was this distrust. We had 
 been so long a great nation. And we had learnt that 
 greatness is not all in what we have so gallantly sung
 
 SUMMER 123 
 
 about. You may lead the world- in noble things and 
 go down before iron and brass. 
 
 At Ambleside, Geoffrey got a lift in the public car 
 and rumbled away in moderate discomfort. He found 
 himself traveling against the stream, and with a choice 
 of empty railway carriages. He pursued his gloomy 
 reflections on the theme of national decadence or na- 
 tional softness. Had we failed to conform to the con- 
 ditions of national existence? Must we go down 
 before the conquerors of the world? Would the 
 nightmares come true ? It was going to be a bad time 
 for gentle people, for the Christian spirit, for the pure 
 in heart. He must be ready to learn, but he must be 
 loyal to what he knew and felt. 
 
 At Lancaster he was joined by a slightly intoxicated 
 reservist on his way to join up and witnessed the 
 family parting. The man was bluff and jocose, the 
 woman voluble and conscious of her part, the children 
 seemed to take their cue in forlorn whimpering. The 
 man bawled words of comfort and turned to wink at 
 Geoffrey, who didn't like it. The whistle sounded, the 
 baby was held aloft, the scene became significant, as 
 the train moved. The silent woman holding up the 
 baby passed from his sight, the man leaned out of the 
 window, shouting and waving. He was noisy and in- 
 adequate. Falling back heavily into his seat, he glared 
 stupidly at Geoffrey and fumbled- for his pipe. " Make 
 a bit o' fuss. Women and kids," he said apologeti- 
 cally. It was one man of the world to another. 
 " Wonderful cook," he said. He was referring to his 
 wife, and Geoffrey divined a consciousness that she
 
 124 TRUE LOVE 
 
 did not make a favorable impression upon an out- 
 sider. He repeated " Wonderful cook," shaking his 
 head in affected meditation. " Your wife ? " said 
 Geoffrey, and he replied " Rather ! " 
 
 Geoffrey was curious to know his trade, and put it 
 to him that it was awkward to be called up suddenly 
 like this. It appeared that he was in the butchering 
 line. The man was not conscious of any joke in the 
 alternatives of soldier and butcher, or perhaps the joke 
 had lost its savor. He was with his brother-in-law. 
 " Nice little business," he said, and with nods and 
 winks explained that the brother-in-law was a bache- 
 lor. " Lot older than me," he said, and the man of 
 the world shone out again; an ill-favored wife was 
 more than justified. His comments on the European 
 situation had some verbal quaintness but they were 
 not interesting. He produced a bottle which was prof- 
 fered politely. Geoffrey declined and, frowning 
 slightly, he took a good swig himself. He proffered 
 it again, quite without truculence, and Geoffrey he 
 didn't know why was impelled to accept. The mouth 
 of the bottle was wiped with a filthy handkerchief. 
 It was stiffish whisky and water and Geoffrey felt a 
 glow and lift. The man said he knew a gentleman 
 when he saw one. " You oughter be first class," he 
 said, and added sympathetically, " I know what it is 
 to be out o' luck." He grew sentimental. " Them 
 kids '11 be 'avin' their tea," he said, and then, " She's 
 a wonderful manager." 
 
 When you see a soldier going to the war you want 
 to know what's in his heart; what is the quality of
 
 SUMMER 125 
 
 his fortitude or the color of hi&^apprehensions ; what 
 he sees at the end of the vista. " It may be some 
 time before you see them again," said Geoffrey, and 
 if he had feared that his curiosity might be brutal or 
 selfish he was reassured. The man warmed to his own 
 case, in which the children and the wonderful woman 
 were prominent, but the nice little business the prin- 
 cipal item. A stray bullet might bring irremediable 
 loss, and he was eloquent on the dangers of war to 
 men of substance. As to boys with their way to make 
 it didn't matter, but he had a lofty ideal of property. 
 All the same, you must do your duty, and then, and 
 for many days to come, Geoffrey felt that something 
 new something old as the hills but strangely revived 
 and strengthened was coming into the world. You 
 might whittle away a great deal from this fellow's 
 pretensions, but something remained; he merely con- 
 formed, but there may be profound virtue in con- 
 formity. And, in his slipshod, drunken way, he faced 
 the thing; he was aware of the specter at the end of 
 the avenue. He had heard a man say that when your 
 time came you had to go, and if it wasn't a bullet it 
 might be inflammation of the lungs. What did Geof- 
 frey think of that? He wasn't sure about it himself 
 " not if you kept out of draughts," he said but, 
 anyhow, it was for the old soldiers to show the way. 
 " You young chaps may have your turn this time 
 young gentlemen," he corrected. The bottle was prof- 
 fered again. Geoffrey declined, pleading a poor head 
 for that sort of thing, and the excuse was accepted 
 with commiseration, " Y'd not b'lieve what I've
 
 126 TRUE LOVE 
 
 drunk this day," the man said. It was impossible to 
 attempt heavy reproach or argument with such a figure 
 of complacency. Geoffrey had the notion that it would 
 be amusing to throw the bottle out of the window, 
 but a row would be tiresome. The man talked and 
 drank intermittently. Finally he collapsed into sleep, 
 and Geoffrey recalled having seen Coquelin do it 
 almost precisely like this in that old play L'Aven- 
 turiere, which had been his first taste of Parisian 
 gaieties. 
 
 He was left meditating on his own romantic attach- 
 ment, and wondering dejectedly whether it had the 
 makings of a passion. Yet he affected to despise these 
 grand passions, all of a pattern ; he wanted something 
 of his own, human, but not merely humanity's. He 
 wanted a sweetheart and she was charming. He 
 wanted simple, irresponsible romance without thought 
 of the long years and the heavy times. The noble 
 lover is beset with doubts and he may even envy the 
 Don Juans of the world. He had not learnt to love, 
 he was not sure, and presently all might be simplified. 
 Nearing Manchester, it seemed that it was simplified. 
 To leave her, to be without her, was intolerable. His 
 heart sank and he felt that he must concede something 
 to himself, so he permitted his thoughts to take a 
 happy turn. And yet he could not get away from this 
 menace of the war; he realized that he was not one 
 of those who can rush to the adventure. His thoughts 
 grew heavy, heavy. He was profoundly disturbed. 
 He hadn't even first principles arranged, and convic- 
 tions, it seemed, must be improvised. He was for
 
 SUMMER 127 
 
 peace, but he had no faith in the^ogmas that excluded 
 war. It was coming, and it could not be brushed 
 gently aside. 
 
 The husband going to the war slept heavily, and he 
 was an unlovely creature, a queer type of the heroic 
 arming for the fray. And even a queerer one, per- 
 haps, of the married life, of the faithful mate. You 
 might say that he had married for a share in the 
 butchering business and was out to defend it. And 
 why not? We are a solid nation with great posses- 
 sions, and we shall not abandon them to follow any 
 will-o'-the-wisp. Geoffrey gazed with distaste on his 
 fellow-man who sprawled and reeked there so puz- 
 zlingly. Somewhere in that ugly carcass, uglier than 
 the beasts he slew, was the precious residue of that 
 indomitable spirit which was to shatter the world, 
 and, somehow, in the fullness of time, to save it. The 
 sleeper was not easily aroused at Manchester, and 
 Geoffrey did not enjoy the proddings and shakings 
 that were necessary to achieve it. The fellow went 
 off morosely to some vague destination.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE EVE 
 
 THE Manchester streets had the restless, jaded look 
 of any summer evening. The people who thronged 
 excessively the main thoroughfares, were keyed to a 
 sharper note than usual, and yet it seemed that wars 
 and rumors of wars were nothing to some, while 
 with others the long period of stress and endurance 
 was now beginning to show even in aspects resolutely 
 normal. It was on this evening that Germany de- 
 clared war on France, and Sir Edward Grey's speech 
 in the House of Commons was coming through in 
 fragments to the evening papers. It was received with 
 dismay, with reprobation, with grave acquiescence, 
 with enthusiasm. The nation had not acquired an 
 attitude and while one section was ready with its 
 facile acclamations of war another resisted, protested, 
 strained at the inevitable and desperately pressed its 
 opposition even beyond the bounds that reason and 
 knowledge might justify. The party of peace had 
 failed, and any word of indiscretion in the bitterest 
 moment of its failure was to be recorded and re- 
 iterated. In hundreds of clubs and thousands of pot- 
 houses, the feeble minority was overwhelmed and it 
 seemed that a nation of Cassandras, in the glow of 
 prophecy, had neglected the obvious precautions for 
 
 128
 
 THE EVE 129 
 
 safety. The Herald strove yet against the stream, and 
 its final, impassioned protests roused some childish 
 displays of popular fury. Charges of German in- 
 fluence, of mere treachery, were less to bear than the 
 reproaches of those ungenerous opponents who pro- 
 fessed to find nothing but perverseness and senti- 
 mentality in a great and courageous policy with hard 
 thinking behind its idealism. The Herald could laugh 
 at the threat of broken windows but not at broken 
 friendships ; when a drunken man demanded to see its 
 list of shareholders it was not difficult to achieve an 
 ironical politeness. But in the heat of these early 
 days passion ran easily into molds and attitudes be- 
 came fixed. We have suffered a good deal in this 
 war from the fixed attitude, though it may be difficult 
 sometimes to distinguish this from the finer endur- 
 ance. 
 
 Geoffrey called at the office a blank, dreary place 
 between-times on this holiday evening and it ap- 
 peared that, in default of work more to the point, 
 there was a theater to be " covered." If the piece 
 had been a great tragedy it might have been opportune, 
 but here was some comedy on the borders of farce, 
 some trivial fiddling while Rome burned. It seemed 
 a futility, but habit and custom persist through the 
 cracks of doom, and while history was making itself 
 too furiously for coherent record the world at large 
 was still controlled by its old machinery. If there 
 was a difference it was in the mind. Geoffrey con- 
 cluded that he had not time to go home, and he went 
 for his dinner to the garish hotel where the froth and
 
 130 TRUE LOVE 
 
 spume of Manchester life gathers. Sitting there in 
 the grill-room waiting for his chop he had a glimpse 
 of what was called the French restaurant, locally 
 reputed to be the last word in expensive luxury. To- 
 night he had a childlike notion of it as a wicked, 
 reckless place; he could have fondly supposed that 
 luxury was breathing its last there a supposition that 
 events were not to justify. In the hotel generally 
 there was vast uneasiness and doubtless some of the 
 guests believed that the waiters had bombs in their 
 coat-tails. Many of the waiters had disappeared, and 
 those who remained suggested that Switzerland was 
 really the main source of the German language. Geof- 
 frey dined with a certain enjoyment of the occasion, 
 with a sham calm and an uneasy consciousness that he 
 was missing things. At the heart of the world were 
 fierce excitements now and great resolves were mak- 
 ing. He was not even at the heart of the Herald, he 
 was infinitely small and useless. Yet it might be that 
 a time was coming when all values would be altered, 
 when every man would have to show the native hue 
 of his resolution, when the soft places and the clois- 
 tered lives would be rudely broken upon. 
 
 Geoffrey exchanged nods with Bonsor who was 
 dining with a friend a few tables away. Both stared 
 at him and Bonsor's friend turned away with what 
 struck Geoffrey as an ugly laugh. He forgot them, 
 and presently went out into the garden where he 
 ordered coffee ; an inexplicable craving caused him to 
 add a liqueur. He sipped and glowed with some il- 
 lusion of power and assurance, weak and doubtful at
 
 THE EVE 131 
 
 the heart. Bonsor appeared "with his friend, and 
 stopped to pronounce some emphatic platitude of the 
 occasion. He mentioned the Herald, half turning to his 
 friend, who repeated "The Herald!" and laughed 
 spasmodically. " Who is this rude gentleman ? " said 
 Geoffrey, quoting a line that Irving used to speak 
 with exquisite effect in Wills's Charles I. Bonsor, in 
 some confusion, introduced Mr. Riley, and did not 
 gain in ease of manner when the others merely stared 
 at one another. He was unhappily inspired to explain 
 that Geoffrey had no responsibility for the politics of 
 the paper. " Except in agreeing heartily with them," 
 
 said Geoffrey. " Then you endorse " began Mr. 
 
 Riley. " Everything," said Geoffrey. " I have no 
 more to say." " Thank God," said Geoffrey. He felt 
 delightfully pugnacious. 
 
 They went off haughtily and he enjoyed lounging 
 there and gazing after them superciliously. He knew 
 it was a poor sort of triumph, and it occurred to him 
 that whatever his theories of peace might be he had 
 the quarrelsome strain in him. He had been con- 
 siderably less than gentle, something less than wise, 
 but at least he had been loyal. Men of the Bonsor 
 breed often gave him the chance to detach himself 
 from the Herald politics, and they would hint at sym- 
 pathies with his difficult position. He would have 
 none of it and espoused almost any opinion of a col- 
 league if it was subjected to unmannerly attack. Of 
 course he agreed generally, though he had never pre- 
 tended to believe in the plenary inspiration of the 
 Herald.
 
 132 TRUE LOVE 
 
 He sipped again and stretched his legs. It was 
 nearly time to be gone, but if anybody would like to 
 come and quarrel with him now was the time. He 
 positively began to look round upon the groups trucu- 
 lently; he burlesqued his own mood. And then, sur- 
 prisingly, Secretan appeared; it was unusual to see 
 him there, and Geoffrey wondered what restless spirit 
 had brought him. He was calm, debonair ; he seemed 
 infinitely reassuring. He was a man of words, per- 
 haps, but if you can find the right words for a cata- 
 clysm you have conquered it. The right words now 
 demanded the highest courage, which is the highest 
 wisdom. 
 
 Secretan sat down with Geoffrey and gave him 
 something of the hectic gossip of the occasion. In- 
 vited by Geoffrey to drink or sip, he declined cour- 
 teously ; he was a man who did not neglect the forms. 
 " A bit of comfort before the heavens fall ? " sug- 
 gested Geoffrey, and then Secretan accepted, very 
 much as you yield smilingly to an importunate child. 
 He was a simple, inscrutable creature. One guessed 
 at him and idealized, falling short or wide of his 
 ideals. He was one of the Samurai who would meet 
 you, quaintly, as a man of the world. 
 
 And now, it seemed, we were all going to be shat- 
 tered and reformed, and who could say what any man 
 would be when he emerged? We were fragile forms 
 adventuring among iron events. And, of course, 
 Secretan was not calm; he was never calm, and the 
 personal dignity was no pretense. They talked of the 
 news and of the rumors. They even touched on the
 
 THE EVE 133 
 
 Liberal party; a Liberal paper, ^e it never so liberal, 
 cannot quite ignore the Liberal party. It seemed that 
 this was gone, disrupted, shattered, crying in the 
 wilderness or rushing to shelter. It is an awful un- 
 certainty when you are uncertain of yourself. Party ! 
 The word sounded hollow and insincere, something to 
 be stripped off. And yet men in that party had been 
 holding together in comradeship, not without ideals, 
 and even now, like all wise men, they rebelled against 
 the fatalism that makes for war. Geoffrey and Secre- 
 tan were shy of the particular policies. Secretan 
 would not or could not talk of them. They spoke of 
 the old, romantic ideals of war, of aid between na- 
 tions, of the new concern with humanity, of the slums 
 of Manchester or of the Russian peasant. But you 
 can't stick to generalities when your house is falling. 
 Who is to lead? Who is to resign? Who is to 
 emerge? These are questions for the politician. 
 Above all, when does the menace become the irrev- 
 ocable? When will the first blood be spilt? 
 
 They parted and Geoffrey felt it to be indeed a 
 parting, as when time or great events must intervene 
 before the next meeting. He went to his theater and 
 there they played " God save the King," as a prelude 
 to the evening's futilities. It had some value; it 
 touched the emotions if it did not efface the critical 
 spirit. The king was not precisely the symbol that 
 Geoffrey would have chosen, but, revolting as he did 
 against the event, the sense of nationality glowed and 
 waxed. And then they settled down to the foolish 
 comedy and laughter rang false. It was all a sham
 
 134 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and extraordinarily like the old reality, the old bore- 
 dom. And how happy those old dull evenings seemed 
 now ! At such a time as this a man begins to find out 
 things about himself and, if he be sincere, he may go 
 far in discovery. Geoffrey had never conceived him- 
 self as the natural adventurer, and now he perceived 
 that dreads and even mere timidities were crowding 
 upon him. Decision and action were to be forced 
 upon his indolence, and to the weakness of his flesh 
 might come the fiery trial. 
 
 The wretched play did not hold his attention, but 
 was making the audience laugh and more than half 
 forget the great preoccupation. They felt a little 
 ashamed of themselves, and in the interval assured one 
 another that in these times distraction was the thing. 
 Geoffrey could stand no more and went back to the 
 office, which was mightily excited. Already they were 
 short-handed, for the Territorials were called up ; the 
 place buzzed with rumors and news. And here were 
 men trying to be honest with themselves, to get some 
 sort of definition into their position, to repel the coun- 
 sels of timidity or mere prudence. They had to 
 reconstruct their policy in the light of tremendous 
 events ; to accept the present and be loyal to the past ; 
 to be wise under the burden of reproach. The old 
 tunes and cries were in their ears, the old tradition of 
 chivalry was in their blood while they made the last 
 struggle for peace. Geoffrey, away from the center 
 of things, could only guess at what went on in the 
 inner councils. He was conscious of deep sympathy 
 with Lindsay, confronted with the greatest and most
 
 THE EVE 135 
 
 distracting of events at a time when men of a normal 
 vigor are ready for repose ; but that indomitable spirit 
 had yet work to do and would not shrink from it. 
 And, indeed, Lindsay was worthy of the devotion of 
 any practical idealist. All his life he had declined 
 the invitations to do the comfortable thing, to range 
 himself with his class, to make the long leader of the 
 Herald the greatest common measure of Manchester 
 or of the Empire. Now his enemies pointed at him 
 and talked of retribution and Nemesis. He had had 
 difficulties before, but here, it seemed, was an over- 
 whelming one. Even when national disaster threatens, 
 you may squeeze out a little malice. 
 
 Geoffrey encountered Attar and got the latest bul- 
 letin. Attar was the calm man immensely perturbed. 
 " God guide us," he said ; " we're at a point where a 
 hideous mistake might be made. We can't oppose a 
 national war, a war for existence." 
 
 "It's come to that?" 
 
 " We shall declare war within the next twenty-four 
 hours." 
 
 " What is national existence ? " said Geoffrey. " At 
 a time like this, I realize that I've never thought 
 clearly about these things. Suppose that the Germans 
 are altogether more efficient in war than the rest of 
 the world, and conquer us all in three months. It's 
 a conspicuous humiliation, of course. I suppose I 
 should be miserable. Should I be any the worse for 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh, be damned ! " said Attar. " The art galleries 
 still open on Sundays an improved system of heat-
 
 136 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ing. You're the man I'm afraid of. You'd let us 
 down." 
 
 " I don't say I wouldn't die to prevent it," said 
 Geoffrey, " but I want to clear my mind. I want to 
 be honest. Why shouldn't you let people see your 
 mind working? Why bother about consistency? A 
 newspaper becomes an immense fagade." 
 
 " It's no time for ingenious talk," said Attar im- 
 patiently. " If you can't get right now on feeling 
 you're no good." He broke away, but after a few 
 steps down the corridor he came back. " Don't think 
 I'm not loyal to Lindsay and the paper," he said. 
 " We've done all we can. We've been wise according 
 to our lights. Here's a sudden illumination and we're 
 on the edge of the bottomless pit. It's no use saying 
 it oughtn't to be there." 
 
 " If we are wrong now we can't remain wrong," 
 said Geoffrey. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " As you say, Attar, you are loyal. Then you must 
 have some faith in the reason and conscience yes, 
 and the feeling of the men here. They're not fools." 
 
 " I agree. But if you take a wrong road and per- 
 sist in it ever so little, the mischief's done. An awful 
 mistake is possible. I'm wretched to-night, Arden. 
 I can do nothing." 
 
 He was soon to be reassured, but these were hard 
 days for all who could only wait and hope. Geoffrey 
 went home and found Mary waiting for him as he 
 knew he should. He realized, as he approached the 
 house, that he shrank from the discussion with her;
 
 THE EVE 137 
 
 he had a dim prescience of the line it would take. 
 And Mary was excited and uncompromising. War 
 was a monstrous wickedness, an evil to be resisted on 
 all occasions and at all costs. Geoffrey in these days 
 and in the months and years was to know the un- 
 happiness of perpetual and alternative opposition. It 
 seemed that the world was divided into the warlike 
 and the pacific, and there was no room for those of 
 the middle way. They seemed to be weak even while 
 they held strongly to what they could perceive of 
 reason and justice. His talk with Mary seemed to be 
 the converse of that with Attar, who certainly was no 
 fire-eater. Mary was startled to perceive in Geoffrey 
 a change, a difference; if there was not yet a rift 
 between them they began to see where the rift would 
 be. She became quieter and she watched him 
 anxiously. 
 
 " It must come," he said. 
 
 And there burst from her a shrillness of protest; it 
 was on a note that he hardly knew in her; it was 
 lament and reproach and the despair of incitement. 
 
 " We must defend our country," he said. 
 
 " It's not attacked." 
 
 " We must defend Belgium France." 
 
 She stopped to consider this. Any generosity of 
 idealism appealed to her. "We shall be tricked into 
 this war by words," she said. 
 
 " It's hard things that are happening." 
 
 " You all want it. You want war," she cried rashly. 
 He did not reply to that except to say, " What should 
 we do?"
 
 138 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I can't tell you what to do about these words and 
 documents. I can tell you the spirit you want. It's 
 the spirit of Christ. I hear no word of Christ. The 
 churches are very busy but they've forgotten about 
 Christ." 
 
 " Mention a practical point," he said wearily. And 
 she proposed that the king and his ministers should 
 " go right across to Berlin," and see the Kaiser and 
 the others and settle it. He objected that they would 
 all be taken prisoners immediately, but she waived that 
 aside impatiently and developed a kind of mad logic 
 in the scheme. " It has never been tried," she said. 
 " We are all human and you won't trust humanity. 
 It would be noble and nothing could resist it. You 
 trust to documents and despatches and dried-up old 
 diplomatists, not in God, not in yourselves even. You 
 go to war according to the precedents. Everybody is 
 horrified at war and you go to war. Are there ten 
 thousand people in Germany who want war? You 
 know there are not." 
 
 " I agree with a good deal of what you say," said 
 Geoffrey. " As to the king and the rest of 'em going 
 to Germany, I haven't the slightest objection, but it 
 won't be done. You have to consider what can and 
 what can't be done." He cited the famous visit of 
 John Bright and the Quakers to Russia. 
 
 " No doubt I'm a fool," said Mary, " and the men 
 who rule the world are very wise. They talk to the 
 people about the Fatherland and the Nation, and they 
 betray them. They are only bandits themselves. 
 They lead simple men to slaughter. It's easy to make
 
 THE EVE 139 
 
 a plausible case for war. You^can argue me down 
 but I'm right. If I'm not, the churches and chapels 
 should all shut up. How can they pretend that 
 Christ would agree ? " 
 
 " We've rationalized Christ," said Geoffrey. He 
 advanced a tepid, dispirited argument about taking the 
 world as you found it. He was tired and hadn't the 
 energy to put his case. She harped on Christ, she 
 thundered Christ at him. " I'm not a Christian in 
 any literal sense," he said, " and I didn't know you 
 were. I don't think Christ covers the ground. We 
 may be quite wrong in going into this war, but war 
 may be righteous. You think not. I try to get at your 
 point of view and I can nearly do it. But not quite. 
 There's a hard bit of common sense in me that stops 
 me. I suppose it's that I accept this world more than 
 you do. I'm of this world. There are things that I 
 would fight for. Of course, I mistrust all these diplo- 
 matists; I hate war, it's a last resort." He got up 
 from his chair. " Let's go to bed, Mary." 
 
 " You've not had your supper. I'll fetch it." She 
 returned directly with a tray, and as she entered the 
 room she said resentfully : " You meant that I was 
 to go to bed." 
 
 " Well, why not ? Are you going to rail at me as I 
 eat my supper? Is it for your own pleasure or my 
 advantage? I'm tired, I'm sick at heart. I want you 
 to leave me alone." 
 
 " It's not fair of you," she cried. " You know it's 
 immensely important. Yes, here and now, between 
 you and me. You're cowardly. If you felt as I do
 
 140 TRUE LOVE 
 
 on either side, I mean you couldn't rest ; you couldn't 
 just eat your supper and go to bed. You can't scorn 
 me. I'm not absurd. I'll listen to you. I want you 
 to say wise, illuminating things. I'll listen humbly. 
 I can't bear that you should push me aside as of no 
 account. If I go to bed now I shall lie there thinking 
 of you. I shall think of you as unfair ; yes, and rather 
 stupid, Geoffrey. I shall feel that you are unworthy. 
 It isn't the war. I can bear the war if it has to be. 
 Millions of people innocent people being killed. I 
 could bear that. I suppose so. But it's you and me." 
 
 " Mary," he said, " I'm conscious of wanting to 
 evade you. I'm racked with doubts, I can't see any- 
 thing clearly." He paused and drew a chair up to the 
 table. " I shall be better when I've had my supper," 
 he said ; " I think that'll put heart into me. Just wait 
 a few minutes." 
 
 " It's a poor, cold supper," she said ; " I couldn't 
 be bothered with it to-night." 
 
 " It's all right," he said. " I had dinner at the Mid- 
 land." 
 
 " Why didn't you come home ? " 
 
 " I was late." 
 
 " You wanted to avoid me." 
 
 " Now, now " 
 
 " You did." 
 
 " Mary, I shall avoid you whenever I please. It 
 won't be often and it wasn't so to-night." 
 
 Presently she said: "Will you have some claret?" 
 
 " That might help." 
 
 "Help?"
 
 THE EVE 141 
 
 " Help me to recover tone." 
 
 She poured out a glass and he gulped with satis- 
 faction. She began to laugh, she continued almost 
 hysterically. 
 
 "What is it? "he said. 
 
 " It's so ridiculous to see you sitting there eating 
 and drinking and gathering strength to annihilate 
 me." 
 
 " I've no idea of annihilating you." 
 
 " Then you ought to have," she said crossly ; " you 
 ought to be intensely anxious to show that you're right 
 and I'm wrong. You just want to get rid of me." 
 
 " Take the simple issue," said Geoffrey. " Are we 
 to let Germany trample over Belgium and France and 
 possess them ? " 
 
 " We are to do what Christ would. Do you doubt 
 what that would be ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said. " I've been thinking of that during 
 these days. I've wished that I was simply a Chris- 
 tian or simply a fire-eater. It's easy for you, Mary. 
 It's easy for these blatant patriots who are shouting 
 for war." 
 
 " Easy to decide, yes. Easy to live it out? I don't 
 know. Geoffrey, you wouldn't fight? You wouldn't 
 kill people?" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Shoot them ? Run swords into them and see them 
 die. Don't you see now? Think of it. Isn't that 
 convincing? You see how wicked it is. It can't be 
 done." 
 
 " It would be horrible. I should be qualmish, of
 
 142 TRUE LOVE 
 
 course. But we come to it. We don't bring death 
 into the world. Torn flesh, a little blood " 
 
 " But it's the spirit. You kill the spirit. They die 
 reproaching you." 
 
 " This line won't do, Mary. Some of the finest 
 spirits in the world have been soldiers." 
 
 " And repented." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " There's Tolstoy " 
 
 " Too much of Tolstoy," he said. And then he con- 
 tinued : " What impressed me in War and Peace was 
 Tolstoy's conception of the great masses of men mov- 
 ing inevitably while little Napoleons and Kaisers gave 
 orders and thought they were doing everything. And 
 now it's the Chancellors and the Sir Edward Greys 
 making up their minds in a void. They're dealing 
 with forces that they can't hold back." 
 
 " Yes," she said eagerly, " but we've each got a soul. 
 I can bear it if we're crushed by fate, but I must be 
 right and you must be wrong." 
 
 " My soul is not yours," he said. 
 
 " I know that I must seem very arrogant," she said. 
 " I won't be always at you like a nagging wife. I see 
 us falling apart farther and farther apart. And 
 there's so much to bear." 
 
 " These masses," he said, " these blind masses mov- 
 ing against one another it seems very stupid, it lacks 
 reason; and yet one or the other may be broadly, 
 roughly right. Good enough to die for." 
 
 Her protests were dwindling. She sank to a 
 troubled meditation. He watched her, hoping that it
 
 THE EVE 143 
 
 was over for this night. She said : " I think if you 
 were to die for what you thought right, I could bear 
 it very well." 
 
 It was a noble concession. And they talked quietly 
 for a while of affairs at the office. It was to him like 
 a microcosm of the great troubled world, for there too 
 he seemed to be groping amid loyalties and doubts. 
 " With all our faults we stand for something big," he 
 said, and she knew that he meant England now. She 
 could respond to the old idea of dying for one's coun- 
 try, to the old songs and the old cries. She had ceased 
 for the time to struggle, but in her heart she knew 
 that she could never acquiesce.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 
 
 IT was a whim that made Geoffrey choose a German 
 restaurant that night of all the nights, but he was not 
 the only Englishman who did so. He had telephoned 
 to Mary that he should not come home to dinner, and 
 while he spoke to her he was conscious that there was 
 no compelling reason why he should not ; nothing be- 
 yond an extreme restlessness and, as he realized when 
 he heard the telephone's diminuendo of her patient 
 voice, a reluctance to face her again. She asked for 
 news, and he told her that Germany was invading 
 Belgium and that in a few hours we should be at war. 
 He waited for her comment, half-expecting the em- 
 phatic and indignant, but there was a long pause and 
 he thought she must have gone away till he heard a 
 gentle " Good-night, Geoffrey," which made him wish 
 he had gone home to her. The wish was transient, 
 for, even now, there was nothing to prevent his going. 
 He had a vague expectation that he might be wanted, 
 and he found himself continually looking for a note or 
 hearkening for a message. There was both bitterness 
 and humility in the feeling or the knowledge he was 
 not sure which it was that his work did not matter 
 now. He was stranded and forgotten; some routine 
 
 144
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 145 
 
 of work went on, but it was like ^a clacking loom with- 
 out a warp in it. 
 
 He went out into the streets and, wanting food, he 
 soon took refuge from their intolerable clamor in a 
 little familiar room which seemed already to have be- 
 come curious and sinister. Some of those he had 
 seen swigging beer there, were on their way to Ger- 
 many, and the waiter, too, had gone. Behind the bar 
 the proprietor, with a sad and civil air, saluted his 
 customers and passed out the dishes; his wife waited 
 upon them with nervous haste. The place was half 
 empty, and Geoffrey found what was nearly a quiet 
 corner, but the little less turned out to be whole worlds 
 away. Across the gangway and a little in front of 
 him, three people were drinking at a table, and it 
 seemed that interest in his advent had momentarily 
 silenced them. They soon renewed their conversa- 
 tion, which, indeed, was very much a monologue by 
 the man facing him. He was a big, blatant fellow 
 of sanguine complexion, one of those who talk at 
 people rather than to them, and he soon attempted to 
 bring Geoffrey within his sphere of influence. His 
 companions were a woman, who laughed weakly, mad- 
 deningly, at everything, and a little man with a de- 
 pressed back, a figure of morose submission. 
 
 " I've always stood up for the Germans," bellowed 
 the big man. " Here, mister, how much of your beer 
 have I drunk first and last ? " He waved an empty 
 mug and held it out for replenishment. The pro- 
 prietor's eyes were far away ; he might have been con- 
 sidering the question. He was a spare, dark man of
 
 146 TRUE LOVE 
 
 middle age, vaguely foreign, but not typically German. 
 His patient, slightly ironical glance fell on the big 
 man. 
 
 " Put it in gallons, mister." And then, with an air 
 of triumph, " He can't calc'late it." 
 
 The fresh beer was brought and the big man rose 
 solemnly, mug in hand. Ceremoniously he raised the 
 lid. " Gentlemen both," he said Geoffrey was fairly 
 in it now " I'll ask you to join me in drinking my 
 girl's health. I'm off for the front to-night, aren't I, 
 Amy?" The woman laughed again and got out a 
 handkerchief to mop her eyes; it crossed Geoffrey's 
 mind that to him she might possibly be attractive. The 
 little man rose obediently. Geoffrey felt a fool, but 
 he could do no less. Catching the woman's eye, he 
 bowed and put his mug to his lips. She inclined her 
 head graciously and not without dignity. 
 
 The big man drained his pot, which, in the circum- 
 stances, was a considerable feat. Leaning over the 
 table he raised it with dramatic gesture and dashed it 
 to the floor. There was a startled silence in the room. 
 The proprietor put down a dish that he was holding 
 and stood stern and ready. The big man enjoyed the 
 sensation to the full. He dropped his voice now, as 
 the cunning orator does : " Not another drop o' Ger- 
 man beer till I drink it at Berlin." He shouted the 
 last word and sat down. 
 
 Geoffrey saw the proprietor exchange glances with 
 his wife, and she came immediately with cloth and 
 dish to clear up the mess. With a large, affable mag- 
 nanimity the big man said : " Sorry to give you the
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 147 
 
 trouble, ma'am." A great, ifktemporary, calm had 
 come upon him and he addressed the little man collo- 
 quially : " Yes, as I was sayin', y'aven't the physique. 
 I dare say y'd just pass. I say nothin' about y'r spirit 
 Talks o' 'listin' " he addressed Geoffrey " and quite 
 right, too. You'll all 'ave to. T's not 'alf a job, this. 
 They've no Bismarck now an' they've no Von Molkey, 
 but they're an 'ot lot all the same." 
 
 He cast a critical eye on the little man. " Not much 
 to 'it," he said, and winked at Geoffrey. The woman 
 laughed shrilly and, looking at Geoffrey, checked her- 
 self. " Want o' physique," said the big man, squaring 
 his shoulders ; " it's to be 'oped you've pluck." With 
 a touch of ferocity he said : " Y'aren't afraid o' the 
 Germans? 'Ow'd y' like a bullet in y'r mouth or a 
 bit o' shell in y'r belly? beg pardon, stomach. It's 
 different from sitting here drinking beer." 
 
 And then, amazingly, the little man found his 
 tongue. Beginning, " Oh ! you talk a lot," he struck a 
 high, violent note. He thumped the table, he poured 
 out verbiage about his country, he swore at the Ger- 
 mans, and defied the lightning generally. He subsided 
 suddenly and the big man, turning to Geoffrey, nodded 
 and winked. " He'll do," he said. " It's on'y a ques- 
 tion of chest measurement." It seemed that it was 
 his turn again, and that the little man had queered his 
 pitch. He required a stimulant and called out in a 
 reasonable voice : " Any Bass ? " The proprietor 
 slightly shook his head and the big man got up. 
 " Good God ! " he said. " No Bass ! We've been here 
 too long. Come on, Amy ; " and then, to the other,
 
 148 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Are y' comin' ? " The little man had had enough of 
 him and indicated some remainder of beer as a cause 
 for delay. The other looked into the mug and laughed 
 scornfully ; the woman echoed him. " Well till we 
 meet in Berlin, eh ? Or p'raps you'll see me off ? It's 
 10.45, London Road. There'll be lots there, won't 
 there, Amy ? " He clapped the little man on the back, 
 and gave Geoffrey an exaggerated salute. Then he 
 faced the proprietor, who returned his stare. He 
 threw a half-crown on the counter, " Keep the 
 change," he said, and swaggered out, the woman fol- 
 lowing. It was a meretricious performance, but it left 
 them feeling rather small. 
 
 The little man eyed Geoffrey sideways with a sneer- 
 ing expression. They understood one another, but the 
 instinct for articulation was strong. " Lot o' swank," 
 he said. Geoffrey replied : " I believe it's been said 
 that a bully is not always a coward." The little man 
 pondered over this; presently he got up and stood 
 before Geoffrey. " Going to volunteer yourself ? " 
 he said. " You're young enough." 
 
 Geoffrey was startled. He said that he had hardly 
 considered it yet, and when the man sat down on the 
 other side of his table he felt that this was making 
 unwarrantable inroads upon his privacy. The other 
 leaned over and said confidentially : " D'y feel a bit of 
 sinking in y'r stomach ? '* 
 
 " Really " Geoffrey began. But the little man 
 
 looked appealingly at him and said, " I do." 
 
 He did not look heroic. He was a rather meager 
 and yet weedy specimen of the clerk class, with a
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 149 
 
 horrid little waxed mustache, it may have been the 
 circumstances of his confidences that gave his face a 
 furtive expression, yet Geoffrey was aware of a spirit- 
 ual struggle. 
 
 " It's been sprung on us, this," said the little man. 
 " We aren't ready for it ; men like me, I mean. What 
 are we going to do ? I don't fancy myself on a battle- 
 field. Will it come to that? Shall we be expected 
 that fellow there " he jerked his head towards the 
 door " said so." 
 
 He swallowed several times as he waited for a reply. 
 Geoffrey didn't know what to say and wasn't sure how 
 far to abase himself with this fellow-creature who 
 wanted something better than platitudes. Was he to 
 assume a large confidence, to encourage the valiant 
 enterprise, to give the little man a refined version of 
 his late companion's incitements? This would be to 
 travel far on a road to which he was not yet com- 
 mitted. His impulse was friendly, but he could hardly 
 be comforting. " We've all got to search our con- 
 sciences a bit," he said. 
 
 " Search our consciences," repeated the little man 
 thoughtfully and he nodded, finding some help or ap- 
 pearance of help in the phrase. " But that chap " 
 and his references to the big man had always a touch 
 of resentment " he's got no conscience. He just goes 
 off with a burst." 
 
 " You and I are different, perhaps," said Geoffrey. 
 And then he added : " We're thinking men." 
 
 It was a gross piece of flattery, but the little man 
 accepted it with dignity. Perhaps it touched an un-
 
 150 TRUE LOVE 
 
 easy spot, for he said : " I talked like a fool just now." 
 
 Geoffrey said : " Of course. Before him." 
 
 " That's it." 
 
 They nodded at one another understandingly. It 
 seemed to bring a little comfort, and the little man 
 grasped at more comfort : " P'raps it'll be all over in 
 a week or two," he said. 
 
 Geoffrey shook his head. 
 
 " Maybe I'm different from others, but I don't 
 know. I've no right to ask how y'd feel y'rself ." 
 
 He was not an adventurous spirit. He wanted to 
 have feelings and aspirations in common. In a crowd 
 he would have shouted or run with the rest, perhaps 
 have died safely and honorably with the rest. Here, 
 his manhood had a quavering, veritable existence of 
 its own, but he looked at Geoffrey appealingly. 
 
 " We're all very much alike," Geoffrey said. 
 
 "Afraid, d'y mean?" 
 
 " I think we're afraid of being afraid." 
 
 He knitted his brows at this, and Geoffrey said, 
 rather testily, " Any one would be afraid at first. 
 You've got to learn courage like anything else." And 
 he went on to tell of an old colonel he knew who had 
 been through the Crimean War, and had laughed to 
 recall how scared he was when first he heard the guns 
 thundering about him. 
 
 " He came out all right?" said the little man, and 
 Geoffrey answered : " A perfect hero." 
 
 This was pondered, and then Geoffrey was discon- 
 certed when the man put his hand over his face and 
 gasped out, " The 'errors of the battlefield ! " It was
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 151 
 
 a renouncement of these shallow comforts, a plea for 
 a deeper reassurance, and yet Geoffrey shrank from 
 it as from something melodramatic and insincere. 
 Doubtless the poor soul had some vision derived from 
 garish descriptions or horrific pictures and could not 
 fit into it his shrinking self. He pulled himself to- 
 gether, he glanced uneasily at the German proprietor, 
 whose eyes were still far away, he got up and stood 
 for a moment hesitating. " Well," he said, " I've 
 taken a liberty times like these." 
 
 " We're in the same boat," said Geoffrey kindly. 
 The man looked at him wistfully, beset still with 
 doubts. " Well, good-night," he said. It would have 
 been a depressed exit, but, remembering himself, he 
 swaggered past the German, who said, " Good-night, 
 sir," in response to a haughty nod. 
 
 Geoffrey finished his meal and lit his cigarette. He 
 sat there scorning these insensate furies of war, con- 
 temptuous of those who saw in Germany just a power 
 for evil, a nation of barbarous aggressors. He was 
 deeply conscious of an agony of doubt, he was no more 
 master of himself than was the little man whose 
 mentor he had been just now. And it seemed to him 
 that, as a spring which grows into a great river might 
 have been diverted this way or that, he hesitated at 
 the source; some small decision might be swollen by 
 tributaries to greatness. He could have prayed for 
 light, and he had a momentary envy of those who had 
 the habit. A skeptical recovery brought the reflection 
 that those who pray for light may exalt any will-o'- 
 the-wisp as the true illumination.
 
 152 TRUE LOVE 
 
 The restaurant emptied, and he was left with the 
 proprietor and his wife. She had her hat on, and at 
 a whisper from her husband she took it off when she 
 came to serve the coffee. Geoffrey said some word of 
 apology for detaining her as he glanced round the 
 empty room. She shook her head as she turned away, 
 and he perceived that she was agitated. Her hus- 
 band handed out her hat, touched her on the shoulder, 
 and she was gone immediately. In a few minutes 
 Geoffrey rose and approached the counter to pay his 
 bill. " I fear," he said, " that madame " he hesi- 
 tated, ending with " these are bad times." 
 
 " She wanted to get home to her children," said the 
 man. 
 
 " Bad times for you, I fear," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I shall not have the honor of serving you again 
 at present. We are closing here. I am over the mili- 
 tary age, but I am a German. I suppose I shall soon be 
 in prison." 
 
 " I am sorry," said Geoffrey. Then he said, " Good 
 luck to you," and held out his hand. The German 
 looked surprised but he took it eagerly. " And to you, 
 sir," he said. 
 
 " A speedy peace, I hope," said Geoffrey. He was 
 going when the man arrested him with " It will not be 
 long." 
 
 " What do you mean by that? " 
 
 " Germany is very powerful. We shall soon win." 
 
 " I'm damned if you will," said Geoffrey. And as 
 he walked back to the office he reflected that this was 
 the sort of trifle that determined an issue. In a mo-
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 153 
 
 ment he was bellicose. He was^ ready to quarrel or 
 to enlist or to head a charge. He was an Englishman 
 on whose dominions the sun never sets, and these ar- 
 rogant Germans must be shown their place. " A place 
 in the sun," they had demanded, and, of course, we 
 must be fair to them. He had admired that fellow in 
 the restaurant, he had been touched by the wife. And 
 he must guard against these silly impulses of irritation 
 and offended pride. A vast amount of provoking folly 
 was loosed now, and he must try to hold himself aloof 
 from it, to concentrate steadily on the things that mat- 
 tered. He was to be guided by reason and to beware 
 of that trap for reason argument. He was to be 
 wise and charitable and to choose the nobler part. It 
 is easy to be a good man in the void. 
 
 He was frequently conscious now of Mary's sym- 
 pathy or Mary's opposition, and sometimes he re- 
 viewed the events of the day in order to select those 
 which he might mention to her with more or less of 
 safety. He was timid and anxious to avoid discussion, 
 while she was ready to thresh things out at any hour 
 of the day, to go over the old ground, to break into 
 the old vehemencies. He told himself and her that it 
 was useless and worse than useless for them to talk of 
 the ethics of war in terms of emotion, he was not quite 
 innocent of the pose of reason and philosophy. He 
 would combat her when he was roused, but he didn't 
 want to be roused; sometimes, rather cunningly, he 
 would make concessions of no great value to placate 
 her. In his heart he knew that he couldn't be faithful 
 to any pact with Mary against the world ; that he ac-
 
 154 TRUE LOVE 
 
 cepted the world or this phase of it in a sense im- 
 possible to her; that he had not enthusiasm or con- 
 viction for the extremes of pacific idealism. He was 
 a critic, not a rebel, and yet, though he had a con- 
 tempt for the pedants who would have it that criticism 
 is just a reference to criteria, here he was groping 
 in the dark with mere instincts to warn him of hin- 
 drance or help. He had never thought things out. 
 Why had he never thought things out? 
 
 Sitting late with Mary over breakfast, he thought 
 he might tell her of the small adventure at the res- 
 taurant. They had not spoken of the great news, for 
 Great Britain had declared war, and she was glower- 
 ing over the Herald leader. She threw the paper 
 down. 
 
 " So it's accepted," she said. " You agree. It's all 
 right. You're all comfortable now." 
 
 And, indeed, that is what he had been feeling. 
 There was to put it mildly discomfort enough be- 
 fore them, but here was the Herald ranged loyally on 
 the side of the war, and it was impossible to deny that 
 this made life easier. Geoffrey was ready to maintain 
 passionately that there was no baseness of acquies- 
 cence here. They had fought their good fight against 
 war ; they were beaten, and now, when all these great 
 forces were irrevocably let loose, there was no ques- 
 tion of their side. But Mary was all for the difficult 
 way. Gentle, withdrawn, remote, she was always at 
 heart a furious rebel. And now she pitched away 
 the peccant Herald and began her old tirade. It went 
 on till Geoffrey said, " I'm tired of Christ and Tol-
 
 THE WAR'S HERE 155 
 
 stoy," when she stopped suddenly and resentfully. 
 They sat sullen and silent, but there was a diversion; 
 Milly Warde came in. 
 
 She came, bringing an honest, vigorous life to the 
 fragilities and smashing them right and left. It was 
 an impulse that she couldn't resist. She had come to 
 congratulate Geoffrey on the Herald having mended 
 its ways and come over to the national side at last. 
 They had been wayward, naughty children, it ap- 
 peared, and now had decided to be good. So pats 
 and kisses for them and all was well. " It's been hor- 
 ribly uncomfortable for us, you know," she said; 
 " why did you go on like that ? Of course, I know 
 it's not Geoffrey's fault, but he might have told Mr. 
 Lindsay. The sort of thing people were saying, I 
 mean. Have you any Germans on the staff, really? 
 It's been beastly for those of us who are your friends. 
 Do keep all right now, won't you ? " 
 
 She rattled on, and presently became aware that 
 there wasn't much response. Then she stopped and 
 looked at them. " Of course, I'm a great silly," she 
 said, and then, " There'll be some point in being a 
 nurse now." 
 
 And then it struck Geoffrey that she saw rather 
 farther than he had thought. She had taken things 
 with a rush, as she generally did, and she had estab- 
 lished her position without qualification. But it ap- 
 peared that she was watching Mary, to whom she 
 spoke suddenly : " Do you remember, Mary, how you 
 used to make me admire Rossetti's sonnet ? " 
 
 It was Geoffrey who said, " Which sonnet? " though
 
 156 TRUE LOVE 
 
 he knew, and Milly quoted a line or two. " On the 
 Refusal of Aid between Nations." And so Mary was 
 involved in distinctions, distinctions between then and 
 now, the letter and the spirit, the aids of brotherhood 
 and the positive committal to violence and slaughter. 
 And they trailed off to a desultory discussion on the 
 nations and the deeper common measure of humanity. 
 And poor Mary became weary and baffled. 
 
 At last she said to Geoffrey : " Let it be romantic 
 then. Make it noble in your own way. But how can 
 you? All the poor, ignorant people taken away to be 
 killed!" 
 
 Tamely enough, he said : " It's a question of the 
 alternative." 
 
 And the hopelessness of continuing the discussion 
 oppressed them. Milly inquired brightly about his 
 visit to Grasmere, and wanted to know how all these 
 great events impressed Miss Drew. She had quite an 
 intelligent interest in the impact of terrific realities 
 upon one accustomed to big things in the " mimic life." 
 Geoffrey was not disposed to consider Miss Drew as 
 one of a race apart. " Very much like you and me," 
 he said, and repeated variants of this. When Milly 
 had gone, Geoffrey said to Mary : " The hearty lass is 
 no fool." Mary stared at him and, lacking interest or 
 freshness, did not reply.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 
 
 " IT'S one in the eye for us, of course," said Attar, 
 " but we shall get over it all right now." 
 
 He sat with Geoffrey and Burke in the tea-shop 
 which was a little arid and desolate on this late after- 
 noon of summer. They drank their tea gloomily, but 
 Burke had had sufficient interest in life to order cur- 
 rant tea-cake and Attar was particular in insisting 
 upon China tea. They were of the Herald, but not 
 in its inner council, and while loyalty compelled them 
 to present an implacable front to the outsider, they 
 could criticize and even blaspheme among them- 
 selves. 
 
 " We shall never hear the last of it," said Burke. 
 
 "Of what?" said Attar. 
 
 " Of those damned leaders." 
 
 " After all," Geoffrey said, " it was only half a 
 dozen sentences in them." 
 
 " The blockheads that we are dealing with," said 
 Attar, " never carry away more than two sen- 
 tences." 
 
 " And that's true," said Burke. He ordered another 
 tea-cake. " I don't care." 
 
 " We've the knack of rubbing people the wrong 
 157
 
 158 TRUE LOVE 
 
 way," said Attar. " I grant that we're commonly in 
 the right, but we always rile 'em with those half- 
 dozen sentences." 
 
 " What good are you if you're always thinking of 
 their feelings ? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 " And that's true," said Burke. 
 
 " Well, Tim," said Geoffrey, " what are we all going 
 to do? All this cry of war makes me feel what a 
 peaceful man I am. I'm not an adventurer. I begin 
 to see how delightful it is to be a drudge. I want to 
 go on quietly writing plays and novels just imagin- 
 ing nice little domestic upsets and being terrifically 
 tragic about them, or else comic. And now comes 
 this frightful distraction. Can I just stand aside? 
 Can I say I won't fight and that we're all brothers? 
 What if we all did that? I'm being obvious, I know. 
 I want to get the obvious right. I distrust all I hear 
 about Germany and Germany's designs. I take Great 
 Britain's impeccability with a grain of salt. But 
 damn it, man they've got going now and what'll 
 happen if they walk over us all? When the world's 
 reshaping are we to boggle over a few million lives? 
 If we are to be philanthropists let's conceive on the 
 grand scale. Why ! What are lives ? If you're going 
 to build a Forth Bridge it'll kill hundreds. A railway 
 in Africa means thousands of lives in its construction. 
 What sort of a world would you have? Human life ! 
 Let's be big." 
 
 " Go ahead," said Burke ; " you've thought it all 
 out." 
 
 " I've never thought of it till now that I begin to
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 159 
 
 speak," said Geoffrey. " I couldt^t start thinking. I'm 
 trying to think now." 
 
 " Your psychology is interesting," said Attar. 
 
 " Don't dry him up," said Burke. 
 
 And Geoffrey would not be dried up. " What I 
 want," he said, " is a simple issue, and, begad, I hardly 
 care what it is. I've tried to imagine myself a primi- 
 tive Christian telling these folk to put up their swords 
 acquiescing with an angelic smile when they 
 trampled over me. Passive resistance ! Conscientious 
 objection! Why shouldn't the saints among us make 
 a stand ? And, mind you, Attar, I despise a man who 
 isn't a saint. That is to say, I despise him if, con- 
 sciously, he says, ' That man's better than I and I 
 could be like that/ If he's swifter or stronger than I, 
 I'll cheer him on and do the best I can, humbly, with 
 what I have of swiftness and strength. D'you see?" 
 
 " Partly," said Attar. 
 
 " Well, I've, so to say, gone up and looked at this 
 holy, non-resistance stunt and I can't stand it. It's 
 not for me. I want to know what it means. And I'm 
 told that Tolstoy says you mustn't lay your hands on 
 a drunken man who would kill a child. Then Tol- 
 stoy's a fool. One of the greatest of men, but a fool. 
 I rejoice that there are such fools. I want a world of 
 all sorts. I want extremes though I'm moderate my- 
 self." 
 
 " D'you want bloody murderers in it too ? " said 
 Burke. 
 
 " I suppose so. It seems better fun." 
 
 " And how," said Attar,, " if your reason told you
 
 160 TRUE LOVE 
 
 that in this quarrel with Germany we were in the 
 wrong ? " 
 
 " I'm as English as they're made," said Geoffrey. 
 " Back of it all there's that conviction that we're 
 sound. I hate their Imperial rot. Our rhetoric about 
 it is nauseating. But I'd only whisper it among 
 friends we're a bit better than the Germans. Not 
 much. We've all their vices in a minor degree. It's 
 enough to count. I'm thinking it might be enough to 
 die for if you're disposed that way." 
 
 " What's the practical issue in your case ? " said 
 Attar. 
 
 " Bother your practical issues. I'm just having a 
 good jaw." 
 
 " What are you going to do, Burke ? " said Attar. 
 
 " I've sent in my name to the Admiralty." 
 
 " Offering to take on the Grand Fleet ? " said Attar. 
 
 " I'm an engineer, you know. They may want 
 us." 
 
 " Yes," said Geoffrey, " I talk and talk and Burke 
 does something. I've kept telling myself that I 
 mustn't let my feelings carry me away. Why ! When 
 I hear a distant band I begin to tremble to tingle, I 
 mean. And then it comes nearer and I see a ram- 
 shackle lot of fellows marching behind it. Rabbits! 
 They'll go down before Germany like rabbits, I dare 
 say. And I feel I ought to be with them. What right 
 have I to luxuriate in sentimental feelings about these 
 men? I've been skeptical and aloof and felt it was 
 very fine of the poor devils. I've had sentimental tears 
 in my eyes, but deep down I've been wondering what
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 161 
 
 I'm going to do. The old Hertdd would get on well 
 enough without me." 
 
 Attar said : " One seems to have built up a sort of 
 individual existence, and now you're to become one 
 of a roaring crowd. And then you're to be a number, 
 a uniform. Between friends as you say, Arden 
 I've all sorts of disputing impulses. Some are des- 
 picable enough. Fighting is for soldiers, for pros. 
 Let the peasants go. But there's an old tag keeps com- 
 ing into my head." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Noblesse oblige. Somehow I don't like ranking 
 myself with the bourgeoisie." 
 
 " It's going to be all together this time," said Burke. 
 
 And then Imalian dropped in and joined them. He 
 had a parcel under his arm, and Attar demanded that 
 he should show it. Imalian demurred, but produced 
 his fine edition deprecatingly. " I shall go on fiddling 
 while Rome burns," he said. He resented the war as a 
 horrid piece of barbarism, a very serious annoyance 
 indeed. This was not all, of course; you suspected 
 him of deep racial sympathies, of ideals that he would 
 not share with you. Here, with a sad playfulness, he 
 posed as the typical quiet citizen who did not wish 
 harm to anybody, only demanding if so moderate an 
 appeal might be called a demand a place where he 
 and other peace-loving people might dwell unmolested. 
 And, indeed, something of this is at the heart of 
 many of us; a quiet country for quiet people is 
 wanted. 
 
 An exclamation from Attar drew Geoffrey's eyes
 
 162 TRUE LOVE 
 
 to the door. There was Bonsor with his friend Riley, 
 and they came to a table beside that of the others, 
 very much with the air of joining them. Attar and 
 Riley had exchanged cool nods, and Attar had had 
 time to mutter to Geoffrey : " Worse than Bonsor." 
 However, for a time they all observed the forms, and 
 it was a pretty mild remark by Bonsor that fired the 
 train. It was couched almost as a compliment, but of 
 that unhappy variety which implies the removal of 
 scales from eyes that had been wantonly blind. 
 And Riley grossly, rudely, said : " I suppose Lind- 
 say sees at last which side his bread is buttered 
 on." 
 
 Geoffrey said : " Oh, take that man away." 
 And then a hubbub burst out; every one was talk- 
 ing. Riley was strident, Burke contributed a deep 
 roar, Imalian, hastily parceling up his volume, was 
 stemming with irony the flood of Bonsor's aimless elo- 
 quence. Geoffrey interjected an occasional insult, 
 while Attar tried to restrain him, suggesting, however, 
 that an examination of Riley's bumps would be very 
 interesting. The classical allusion was lost on the 
 company. There was so much noise that the dispute 
 overflowed, and outsiders took some share in it. 
 " Hardly dignified, this," said Attar, but it was diffi- 
 cult to withdraw. A stranger, intervening, wished to 
 know whether a majority of the Herald shares were 
 not held by Germans, and whether the leaders were 
 not written by men of German extraction. " Don't 
 answer the fool," said Burke, but the man kept re- 
 iterating : " Is that the case ? " Attar said, " I can
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 163 
 
 assure you, sir, that several drunken men have said 
 so." 
 
 Riley bawled out that there would have been some 
 excuse for them if they had been Germans. It was 
 the unpatriotic blindness of Englishmen that distressed 
 him. " You would not listen," he said, " you would 
 
 not prepare, you would do nothing " " Except cry 
 
 Peace, Peace, when there was no Peace," intervened 
 Bonsor finely. 
 
 Attar said : " The point is, I understand, that we 
 didn't know this war was coming and did nothing to 
 prepare for it." 
 
 " That's one point," said Riley, " but " 
 
 Attar pursued : " You did know it was coming. 
 What did you do ? " 
 
 " You received warnings enough," said Bonsor, 
 and Riley, slightly disconcerted, said " Deaf and 
 blind." 
 
 " No, no," said Attar. " Stick to the point. I was 
 too dense to see that war must come. You saw it 
 clearly. What did you do?" 
 
 "What could we do?" said Riley. "I'm not the 
 editor of a leading provincial paper." 
 
 " Let's grant that you couldn't do much. What did 
 you do ? " 
 
 " This is totally irrelevant," said Riley. " You're 
 just drawing a red herring across the trail. At the 
 best you were hopelessly, ridiculously mistaken. You 
 wouldn't listen to the most solemn assurances from 
 those who knew " 
 
 " Come, now," said Attar ; " nobody knew. Ob-
 
 164 TRUE LOVE 
 
 viously there was some chance of war and the Herald 
 underestimated the chance. The stupid people were 
 right, as they often are, but that doesn't make them 
 wise. War or peace ? It's a toss-up. Heads or tails ? 
 You cry war and it is, and you have the illusion of 
 wisdom. We staked on peace and were wrong. The 
 easy course was to be moderately bellicose, but we 
 chose the difficult, courageous one, and tried to keep 
 the peace." 
 
 " Sir," called out an indignant stranger, " do you 
 call Lord Roberts one of the stupid people ? " 
 
 " I call him a fine old fellow," said Attar, " and one 
 of the half-dozen men in the country that might re- 
 proach us with some point. But the conversation is 
 becoming general and I came here for a quiet cup of 
 tea." 
 
 " Yes, you've a genius for getting out of things, 
 you Herald people," said Riley bitterly. " You make 
 the most idiotic mistakes and then you get away in a 
 cloud of words." 
 
 " Ah ! yes," said Attar pleasantly, " it must be 
 deuced annoying to you when you see us escaping 
 again. You thought we'd dished ourselves and we 
 haven't. And what's more, Riley, we aren't going to. 
 We're as sound as a bell. Your attempt to make us 
 out traitors or semi-traitors will be a failure. Inci- 
 dentally, it's the meanest and most despicable move 
 that we've had in these parts. Go home and weep, 
 man. You'll be proud to know us yet. There isn't a 
 paper in the land that will run this war better than 
 we. I can say so because it won't be my doing. Don't
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 165 
 
 come hectoring here, Riley. We're as loyal as you 
 and not such fools." 
 
 It was a remarkable outburst for the well-balanced 
 Attar, and Riley and Bonsor shook with rage. They 
 both talked together, and Bonsor, never incisive, domi- 
 nated by loudness. Attar had touched the point 
 shrewdly ; the Herald was getting away again, and its 
 enemies did believe that it had committed itself in 
 these days preceding the war. Riley brought them 
 back to this. He shouted incriminating sentences from 
 leaders, and Bonsor, less informed, had to fall back 
 into the chorus. " Do you justify that? " cried Riley, 
 and Bonsor echoed, " Yes, what d'you say to 
 that?" 
 
 " Got a bit nasty, did we ? " said Attar calmly. " My 
 dear men, d'you seriously think I'm going to contend 
 for the verbal inspiration of the Herald. Like every 
 other paper it's crammed with blunders of every de- 
 scription. It's written by men in all sorts of moods. 
 Sometimes they're passionate moods and indiscretions 
 pop out. We're not all gods or angels. You must take 
 us in bulk. Judge the wise man by his chance word 
 and he's a fool. You want us to say rash things, to 
 goad us to the extreme and then to judge us. I hope 
 I'm not becoming apologetic. I just want to help you 
 to a point of view." 
 
 Riley said : " You've no such thing as editorial 
 supervision, then ? " 
 
 " Bravo, Riley," said Attar ; " that's the most intelli- 
 gent thing you've said yet. But even the editor's a 
 human being. Theoretically he's the king who can do
 
 166 TRUE LOVE 
 
 no wrong. Actually we rejoice in him as a gallant, 
 Quixotic gentleman. That among other things. Ah! 
 What a ludicrous myth you've made of the editor of 
 the Herald! And you try to detach us, to bring us 
 over to your mean dullness ; you want us to wink and 
 say that, of course, we have to conform, but it's all 
 madness. No, Riley. No, Bonsor." 
 
 Inevitably the circle had enlarged, and there was a 
 muttering fringe to it. The times were strange, and 
 conventional manners relaxed. " All I can say is I 
 wouldn't pollute my house with the rag," cried an 
 angry citizen, and Attar said, " Really, sir ? Your 
 house is charming. I'm sure, but you must feel very 
 uncomfortable when you go home drunk." But Geof- 
 frey broke in here. " You remind me, sir," he said, 
 " of an old story. A gentleman was showing a philoso- 
 pher over his house. It was a beautiful house, all 
 spick and span. And the philosopher spat in the 
 gentleman's face. ' Pardon me,' he said, ' but there 
 was no other place ! ' ' 
 
 There was a pause and a splutter of laughter, and 
 the citizen cried : " Do you mean to insult me ? " 
 
 " Well, what d'you think? " said Burke. 
 
 But now an earnest little man intervened. He had 
 always had a high regard for the Herald, had read it 
 regularly for thirty-three no, thirty-four years, ad- 
 mired its literary style, considered its market reports 
 sound, but its theater notices too severe that by the 
 way. " I am a Liberal," he pursued, " and have voted 
 steadily on the Liberal side. I don't say the leaders 
 are not able, but the attitude towards capital, now;
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 167 
 
 the encouragement of the unreasonable encroachments 
 of labor " and so on. As to the war, he must con- 
 fess that he was reluctant to believe 
 
 " Poor little devil," interjected Burke. 
 
 Attar said : " I take you, sir. Your moderation does 
 you credit. But why should we mold ourselves on 
 you ? There are lots of sorts in the world." 
 
 It appeared that this Liberal regarded himself as 
 representing the enlightened sense of the community. 
 He had supported the Herald and it was not too much 
 to ask that the Herald should support him. If it failed 
 to do so his gesture implied that this was at its own 
 risk. 
 
 " You mean that we are to kow-tow to our cus- 
 tomers ? " said Attar. " To give the public what it 
 wants ? " 
 
 " I am not the public," said the Liberal, " but you 
 must acknowledge some obligation yes, and some re- 
 sponsibility to your party." 
 
 " Damn the party," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " You daren't say that in your paper," cried Bonsor. 
 
 " We say it every day." 
 
 " It amounts to this," said Riley, " that they repre- 
 sent nothing but themselves. They live in a little hot- 
 house, forcing opinions." 
 
 Another voice boomed out : " They're like the Bour- 
 bons: they learn nothing and they forget nothing." 
 
 " There seems to be some slight contradiction here," 
 said Attar, leaning forward to catch sight of the owner 
 of the voice. " You're giving us all the virtues initia- 
 tive and endurance too, independence and loyalty."
 
 168 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " You'll have your windows broken yet," bawled 
 a coarse voice. 
 
 " Ah ! well ! " said Attar, " there's an argument that 
 we can all understand. I sympathize with that hearty 
 gentleman. He believes that we're in German pay, no 
 doubt. Simple melodrama is his line. A good, bellow- 
 ing patriot, are you, sir? Qualification shows the 
 cloven hoof? Well, if you'll sing the right songs and 
 keep your hands clean I'm with you. Keep it pure. 
 Why not join us in a bit of idealism? Why, you 
 fools, we're all on one side. We're something better 
 than buccaneers now. The old songs are good, but 
 we've got to make some new ones. Riley, I've been 
 rude to you and I shall be again, but I'm conscious 
 now that we've infinite things in common. Here's a 
 big war coming, and it'll be a strain such as we've 
 never suffered before. Great Heavens! It's the 
 easiest thing in the world to say, ' I've been wrong. 
 Let's start again ' ; it's infinitely difficult to go half- 
 way. We were blind, you say. We didn't foresee this 
 tremendous explosion. It's very much a matter of 
 temperament. We lacked faith in melodrama. Don't 
 let's waste ourselves in recriminations, you damned 
 fool. What's before us? I think we'll pull through, 
 but who can tell? We may all be beaten in a month." 
 
 " The man who says so is a traitor," shouted Riley, 
 and there was a confused mutter of assent. A voice 
 cried : " If we're beaten, it's thanks to you." 
 
 " The man who says so is a traitor ? " repeated 
 Attar. " But I think the man who daren't face it is 
 a coward. In the meantime we'll hope and trust."
 
 RECRIMINATIONS 169 
 
 He rose and Geoffrey and Iraalian followed him. 
 " Coming, Burke ? " said Geoffrey, but Burke ordered 
 a second pot of tea and another tea-cake. He pre- 
 ferred to remain among the enemy rather than to 
 give the impression of a general retreat. Attar bowed 
 to the company with some ceremony, and one or two 
 said " Good afternoon," but generally it was a sullen 
 silence. On the way upstairs Imalian congratulated 
 Attar. " What a set of savages," he said. He hugged 
 his book; there was yet some stability in the world. 
 
 Geoffrey went home to Mary, and his consciousness 
 of the scene was strong enough to overcome his reluc- 
 tance to speak to her about it. Perhaps he desired, 
 too, to remind her that the Herald was one of the 
 martyrs. He praised Attar whole-heartedly, and she 
 smiled a little at Burke settling down to his third tea- 
 cake on the point of honor. " Or was he merely 
 hungry ? " she said. " Even to be hungry in the cir- 
 cumstances would be a merit," said Geoffrey. He had 
 particularly admired Attar's appeal to be judged " in 
 bulk " and not by the incriminating extreme. He 
 quoted this to Mary and she said : " But you judge 
 murderers so." She was a disconcerting person.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 
 
 THEY brought a card to Geoffrey in his room at the 
 office and he conned the name of Mr. Arnold Gray 
 doubtfully. At a newspaper office strangers are not 
 received with enthusiasm, but neither are they dis- 
 missed with contumely; they may have the root of 
 some matter in them. Mr. Gray was presently re- 
 vealed as a dark, pale young man of twenty-five or 
 so with gentle, impulsive manners and a measure of 
 gracefulness in person and dress. He mentioned the 
 name of a common acquaintance, and then Geoffrey 
 remembered his promise to advise upon journalism 
 and the literary career, or, at least, to talk of them. 
 Often enough his good nature had induced him to 
 consent to interviews with young men or women who 
 wanted to find a royal road to success, and he had 
 been flattered at the implication and rather enjoyed 
 making his pronouncements. Now he had become a 
 little doubtful of his formulas of the occasion, which, 
 it seemed, led no whither. It was easy enough to 
 talk to the young people, even to make suggestions, 
 and when he had time and the young man was not 
 impossible, Geoffrey would ask him to lunch and they 
 would get on together swimmingly. It was pleasant, 
 and Geoffrey would have liked to believe that he was 
 
 170
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 171 
 
 inspiring, but it was hardly business. Many of the 
 young people wanted to get on the Herald in some 
 capacity, and he would insinuate that this was not so 
 easy as they might suppose. The obvious interest in 
 the work of literary editor as they called it would 
 sometimes bring a delicate shade of embarrassment to 
 the relation. 
 
 Mr. Arnold Gray opened out very much as others 
 had done, and on the surface his qualifications were 
 above the average. He fumbled in a breast pocket: 
 " I ventured I've brought you," he said, " a few 
 things." They were both manuscript and printed ; he 
 had had certain mild successes in getting things ac- 
 cepted. " Of course I've no right to take up your 
 time," he said the usual diffidence and the usual ex- 
 pectation that it would be overruled. Geoffrey, too, 
 advanced his share of the diffidences; he was modest 
 enough on these occasions. He took the papers and 
 was relieved to see that they were not voluminous. 
 With a fair show of readiness he offered to read them 
 and give an opinion of what they pointed to in prac- 
 tical journalism. " That's what you want, I sup- 
 pose ? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 It seemed that this was part but not all. Gray 
 wanted the opinion to go beyond that. " Journalism, 
 of course," he said. " We have to take to that, but 
 there are one or two things here sketches and poems 
 on which I should like a critical opinion a really 
 critical opinion." 
 
 Geoffrey's eyes had strayed over a sentence or two 
 and now he read a passage with attention. " I should
 
 172 TRUE LOVE 
 
 pronounce with more confidence," he said, " on the 
 narrower issue. But anyhow you don't want an opin- 
 ion restricted to these, I think. You want to know 
 where you're going or how big you are whether 
 you're a genius or not. I can't tell you. I should 
 have a better chance if I knew your character and 
 what you do every day and why you do it, and whether 
 you can stick things out and so on. These bits of 
 writing may not help me much." 
 
 Gray was a little dashed. " I don't see what my 
 private life has to do with it," he said. " I would 
 rather be judged on these." 
 
 " Very well," said Geoffrey, " I'll read them and let 
 you know what I think." He made a slight movement 
 which might have been taken as an indication that the 
 interview was over, but Gray did not stir. " I'm 
 quite ready to answer any personal questions," he 
 said. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Geoffrey, " but I'm not ready to ask 
 'cm." 
 
 He rose and Gray followed slowly. They stared at 
 one another, and then Gray began to thank him ef- 
 fusively. " There is one thing that strikes me," said 
 Geoffrey, " though I'm not sure that it's relevant." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Isn't it an odd time to go into this ? " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Some of us are pretty well obsessed by the war." 
 
 Gray said : " I don't intend to take any notice of the 
 war." 
 
 " Oh, come ! " said Geoffrey.
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 173 
 
 " I had hoped that you would^sympathize with that 
 attitude, Mr. Arden." 
 
 " I find it difficult to realize," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I think that, as far as possible, we should not let 
 it make any difference. I mean to go on just as 
 before." 
 
 " My young friend, how the devil can you ? " 
 
 Gray quoted Meredith a fine epigram about the 
 soul being above the baser mischances, and Geoffrey 
 reminded him that Meredith had warned us to arm 
 against Germany the Germany that he knew and 
 loved. But Gray insisted that with the Victorian 
 writers " and Meredith was eminently Victorian " 
 you must take the gold and reject the dross. It was 
 delivered loftily, and Geoffrey was slightly amused 
 and conscious of an incipient personal opposition. He 
 didn't want this, and, indeed, Gray's youthful asser- 
 tiveness was not without charm. He wondered 
 whether Mary would like him and could imagine her 
 kindling generously though she was strict on the point 
 of manners and Gray's were more assured than safe. 
 The poor lad might have a difficult time before him; 
 he was, so to say, riding for a fall, and Geoffrey 
 wished to be kind. After all, he was not so firmly 
 planted that he could afford to slight any sincere con- 
 viction, and here was a man who might have volun- 
 teered in the first batch or might struggle against com- 
 pulsion to the last. 
 
 " Are you in favor of this war ? " said Gray, and 
 Geoffrey found himself compelled to labor a case. He 
 was ranging himself, he was defining, and he could
 
 174 TRUE LOVE 
 
 not do it with enthusiasm. Gray was not afflicted with 
 doubts, and it appeared that he had a lively contempt 
 for politicians with the exception of one or two labor 
 men. He had glib platitudes about secret diplomacy, 
 and he quoted the humanists smugly enough. Geof- 
 frey was annoyed with himself, for he knew he wasn't 
 quite fair. Most of us, however sincere, rely on for- 
 mulas ; you cannot attain the freshness of spirit every 
 time. He asked himself how he would have got on 
 with this young man if there had been no war to 
 confuse the issue of the literary aspiration, and doubt- 
 less by this time he would have been asking him to 
 lunch. And he wasn't getting at the man's message, 
 his point of view ; he was evading him. 
 
 Suddenly Geoffrey said : " What'll you do if con- 
 scription comes ? " and Gray bristled at this. " Resist 
 it to the death," he said emphatically, and it was clear 
 that this was very much in his mind. This was the 
 real preoccupation, and not the concern with literature 
 and the literary career. He began an argument on 
 the inexpediency of war from the social and political 
 point of view and it blended confusingly with one on 
 the needlessness of this war. It struck Geoffrey as 
 able in a haphazard way ; you had to agree with most 
 of it though it seemed that they were missing links. 
 But Geoffrey was conscious that feeling, all the time, 
 was swaying both of them; neither was capable of 
 pure reason. We waver over a decision and when it 
 is made our loyalties grow until we are ready to die 
 for it. 
 
 Gray began to talk about Christ, and the Christian
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 175 
 
 ideal, and when he faltered and "Hushed over it Geof- 
 frey began to like him better. " Of course," Gray said 
 and the " of course " was not without its humor 
 " I am not dogmatically a Christian." And Geoffrey 
 agreed that the world wanted a great infusion of 
 Christianity now. The difficulty was that if one side 
 maintained Christian ideals and the other didn't, the 
 idealists might be extinguished. " We can't let the 
 Germans walk over the world and take what they 
 want," he said, and, shrewdly enough, Gray replied: 
 " That's just what the Germans are saying of us." 
 He began to develop an argument that while it was 
 best to have Christian ideals all round, it was better 
 to have them on one side than not at all, just as one- 
 sided free trade was "better than nothing. Geoffrey 
 grew restive under this, and when Gray asked him if 
 it wouldn't be a noble experiment he said wearily, and 
 hating his formula, that it wasn't practical politics. 
 " Practical ! " said Gray with contempt, and! then he 
 brought in the word " pusillanimous " almost sting- 
 ingly. With what patience he could assume Geoffrey 
 suggested that even idealists must have a practical and 
 opportunist policy as well as the ideals. They must 
 incline one way or another, and, so to say, couldn't 
 always stalk out when the division bell rang. They 
 were not getting very near to one another, and it didn't 
 advance matters for Gray to utter a sententious warn- 
 ing about the inevitable defilement of touching pitch. 
 
 " So the pure in heart are to stand aloof while the 
 world is destroyed," said Geoffrey. He admitted the 
 implication that we are better than the Germans or at
 
 176 TRUE LOVE 
 
 least moving on better lines. " Insular prejudice," in- 
 terjected Gray, and Geoffrey asked him whether he 
 really believed that there was no such thing as national 
 right or wrong, whether nations at all times were 
 equally innocent and equally guilty. It seemed that 
 Gray was skeptical about our diplomatic case ; but, said 
 Geoffrey, " suppose that we are clearly in the right 
 and that they are confessed bandits. Would you fight 
 then?" Gray shook his head. "Then," said Geof- 
 frey, " it's some sort of personal nicety that prevents 
 you." 
 
 " You mean I'm a coward ? " said Gray. 
 
 " Nothing of the kind," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Quite simply I believe that to turn the other cheek 
 is the highest philosophy ; and it isn't only for domestic 
 occasions, it's for all times and all cases. There never 
 was a case worth a war." 
 
 " Was there ever a case worth a strike ? " said Geof- 
 frey. 
 
 " There isn't an analogy." 
 
 " What's the essential difference? " 
 
 " The shedding of blood. Human life." 
 
 " You think too much of human life," said Geoffrey, 
 " and too little. What are we you and I ? What are 
 a thousand million of us in the sight of God? Not a 
 sparrow falls to the ground without His marking it? 
 But many sparrows fall to the ground." 
 
 " You and I, here and now," said Gray, " must deal 
 justly and kindly with one another. If you're here 
 and I'm in Germany is the obligation less? " 
 
 " Considerably less, I think/' said Geoffrey, " but
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 177 
 
 not altogether gone. I reject such a test of personal 
 relation. I see a horde of savages streaming across 
 Belgium, sacking and shooting. With any of them, 
 standing in your place, I might be friendly. As it is 
 I would strike him down to prevent a worse thing 
 happening." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Gray, " you listen to these calumnies." 
 
 " I hate to believe that these things are true," said 
 Geoffrey. " I hate the people who believe them read- 
 ily and eagerly. This war is a nightmare to me. Its 
 coming was a triumph for the stupid people who said 
 it must come. Now, after the stupid, come the malig- 
 nant, and they're right too. These were calumnies 
 and they're coming true." 
 
 " I see more than ever the need for us," said Gray. 
 " Just and honorable men like you are carried away. 
 We shall uphold peace and charity in the world or 
 they will be forgotten. And you must always remem- 
 ber this : that we claim the right to decide on our own 
 actions." 
 
 " That's the point, I suppose," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " We stand for liberty." 
 
 Impatiently Geoffrey said, " You let words control 
 you. Literature is the control of words." 
 
 The man was untouched, he was inexorable, and he 
 had made more impression on Geoffrey than Geoffrey 
 on him. And yet he had helped to shape, to range. 
 Geoffrey saw in him a fervour that had its element 
 and a strong element of pugnacity in it. His lips 
 compressed, his eyes flashed, he had the fighting spirit. 
 In the time to come he would suffer bravely. It would
 
 178 TRUE LOVE 
 
 be absurd to call such a man a coward, and yet it 
 might be that far back in the sources of things some 
 instinct of timidity had begun to shape his course. 
 Committed to it, the essential toughness of fiber was 
 there. And in the martyrs it is not the meekness but 
 the toughness that matters. The meekness is a won- 
 derful gloss, a traditional badge assumed and main- 
 tained while deep in them is that obdurate, pugnacious, 
 " I will not," the complement to the will that moves 
 the world. 
 
 They did not pursue the argument further, and 
 Geoffrey had been conscious that his own side of it 
 had been in part experimental. He had warmed to- 
 wards the young man as their differences became more 
 acute. Their handshake, finally, had something of the 
 magnanimity that may be seen at the end of a bout 
 in the ring when the bruisers are not too groggy. 
 " I'm afraid," said Gray dejectedly, " you'll think me 
 I mean this will hardly prejudice you in favor 
 of " 
 
 He had been tactless, but he was a man to glory 
 in his tactlessness. " I shall read your stuff with all 
 the more interest," said Geoffrey. " I like a man to 
 hold his end up, and nowadays it seems a chance which 
 side one's on." It was a friendly, incautious conces- 
 sion. Gray said : " That's so with you, I suppose. I 
 those I am with are firm as a rock." 
 
 " So are the German militarists, I believe," said 
 Geoffrey. He laughed cheerfully but Gray kept very 
 solemn. However, he looked round the room with 
 some interest before Tie went. He asked permission to
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 179 
 
 look at the titles of the books, and turned a mystified, 
 owl-like gaze upon Geoffrey as one who specialized on 
 music, the poor-law, South America, and political 
 biography. Geoffrey would have left it at that, but 
 some residue of conscience induced him to explain 
 that all this was merely a library overflow. Gray 
 went off rather wistfully. As Geoffrey said, he had 
 kept his end up; he had even imposed his personality 
 here, but he was unsatisfied. In those days the per- 
 turbations were always in excess of the solaces. 
 
 And then Burke came in and he was a sort of 
 tonic. He made Geoffrey's sympathies with Gray 
 seem very filmy, and yet occasionally he stimulated 
 them ; Burke's downright world was not the only one. 
 He told him about Gray, whom Burke insisted upon 
 regarding as a decadent poet. He belonged to " that 
 lot," and the distinction between the decadent and 
 the Tolstoyan, for instance, was not worth making in 
 these times. " Are we already given over to the drill- 
 sergeant ? " groaned Geoffrey, and Burke said, " Prac- 
 tically." He was a Philistine, of course, and perhaps 
 sincerely rather than unconsciously so ; he was capable 
 of the humorous view. With some shrewdness, and 
 stimulated by Geoffrey's explanations, he said : " I 
 know the kind. He won't have anybody beating him 
 at humility." Certainly it was a relief to talk to 
 Burke, yet even with him Geoffrey felt that he was to 
 be tossed to and fro like a shuttlecock between ex- 
 treme, contending parties. It was, for a time and in 
 a measure, his fate. He couldn't bridle his tongue in 
 those early days, and so he found himself decried as a
 
 180 TRUE LOVE 
 
 pro-German or cold-shouldered as a lukewarm Eng- 
 lishman; he, with his romantic passion for England, 
 was insulted by little cotton-spinners who thought that 
 the greatest need in our domestic policy was to keep 
 the operatives down. He was insulted for spontane- 
 ous humanity, for common sense, sometimes for an 
 impatient indiscretion. And then he went home to 
 Mary, and she would sit in silence, gazing, as it might 
 be, at the river of blood between them. Not always, 
 for she would be eagerly sympathetic sometimes ; she 
 would even talk of the military operations. 
 
 To Geoffrey the idea of logical ruthlessness had 
 always been attractive and he played with it now. He 
 had scandalized Burke by suggesting that war might 
 be shortened and simplified by killing the prisoners, or 
 even your own severely wounded. Of course, it 
 couldn't be done, or couldn't till some race of immoral 
 intellectuals got power. And wasn't it possible that 
 in some struggle for the domination of the world the 
 issue might be decided by arming the women? Of 
 course, Geoffrey was all for peace and brotherhood, 
 and these speculations of his appeared to Burke as the 
 abnormal excesses of one who deprived himself of his 
 natural bloodthirstiness, And presently these ruthless 
 theories were to induce a more philosophic attitude to 
 German implacabilities than that of some of his fel- 
 lows ; not to the mere beastliness and cruelties, but to 
 the larger issues of ruthless policy. 
 
 Burke, the good fellow, glared at him in some irrita- 
 tion of perplexity and he felt that he was wrong ; the 
 ingenious Attar was the man to appreciate niceties in
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 181 
 
 the brewing of a hell-broth. And he had to justify 
 himself to Burke; he always felt that. Yes, Burke 
 was an Irishman with no nonsense about him. He 
 was for the substance, not the shadow, and if you 
 were sitting in a Celtic twilight he would propose to 
 light the gas. Mary had once said that he was dis- 
 loyal and, of course, she meant disloyal to a dim tradi- 
 tion, to some futility of the ideal that all Irishmen 
 should be ready to die for. Geoffrey had denied it 
 strenuously. For Burke to accept Sinn Fein he must 
 be disloyal to himself. And he had a sort of pride 
 in all those " bloody fools," his idealist countrymen ; 
 he regarded them almost fondly, as you might clever, 
 wayward children. 
 
 And Mary had explicitly and almost formally with- 
 drawn what she had said. Curiously, it was after 
 Burke had explained the working of a machine to her. 
 She hated machines and wanted to revert to primitive 
 methods; she was an ardent supporter of Langdale 
 linens and beaten coppers and all the primitive proc- 
 esses that Burke regarded as incredible trifling. It 
 was by a sort of inspiration that he began to describe 
 the working of a great machine, and he did it so 
 " gently and faithfully " as she said to Geoffrey 
 afterwards that it clouded her convictions. Burke's 
 patient exposition revealed the idea of the machine 
 in his mind as beautiful. It had nothing to do with 
 industrial tyranny. And though Burke had told her 
 that he had not described the machine quite as it was 
 that being beyond his power of penetrating to her 
 comprehension it seemed that her sense of the faith-
 
 182 TRUE LOVE 
 
 fulness of it all was deepened ; he was not a material- 
 ist and the value was in the idea. 
 
 Burke did not understand her, and he confessed to 
 Geoffrey that he felt himself to be like one of those 
 savages who can only count up to five and have no 
 ambition to extend their vocabulary. " I suppose I'm 
 indolent, Arden; I'm not curious enough. Come to 
 me on a definite thing within my ken and I'm no fool. 
 Am I, now ? There's something lacking. What you'd 
 call the mystical? Your sister's beyond me. Beauti- 
 ful. I see that." 
 
 He was a humble fellow. Geoffrey sounded him 
 for a note of irony, even of skepticism, but they were 
 not there. And now it appeared that he had accepted 
 the simple alternatives in this war : " We must con- 
 quer or perish." It was what Geoffrey heard on every 
 hand. It was a practical formula, and he saw himself 
 accepting it as a working one. There are times when 
 your skepticisms, your qualifications, may be put aside. 
 Attar's " We may be beaten in a month," had startled 
 him ; it was the fine, clear pronouncement of the intel- 
 lectual, and it had set him searching for alternatives, 
 even for mitigations. To be beaten would not be the 
 end of us, as the fanatics asserted, though it would be 
 bad enough. The spirit of man, the spirit of English- 
 men is not so brittle. The humiliation, the material 
 burdens, the debacle of the inviolate, romantical pose 
 would be dreadful to him as to his fellows, but they 
 would not be the end, These dullards with their iron 
 and brass may cripple but they cannot kill. 
 
 But now we were to become opportunists. With
 
 THE OTHER EXTREME 183 
 
 Burke sitting there before him.^irnperturbably smok- 
 ing a pipe, he was ready to argue that there was noth- 
 ing for it but to imitate the action of the tiger, to 
 stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, and disguise 
 fair nature with hard-favored rage. He quoted this 
 famous bluster of Shakespeare and Burke nodded ap- 
 provingly. He truckled a little to Burke, he was not 
 quite fair to Gray, or rather to his most generous 
 idealization of him. " Yes," he said, " there's a funda- 
 mental stupidity in projecting yourself into the future 
 and the ideal is the future when it's a practical 
 policy that's wanted. And why dogmatize about the 
 sacredness of human life? It's cheap enough when 
 the world moves on the grand scale. It's our egoism 
 that revolts ; the destruction of our fellows in such an 
 appalling analogy. It's good to have a cause to die 
 for, no matter what country, humanity, anything." 
 
 Burke, with Gray in his mind, humorously sug- 
 gested vegetarianism. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Geoffrey ; " there are intelligent 
 young people pointing out that races are mixed and 
 that splendid humanitarians are left stranded without 
 any particular country. I talk of England, but if you 
 add Scotland and Wales and what about Ireland? 
 your symbol does change a bit. But a loyalty, a 
 romantic loyalty, to something." 
 
 " I'm an Irish utilitarian, meself ," said Burke. 
 
 " I wouldn't mind having you beside me in a scrim- 
 mage," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " For as long as I see reason." 
 
 " Rubbish."
 
 184 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Well, for as long as the fun lasts," said Burke. 
 
 They went out and lunched together pleasantly 
 enough. " One talks big," said Geoffrey, " but there's 
 still this habit of finding a comfortable corner."
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 
 
 GEOFFREY had not volunteered with the first rush, 
 then. He had had the impulse to do so, but it was 
 only one of his impulses and his was a questioning 
 spirit. From his room at the office he saw the ragged 
 columns of volunteers march through the streets 
 headed by brass bands, with their thunderous appeal 
 to the emotions. He thrilled to it; he shook with 
 the anticipation, even the apprehension, of the time 
 when he would march with them; and he delayed. 
 There was something portentous about his delibera- 
 tion that appealed to his humor. Men were pouring 
 in and the authorities had more than they could 
 handle ; it did not matter whether you joined on Tues- 
 day or on Thursday unless to your own boyish satis- 
 faction. And he was one who could linger over the 
 taste of things ; he would not rush through the phases 
 of an experience. He watched these hobbledehoy 
 civilians march past, so solemnly and sheepishly and 
 defiantly, and though they were his comrades he could 
 contemplate them, for a time, from without. He 
 could laugh at them and he was greatly moved; his 
 eyes were sometimes dimmed with tears. The rough 
 attempt at regularity threw into relief all the discrep- 
 ancies of personality and tailoring. They were pa- 
 thetic and immensely inspiring. The faith of it the 
 
 185
 
 186 TRUE LOVE 
 
 faith of it! From their soft jobs and every man, 
 it seems, has had a soft job they went to be roughly 
 handled, straightened, drilled and trained to some sort 
 of military competence. Then the unknown, the battle- 
 fields, wounds and death. Their brains might be flam- 
 ing, doubts clutching their hearts, but they marched 
 with an admirable composure. It occurred to him 
 that he had never done justice to the idea of disci- 
 pline. And, of course, it is one of the world's great 
 dangers. 
 
 He encountered queues of men at the recruiting 
 offices waiting their turn to enlist. One day he walked 
 along a line, and, regarded critically, it didn't seem 
 that the might of Germany had much to fear from 
 these. They looked strangely small and shabby ; they 
 joked a little sometimes, they lounged, they spat; 
 some looked sullen, and some appeared to be gazing at 
 an object infinitely far away; many had the Briton's 
 air of consciously making a fool of himself. He came 
 to the end of the line and started, for*there was the 
 little man of the German restaurant. He looked de- 
 fiant and apologetic too. He grinned faintly and said : 
 "Ad to do it." And Geoffrey felt then that there 
 had never been anything like this in the world before, 
 that nothing had ever mattered so much, that to falter 
 now would be baseness and misery. As he paused 
 there, the little man looked at him inquiringly and 
 muttered again : " Ad to." Geoffrey shook hands with 
 him and hurried away. 
 
 He saw Lindsay that night and told him that he 
 wanted to go. " I know I'm not essential here," he
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 187 
 
 said. " The war will take away"4ialf my work and 
 the other half doesn't matter now." It was a rash- 
 ness of depreciation. Lindsay looked at him keenly 
 and kindly and said : " Why do you want to go ? I 
 don't say you are wrong." And Geoffrey, rather 
 lamely, attempted some description of his feelings. 
 They came out rather coldly and aridly. After all, 
 they were feelings, and Lindsay was a man of rock 
 demanding reasons and principles and an ultimate 
 righteousness. He was to the community a mystical 
 personage and legends accumulated about him; there 
 he was quite simply, all the time, just demanding 
 righteousness. 
 
 Geoffrey abandoned any attempt to recall emotions 
 in tranquillity and shaped some patriotic formulas. 
 Lindsay nodded and reflected, and Geoffrey knew well 
 enough the direction of those reflections. It was " the 
 paper" he was thinking about; that was the passion 
 of his life. He reflected aloud : " We might lose 
 Secretan." 
 
 " Secretan ? " said Geoffrey in astonishment. 
 
 Lindsay said : " The age may be raised presently. 
 There are some temperaments that cannot grow old. 
 Secretan is romantic." 
 
 "Could I let Secretan go first?" 
 
 " These are trifles," said Lindsay. He was silent 
 for a time and then : " We might want you." Geoffrey 
 waited and he continued : " I cannot stand in 
 your way. You must follow your conscience. The 
 paper " 
 
 He paused, and Geoffrey could have believed that
 
 188 TRUE LOVE 
 
 he had in his mind : Here is a man whose devotion is 
 not absolute and I have no right to demand that it 
 should be. Presently he went on : " The paper will 
 miss you." He was complimentary and exceedingly 
 kind. He offered to write to a personage about a 
 commission. Geoffrey said that he meant to enlist, 
 and Lindsay frowned over this. " Your intelligence 
 should be of use," he said. " It isn't a matter of sen- 
 timent." 
 
 Geoffrey intimated some mistrust of himself, and 
 Lindsay said : " That's your fault. You've never 
 trusted yourself enough." 
 
 " The skeptical habit, I suppose," said Geoffrey, and 
 Lindsay told him to try to acquire a dogmatic belief 
 in himself. 
 
 " I do like the idea of working up from the ranks," 
 said Geoffrey. 
 
 Lindsay groaned : " Ah, you romantics ! " All the 
 time Geoffrey had it in his mind that it would be 
 easier to tell Mary that he was enlisting; that would 
 appeal to her. 
 
 Outside the door he felt that he ought to have said 
 something to Lindsay about " the paper " ; it deserved 
 something handsome, emotional, lyrical, and Lindsay 
 ought to know how he felt about it. Yes, it was an 
 annoying omission to be repaired some time; another 
 man had taken his place in Lindsay's room. It would 
 wait till to-morrow, anyhow. 
 
 Perhaps it was strange was it strange? that at 
 these times his mind turned more to Mary than to 
 Sibyl. Yet when he left Lindsay he went out into
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 189 
 
 the street and, turning homewards, he began to hum 
 " The Girl I Left Behind me " ; nothing grander, more 
 exalted than that. Perhaps the spirit of it was rather 
 complicated, but there were streaks of humility in his 
 irony. He was an experimentalist in emotions, but 
 he forgot himself readily enough when the pressure 
 rose. And he had a useful vein of doggedness. To- 
 night it occurred to him that he would call at the 
 Wibberleys' for news of Sibyl, and when he reached 
 the house, though he wanted to know about Sibyl, 
 he found that he did not want the Wibberleys. Such 
 an after-dinner call was not impracticable, but it was 
 unusual, and he had so often vexed himself by bog- 
 gling at the unusual, that he had now a fund of ex- 
 asperation to carry him on. It seemed, too, that he 
 must be a lukewarm lover indeed if he could not brave 
 a slight ruffling of the spirit for her; and he did 
 not believe himself to be that. 
 
 The Wibberleys were quite glad to see him, as 
 people are when you break upon their evening torpor. 
 They were both reading high-class books that were 
 pointedly remote from the war; it seemed that they 
 were still disposed to ignore the war, though, obvi- 
 ously, it was impossible to do that altogether. Gras- 
 mere was recalled, and the feverish days there that 
 ought to have been so peaceful and Wordsworthian. 
 They were still troubled by that reproachful shade, 
 and Geoffrey suggested that Wordsworth had not al- 
 ways been Wordsworthian; that youth had flamed in 
 him too; that if he were here now he would have 
 been concerned with hosts other than the golden daf-
 
 190 TRUE LOVE 
 
 fodils. And so they got to "this deplorable war" 
 which, it seems, might have been avoided with a little 
 tact. The Wibberleys were not exactly opposed to the 
 war (there must be no misunderstanding about that), 
 but they wanted it to be waged in a gentlemanlike 
 manner ; the poor creatures were, in their way, roman- 
 tic. In their presence, Geoffrey was conscious of a 
 deepening brutality. " War cannot be waged faintly 
 and decently," he said. " Look what's happening in 
 Belgium." 
 
 The Wibberleys could not believe what was hap- 
 pening in Belgium, and, indeed, in those early days 
 all generous and chivalrous spirits held to it that Ger- 
 many was maligned. It was maligned in much, but 
 the awful residuum of facts brought triumph to the 
 malignant. And even then the pessimist might find 
 a gloomy audience if he predicted the disintegration 
 of humanity ; this war has been vastly reassuring, for 
 humanity has stood fast. 
 
 Matters were not at their worst yet, but Geoffrey 
 was tempted to a little pounding of the shattered com- 
 placencies. It was a mild perversity that caused him 
 to suggest that the fragilities represented by the Hague 
 Conference would go, that compunctions would be 
 stripped off one by one till ruthlessness and stark 
 horror prevailed. " Then we should never have em- 
 barked on it," cried Wibberley, and Geoffrey's " What 
 was the alternative ? " left him fuming. And then, 
 curiously, Geoffrey detected in Mrs. Wibberley some 
 response to his mood. " We are in for it," she said 
 decidedly, " and we shall have supped full of horrors
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 191 
 
 before we have done." Wibberley looked at her in 
 some surprise and Geoffrey surmised that this was a 
 new line for her. She was a woman who liked to 
 be in the swim, and merely to sit at home reading 
 the classics was not to be in any kind of swim. Wib- 
 berley, however, had more sense of responsibility; 
 he was committed to a particular attitude at the club. 
 
 " The trouble is," said Geoffrey, " that in war it 
 pays to strain the humane conventions to the break- 
 ing-point and a little beyond. You may lose your 
 soul and win the war. Have you ever seen two well- 
 matched teams play football, one with a lower stand- 
 ard of courtesy and law than the other? The more 
 brutal side wins. You can decline to play with cads, 
 but you can't decline to fight them. And if they 
 begin to kick you in the stomach, must you stick to 
 your fists?" 
 
 " You mean to suggest " 
 
 " That if they break the rules we shall do the same." 
 
 Wibberley shook his head doubtfully. He was one 
 of those who preferred feeble resistance to the un- 
 comfortable inevitable rather than clear thinking and 
 decisive action. " The important thing," said Geof- 
 frey, " is to know what you're doing and call it by its 
 right name murder or whatever it may be. It may 
 make us think more kindly of murderers." 
 
 And as Wibberley was opposed to capital punish- 
 ment and had enlightened views on the treatment of 
 the criminal, here was a way of escape for him. 
 
 All this was not to the point, and Geoffrey wanted 
 to get away. He turned to Mrs. Wibberley and asked
 
 192 TRUE LOVE 
 
 her what had become of Miss Drew. Her " You don't 
 know, either? " carried a suspicion of archness. They 
 had no recent news, but she was to be at the Playgoers' 
 Theater again this autumn and might be here rehears- 
 ing any time. Mrs. Wibberley had found her strangely 
 uncommunicative. This hinted reproach, but it was 
 modified with " Poor girl ! " With some uneasiness, 
 Geoffrey felt that this might be a hint of reproach 
 to him. He was on the point of asking what the 
 nature of any expected communication might be, but 
 refrained. The parting was affable, Mrs. Wibberley 
 inclining to graciousness and Wibberley to indulgence. 
 He went home seriously and let himself in with his 
 latchkey. It was not very late, and he saw by the 
 light in the sitting-room that Mary was there, as he 
 went upstairs to wash his hands. She called out to 
 him and they had a shouted colloquy about his re- 
 quirements for supper ; it was pleasant and reassuring. 
 And then, as he toweled, he found himself reciting 
 Shakespeare as he had done so often in his bedroom 
 ever since he was a boy. This time his wayward, 
 instinctive choice was Othello's renunciation of war, 
 and he gave out some of the great phrases ringingly 
 
 " The royal banner, and all quality, 
 Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war." 
 
 Glorious war! And how had it got this noble repu- 
 tation? The evidence went to show that these old 
 wars were horrible affairs without even the fragments 
 of a discredited Hague Conference to mitigate them.
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 193 
 
 Was it a vast conspiracy, involving the poets? Or 
 did they, indeed, find an overwhelming glory in this 
 scorn of life which was, deeply, a pride of life? He 
 heard Mary's voice calling to him to hasten if he 
 would have hot food. 
 
 When he got downstairs he found Milly Warde 
 with Mary, without her hat and very much at home. 
 A tray was brought into the sitting-room and they 
 ministered to him together. Milly said : " Didn't I hear 
 you singing?" and he replied: "Spouting verse. An 
 old habit." He looked at Mary smilingly, for it was 
 yet a consciousness between them. " What was the 
 verse this time ? " said Milly ; " I'm a tactless, curious 
 person, and not afraid of asking questions." 
 
 He thundered some of Othello's lines at her, and 
 Mary looked at him intently. " But you're not saying 
 farewell to war," said Milly. " It's the other way ? " 
 
 They both waited. " I shall have to go, I suppose," 
 he said. The phrasing was pointedly unheroic, com- 
 ing after the grandiose Shakespeare manner, but the 
 fact was there. Milly glanced rapidly at Mary, who 
 retained the vestiges of a smile. 
 
 Then Geoffrey was slightly disconcerted to see that 
 Milly had clasped her hands and assumed what might 
 be called a rapt expression ; this is not putting it gen- 
 erously, but he didn't want to join in heroics with 
 Milly, preferring with her the lower slopes of good 
 fellowship. 
 
 And then he began to talk at large rather nervously. 
 " I dare say it'll do some of us good," he said. " We 
 want rousing. We can't all get a man's share of ad-
 
 194. TRUE LOVE 
 
 venture. A chosen few go to the ends of the earth 
 while most of us never get away from the suburbs, 
 but a war like this is a bit excessive. It's to burn 
 down the house for a bit of roast pig. And we've 
 death in the world anyhow. If we hadn't it might 
 be necessary to invent it. We must fight for our 
 side. Mary doesn't think so. There are no difficul- 
 ties for her. She doesn't think much of our great 
 possessions. All the dynasties, ramifications of poli- 
 tics, commerce, races, she puts aside. She belongs 
 to a world of simple folk desiring peace. And you 
 can't answer her. I'm like that, too, but when you find 
 yourself out in the world it's different." 
 
 " Why do you talk like this ? " said Mary. 
 
 " There are times," cried Geoffrey, " when one 
 should talk freely, experimentally, according to the 
 mood, and care nothing about recording angels. We're 
 all so much afraid of committing ourselves, of being 
 inconsistent. It doesn't matter. What does matter is 
 that we should give every thought and feeling its 
 chance. Now, I'm a bit of a Christian among other 
 things. I've advanced on that line had a look at 
 things from that point of view. Ah! how simple it 
 would be if we were all Christians! There would 
 be no war." 
 
 " That's obvious," said Milly. She was puzzled and 
 disconcerted by him. 
 
 "Not quite so- obvious as you think, Milly," he 
 said. " I don't mean if the Germans were Christians, 
 but if we were. We should just turn the other cheek 
 and leti them march. over us if they wanted to. I've
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 195 
 
 thought about it and that's what I make Christianity 
 to be. But, of course, we can't do that, and Christi- 
 anity is far too big a thing to be abandoned suddenly. 
 So we try to keep something of its spirit while we 
 act clean against it. Or we throw the whole thing 
 over. They're beginning to tell us in sermons now 
 that ' Love your enemies ' doesn't apply to Germans. 
 And do you know what I heard the other day? 
 ' Father, forgive them not for they know what they 
 do.' Infamous travesty." 
 
 " They are doing things that cannot be forgiven," 
 said Milly sullenly. 
 
 " Yes," said Geoffrey, " I can feel like that and yet, 
 logically, ; t's absurd. There's no sense in forgiving 
 a pin-prick and not forgiving a murder. Imagine a 
 God who would forgive one and not the other ! I'm 
 only human. I'm beginning to hate the Germans 
 quite in the orthodox way." 
 
 "Well, anyhow you're going?" said Milly. 
 
 " Don't hurry me," he said. " Let me have my 
 sensations. Let me pretend that I'm hesitating on 
 the brink. Do remember that I'm an artist." 
 
 " How can you talk like this while Mary's waiting 
 to know ? " said Milly. 
 
 " Mary does know," he said. 
 
 " Let him talk," said Mary. " I don't know every- 
 thing." 
 
 " I hope I'm not conceding to bluster and conven- 
 tion," said Geoffrey. " There are people who bow 
 before the storm and protest secretly, but I'd like to 
 be honest. I hate most of what's said and written
 
 196 TRUE LOVE 
 
 about the war, and I look forward with horror to a 
 world of drill, preparation, competition, afterwards. 
 To be unforgiving, to be perpetually suspicious 
 there's no way out of it and it's horrible. You think 
 I'm talking like a peace-at-any-price person, Milly. 
 I'm nearly that, but not quite. And I'm a thousand 
 miles away. I'm an artist passionately on both sides ; 
 on the wrong side too. We are to be scorned and 
 neglected in the hearty future. An opening for patri- 
 otic songs, no doubt, and allegorical statues of victory, 
 I hope. But the man on both sides, the man who 
 loves all isn't it strange that Christ says nothing 
 about the artist? He didn't know there was such a 
 thing. And yet they're an improvident lot, too. They 
 live as the sparrows." 
 
 " But you're going ? " said Milly. 
 
 " I'm going," he said, " there's no doubt about that 
 I mean to enlist to-morrow." 
 
 "Enlist?" cried Milly. 
 
 " Isn't that right ? " he said. He shot a glance at 
 Mary. " There's an argument against it. I'm intelli- 
 gent enough to make an officer. I know. Don't bother 
 me by repeating it. I've decided." 
 
 " It's splendid of you," said Milly. She had tears 
 in her eyes. 
 
 " No, it's just simple," he said ; " I'm pretty simple 
 in the upshot. A certain amount of preliminary talk, 
 no doubt." Milly's emotion made him uneasy and he 
 was sincerely anxious to keep within hail of the 
 matter-of-fact. And the two- women, he knew, were 
 reacting on one, another. In opinion and policy they
 
 PREPARING TO PLUNGE 197 
 
 might be far apart, but their emotions ran together. 
 He had no room now for sentiment with Milly, and 
 it was embarrassing to have her here with Mary; 
 it made him cold and cautious. It was with a sort 
 of moral indignation that he thought of Mary ready 
 to acquiesce in his marrying the useful, faithful Milly, 
 and ready to balk him of his spiritual adventure with 
 the incalculable Sibyl. Poor Milly! In such a case 
 the friendly compromise may be worse than nothing, 
 and yet he was ready for friendship ; it was only that 
 plaguey sex that stood in the way. 
 
 And when she had gone, Mary was extraordinarily 
 gentle and affectionate to him. " I can't do anything 
 else," he said to her. " I must go." She said : " Of 
 course you must go. I know that. Think of me as 
 helping you all I can." And where, he wondered, was 
 Sibyl in her mind?
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 
 
 "ANTI-CLIMAX," muttered Geoffrey. "Anti-climax. 
 Good Lord." 
 
 He was returning from his medical examination, 
 having been rejected, and he walked with a dull, even 
 step, like a man slightly drunk who will take no 
 chances. His rush up the stairs at the office had 
 sometimes been a joke with his colleagues " the aerial 
 flight," Attar had called it but to-day he went up like 
 an automaton that would want winding up again 
 directly. No tragical matter, of course, but for a 
 young man a youngish man ; he corrected his thought 
 rather bitterly the physical degradation is humiliat- 
 ing. That wasn't all, however, for he was conscious, 
 too, of a deep, obscure glow of relief that his honesty 
 translated into a moral humiliation. He had taken a 
 high hand with himself; he had delivered himself to 
 the machine; and now it had cast him out again to 
 his doubts and hesitations and all the struggling com- 
 plexities of his nature. He had felt strong, but now 
 he recalled the timidities of his youth. He had 
 sometimes found it hard to follow the lead of the 
 bold spirits, though he would not rank himself be- 
 neath them; he had known evasions, he had forced 
 himself to the ordeal. As a youth he was eager to
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 199 
 
 excel, and yet on the cricket-field when he waited 
 for his innings he had sometimes seen the rain be- 
 gin with relief ; perhaps there was faint chagrin at 
 the lost opportunity, but he could not disguise from 
 himself, though he must from others, that despicable 
 relief that the nervous, self-conscious spirit feels in 
 its effacement. The point of honor drove him on, 
 and the knowledge of his deeper inclinations; it was 
 characteristic that if he had the choice he would 
 always bat first, and that then he would choose, if 
 he could, to take the first ball. And yet in this shy, 
 pulsating youth of his he had known the joys of 
 fearlessness, of the streaming of the scarlet banner. 
 " Get your blood up, Geoffrey," had been a family 
 exhortation. There was the joke against him that 
 once when he was a little boy confronted with a too 
 liberal helping his mother had said : " Can't you eat 
 your pudding, Geoff ? " To which he had replied : 
 " Wait till I get my spirits up." He would write 
 masterpieces if he could but keep his spirits up. 
 
 He climbed heavily to his room and sat down at 
 his desk to stare at the familiar chimney-stacks on 
 the roof opposite. He was half -conscious of their de- 
 tail and they looked dull to-day, but he remembered 
 how in twilight an enthusiasm vaguely related to the 
 plastic arts had seen them portentous and menacing. 
 He had to think now, and, when he tried to abstract 
 his mind from the recent impressions that were so 
 vivid, irrelevancies intruded. Those chimney-stacks, 
 for instance, and the man who was now cleaning the 
 windows below them at the peril of his Itfe; so it
 
 200 TRUE LOVE 
 
 always seems, and Geoffrey got up again to look down 
 into the street to consider what the fall would be. 
 Perhaps the man's wife would get him to join the 
 army as the safer occupation. Had she ever seen him 
 at his work and was she haunted by it? No doubt 
 the danger is very much an illusion and the dangers 
 of the battlefield are real. 
 
 If that fellow slipped and came upon the pavement 
 a sack of bones, what a wonderful simplification it 
 would be for him ! Really he was quite handy if one 
 wanted to realize the imminence of death. The gallant 
 rabble trailing now up Market Street behind the brass 
 band had yet but a distant, romantic connection with 
 it, though they might get there first. And he might 
 have been marching there. Perhaps he would march 
 there yet. 
 
 The medical examination had been amusing up to a 
 point. With three other men Geoffrey was told to 
 strip, and the affair took on a queer resemblance to 
 some preparation for athletics. As naked as new-born 
 babes the four were set trotting round the room while 
 the two doctors watched them, and then it seemed a 
 very queer game indeed. It was a strange experience, 
 a plunge into the unknown, and, though one or two 
 of the men lacked charm in such physical intimacy 
 one was downright dirty Geoffrey was slightly elated 
 to find how calmly he could endure such an ordeal. 
 The various soundings and probings were slightly dis- 
 agreeable. His body was not being treated with re- 
 spect, and he could not help remembering how differ- 
 ently he had been handled when a guinea had lubri-
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 201 
 
 cated the occasion. Of course these doctors were 
 working hastily, and it was too much to expect that 
 they should have solved the problem of manners. 
 Trifles, trifles. He mustn't be sensitive now. Or 
 yes. He must conceal a perfect delicacy of sensitive- 
 ness under a stoical exterior. This military life is a 
 matter of exteriors and those of the civilized who 
 endure it must have a refuge in irony. To hold the 
 critical in abeyance is to cultivate the ironical. Thank 
 God for irony. 
 
 He had hardly thought of rejection, but he became 
 conscious of a doubt. Examinations that in the other 
 cases had seemed almost perfunctory, became careful 
 in his case, and he was cross-examined briefly about 
 habits and endurances. To his astonishment he was 
 rejected and he wanted to know why. It appeared 
 that these doctors were unwilling to stray beyond 
 their particular job, which was that of plain accept- 
 ance or rejection. However, one of them told Geof- 
 frey that he had varicose veins. " I mustn't dispute 
 it, of course," said Geoffrey, "but I can walk forty 
 miles on the hills without finding it out." The two 
 held a whispered consultation and then the elder said : 
 " If you're keen you can have the operation. It's not 
 a big thing. There's another point. You've a slight 
 rupture. Didn't know, perhaps? I ought to tell you 
 that your heart is only middling. So far as that goes 
 we should have passed you, though." 
 
 There was an air of finality about this, but Geoffrey 
 would not have it so. " Be good enough to tell me a 
 little more," he said. " What do you advise ? "
 
 202 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Our business is to pass you or to reject you," said 
 the other doctor. " We have rejected you." 
 
 A certain tension had arisen. The doctors were 
 overworked and irritable, Geoffrey was affronted and 
 irritable. " These are army methods, I suppose," he 
 said. " Damn the army." 
 
 " Get out," said the younger doctor, but the elder 
 one intervened with, " What's your grievance ? " 
 
 "Your infernal manners," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " We haven't time for manners. What's the point ? " 
 
 Geoffrey reflected. " I understand I could have 
 these things put right. You say my heart's mid- 
 dling?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, you can't stop there. Do you mean tnat 
 an operation would be dangerous?" 
 
 " I don't say that." 
 
 "What do you say?" 
 
 " It's your own business to decide. Consult a sur- 
 geon. Or an all round if you like, Burditt, for in- 
 stance. I think you'd be all right." 
 
 " Thank you," said Geoffrey. " Can you put it in 
 the form of chances odds?" 
 
 " Oh ! Well, ten to one you'd be all right." 
 
 " Five to one, anyway," said the younger man. 
 
 " Call it fifteen to two," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " There's another point," said the elder. " It's con- 
 ceivable that if you're wounded badly you might have 
 a poorer chance than some of the others." 
 
 " I see," said Geoffrey. " I'm greatly obliged to 
 you."
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 203 
 
 The two doctors had relaxed alittle. Perhaps this 
 slight interruption of their routine had given them 
 some relief. It was almost pleasantly that the younger 
 said : " Still keen on it ? " Geoffrey turned to look at 
 him and melted a little himself as he noted the tired 
 eyes of this sallow, sharp-featured young man lolling 
 in his chair with a momentary clutch at rest and ease. 
 
 " Then," said Geoffrey, " the proper course is to 
 consult a specialist." 
 
 " Quite the proper course," said the elder. 
 
 " The proper course appeals to you ? " said the 
 younger. 
 
 Geoffrey looked at him with interest. " I shouldn't 
 join the army for fun." 
 
 The young doctor nodded. "Well," he said, "we 
 may be passing men like you without compunction 
 before we're through." 
 
 The sight of an orderly at the door seemed to touch 
 a spring in the doctors, and their renewed activities 
 excluded further acknowledgments or farewells. 
 Geoffrey got away briskly, but fell very soon into a 
 heavy meditation. On the facts of the case he was 
 a decently eager volunteer disappointed, but he didn't 
 feel like that. Indeed, he found it impossible to sort 
 out his feelings; consternation, apprehension, and re- 
 lief contended, and doggedly, sullenly, he tried to fix 
 his mind on that proper course which is the clue in 
 such labyrinths. His habit of qualifying suggested 
 that the present, the particular experience, must not 
 be merged altogether in the general, the axiomatic, 
 but at the back of all there was an almost weary
 
 204 TRUE LOVE 
 
 acquiescence in his custom of trying to do the right 
 thing. He must go to that specialist; and yet it 
 occurred to him that even specialists will sometimes 
 take a hint from the patient in practical matters. 
 
 He gazed at the chimney-stacks and decided that he 
 would take a day or two to think things over; one's 
 mind gets to right conclusions by subconscious ways. 
 If he did consult any one it might as well be Burditt ; 
 it would be a simple matter to telephone to him and 
 make an appointment. The telephone book lay on 
 Geoffrey's desk and he looked up Burditt's number, 
 though there was no present reason why he should 
 do so. And the receiver stood on the desk too. 
 
 A civilized man, hating war and despising military 
 enthusiasms, has no call to force himself into the 
 heroic. His reason may tell him that as a good citizen 
 as a patriot, if you like he must be staunch to his 
 country while he believes it is, on the whole, on the 
 side of righteousness. To rush for the adventure 
 against his own nature and inclination would be a 
 kind of vulgarity. But if you are naturally fearless 
 and an adventurer ? Would manners demand that the 
 hero should school himself to mere duty? Must he, 
 for instance, avoid the Victoria Cross and regard the 
 D.S.O. as the extreme limit of decoration? Geoffrey 
 was not without humor. 
 
 He had a decent excuse, certainly, for avoiding the 
 whole thing. He had answered the call reasonably and 
 promptly. He had fulfilled the conditions that he 
 would exact from himself. And there was on the 
 one hand a vision, even now forming itself, of terror
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 205 
 
 and agony, of hard and bitter ways to death ; and on 
 the other of the pleasant life, taking on an aspect 
 strangely precious, of passion and romance. He was 
 not of the heroic mold ; he knew that very well. Your 
 hero sounds his drums and trumpets boldly and cheer- 
 fully, he is not bothered by this cursed habit of intro- 
 spection, he sleeps when he is tired, rises refreshed 
 at the reveille, lives in the moment, has unclouded 
 hours. What would such a one say to this decent 
 excuse, this excellent excuse? He would acquiesce, 
 perhaps, but with chagrin, with lamentations on his 
 luck. 
 
 Geoffrey had always been a little bothered by the 
 heroic, and as a boy, when he fiercely idealized him- 
 self, he had wondered whether it would indeed be 
 exacted of him. Perhaps it was all a matter of de- 
 fective circulation. " Let us get our blood up," he 
 said aloud, and he gave the desk a thump with his 
 fist. It shook a slight, tremulous tingle out of the 
 telephone bell. He took the receiver off the hook 
 and gave- Dr. Burditt's number. It appeared that 
 Dr. Burditt was going away and would not be able 
 to make an appointment at present, but " Wait a 
 moment," said the voice, and then there was a pause 
 which Geoffrey, with sham melodramatic humor, 
 interpreted as heavy with fate. A strong, even, 
 masculine voice broke it. If he could come across 
 now Burditt would see him. " In ten minutes," said 
 Geoffrey, and hurried over. 
 
 The examination was very much on the lines of that 
 to which he had already submitted, and Geoffrey would
 
 206 TRUE LOVE 
 
 have liked to ask Burditt, but did not, whether there 
 was much difference in such matters between the 
 specialist and the intelligent general practitioner. Ex- 
 perience tells, no doubt, in the perception of fine 
 shades, and in the delicate human machine fine shades 
 matter. Geoffrey explained the circumstances, and 
 Burditt nodded sympathetically. " What I want to 
 know is this," said Geoffrey ; " can my heart be good 
 enough for service and not good enough to stand an 
 operation ? " 
 
 " Seems unlikely, doesn't it ? " said Burditt. 
 
 And yet when Geoffrey went away he had not 
 reached anything very definite. It came upon him 
 annoy ingly that he hadn't a clear formula to go on. 
 Burditt had taken so much time over the examination 
 that the finalities had been rather hurried, and now 
 he and his car had disappeared. There had been a 
 general air of reassurance wtih considerable qualifica- 
 tions, leaving, as it seemed to Geoffrey, a margin for 
 the exercise of his own free will. " I've a reasonable 
 excuse to get out of it ? " he had said, and Burditt 
 had replied, " An ample excuse." 
 
 " Give me your advice," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I should have less apprehension about this opera- 
 tion than about the strain of army life generally. 
 You'd get a commission ? " 
 
 " No," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I can't advise operation in the circumstances." 
 
 " Pardon my putting it so : what would you do your- 
 self?" 
 
 Burditt gazed intently at Geoffrey and then his eyes
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 207 
 
 turned to the mantelpiece, where, following them, 
 Geoffrey saw the photograph of a group of two or 
 three children with mother and father. Burditt looked 
 at this as though his family would help him to a de- 
 cision. He was older now than the man represented 
 there, he was worn and jaded, yet he seemed flushed 
 and restless ; the precision of his professional manner 
 had gone. He turned again to Geoffrey. " What 
 would I do? I would get at the devils at any cost." 
 
 " I don't go into it in that spirit," said Geoffrey. 
 
 Burditt stood like a man making a great effort. 
 " Perhaps you are right," he said. He looked at his 
 watch and started into activity. They went out into 
 the street together. 
 
 It was lunch time, and Geoffrey paid one of his 
 rare visits to his club, conscious as he was, and per- 
 haps overconscious, of a smoldering hostility there 
 that embraced even the insignificant upon the Herald. 
 Yet now its attitude was correct, its spirit was ex- 
 alted, and Round and the others had set the highest 
 standard of intelligent commentary on the campaign. 
 Politeness was its due and generally Geoffrey re- 
 ceived it. The news he heard was that Burditt's son 
 had been killed and that Burditt had taken an army 
 appointment. 
 
 Entering the grill-room, the first man he saw was 
 Sewell and he sat down beside him. Really, this was 
 fate, it was a call, a decision of the gods. He had 
 always thought that if anything of the kind were 
 necessary, Sewell was the man for him; it was not 
 only that he had the reputation for enormous com-
 
 208 TRUE LOVE 
 
 petence, but there was a personal sparkle about him 
 that Geoffrey liked. Sparkle may not be precisely 
 the quality you demand for one who is to make 
 incursions into your inside, but a surgeon who wields 
 the knife with a flourish is a diverting figure. Geof- 
 frey had heard of Sewell operating before his stu- 
 dents with gestures that approached levity; the knife 
 waved aloft, the victim waiting, the nurses slightly 
 scandalized, the audience appreciative. It was the 
 swagger of a natural flamboyancy. He wore a hand- 
 some diamond ring unblushingly, he had been seen 
 in trousers of almost a fancy pattern, he didn't seem 
 to care whether in these matters of labeling he was 
 quite a gentleman or not. There was the astonishing 
 trait: he was a man of the middle class and not 
 obsessed by the idea of being a strictly-patterned 
 gentleman. A good fellow enough; Geoffrey had 
 always liked Sewell. He wasn't vulgar. He had a 
 natural charm struggling through bonds of manners 
 and etiquette. He was one of the few Englishmen 
 who could maintain gaiety. And always there was 
 that astonishing competence. Geoffrey had once 
 heard him say : " There isn't such a thing as brilliant 
 surgery. Of course one man may work faster than 
 another, or he may take more risks." 
 
 Sewell told him that he, too, was expecting an 
 appointment. It would be interesting to see Sewell 
 under stress of great calamity. He would face war 
 in his own spirit, but what would be the aspect of 
 that spirit? One could imagine beneficence with a 
 gallant twist to it. They talked of Burditt. It was
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 209 
 
 his idea, Sewell said, to put hfs son in the army. 
 The poor lad had not been very keen on it and the 
 mother had opposed and opposed. Burditt had be- 
 lieved that war was coming; he had been fanatic 
 on the subject of Germany. " I used to tell him it 
 was all gammon," said Sewell, "and he got furiously 
 prophetic. You wouldn't know now that he was 
 any less blind than the rest of us ; he never says ' I 
 told you so.' " 
 
 Geoffrey mentioned that he had just seen him, and 
 told what he had said of the Germans. " Yes," said 
 Sewell, " he would like to fight and has been thinking 
 of a commission in the line. He's given up the idea. 
 But he's implacably anti-German." 
 
 " He may have to doctor their wounded," said 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 " A wounded man is a wounded man," said Sewell. 
 "You can't tie up an artery resentfully." He was 
 in favor of making it up with Germany eventually. 
 " We shall never brew a decent lager here," he said. 
 
 In the smoke-room, Geoffrey introduced his subject, 
 and the arrangements were made in five minutes over 
 a cup of coffee. The question of local anaesthetic was 
 rather lightly dismissed. Sewell listened carefully to 
 all that the other doctors had said, and his hand 
 seemed to stray casually to Geoffrey's wrist as they 
 sat side by side. He felt the pulse and said he thought 
 it would be all right, that, anyhow, he would trust 
 Gough, his anaesthetist, against the world in this mat- 
 ter. " He can tickle a dead man through," said Sewell 
 cheerfully. It seemed an easy, friendly arrangement
 
 210 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and as good as done. With reserves of apprehension 
 in his heart Geoffrey felt that it was not very difficult 
 to be a man amongst men. 
 
 Mary listened steadily when he told her about it, 
 and it did not appear to occur to her that he could 
 do any less. If you thought it right to go to the war 
 you must go if you could crawl there. Geoffrey had 
 a glimpse of his sister, again, as an implacable creature, 
 with all her fine sympathies. With perturbations and 
 hesitations and a grim struggle you arrived at the 
 point where she confidently awaited you. The con- 
 fidence was a tribute, certainly, but so much was 
 taken as a matter of course; a weak mortal looks 
 for a little particular encouragement. He felt this 
 and knew it was unworthy; he meant to live up to 
 the ideal, and wondered whether a breakdown would 
 find her ruthless in admonition or instantly and deeply 
 in sympathy. He perceived that she was shyly re- 
 sentful of the indignities that his body must suffer. 
 She listened gravely to his rueful jocularities about 
 finding himself to be an old crock. He pressed them 
 whimsically, wilfully against her mood, as if in de- 
 fense. In burlesque he quoted : " Phoebus Apollo was 
 operated on for appendicitis yesterday and is doing 
 well." She had a shrinking interest, certainly not 
 morbid, in the operation. He wondered what Sewell 
 would think of her idea of the temple defaced. " We 
 are realists," he said, " whether we would or not." 
 She bowed her head in assent. 
 
 Geoffrey spent a few days in uncomfortable an- 
 ticipation. He was not one of those who can rule
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 211 
 
 their minds, dismissing the inopportune ; there is none 
 who can do so absolutely, but some can make a much 
 better attempt than others. He had read a little 
 sketch by Dixon Scott in which " The Shadow " of 
 a coming operation of doubtful issue had stimulated 
 the man to the keenest zest in the life still within his 
 clutch ; he had read and admired it, wondering whether, 
 in like case, he could live up to its brilliant promise. 
 He could not, and yet he believed it to be true; in 
 humility he tried to encourage the baffled, wavering 
 beginnings of what in the strong spirit would have 
 been a free growth. He pottered about his rather 
 dismal suburban garden in dull weather and made his 
 poor, wistful attempt to emulate the heroic tempera- 
 ment, to exult in the high flame ; but he failed in zest 
 while conscious always of life's pathetic, precarious 
 sweetness. Once or twice he puzzled Mary by an 
 artificial buoyancy. She looked merely for steadfast- 
 ness and that she should have. 
 
 He went into the nursing-home the night before 
 in order to be ready early in the morning. And there 
 he spent a night of deep discomfort; he couldn't get 
 out of his head a phrase read casually in a newspaper 
 about a famous criminal who had retired to rest the 
 night before his execution " in a state of extreme 
 depression." The moderation of this was arresting. 
 And now he realized something of what it meant. Of 
 course, the comparison was absurd, and his reason 
 told him that these doctors would never let him run 
 a great risk when it was really quite unnecessary. 
 There was no cause for serious apprehension, but
 
 212 TRUE LOVE 
 
 reason has a poor chance against feeling in the night 
 watches when you are tossing on a strange bed. In 
 the arid little room and with his prospect he felt 
 himself abandoned to this damned professionalism ; 
 there was slight comfort in thinking or even in mutter- 
 ing an oath or two. Perhaps other patients were 
 feeling very much as he did, but he had no vision 
 of them; it was at best a shadowy comradeship. He 
 wished for the dawn, he drowsed a little, he awoke. 
 
 And then there came upon him, unprepared, the 
 strong desire to be out of it. This was a burden 
 greater than he could bear; it was useless for him to 
 masquerade as a hero. And it was so entirely un- 
 necessary. He was a fool, a wretched fool, and he 
 had brought himself into an impossible position. He 
 wasn't what he had pretended to be. Probably he 
 was an exceptionally weak and morbidly sensitive 
 man. Others couldn't feel like this before a trumpery 
 operation. It was devilish awkward to cry off, 
 though. It couldn't be done. 
 
 Despising himself, he knew it couldn't be done. 
 Morally he was ready to do it, but it couldn't be done. 
 Just a little bit of silly pride was in the way. You 
 couldn't announce to a nurse that you had decided to 
 slip out by the back door. To think of Sewell at the 
 club was to know that hesitation now was ridiculous. 
 
 He had relapses. It was a miserable night. He 
 was very bad when the idea came to him that this 
 was like Christ's agony in the garden. 'The small 
 compared with the great, of course ; he was naturally 
 apologetic for perceiving the analogy. Ah! and with
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 213 
 
 Christ it was the cry of weakness through strength. 
 He knew, as Christ knew, that he must go through 
 with it. He couldn't fail. It was only playing with 
 an idea, after all. 
 
 In the morning he was much better and, though he 
 felt horribly uncertain, he had moments of elation 
 when he felt that he could keep his form all right. 
 He shaved himself and was a little annoyed at a cut 
 which he could not disguise. He was not quite natu- 
 ral, but he acted uncommonly well, and, with himself 
 for audience, he brought off the points to admiration. 
 He was gently jocular with the nurses, and with 
 Sewell and Gough hit a note of casual interest in the 
 performance. When he walked into the operating- 
 room the surgeon and anaesthetist were talking together 
 earnestly. It gave him a slight scare when they fell 
 apart like conspirators discovered so grossly did his 
 mood exaggerate but he had a good hold of himself. 
 He got upon the operating table with a polite alacrity, 
 and it was only at the last that he had a gasping 
 doubt. Even then he was conscious of the hope that 
 an instinctive gesture of repulsion, when they held 
 the beastly stuff to his face, had not been seen. Ah ! 
 but he was letting his precious life slip away, he had 
 made a monstrous mistake, they were choking him 
 it was that fellow Gough turning on the ether too 
 soon no, it was Sewell Sewell was no gentleman 
 he had never thought Sewell a gentleman to choke 
 a man well, did it matter? death ? did it matter?
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 
 
 HE came back to life, to a dim sense of life ; sickness 
 but life, pain but life; there was a faint, battered, 
 shrouded elation somewhere in him, a shred of hope 
 which he lost and recovered, forgot and tried to rec- 
 ollect. There was a deep pool of unconsciousness 
 near him ; he fancied it was just outside the bed and 
 if he could have stirred at all he might have rolled 
 over into it. He knew it was not the same as sleep; 
 could it be death? He had feared death, but now 
 when it was so near it seemed a slight matter, the 
 severing of a hair, a little push. He trembled on the 
 balance and death was merely a little push. He would 
 sink deep into that pool, he would sink and sink. Yet 
 in his mind there was the semblance of a choice; life 
 or death for the asking. It didn't matter much, and 
 it was curious to discover what a faint thing death 
 is. Not very curious. He had always been on the 
 side of life and he should choose life. If he fell 
 into that pool there would be a splash and that was 
 pain. He was in the clutches of pain, and pain forced 
 him to live; it was not desire of life but the will to 
 live. 
 
 Figures were moving about his bed. Nurses. Prob- 
 ably six or seven of them. Evidently it had been 
 
 214
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 215 
 
 an extraordinary case. There must be dozens of 
 nurses there and the doctors had gone away for a 
 long holiday. Sewell was not quite a gentleman. In 
 this case he had behaved unpardonably and it would 
 be embarrassing to meet him again. It would be best 
 not to make any reference to what had happened. 
 Sewell would understand, for he had perceptions; in 
 other circumstances he might have been a gentleman. 
 What the deuce is it all about? 
 
 Later he had the sensation of an austere rest. If 
 he did not move all might be well. There was still 
 pain, but now it seemed that pain was all over him 
 and so it was bearable; the unbearable pain is when 
 the parts get out of focus. Focus! He must be re- 
 covering when such a word as that came into his mind. 
 And he had an idea too. Hell would be bearable 
 if the heat were even all round. Quite a witty idea. 
 He must tell Attar that. He was recovering. The 
 whole thing was a trifle. 
 
 Thousands and thousands of men in France were 
 going through this and worse far worse. It was a 
 damnable world. A brutal, horrible, damnable world. 
 But now he was conscious of emphasis, of attitude; 
 he couldn't really feel for all those poor devils. 
 He was emerging from twilight into a daylight of 
 platitude, he was trying to think what he ought to 
 think. To sympathize strongly you must be strong, 
 to imagine strongly you must be thrillingly alive. He 
 was a poor, weak creature pumping up maudlin sen- 
 timent. No. They were his comrades lying there 
 on the fields of France and he was wounded too;
 
 216 TRUE LOVE 
 
 he had taken his wound freely. Why shouldn't he 
 drowse into any sentimental luxury? What had he 
 to do with moral issues now ? Can a man never have 
 rest? 
 
 A nurse stood clearly and tangibly before him and 
 he had a fleeting sense of the pleasures of convales- 
 cence; death and destruction were very remote. The 
 nurse was not beautiful nor young, but she repre- 
 sented womanhood and comfort and order. It was 
 a return to life and life craves joy. His mind turned 
 to Sibyl, and it seemed that she had been strangely 
 neglected. She had no regular place in his mind; 
 she would possess it and then she would be forgotten. 
 He permitted himself a childish, boyish castle of 
 dreams; he looked towards the door, he listened for 
 her footsteps. But it was not as a lover that he 
 regarded himself now, but as a poor, stricken thing, 
 less than a man, a child desiring comfort. He be- 
 came very sentimental, and then, seeing the nurse 
 placidly engaged in some work about the room, he 
 had a healthy revolt. He even recalled the phase of 
 David Copperfield and the elder Miss Larkins. And 
 then he had a dim prescience of the day when he 
 would demand a chop and a bottle of beer. 
 
 It burnt into his imagination that there is too much 
 pain in this world. Too much already, and now comes 
 this war to multiply it. He saw very clearly that the 
 war ought not to be. He felt capable of extraordinary 
 eloquence on the subject. He had the point of view 
 and if he could but write now he would enforce it. 
 His appeal would be beautiful and moving, but there
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 217 
 
 would be grim humor in the notiofr that the diplomats 
 should all be harried into a nursing-home and cut 
 about by ardent young surgeons who could surely 
 find something to mend in their miserable carcasses. 
 The point the striking, illuminating point which had 
 had no more than formal recognition was that all this 
 pain had never been taken into account. All sorts of 
 glowing ambitions, of just resentments, gallantry, pru- 
 dence; the platitudes about the horrors of war; but 
 not this pain. Of course, you couldn't get pain out 
 of the world; you couldn't let Germans trample over 
 you because it would hurt to resist them; but where 
 the councils of war are gathered together there should 
 be some one there who knew. The greatest thing of 
 all should not be forgotten. 
 
 He had a night of deep discomfort which changed 
 to constant pain. As time wore on he felt that he 
 was near the end of his resources and that he was no 
 stoic. And then from an environment that had hardly 
 been marked his nurse emerged. She was a small, 
 quiet woman of middle age, strong in feature, gentle 
 in expression. He saw that he could trust her, even 
 with the confession of his weakness ; and his appeal 
 for help was not in vain. He groaned and writhed, 
 but he had a friend. She was active in service, full 
 of experiments, never at a loss. She never came 
 to the end of her resources. She changed his position 
 skilfully, she brought hot bottles for his feet and stom- 
 ach, cooling lotions for his head. She gave him hot tea 
 and even hot brandy; she never let him feel that the 
 last card was played. His misery, his agony became
 
 218 TRUE LOVE 
 
 qualified with admiration. He admired her swift, 
 elegant movements, the calmness that was never cold, 
 the sympathy that yet incited him to effort. He began 
 to idealize her and to pursue the interest. He told 
 her of his admiration and she tried to explain all by 
 her training, her faithfulness to a routine. He would 
 not have that. " You're a marvelous nurse," he said ; 
 " you've the touch, the temperament, the spirit. You 
 give me new conceptions of help, of human help. 
 You're my friend; you'll always be my friend." He 
 was greatly affected, and, for happy moments, his 
 emotion transcended the pain. She would not have 
 it that she was better than her fellows, she made mis- 
 takes, she had her lapses. And then she said that 
 what merit she had as a nurse had come in answer 
 to prayer. She was a simple woman, believing simply 
 in the efficacy of prayer. They discussed the subject 
 guardedly. It appeared that she was shy of it, dread- 
 ing his skepticism or incredulity and instinctively 
 aware of them. Presently he fell into a slight, pre- 
 carious doze. 
 
 And as suffering begets succor, so, it seemed to him 
 on reflection, even the miseries and abominations of 
 war have their other side. His nurse would have gone 
 to the war, but that she was not strong and had not 
 been accepted. She would have gone because she 
 was most wanted there, and he could imagine her 
 away from the polite civilities of the nursing-home, 
 where even pain seems to be muffled, and facing prob- 
 lems more tremendous than his own sleepless night. 
 It humbled him and it exalted her. Think of her and
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 219 
 
 think of the war and she was noflhsignificant. Ajax 
 defying the lightning is an arrogant fool; the nurse 
 confronting the pain of the world is sublime. 
 
 Sewell came in daily and nodded over him; then 
 there came the dressing of the wounds, which he 
 didn't like at all, but he gained some confidence in his 
 manhood through it, nevertheless. You may play 
 at being a brave man so long that nature comes to 
 your help ; or is there always the subtle flaw that may 
 bring disgrace in the unguarded moment? 
 
 He remembered gaining some credit with himself 
 when, as a youth, he had a tooth pulled out. It was 
 an obstinate tooth, and the old family dentist clutched 
 and pulled and broke bits off and changed his instru- 
 ment while Geoffrey sat in the chair apparently un- 
 moved. He was deeply scared and apprehensive and 
 shrank from the pain, but he didn't see what he could 
 do but just sit there. The alternative was disgrace, 
 a moral defeat; there wasn't an alternative. At a 
 pause in the struggle the dentist said : " There's one 
 point in our favor," and Geoffrey, with polite interest, 
 asked, "What's that?" The reply, which he cher- 
 ished, was, " A good patient," and the joke was that 
 he wasn't really a good patient, he was only pretending 
 to be. And now when Sewell put on his rubber 
 gloves Geoffrey felt that he had got to bluff him, to 
 keep up a reputation for the normal. He was humble, 
 weak, but there was just a thread of tenacity that 
 for practical purposes was as good as a stout rope. 
 He maintained the character of a good patient, gain- 
 ing some respect for gesture, for attitude.
 
 220 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Discussing his operation with the nurse he learnt to 
 his suprise that he had done a good deal of talking 
 or calling out before the chloroform subdued him. 
 In such a case there may be some want of dignity 
 in asking what was said, but he did ask, and the 
 nurse was not very ready to tell him, though she 
 seemed willing to have it dragged out of her. Pro- 
 fessionally she might be justified on the plea that the 
 patient must not be excited. To his consternation 
 Geoffrey learnt that he had shouted that Sewell was 
 not a gentleman; he had insisted on that in some de- 
 tail, and there had been some puzzling reference to 
 a diamond ring. Gough had laughed, but Sewell had 
 not paid any attention till the ring was mentioned. 
 Then he had said : " Why the deuce shouldn't a man 
 wear a diamond ring if it pleases him ? " Geoffrey 
 groaned, and the nurse, in vexation, said, " There ! 
 I shouldn't have told you." It was horribly annoying. 
 " Of course you never know what they'll say," she 
 declared. She considered Mr. Sewell a perfect gen- 
 tleman and Geoffrey hastened to agree. " What could 
 I have meant?" he said, and acted incredulity. The 
 nurse begged that he would not tell Mr. Sewell and, 
 as it seemed impossible to explain to him, he prom- 
 ised. What had he meant? This arrogance of the 
 gentlemanlike, petty exclusiveness, seemed despicable 
 now. Sewell was a man of fine qualities, and here 
 in all the sincerity of unconsciousness he had insulted 
 him. And now when Sewell visited him Geoffrey was 
 vastly uncomfortable. He tried to emphasize his grat- 
 itude, he was eagerly cordial. Sewell was cool and
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 221 
 
 kind and admirably master of Himself; he wore his 
 ring without a difference. 
 
 Geoffrey had visitors and he heard something of 
 the progress of the war which was remote; a baleful 
 story told to a child. It was Mary who came first, 
 and she was gentle and anxious, finding him strangely 
 altered. She could take it casually or philosophically 
 that the familiar manhood in him should be so sub- 
 dued. She asked him a question. " Do you see every- 
 thing the same ? " 
 
 He stared at her. " What do you mean ? " There 
 was a hint of protest in his tone. He dreaded the 
 controversial. 
 
 And she said, hurriedly, " It doesn't matter. It's 
 nothing." 
 
 They spoke of other things, and Mary gave him 
 household news and talked of Milly's nursing projects, 
 and even of hers. When she had gone he reviewed 
 his impressions, and, struck with an idea, he asked the 
 nurse for a mirror. She held one before him and 
 he looked at his pale, sunken face, which seemed 
 hardly of this world. That was what Mary had seen, 
 and the poor girl must have had the thought that he 
 might be purged of bloody, warlike imaginings; that 
 some illumination might have come with this subdual 
 of the flesh. She would not worry him ; it was a poor, 
 attenuated hope, hurriedly concealed. He found it 
 very pathetic, and yet he thought that had she been 
 there he might have been roused to angry protest. 
 
 Men from the office came Burke, and Attar, and 
 Tate, and one afternoon he was considerably aston-
 
 222 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ished and a little embarrassed when Bonsor was an- 
 nounced. Bonsor was at the door, and only a firm 
 decision could have excluded him; besides, it was 
 a dull afternoon, and Bonsor might be amusing. 
 
 Bonsor, it seemed, had thought it " only right " to 
 tell him that he admired this attempt to enlist. He 
 was beyond the age himself or he would certainly 
 have applied for a commission. " I am glad," he con- 
 tinued, " that your eyes are opened at last." " To 
 what ? " said Geoffrey rather tartly, and Bonsor, with 
 marked tact, said that they wouldn't go into that now. 
 Geoffrey laughed and asked what Riley was doing. 
 Riley was of an age for soldiering, but it appeared 
 that he was conscious of a talent possibly even a 
 genius for organizing, and so he wanted to organize 
 something. And, indeed, this war seemed likely to 
 develop an orgy of organization. Thousands have 
 discovered that mere blind, blunt work leads no- 
 whither, but that properly directed, labor can do won- 
 ders. The difficulty is that the natural aspiration 
 to direct has caused a rush for the higher posts. 
 Bonsor would have liked to put himself at the head 
 of something, but that his own business children's 
 underclothing claimed all his energies. He took an 
 exalted view of the underclothing trade, and, later, 
 when the stress came and there was so much talk 
 about the necessity of providing milk for the children 
 Bonsor never denied their right to milk he was 
 bitter about the deplorable condition of their under- 
 clothing and the infamous attempts of parents to save 
 on this item.
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 223 
 
 Bonsor had a tremendous fund of gossip, and such 
 phrases as " know for a fact " and " a man high 
 up at the Admiralty told me " besprinkled his com- 
 munication of it. Geoffrey's skepticism was, perhaps, 
 excessive, but Bonsor fed it with the crudest of 
 spy stories. He believed implicitly in the German 
 governesses with bombs at the bottom of their boxes, 
 in the signals flashing from boarding-houses at South- 
 port or Blackpool; presently he would believe in the 
 heroic Germans who, by means of lanterns from the 
 top story, gave the direction to Zeppelins for their 
 own destruction. He was excited about our neglect 
 to intern harmless old bores of German origin, whom 
 he credited with miracles of organized hypocrisy, and 
 he whispered of damning facts that they had let out 
 at dinner parties ; the facts were in Whiiaker's Alma- 
 nac, but it appeared that a guileless German govern- 
 ment was ready to pay huge sums for them. Geoffrey 
 found that the easiest way to deal with all this was 
 to accept it with ironic calm; it was a pretty good 
 joke and, when you could take it that way, the further 
 Bonsor went the jollier it was. Certainly there was 
 some danger in this attitude of mind as there must 
 be in all extremes. You do not put a genial skeptic 
 at the head of your Criminal Investigation Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 Bonsor was good, too, on the strategy of the war 
 and the plan to draw the Germans into the center of 
 France, there to annihilate them. The whole thing 
 was terrible, or it was solemn, but if the humorist 
 keeps his nerve he may find his best opportunities
 
 224 TRUE LOVE 
 
 in the Day of Judgment or the Day of Wrath. If 
 Bonsor had lived at the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century he would have believed firmly enough that 
 an Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen. There 
 was a sort of loyalty about him; he was a fool, but 
 a faithful fool. He went about gathering superficial 
 expressions of opinion and then he produced them 
 with emphatic conviction as his own. His individual- 
 ity consisted of a few accidental features which re- 
 called character in others. He had some dim con- 
 sciousness of his insignificance and it pushed him to 
 emphasis, he developed a manner. When you got 
 him alone he lost some of this truculence, but his 
 obstinacy prevailed. It was all he had. It was faith, 
 loyalty, religion, and morals. 
 
 Geoffrey listened to Bonsor's babble, and wondered 
 that he should ever have been angry with him. The 
 virulent Riley was another matter, and Riley, it 
 seemed, was disposed to skulk; in the interests of 
 symmetry you may be grateful to a bully if he fits 
 into the scheme of things as a coward. But your 
 rat may put up a great fight when it is cornered. 
 This war was to bring a tremendous change in values ; 
 all manner of gallantries and meannesses were to 
 sprout in unexpected places; the high were to be 
 brought low and the humble exalted. Men who might 
 have led quiet, noble lives were to fail miserably 
 through some hidden flaw, and loathsome blackguards 
 to die as heroes. It seemed that this was, at last, the 
 chance for the individual, and it seemed, too, that 
 everything was to be poured into a common stock.
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 225 
 
 With surprise and indignation^ Geoffrey heard Bon- 
 sor refer to Sewell as "a bit of a bounder good 
 surgeon, of course." Bonsor, certainly, had not fine 
 perceptions, but he had caught something of the 
 current estimates; and club standards may be unerr- 
 ing in their limited way. Geoffrey spoke angrily in 
 defense of Sewell, and the more angrily that he, too, 
 was tainted by that cruelty of exclusiveness which 
 exalts some trivial refinement, some trick of suave 
 deprecation above the realities of manhood. It crossed 
 his mind that he would some day write a novel with 
 the bounder for hero; yes, the bounder should be a 
 Galahad, a Christ. Well, manhood was coming to 
 its own, and he, too, would presently be put to the 
 test; he would have to find his level. In his heart 
 he protested. He had built up an edifice of life 
 slowly, with infinite pains and, in a dim, frustrate way, 
 with such righteousness as was in him. Now it was 
 to be shattered; at least it was to be tested as he 
 could not have foreseen. And what followed might 
 alter everything; calamities of trie spirit are retro- 
 spective. He thought of himself and Mary he 
 thought of her before Sibyl and it seemed that even 
 Mary, with all her repudiations of this state of war, 
 might find him out. They were the imaginings of a 
 sick man, of a timid spirit. He had silenced Bonsor, 
 who was fumbling among the books on the table by 
 the bed and obstinately prolonging his visit. He han- 
 dled a volume of The Dynasts with a sort of in- 
 credulity, and Geoffrey waited impatiently for his 
 futile comment. It was delayed, and from his bed
 
 226 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Geoffrey surveyed the world. He felt himself re- 
 moved from it all; he was the Ironies, the Pities, 
 the sinister or benevolent spirits that brooded over 
 Hardy's battlefields. And then he found himself 
 agreeing politely with Bonsor's platitudes about the 
 comparative insignificance of these old wars. They 
 had only thousands to kill where we have millions, 
 they played with obsolete toys like muskets and can- 
 non-balls. Bonsor kindled at inflations; as the mil- 
 lions mounted his emotions would take the cast of 
 awe. He had not the intelligence to explore the in- 
 terests of modern warfare with its fresh and complex 
 problems, its disconcerting possibilities, but he re- 
 sponded to quantity. There are many of us, we are 
 great, we are progressive. We are British, and at the 
 back as well as the front of Bonsor's mind was the 
 obstinate belief in success which makes for success. 
 Geoffrey believed sometimes that he could analyze 
 Bonsor's conversation into components representing 
 the more forcible of his consorts. " A new world is 
 coming," says Bonsor, " and there will be no room 
 in it for laissez-faire; activity, not passivity, will win 
 the day." Economists, it seemed, would have to give 
 way to hearty business men who would stand no 
 nonsense ; your puking philanthropists to men of iron 
 (acting, no doubt, from the highest motives). With 
 an eye on the bedside books, Bonsor declared that 
 literature and the arts were on the verge of a profound 
 change. He was a little vague about its character 
 and direction. " I've heard something of this sort 
 before," said Geoffrey, and then, with a smile, " I
 
 FOOLS IN COUNCIL 227 
 
 can see Wordsworth and Shelley-shining like stars in 
 the sky." It was not addressed to Bonsor, it was 
 a parenthesis of his own, but Bonsor replied to it. 
 Wordsworth and Shelley were not the point, it seemed, 
 but the decadent, unmoral, or immoral modern litera- 
 ture. " Don't you think some of it very beautiful ? " 
 said Geoffrey languidly, but beauty, too, was not the 
 point. " We've got to be braced up," said Bonsor, 
 and he mentioned a volume of Australian poems which 
 had the very spirit of conquering Rome. Geoffrey 
 was too polite to ask him who had said that. 
 
 It was an easy transition to the theater, and Bonsor 
 remarked with approval that the character of the 
 pieces at the Playgoers' had already undergone a 
 change. "No more Alice Deans?" said Geoffrey 
 pleasantly, and Bonsor " confessed " that he thought 
 that sort of thing was on the shelf. " Of course, clas- 
 sics are classics," he said indulgently, " but we've not 
 had many during the last fifty years." 
 
 " Diplomacy and two or three more," suggested 
 Geoffrey mischievously, and Bonsor assented to this 
 gravely. It was difficult to think of him as a man 
 to be hurt. 
 
 He mentioned that Miss Drew was coming to the 
 Playgoers' in a few weeks. " But of course you'll 
 know all about that," he said. His tone had no par- 
 ticular significance.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 COTERIE 
 
 DESCENDING from the tram in Cross Street, Geoffrey 
 was conscious of his stick and his limp, and did his 
 best not to look like a hero prematurely wounded. 
 He had intended to have tea at home, but a wrangle 
 with Mary had perturbed him, and so he had pre- 
 tended or fancied that he had work to do at the office. 
 Mary and he had blundered upon the subject of Ger- 
 man excesses and her skepticism had annoyed him. 
 He had been skeptical about it himself, but the mis- 
 erable conviction was growing that German soldiers 
 were not quite as other civilized men, and his sensi- 
 tiveness on the subject demanded that she should 
 agree with him precisely. She had been warm and 
 emphatic on the meanness of believing ill of our ene- 
 mies, and had gone further than she intended ; he had 
 been angry and had said hard things stupidly. Now 
 it made him unhappy to think of her unhappy at 
 home, and all the time he had been in the tram he 
 had been up against the impossibility of going back 
 to have tea with her. For he couldn't do that. He 
 wanted to do it and he couldn't. If they had quar- 
 reled savagely and tragically he might have done it, 
 but now there was not the necessary rebound. He 
 
 228
 
 COTERIE 229 
 
 had the grace to hope that Milly^Warde would come 
 in and make a distraction for her. And he wanted 
 a distraction himself. 
 
 And so he limped into the tea-shop, and downstairs 
 there he found the little coterie of intellectuals, who 
 hailed him almost cordially. They were too well- 
 mannered to embarrass him with demand for more 
 explanations than he wished to give, and they went 
 on with their talk without making him feel that it 
 was exclusive. It seemed to be on the endless subject 
 of Philistinism, for, like most ardent young men, these 
 lived very much on their antipathies. Their ardors, 
 too, were overlaid with languors and ironies; they 
 did not parade their enthusiasms, but it meant some- 
 thing when they markedly abstained from contempt. 
 Imalian could hardly be called a leader among them, 
 but his melancholy courtesy had influenced their man- 
 ners. These were charming, at least when you were 
 there ; for Geoffrey was conscious of the critical atti- 
 tude and of a certain avidity in fastening on a fresh 
 object for criticism. These men knew one another 
 pretty well and they had exhausted one another's ob- 
 vious possibilities. They had, as Imalian would say, 
 perfected the formulas, and there was a certain reluc- 
 tance to having them disturbed. The stranger or the 
 comparative stranger might think that he was getting 
 on finely with them, but if, after his departure, he 
 could have played the eavesdropper it might have 
 astonished him considerably. They were young, they 
 had their secret enthusiasms, and even some spectac- 
 ular ones, and they specialized in contempt. The
 
 230 TRUE LOVE 
 
 talent acclaimed yesterday was thrust aside to-day 
 as a mere masquerade, an aping of genius. They 
 sought the highest ; in their queer way they followed 
 the quest of the Holy Grail. They were good fellows 
 who would help one another. 
 
 It was a capital distraction and the talk flitted from 
 one thing to another. They prided themselves on 
 not being unduly obsessed by the war, though, being 
 human, they returned to it. Its effect on the big, 
 florid world of financial successes and social greed 
 was discussed, and Bevan maintained, reasonably 
 enough, that these represented constant elements in 
 human nature and could never be eliminated by patri- 
 otic ideals which were what he called a side-show. 
 " Eliminated ? No," said Geoffrey, " but they may 
 be vastly reduced." Bevan questioned this, and Geof- 
 frey suggested that thousands of men were now vol- 
 unteering for hardship and possible death who had 
 always sought the gross comforts. 
 
 " Simply the pressure of public opinion," said Bevan. 
 " That's the strongest thing in life." 
 
 "You mean that patriotic ideals are universal al- 
 ready ? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 " We're all virtuous in the abstract. A set of scoun- 
 drels will cheer a fine sentiment." 
 
 " I think the impulse for sacrifice comes from 
 within," said Geoffrey. 
 
 This was debated, and it was agreed that there was 
 a spectacular element, varying in individuals. Bevan 
 objected to this idealization of self-sacrifice. He con- 
 sidered it an impertinence for any one to sacrifice him-
 
 COTERIE 231 
 
 self for him, and he had no desire^ do it for another. 
 " But what the deuce are you to do when the Germans 
 come ? " said Geoffrey. The general sense seemed 
 to be that the Government and stupid diplomacy were 
 to blame. Some one said that if we had to fight, a 
 sort of militia ballot seemed the fair thing, and to 
 this it was objected that all those who wanted to fight 
 should go first. There was evidently no enthusiasm 
 here for the military career; the whole thing was so 
 " damned idiotic " and unworthy of civilized men. 
 Bevan said that it was unreasonable to ask a man to 
 die before his time unless you could promise him 
 another life and the odds seemed to be against that. 
 After considering the subject and weighing the odds 
 he had come to the conclusion that they were a shade 
 worse than five to two against immortality. Imalian 
 smiled indulgently, and you could believe that he had 
 some secret, deep intelligence on the subject. 
 
 A quiet, pale young man whose name Geoffrey didn't 
 know said that a ballot would be coercion just as 
 much as anything else. " I'll go to the war or not as 
 I like," he said, " and it happens that I don't like." 
 He declined to be mixed up in "your quarrels." It 
 seemed that he had a high ideal of personal freedom. 
 Niceties about taking life didn't trouble him. " In 
 certain circumstances I should not object to kill a 
 man," he said, " but it must be the man I want to 
 kill and not an innocent, irrelevant peasant a mile 
 off." He had no objection to Christian non-resistance 
 and none to war for those who liked it. "If you are 
 naturally cruel and bloody," he said, " it's a splendid
 
 232 TRUE LOVE 
 
 opportunity to exercise your gifts under respectable 
 auspices." 
 
 Geoffrey, rather wearily, advanced some argumenta- 
 tive formulas about the impossibility of isolating the 
 individual in the State. " We may come to this," he 
 said, " that food can only be brought here by fighting. 
 Would you expect us to go on feeding you ? " 
 
 The pale young man said that his money would be 
 as good as anybody else's. 
 
 "When you're adrift on a raft," said Geoffrey, 
 " money loses its value. All who conform to the gen- 
 eral interest share alike; the others are pushed over 
 the edge." 
 
 " Simple analogies for complex states ! " He agreed 
 that a point might come at which the dissenter must 
 choose between acquiescence and martyrdom. " I 
 should probably choose acquiescence," he said, " but 
 with a personal reserve." 
 
 "Of what nature ? " asked Geoffrey. 
 
 " Well, it would have to be ironical, I suppose." 
 
 "As much of that as you like," said Geoffrey. 
 "Thought is free." 
 
 " You make a curious, arbitrary distinction between 
 thought and action," said the other. 
 
 Then they had a rather ugly little discussion about 
 the relation of war to sex indulgence. " It's natural," 
 said Bevan, " that they should go together." A man 
 who may soon be killed hurries up with sensual pleas- 
 ures. Already young soldiers are marrying in haste 
 and they seem to think their lusts are holy if the 
 Church blesses them "
 
 COTERIE 233 
 
 Geoffrey said : " If life is going to be speeded up 
 it won't be all the wrong way. We shall hurry up 
 with our idealisms and nobilities too. And why should 
 lovers be thwarted if if they can get ahead of 
 death?" 
 
 He withdrew into a meditation ; he had got back to 
 himself. And then it appeared that his friends were 
 safely back at literature again they always returned 
 to that and the pale young man was analyzing the 
 terms of his skepticism. It seemed that he mistrusted 
 the classics profoundly. It was not difficult to dis- 
 tinguish good from bad in contemporary literature, 
 but how were you to compare the merits of Fielding 
 and Frank Swinnerton? Why is Charlotte Bronte 
 better than Viola Meynell? He was scornful about 
 the " academic reverberations " on the side of the elder 
 writers. He admitted a " personal deficiency " in 
 criteria, but suggested that criteria were little more 
 than the petrifaction of obsolete opinion. 
 
 Imalian said that you didn't want formulas to see 
 that Keats was ahead of the " Georgians." 
 
 "Ah," said Bevan, "their fault is that they're 
 alive." And then he quoted something about "the dead 
 for the dead." The world is full of dead people who 
 care only for dead authors. 
 
 Anyhow, they were far from the war now, and it 
 is one of the mitigations of the human lot that round 
 a table with your friends you can choose your life; 
 you can live exclusively. Geoffrey looked about him 
 and saw the various parties intent on their own affairs 
 and moving freely in them. Through the ages liberty
 
 234 TRUE LOVE 
 
 has survived in intimate conversation with a friend. 
 At his table somebody was saying, " Jane Austen is 
 perfect but not first rate ; Conrad is first rate but not 
 perfect." But he was conscious of two men who 
 were sitting near him and discussing something with 
 a subdued enthusiasm. " Breaking both ways," he 
 heard, and " four men on the leg side." They were 
 talking about cricket, about the season dead and gone 
 and perhaps never to return. They had set up their 
 little protection against a terrible, insensate world, and 
 talked quietly and happily about old cricket matches. 
 This underground tea-room became a sort of oubliette. 
 
 And then, something to his vexation, Geoffrey found 
 himself back at the Germans and rather tartly com- 
 bating the easy, superior contention that we are all 
 pretty much alike, that in cruelties and treacheries it 
 is six of one and half a dozen of the other, that you 
 cannot frame an indictment or eulogy about a nation, 
 that indignation is an anachronism. " How can we 
 trust them ? How can we make peace with them ? " 
 he said, and he was guilty of something grandiloquent 
 about the sword between. He was uneasily conscious 
 that he spoke very much as Bonsor might have spoken, 
 and that had he been with Bonsor he would have said 
 such things as these men were saying. It is hard to 
 keep a middle way, and he found himself swayed by 
 his antagonisms. He would be just, but justice is 
 not in the middle way. 
 
 They all went upstairs together, and they tried, 
 through the perturbations and rufflings, to catch the 
 friendly note again. Geoffrey felt that he had bum-
 
 COTERIE 235 
 
 dered rather heavily among them. -~He had taken them 
 at their word, and, with all its cleverness, they were 
 better than that. They might go by wrong ways, but 
 not by base ones ; some of them were yet to turn out 
 no better than common heroes. It seemed to him that 
 in finding the greatest common measure of its indi- 
 viduals the world has an awkward job before it. 
 
 As he paid his bill he glanced round this upper 
 room where ladies congregate, and there sat Sibyl 
 in her old place looking at him eagerly. He nodded 
 to Imalian, who smiled benevolently and followed the 
 others out. Geoffrey sat down opposite to Sibyl at the 
 table. 
 
 "At last!" he said.
 
 PART III
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 AT LAST 
 
 "Ax last?" she repeated. 
 
 He smiled at her encouragingly and it seemed to him 
 that there was no need for hasty explanations or even 
 for explicit ones. He had her there and he was 
 powerful and aggressive and tender; he was the suc- 
 cessful lover possessed by a serene confidence. He 
 didn't answer her "At last?" They talked a little 
 about immediate things, mentioned the Wibberleys, 
 recalled but faintly Grasmere. Sibyl asked about 
 Mary, and in his sensitive appreciation it seemed that 
 this was wistfully. She had blue, beseeching eyes. 
 She was an exquisite creature. On the stage she could 
 be decorative, grandiose. A fine actress, of course, 
 but now those mimic presentments, disguises, postur- 
 ings, faded away in this reality. He had seen her face 
 daubed with paint, and on that gaudy night of Alice 
 Dean it had been strangely alluring. Now her linea- 
 ments were finer, nobler. That stage life was a ro- 
 mantic background; that boasted art of hers was 
 charming and a bit of a joke. He would try to ex- 
 plain this to her some day when he understood it more 
 clearly himself. She was looking at him timidly, in- 
 quiringly ; she was not happy and he must come to the 
 
 239
 
 240 TRUE LOVE 
 
 point. Surely it was understood between them now, 
 but maiden modesty demands the explicit. 
 
 He said : " I've often thought of writing to you." 
 
 " But you didn't." 
 
 " I wonder if I could make you understand why." 
 
 It was with the ghost of archness that she said: 
 " You can't get over my stupidity." 
 
 " It isn't that," he said almost seriously. " I felt 
 it would be such a tremendous thing to do." 
 
 " I'm so important? " 
 
 " You say light things sadly," he said. 
 
 " Well, I suppose I'm light and sad." 
 
 " Why are you sad ? " 
 
 " Why didn't you write to me ? I mean why should 
 you write to me ? " 
 
 " I don't do things properly," he said. " I don't do 
 them at the right time. I think I wait for things to 
 seize me." 
 
 " I'm one of the things that might seize you ? " 
 
 " You have," he said. 
 
 She looked away and so did he. They were con- 
 sidering their environment. It was not an ideal one 
 for confidences, but the tea-room was half empty, they 
 were not conspicuous, and the people near them looked 
 neutral. It is a fascinating game to make love under 
 espionage, but a game was hardly what they wanted. 
 The time for explanations, for assurances, for the 
 plain word had come. 
 
 Yet it seemed that she would not have it so. She 
 asked for news politely. She inquired about his opera- 
 tion though she already knew most of what he told
 
 AT LAST 241 
 
 her. Then he questioned her about her movements 
 and the prospects of the company in war time, and 
 her recent parts. They were getting cold, as the chil- 
 dren say in their seeking game, but Geoffrey was in 
 no hurry even now. 
 
 " You actors are birds of passage," he said ; " you 
 are curiously isolated, detached. How little I know 
 of you! I don't even know whether Sibyl Drew is 
 your real name. Is it?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " And it means so much to me. I can't unlearn it. 
 Not yet. You'll always be Sibyl anyway. I can't 
 think of you with family attachments. You drop out 
 of the sky, you rise out of the sea foam. To me you 
 are the most romantic thing in the world." 
 
 He felt himself shaken, breathless. This would 
 scarcely do. His ardor must be contained. He looked 
 about him uneasily and was reassured. The neutrals 
 were still neutral. 
 
 " You shall know something more of me," she 
 said. 
 
 " In good time. You can be taken on trust. I'm 
 interested, of course not exactly curious. It's you 
 that matters, not your belongings, though I'm sure 
 they're charming. Whatever they were they couldn't 
 kill the romance in you. Ah ! You do everything 
 beautifully. Did I ever tell you how much I admire 
 your diction the way you talk? The stage for that. 
 Give it its due. Yes, you've a precision of speech such 
 as you get from a foreigner who speaks our language 
 perfectly."
 
 242 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I can explain that." 
 
 " You shall. You shall explain everything. As 
 much as you like. But I'm egotistical. I want to 
 go on babbling to you. Why do I delay? Why 
 have I delayed? You know what I want to tell 
 you?" 
 
 " That you are going to be a soldier ? " 
 
 " I didn't mean that, though that's part of it. Dare 
 I whisper it across the table ? Observe that to any one 
 who looks at me I'm talking politely, casually, to you. 
 Watch me appear to be rather bored. I'm trembling 
 with excitement. With a look you can put me in 
 deadly fear, with a word oh, but don't speak that 
 word!" 
 
 She leaned back in her chair keeping her eyes fixed 
 on him. 
 
 "A soldier?" he said. "I'm as good as one. I 
 shall be one directly. And do you know what every 
 soldier wants? I'm like the rest. He wants the best 
 thing in the world. He wants " he leaned for- 
 ward and breathed the word gently "a sweet- 
 heart." 
 
 She looked at him steadily and, with a little alarm, 
 he perceived that there was no flattering concession. 
 Her eyes were stony. For an impatient moment he 
 thought that she might be oppressed by the timidity of 
 convention, and he glanced hurriedly round the room. 
 They were sufficiently isolated. He came back to her 
 and she was still looking at him. " Ah ! " he said, 
 " you frighten me. Your eyes are gray now, and I 
 thought they were blue. Have I been stupid and
 
 AT LAST 243 
 
 presumptuous? Forgive me. Be kind to me. You 
 can't be cruel." 
 
 " It is a cruel world now, my friend." 
 
 " And a merciful one, full of sympathy and devotion 
 yes, and love." 
 
 " You love all ? All your fellow-creatures, even 
 your enemies ? " 
 
 " One must hate cruelty and oppression. And you 
 can't separate the deed from the man." 
 
 " You hate the Germans ? " 
 
 " I suppose I hate them. Yes. It's a matter of 
 moods. I'm in the ruck. I'm not blatant. There's 
 no real lapse in charity, I hope. Righteous anger, in- 
 dignation, have their place in the world. Of course, 
 one can make allowances, exceptions." 
 
 " Exceptions ? " she cried. " And how if I will not 
 be an exception ? " 
 
 if you " 
 
 " You do not see ? you do not understand ? I am 
 a German." 
 
 He stared at her and his face became rigid in an 
 attempt at a smile. His mind worked with extraordi- 
 nary rapidity under the apprehension that he might 
 lose her. It was a tremendous, bewildering blow, and 
 yet the practical man in him rallied instinctively to 
 the lover. Thoughts crowded on him and he put them 
 aside. He must hold to what was precious, he must 
 not offend her; and as she looked at him with brave, 
 terrified eyes his pity was overwhelming, it obliterated 
 cautions and reservations. He became calm, he was 
 conscious of calamity, but that was something from
 
 244 TRUE LOVE 
 
 outside. He saw her beautiful and adorable, he was 
 strong and tender. He leaned to her and murmured, 
 " My dearest love." 
 
 As she looked at him her eyes filled with tears, and 
 her face puckered a little. But she only wavered, 
 she kept her eyes fixed on him. It might have been 
 that she awaited with meekness the sentence of an in- 
 exorable judge ; or that he was on his trial before her. 
 He threw himself back in his chair and looked at her 
 smilingly, reassuringly. And now he was thinking 
 that he must, after all, be wise. What was best? 
 What was possible? He mistrusted his impulses, he 
 wanted to get away and think. There is in every man 
 a calculating brute, and he was not wholly free from 
 a selfish caution; at a crisis of physical danger the 
 man has still a self crying for help even when he 
 sacrifices himself to the woman in his charge. Dis- 
 couragements and dismay surged upon him and, for 
 the moment, clouded his vision of her. He permitted 
 reaction to go to fantastic lengths. Suppose that he 
 got up and bowed and walked out! Was this the 
 course for a prudent and truly patriotic Briton? Or 
 for a lineal descendant of Judas Iscariot? And yet 
 if he did it at all it must be now. Their choice must 
 be made now and his choice was to help her. 
 
 But how? Could they do it? Or what could they 
 do? They had not explored the situation, and, though 
 the big fact seemed enough for the moment and was 
 unquestioned, there might be mitigations and qualifi- 
 cations. They watched one another, they were on 
 their guard, and presently he would be startled to rea-
 
 AT LAST 245 
 
 lize that her thoughts had beeir-something like his; 
 the male, the Briton, is accustomed to the lead; the 
 lover has the attitude of power. She watched him 
 anxiously while his face changed he did not mean 
 it to change and she said : " You are thinking what 
 to do." And then she added : " That's right." 
 
 " I'm thinking about you," he said. 
 
 " I'm not the only person concerned," she said, and 
 it was with a touch of protest, of impatience, petu- 
 lance. She looked about her, she became more defi- 
 nitely conscious of the environment and so did he. 
 The room was almost empty and the waitress came to 
 ask for further orders and to write out a check. Sibyl 
 was gracious with the girl, and he was conscious that 
 she bore herself beautifully in small things as in great. 
 She was an actress and he recollected his old conten- 
 tion that acting should be life or was it that life 
 should be acting? that there should be a subdued 
 consciousness in the most beautiful manners, in the 
 perfect exposition of a noble mind. She was an 
 actress, and now it seemed that this advent of the 
 waitress had closed the first act of their drama. The 
 next must be taken up, as second acts are, with a 
 certain resolution. 
 
 She said : " I must go." 
 
 He was honestly ardent. She was touching, she was 
 lovely, and he was immensely moved. He poured out 
 good lover's talk, and it seemed that she blinked and 
 purred under it ; she let him go on. At last she said : 
 " You ought to have gone away and thought before 
 you said all that." There was a hint of raillery in it,
 
 246 TRUE LOVE 
 
 a little efflorescence of happiness. " I'm glad. Oh ! 
 I'm glad," she said, "but I don't deserve it. I am 
 much to blame." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " All these weeks and months I never told you. I 
 have been unhappy. But how could I tell you? I 
 meant to. I might have written. But it would have 
 seemed that I thought that I expected that you 
 and at Grasmere I wondered if you knew. I'm very 
 close. I could explain that partly. Perhaps it will 
 not be necessary. If I begin there is so much to 
 explain." 
 
 " Explain, then. Tell me. I want to know every- 
 thing about you. Nothing can harm you." 
 
 " I wonder if I should." 
 
 " At Grasmere you knew that I loved you ? " 
 
 " These things must be said. You have to be very 
 sure." 
 
 " You know it now." 
 
 " But I am a German girl." 
 
 " I hear you say so. You are English enough for 
 me." 
 
 " You would have me English ? " 
 
 " You are. You shall be." 
 
 " I will not." 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't have you renounce your country 
 lightly." 
 
 " Would you have me renounce it ? " 
 
 He knitted his brows and regarded her whimsically, 
 pretending to an ease which he did not feel : " I sup- 
 pose that might be most convenient."
 
 AT LAST 247 
 
 She said, with a lightness that was assumed too, 
 " It's a tragical position, isn't it ? You might write 
 a play about it all. And I should have to be the vil- 
 lain with a bomb at the bottom of my box." 
 
 Their little jocularities served to take the edge off 
 things, but they looked at one another anxiously and 
 warily ; each feared to inflict a wound and each feared 
 to yield a point. He said : " The word is with you. 
 You know all about me and you've lots of things to 
 tell me about yourself. Be assured of my sympathy." 
 
 He spoke graciously and almost formally. Their 
 emotions seemed to have chilled a little, and they were 
 conscious of something deep in opposition; at least 
 of something to be explored. Yet she said : " Is it any 
 use going into it all? You are generous, but I think 
 you are not generous enough for that. Ought I not 
 to say so? What's the use of pretending? You're 
 thinking now : ' I've committed myself. How can I 
 be kind to her and get away ? ' ' 
 
 " It is not so," he said gently, and yet he was con- 
 scious that she had penetrated to an element in his 
 thoughts. 
 
 " We must be honest now," she said. " We must 
 both be honest." 
 
 " You begin." 
 
 "I'll begin with this," she said. "You made me 
 happy. I've known happiness. Just now, I mean. 
 When you spoke when you said I forgot everything 
 else then. I shall never forget that." 
 
 He said : " I should never be happy again if I lost 
 you."
 
 248 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I like you to say that. I hope it won't be true." 
 
 " You mean that I shan't lose you ? " 
 
 " That was not what I meant." 
 
 " To lose you ! I'm trying to be honest, you see. 
 I try to face the idea. And I can't." 
 
 " It wasn't right to spring it on you like this." 
 
 " It was a tremendous surprise. I've been stupid. 
 There was always something strange about you. De- 
 liciously strange. German? Why! You're as Eng- 
 lish as can be. What do you mean by German ? " 
 
 " German father, German mother. Born in Ger- 
 many." 
 
 " I love you." 
 
 " Your impulses are beautiful and yet you're think- 
 ing all the time." 
 
 " I love you." 
 
 " I shall always have that." 
 
 " German indeed ! " 
 
 "It's not my fault, is it?" 
 
 " Welcome to England ! " 
 
 " That can't be." 
 
 " As my wife " 
 
 " I fear that will never be, my friend." 
 
 " I ask you to marry me. I beg for that great 
 honor and happiness." 
 
 " You are generous from your own point of view." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " I am German." 
 
 " You reiterate it. As my wife you would be an 
 Englishwoman. Many Germans are on our side. You 
 saw that manifesto in the papers the other day? It
 
 AT LAST 249 
 
 was from German-born people who sympathized with 
 us." 
 
 " I am sorry for them." 
 
 " Right and wrong come before nationality." 
 
 " Right and wrong are very difficult for me, but I 
 know that I'm a German." 
 
 " You are on their side ? You want them to win ? " 
 
 " I want peace." 
 
 " There is no peace." 
 
 " I want a quiet place in the country and cattle feed- 
 ing, trees and clouds and little brooks." 
 
 " That is what the Germans are destroying." 
 
 " And not they alone. They are a very great na- 
 tion. Their enemies close in upon them. Our ene- 
 mies." 
 
 " Would you go back to Germany ? " 
 
 " Then I should hate them for making war on you. 
 It is misery for me every way. There is no place 
 in the world for me." 
 
 He said : " Your place is with me." 
 
 " And rather than lose me you would have me a 
 little baser than I am ? " 
 
 " You cannot be base." 
 
 " Every day, everywhere," she said, " I see and 
 hear these appeals to patriotism. They're placarded 
 on the walls and shouted in the streets. You are to 
 crush Germany. I am a German woman. I am close 
 and silent for I am no fool. I only speak of it to 
 you and that because I must. And it would be very 
 convenient to cover up my tracks and marry you. I 
 might do it. My mother's dead now. They're all
 
 250 TRUE LOVE 
 
 dead that matter. I was a little girl when we left 
 Germany. It's a memory that has gone fainter. You 
 would have me wipe it out and become a proper Eng- 
 lishwoman? Why not?" 
 
 He waited for her to continue, and she said : " I 
 am not that kind." 
 
 " My dear," he said, " I hate to stress the point but 
 those people are not like you. I think it was mon- 
 strous of them to begin the war, but let's agree that 
 there's room for dispute over that these politics are 
 puzzling. Yes, but they're stained with crimes, they've 
 been shockingly barbarous. I'm afraid there's no 
 doubt about that." 
 
 " Is it in our blood ? " she said. " Do you think 
 that? You are thinking: Is there, deep down in her, 
 something different from me, something savage and 
 wicked ? Stop ; " she said, checking his protest. 
 " How can you help thinking that ? I've asked my- 
 self that question. I've been frightened by all the talk 
 
 and noise. And if we married and had a child " 
 
 she bowed her head. 
 
 Geoffrey said : " What happiness, my dear ! " 
 
 " I must hurt you," she said, " and myself. You 
 would hear that child crying some time and you would 
 think: She had a German mother I think of it as a 
 girl she has a German mother and the Germans are 
 cruel." 
 
 " No, no," he cried. " You must not say such 
 things. It's shocking." 
 
 "You see, I have shocking ideas," she said, and 
 she might have been speaking triumphantly.
 
 AT LAST 251 
 
 " You don't think it ; you don't Relieve it," he said. 
 
 " I think many things. I think them over and over. 
 I think till I can think no more. No, I do not believe 
 it. The Germans I knew were kind and good. They 
 can't have altered like that. I don't know what's true 
 and what isn't. Perhaps nations get too soft some- 
 times. Perhaps you can be very great and very noble . 
 and a little too cruel. Perhaps I'm not worthy to be a 
 German. If you English were beaten and humbled I 
 think I could become an Englishwoman." 
 
 Geoffrey said : " That will never be." 
 
 " The simplest thing," she said, " would be for us 
 to quarrel and be done." 
 
 " It would never be done." 
 
 " A sad, kind friendship ? " she said. 
 
 " That's no good." 
 
 They paused and again they were conscious of the 
 teashop and of their waitress eyeing them curiously, 
 not without sympathy. She had often seen lovers dis- 
 sembling at these tables, though commonly they did 
 it more plausibly than these. She was not very at- 
 tractive nor very young and so must take her romance 
 in small instalments at second-hand. 
 
 Sibyl began to draw on a glove and then took it 
 off again. She hesitated, glancing about her as if 
 for assistance, and then she said : " There's something 
 else I must tell you." 
 
 He said : " You've told me very little." 
 
 She began a pathetically dogged narrative. He 
 learnt that her real name was Elisabeth Wiedemann, 
 that her father had been " some sort of merchant "
 
 252 TRUE LOVE 
 
 in Hamburg. He was little more now than a dim, 
 kindly memory, for he had died when she was seven 
 or eight. " Yes, he was kind," she said ; " he was 
 gentle and affectionate, I know. He did not want to 
 harm people, I think. You will not believe that." 
 
 " My dear girl ! " exclaimed Geoffrey. " Of course 
 I will." 
 
 " Stay a little," she said, and then, to his surprise, 
 she began to laugh. It was a mirthless laugh, the 
 ghost, the skeleton of a laugh; it wasn't like a laugh 
 at all. He waited in some consternation and she said : 
 " I'm getting silly. I find this very hard." 
 
 " Another time," he suggested. 
 
 " It's got to be done." And then in a matter-of-fact 
 way that was very well assumed she told him that after 
 her father had died she and her mother had come to 
 London. As she paused and looked at him it seemed 
 incumbent on him to say " Why ? " 
 
 " You shall hear." 
 
 She paused again and he asked if she had any 
 brothers and sisters. She shook her head and then 
 she said. " That makes it seem less complicated, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 "Uncles, aunts?" 
 
 " Nothing to speak of." 
 
 "Friends?" 
 
 " Not many friends." 
 
 "Well? "he said. 
 
 " I told you that Wiedemann was my real name. 
 When we came to England we changed it to Hoff- 
 mann."
 
 AT LAST 253 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "And then I became Sibyl Drew. I'm full of 
 aliases. I'm a suspicious character. Do you wonder 
 that I laughed? The joke is against you. I wish 
 I didn't like you and then I could laugh properly. 
 You behave angelically, but it's too bad. Three dif- 
 ferent names ! " 
 
 " A fourth and then you'll stop." 
 
 " How hopeless it is ! No woman could be good 
 enough to make it worth your while. I'm not." 
 
 " Let me judge of that." 
 
 " It gets worse. Hear me out, but don't say any- 
 thing kind." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " My mother was very musical. She was an ama- 
 teur but a real one. We had no money very little. 
 She taught music in London I hardly know how she 
 got started some German introductions, I think. 
 And she taught me music and other things. Then I 
 went to school. What does it matter? I cannot talk 
 about my mother. I should cry. I've been to a board- 
 ing-school. Quite a good one, and I don't know how 
 she afforded it. I'm educated in a way." 
 
 She gazed at him with a queer little assumption of 
 dignity, and he nodded, wondering whether there was 
 anything he could do or say that she would like. She 
 went on : " My mother had to take to playing dance 
 music dancing classes. I had left school and I helped 
 her. We met theatrical people. They are not so bad 
 as you think. They gave us tickets. I once saw Irving 
 when I was a little girl. It was just a chance music,
 
 254 TRUE LOVE 
 
 dancing, acting. I had to take what I could get. 
 What does it matter? I drifted here." 
 
 "Your mother?" 
 
 " She died about two years ago." 
 
 " You're all alone." 
 
 " I've lots of friends, of course. I mean I'm 
 friendly with lots of people. That is I have been." 
 
 " You've no tie with Germany?" 
 
 " You don't need a tie with your country." 
 
 " Why did you leave it? " 
 
 "And why did we change our name? You want 
 to know that?" 
 
 " Tell me what you like. Only what you like." 
 
 " I must tell you all. All that matters." 
 
 " Very well, my dear child." 
 
 " Why do you call me that? " 
 
 " You are like a child confessing something a 
 proud child." 
 
 " Am I proud ? Of what ? I'm going to crawl in 
 the dust. My father was a criminal. We left Ham- 
 burg and we changed our name. It had become, 
 shameful. Yes, the name stank." 
 
 " But you were only a child." 
 
 " If I am bad you mustn't judge Germans by me." 
 
 " I shall not judge you by them." 
 
 " It was a notorious affair. People were ruined. It 
 seems we had to go. I didn't understand, but my 
 mother told me something afterwards a little. I 
 became very curious, but I couldn't question her. My 
 father was a ghost between us. She made a pious 
 memory of him and I wanted to understand. How
 
 AT LAST 255 
 
 could she explain, poor woman? l5he was very good, 
 very brave, but she couldn't do that. I wanted to 
 know everything. I resented it that I shouldn't 
 know. He was my father. I might have been kinder 
 to her. We were never estranged oh, no ! but she 
 always had a little dim fear that I would make her 
 tell me more. If I had liked I might have given her 
 the assurance she wanted. She didn't want things said 
 right out ; that would have been too much. I had that 
 little bit of cruelty in my nature that I wouldn't give 
 her peace. Is that because I am German? Are we 
 cruel ? But he was my father." 
 
 Geoffrey said : " Was it in his lifetime that he that 
 they 
 
 " I suppose that things became difficult. It was all 
 found out after his death after his suicide." 
 
 She spoke in an even voice and she did not meet his 
 eyes now ; she seemed to be looking over his shoulder. 
 He wanted her to look at him for he had no words for 
 such an occasion. His face was eloquent, but . she 
 would not look at it. She continued : " I don't remem- 
 ber much about it not accurately. I've a vision of 
 my mother, very pale, trying to fasten my cloak and 
 strangely bungling. I didn't want to go out, for it 
 wasn't the time when I went out and then I tried 
 to get her to come with me. She didn't seem to under- 
 stand, and then the front door was opened and some 
 people were there. I was snatched away and pushed 
 into a room. I screamed in passion and fear. There 
 was a shuffling of feet and movements outside the 
 door. I became quiet. I was trembling, and immedi-
 
 256 TRUE LOVE 
 
 ately my mother came in. We sat on the floor holding 
 to one another for a long time. All that is very vivid 
 to me. Why do I tell you all this? We are only 
 Germans." 
 
 " You mustn't say that." 
 
 " But I keep feeling like that. All our agony, all 
 our crimes if you like and you say you think they 
 are only Germans. You should be sorry for us." 
 
 " The time may come for that." 
 
 " We can't speak to one another without hurting," 
 she cried. " How then, could we I feel that I must 
 tell you these things about myself. And all the time 
 there's a great gulf between us. You are kind and 
 generous and you want me to be English to be as 
 English as I can and then you do mean that? 
 we are to be lovers. And I'm half English, I suppose, 
 from living here all the time, and I've liked the Eng- 
 lish. Would you think better of me then if I said: 
 Germany's wicked ; I'll shake it off and be all English, 
 if you'll let me? Would you like me better if I were 
 cowardly and base? Perhaps Germany's all wrong. 
 These things are too difficult for me. I know there 
 are kind and noble people there. It's a great nation. 
 I think it's the greatest on the earth." 
 
 " Won't you tell me more of yourself ? " he said. 
 
 " Why should I bother you with my family af- 
 fairs?" 
 
 " They're mine too." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " You talk of baseness. Do you expect me to say : 
 This girl's German. I'll have none of her."
 
 AT LAST 257 
 
 " No, you'd be punctilious but I^won't let you." 
 
 "Punctilious! I'm base at heart, then?" 
 
 " It's very difficult, my friend." 
 
 " Tell me more." 
 
 " You want to know about my father ? " 
 
 " If you like." 
 
 " I felt it wasn't fair to him that I shouldn't know. 
 It was terrible that he should have died like that. As 
 I grew older I pitied him very much and yet I didn't 
 know how to pity because I knew so little. His por- 
 trait was in my mother's room, and I found another 
 queer old faded thing that I framed and hung up in 
 mine. Are the criminals so much worse than the 
 others? Christ pitied and loved them. I know I'm 
 not like Christ. I'm secret and bitter. I've never 
 talked to any one like this before. I don't know what 
 things I'm going to say. I don't know whether this 
 will be a relief to me or whether, presently, I shall be 
 vexed and ashamed. You listen to me kindly and piti- 
 fully but pity! pity! I want something different 
 from that. We Germans are not pitiful, are we? 
 Then we won't ask for pity." 
 
 " You pitied your father." 
 
 " I wanted to understand. It was not till after my 
 mother's death that there were letters that she hadn't 
 destroyed. It wasn't enough. I wanted to under- 
 stand. He was my father." 
 
 He found her hand under the table and grasped it. 
 She extricated it gently. She continued : " I had a 
 little money. A few pounds. I went to Hamburg and 
 saw some of the people we had known. It was so
 
 258 TRUE LOVE 
 
 long ago and they were muddled and couldn't remem- 
 ber very well. Or they were kind and told me lies 
 and didn't want me to bother. I saw lawyers his 
 lawyer. He was an old man and didn't understand 
 what I wanted. He thought I was after money. The 
 judge was dead. Perhaps I couldn't have got to see 
 him, anyhow. 
 
 " Then I went to libraries to see the old newspapers, 
 and to one or two two newspaper offices. They let 
 me look at dirty old bound volumes. They were sus- 
 picious of me. I had to persist. I was a nuisance. 
 When they knew what I wanted they were kind. I 
 couldn't explain to every one. There was always the 
 danger that I should become emotional. 
 
 " I made it out fairly well. There was no getting 
 away from it. I don't think I need try to explain it 
 all to you. He had done wrong. He was a criminal. 
 If I could have talked with him I might have under- 
 stood better. All that I learnt is only one side of 
 it. I don't know why he did it. I came back very 
 dejected." 
 
 Geoffrey pushed aside crockery and seized her hand 
 above board. " But this was a wonderful thing to do," 
 he said. " You're a noble creature. You're all cour- 
 age and truth yes, and pity. I'm overwhelmed with 
 admiration." 
 
 She snatched her hand away and fumbled for her 
 handkerchief. He saw the tears welling in her eyes. 
 The waitress, glancing out at them from behind a 
 screen, saw her mopping her eyes and was ready to 
 take her side in this lovers' quarrel. Perhaps they had
 
 AT LAST 259 
 
 made it up, and presently it appeared that it was so. 
 Sibyl looked suddenly at the watch on her wrist and 
 started up. " Oh, dear ! " she said. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked commiseratingly. 
 
 " Look at the time. I have to act. I can't go home 
 now. And I must eat." 
 
 " Come with me to the Midland," he said. 
 
 " There isn't time. And I hate it." 
 
 " Since they've cleared out the German waiters," he 
 ventured, and they laughed, she rather distractedly. 
 She knitted her brows, gazing at the watch, and 
 beckoned to the waitress. 
 
 "Is it too late?" she said. "Could I have an 
 egg"? 
 
 " I thought you were just going," the waitress said 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " We were, but I wouldn't be long. It would be 
 so kind of you. I missed the time." 
 
 " Well, I dare say I might," said the woman. " I'm 
 alone here now and I've got to lock up. You'll want 
 another cup of tea." And then she brightened de- 
 cisively and said : " We've got to help one another in 
 these times. I'll do it." 
 
 " Yes, to help one another," said Sibyl. " Do you 
 hate the Germans? If a German woman asked you 
 for an egg would you poison it ? " 
 
 " You can't poison eggs," said Geoffrey lightly. 
 
 " If they're scrambled ? " said Sibyl, and continued : 
 " Oh, heavens ! what nonsense ! " 
 
 The woman said : " You're not German, are you ? " 
 
 Sibyl turned to Geoffrey : " Am I German ? "
 
 260 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " About as German as I am," he said, " and I shall 
 soon be fighting them, I suppose." 
 
 " I'd serve you, whether or not," said the woman. 
 " It's not my business to judge folk. Now what'll you 
 have?" 
 
 "A boiled egg, some bread and butter, tea," said 
 Sibyl. 
 
 " I'll have the same," he said. 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " I'm in at this," he said. " I'm going to the theater, 
 too." 
 
 She looked at him thoughtfully. " You are going 
 to see me act to-night? That will be very interesting." 
 
 " If it won't distress you," he said ; " if it won't 
 make it more difficult." 
 
 " It will be more exciting," she said. 
 
 " And you've not had excitement enough ? " 
 
 " I might have been very flat. I'd rather be ex- 
 cited." 
 
 " And will the flatness come at last ? " 
 
 " I shall be alone then." 
 
 This sunk into his mind. But when, with a funny 
 air of resolution, she called out to the waitress : " I'll 
 have two eggs, please," he said : " Oh ! You're mag- 
 nificent. Is this acting? Is this part of the show?" 
 
 They had been standing and now she sat down. " I 
 don't think I like that," she said. " There's some sort 
 of kind intention. To stimulate me? I don't need it. 
 We may hurt one another any minute." 
 
 " Till we have our perfect understanding." 
 
 " Nay, it's all shifting and changing."
 
 AT LAST 261 
 
 The waitress put her head round the screen : " Will 
 the gentleman have two ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said Geoffrey ; " a dozen if you like. 
 I'll have exactly what madam has." 
 
 "Madam?" said Sibyl. 
 
 " I'll say Mrs. Arden if you like." 
 
 " Let us play at it a little longer." 
 
 " I am not playing." 
 
 " I have something on my mind," she said. " Did I 
 deny my nation just now. ' Before the cock crows ' 
 I mean when that woman asked me I don't think 
 it was for myself. I thought in a moment that it was 
 hard for you and that you came here often. I'm very 
 ready. I'm a cunning prevaricator." 
 
 " Why ! It was I that did it," he said. 
 
 " I corrupt you," but she said it tenderly. 
 
 They settled down to their intimate little meal and 
 the waitress ministered to them benevolently and 
 brought toast and cakes. Geoffrey wanted to give 
 her half-a-crown, but Sibyl thought it might offend 
 her. " She does it for love," she said, and Geoffrey 
 felt that the phrase was not amiss. He was fumbling 
 with sixpences when the girl said she didn't want any- 
 thing from soldiers ; she had been " very pleased to 
 oblige." 
 
 "How do you know I am a soldier?" said Geof- 
 frey. 
 
 " I saw you limping when you came upstairs," she 
 said, " and besides " it was intimated that the emo- 
 tion of their interview had betrayed it. 
 
 " I'm not a soldier yet," he said, " though I shall be."
 
 262 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I hope you'll kill plenty of those Germans," she 
 said severely, and Sibyl pretended not to hear. They 
 both thanked her warmly and she was rather shy and 
 offhand about it. Outside in the nearly empty street 
 Sibyl took Geoffrey's arm. 
 
 " Let us go on playing," she said. " Or are you 
 afraid of meeting somebody ? " 
 
 " I'm not afraid of anything." 
 
 She said : " This is the happiest day of all my life. 
 I shall never, never forget it." 
 
 " You shall have many happy days." 
 
 " Let us go on playing," she said.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 THE IDEA 
 
 HE left her at the stage-door, and, having time on his 
 hands and no anxiety about getting a seat, he took a 
 thoughtful turn in the street. He was tremendously 
 elated, quivering with tender sympathies, deeply con- 
 scious of trouble. His thoughts were hardly formed, 
 but he considered what was the next thing to do. He 
 must tell Mary, and he felt that he wanted to talk to 
 Burke ; he wanted reason unobscured by witty fancies. 
 As to Mary he was conscious of a curiosity about the 
 reception of his news ; to tell her that Sibyl was Ger- 
 man would be a peculiar experience. But now he was 
 intent on a deeper interest. 
 
 It was one of those half-baked plays by amateurs 
 in ideas that the repertory theaters have loosed on us. 
 Watching the beginnings of it with the detachment 
 which he could not always achieve for the critical 
 concentration is a restriction too he realized that 
 what he might seize upon eagerly as a subject to write 
 about could be a bit of a bore when he became merely 
 a member of the public. Here was a play which might 
 be the starting point for disputation or discussion, but 
 the old melodramas, with their ritual of plot and pas- 
 sion, were better fun. When Sibyl appeared it was 
 another matter. The half -explored femininities of the 
 
 263
 
 264 TRUE LOVE 
 
 dramatist gave opportunities for refinement and Sibyl 
 filled in all the gaps. She brought life to the play, she 
 gave middling ideas in fine terms, she took the eye 
 adorably. There she was poor German girl de- 
 lighting a crowd of latent hostility and wistfully con- 
 scious of a lover who had his hostilities too. He was 
 moved and he was greatly interested. He had taken 
 his seat in the circle, for it was his superfine, half- 
 jocular theory that the stalls are vulgar, that they pre- 
 tend to an intimacy that can only be destructive. Now 
 he wanted to be nearer to her, and he was guilty of 
 borrowing an opera glass. Putting it to his eyes, the 
 scene wobbled close to him and then he caught her, 
 she burst upon him amazingly. She was familiar; 
 through her paint she was surprisingly familiar. He 
 tried to steady the glass, but it shook in his hands. She 
 did familiar things; the lift of her head, tricks of 
 speech, were carried on here from the tea-shop, it 
 seemed. Your artist cannot be infinite in detail and 
 cannot indeed, must not escape from her own per- 
 sonality. When you know her she must continue to 
 be what you know, but with the surprises of her 
 nature, too. Some kind of stilted assumption is 
 possible, and Geoffrey had suffered more than most 
 under the egregious character actor, but even with this 
 the familiarities peep out. Sibyl was one of those who 
 absorb a character and make it an expression of her- 
 self. To-night, when there was little to absorb, it 
 seemed to him that he could detect a critical irony, an 
 added charm, a slight, subtle message sent to him. 
 Watching her intently he perceived the delicate ad-
 
 THE IDEA 265 
 
 justments of her own temperament, the interpreta- 
 tions of her generous nature. In mere cleverness, in 
 virtuosity, it was all surprising, and the queer, dis- 
 concerting idea came to him that these Germans are 
 too much for us. He was a lover who could stray 
 out of the charmed circle, and he was actually con- 
 scious of jealousy, of apprehension. Faintly, perhaps, 
 it was between him and her ; more clearly it was racial. 
 They are ruthless, it seems, but are they more capable 
 of the refinements too? Are we getting soft and 
 blunted ? An Englishman may ask himself these ques- 
 tions. 
 
 She was exquisite, she was romantic, and yet as he 
 watched her it seemed that she was steadier of nerve 
 than he. The spectator learns humility, though he may 
 seek to reassure himself with blatancies of criticism. 
 Geoffrey's ungenerous thoughts were stifled by his 
 pride in her; it seemed that his generous ones were 
 the danger. He wanted to see her more intimately, 
 and it was not a difficult matter for him to get behind 
 the scenes. Perhaps he wanted to realize that she was 
 vulnerable. On the whole he was a lover just craving 
 assurance. 
 
 He found her amongst others, and there were some 
 casual recognitions and introductions. She was merry 
 and she looked at him as if to say : See what I can do 
 and yet what knowledge is between us! For a 
 moment she regarded him sadly, tenderly, and then 
 she was off at a tangent like the accomplished actress 
 with her trick of contrast. He, too, had to support 
 a part, and he held his own tolerably in the affabilities,
 
 266 TRUE LOVE 
 
 even in the levities. And he was conscious all the 
 time that this was a garish Sibyl, that this was a 
 hectic, unreal life, and that they must be sober pres- 
 ently. Her face was bedaubed with paint as he had 
 seen it on that night of Alice Dean, and even now he 
 could reflect passingly that it was strange that the 
 noble instrument of the actor's art must be coarsened 
 for the art's supreme expression. It was not a time 
 to think things out. She was an entrancing creature 
 now, disguised, and yet emphasized. There was some- 
 thing wrong, for beauty magnified is not beauty, but 
 Sibyl herself came quivering through the disguise. 
 She was one in a gaudy world, and he felt himself 
 rather coldly outside it. The paint had a fascinating 
 quality and she lurked behind it. There was no evil, 
 but she was coarsely baited. Ideals were remote and 
 he was gaspingly conscious of the senses. 
 
 And then she drew him aside into a sufficient pri- 
 vacy, and eagerly, breathlessly she spoke to him; she 
 gave him her idea. " I've been thinking," she said ; 
 when? he wondered, but he did not interrupt her 
 " Oh, I've thought of something. Is it possible ? Is 
 it possible Geoffrey? You are English. I am Ger- 
 man. We must face that. There is there must be 
 something noble in both. Grant that. Grant me that, 
 Geoffrey. Oh, be generous! My dearest. I am 
 German." 
 
 His general assent, his tenderness, his attempt to 
 placate her were brushed aside impatiently. " Listen ! 
 Listen ! " she cried. " Don't be stupid. I mean some- 
 thing. Oh, dear ! There's no time. They'll want me.
 
 THE IDEA 267 
 
 Listen! It's this: We cannot agree. We must not 
 agree. Not entirely. You shall be English. And I 
 am partly English too. But I am German. Listen 
 with sympathy. You shall champion your nation, I 
 mine. We must be generous with one another and 
 help one another. That means that you must help me. 
 You can overcome me in argument but you must not. 
 You must think of things that I ought to say. I could 
 admire the English tremendously if they would not 
 always be saying that we are base and cruel. Do you 
 know that in Germany they say that of you ? And it's 
 true of us, you'll say? Then say it compassionately, 
 Geoffrey. Pity me. Cannot we be chivalrous enemies 
 and lovers too? I see it as beautiful, beautiful. Is it 
 possible ? And if not, all is over " her voice sank 
 " between us." 
 
 He was moved. He was overwhelmed if he was 
 not convinced. Somewhere in the cold fastnesses of 
 the brain a warning sounded ; he was dimly conscious 
 of a remote, unexplored doubt. Yet her appeal was 
 to the mind, to the imagination. It was a compelling 
 idea, and he could kindle to it. He could even see it 
 objectively as a great lesson to the world. She 
 watched him eagerly while he relaxed, yielding him- 
 self to the current, and then passed through some 
 phase of resistance, some mere formality of inspec- 
 tion. She perceived the check, and said : " I won't 
 renounce. I'll be like the heathen who wouldn't be 
 baptized. He would go to hell with his tribe." 
 
 Geoffrey said : " It's a noble idea. Yes. But we 
 might come to think alike. Are we never to agree ? "
 
 268 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I cannot see it so." 
 
 " You're in love with your idea." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I'm in love with you." 
 
 She faltered, she returned to misgivings. Pitiably, 
 she became concerned again with small, present mat- 
 ters. She asked him how he liked " this fudge," and 
 made a flattering reference to Alice Dean. Oh, she 
 was clever ! She thought ahead. These Germans with 
 their peaceful penetration! He must confess to her 
 that idea of her as the typical German, but not now. 
 
 She left him and he had a few words with a stout 
 little comedian whose manners were but a trifle on the 
 hither side of familiarity. Geoffrey was assured that 
 " The Drew " was great in this play, and there were 
 hints at London chances. The man was not really 
 offensive, but this environment for his fine flower 
 jarred a little on the sensitive lover. He went back 
 to his seat, and as Sibyl did not appear on the stage 
 immediately he could range his thoughts. He saw 
 Sibyl and himself with an intimate, particular life of 
 their own, and a good-natured tolerance for such a 
 world as that behind the scenes. And their intimacy 
 would not be just in terms of the current culture, 
 though that might be involved ; it would be secret and 
 deep. Its nature? He was baffled here, for he had 
 yet to know her, and he became conscious of some- 
 thing crude and artificial in his imaginings. But what 
 of hers? From the vagueness emerged her idea the 
 idea of a chivalry of the mind, of an opposition which 
 should be in terms of sympathy. But surely that must
 
 THE IDEA 269 
 
 bring ultimate reconcilement, agreement. And if this 
 were so should they be content with their own salva- 
 tion? Their intimacy seemed in danger of publicity, 
 even of preachments. 
 
 He heard her laugh " off," and thrilled to the sound 
 of it. She had a bravura entrance and directed it, 
 he was sure, at him. She moved about the stage with 
 pretty hectorings, she was just charmingly short of 
 stridency, she took it all at a great pace, and perhaps 
 the precious ideas of the play were slurred a little. 
 He was conscious of her wistful, doubting heart. He 
 took the opera glasses again and followed her. And, 
 from time to time, it seemed that his sympathy de- 
 tected the droop between one jolly outburst and an- 
 other. If so, he was the only one and the house rang 
 with her triumph. 
 
 He waited for her at the stage-door, and when she 
 came he added his own tribute to her success. It was 
 heartily phrased in common friendliness and they had 
 their happy, easy moment in the swim of things. 
 " You make me happy," she said, and, again, " It's 
 a great night." She seemed already to look upon the 
 night as something accomplished, a possession for the 
 coming years. She barely referred to her idea but 
 they were both conscious of it. Parting from him 
 at the door of her lodgings, she said : " I wish I could 
 send my love to Mary. I dare not. She can be gen- 
 erous, but she doesn't love me. Why should she?" 
 
 "Why should I?" 
 
 " I hate the women who are charming only to men," 
 she said.
 
 270 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I happen to know," said Geoffrey, " that you're a 
 favorite in the company with them all." 
 
 " Oh, well, of course I'm rather a good sort," she 
 said. " That's nothing." 
 
 He chuckled at this claim, but it did occur to him 
 that the good sort would not inevitably appeal to 
 Mary. They stood together doubtfully for a moment, 
 embarrassed by her reservations and the possible pub- 
 licities of the street. Standing close beside her he 
 volleyed endearments suddenly and hotly. She 
 trembled under them and sank into his arms. He 
 held her tenderly, he released her reluctantly. She 
 said no word, but he had kissed her lips. She fumbled 
 with a latchkey, she entered the house gropingly, and, 
 it seemed, sadly. He felt the bitterness, the frus- 
 tration of parting. She had not looked back at 
 him. 
 
 He took his way homeward, regaining a certain 
 mental jauntiness. Things weren't easy, but, after all, 
 this was life. Such was a superficial reflection while 
 the ecstasies seethed beneath. And to-night, of all 
 nights, he was importuned by a poor creature of the 
 streets. His discouragements were so gentle that they 
 were misunderstood. She persisted, she became rather 
 a nuisance, and the sentimental gave way to the ir- 
 ritable. But he could not be harsh to a woman to- 
 night, and she went off a little bewildered with a dole 
 of silver. " Two sister vessels here is one," he 
 quoted to himself. He saw his sympathies deepening, 
 his horizons widening. To-night he had taken a great 
 step onward, he had gained rich, intangible things.
 
 THE IDEA 271 
 
 He felt capable of extraordinary Sequence and there 
 was not anything that he could not understand. This 
 mental clarity was delightful, and gave him the sense 
 of power and ease. It was not applied to anything in 
 particular. 
 
 With a slight shock he remembered that he was 
 going to face Mary, and he had a despicable little de- 
 sire that she should not have waited up for him. Of 
 course she was there, and she didn't make any demand 
 for explanations though he was conscious that he had 
 not been quite punctilious in this matter of his ab- 
 sence to-night. Perhaps it was hardly fair to Mary 
 that he should take the attitude of " getting it over," 
 but he plunged into the subject, standing before her. 
 He said, " Mary, I've something to tell you," and it 
 seemed to him that she stiffened. He felt discourage- 
 ment, even annoyance, and he did not reflect that the 
 poor girl might be trying to rally herself on their side. 
 He paused and she waited, and then he announced the 
 fact. " I am engaged to to Sibyl," he said, and he 
 was conscious that the use of her Christian name alone 
 was aa appeal. In a stifled voice Mary said, " Yes, 
 Geoffrey," and he didn't know that she was struggling 
 with herself, angry that she couldn't control her emo- 
 tion into any genial form. Hardening a little, he 
 continued, " I learnt she told me a strange thing 
 about herself. I had no idea of it. She is a Ger- 
 man." 
 
 " A German? " said Mary in frank surprise. 
 
 " Both father and mother. They are dead. She is 
 entirely alone."
 
 272 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " You knew nothing about her ? Yet you were in- 
 timate ? " 
 
 " These actors seem unattached. You don't think 
 of them in connection with parents and a home. And 
 she has neither." 
 
 " Poor child," said Mary. She said it calmly, and 
 it seemed to Geoffrey that she was accepting a burden 
 with a sigh. 
 
 " She says you can be generous," he continued, 
 " and yet she dared not send you her love." 
 
 He spoke in an even, downright tone, conveying the 
 facts. He would not press for pathos. He waited 
 for her to speak while she sat there thinking. At last : 
 " It is great news," she said ; " it is very important. I 
 can't say the right thing. I'll try to I'll try to to 
 love her. She's very beautiful. You have good taste. 
 I know it's awfully stupid to say that. I'm not pre- 
 pared. No. I'm not generous. I can see more than 
 I feel. We must be very, very kind to her." 
 
 "We?" he said. 
 
 " I mean that. I mean you too." 
 
 " You think I'm likely to be unkind? " 
 
 " Think how easily she may be hurt." 
 
 " Well, I suppose I've been unkind to you." 
 
 " I never said that. I didn't mean that." 
 
 "But it's true?" 
 
 " Kindness is not everything. It's no use being kind 
 perpetually. You've been good." 
 
 " I don't know, Mary. There are times when I'm 
 miserable about you. If you died or went away I 
 should be smitten with remorse."
 
 THE IDEA 273 
 
 " Well," she said. " You're going away now. Re- 
 morse is stupid." And then she said : " I'm going to 
 be awfully nice to her." 
 
 He thanked her humbly enough, and they parted 
 coolly, wistfully. And Mary lay awake for hours 
 wishing that things were different, sounding herself 
 for basenesses, disentangling the intricate threads of 
 remorse and reproach. She was puzzled with herself, 
 for Geoffrey's news had seemed to bring her a great 
 and terrible advantage. So, she had felt it first, and 
 she could not reconcile this with any decent conception 
 of herself. The girl was German and all the cruel and 
 cowardly people would persecute her. She wondered 
 whether the poor German girl was sleeping now.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 
 
 MARY consented almost eagerly to the proposal that 
 Sibyl and Burke should be bidden to Sunday night 
 supper, and then, curiosity prevailing over the simple 
 desire to be amiable, she said : " Mr. Burke certainly. 
 Why Mr. Burke?" 
 
 "I think a lot of Burke," said Geoffrey. "He 
 stands for sanity and friendliness." 
 
 " And you think a lot of Sibyl," she said, " and 
 things that are equal to the same thing are equal to 
 one another. Is this something deep or just a social 
 occasion ? " 
 
 " I think you'll find it works out all right," he said. 
 And then, divining her dissatisfaction, he continued, 
 " Burke's an Irishman and capable of fun, but he's 
 simple and solid and sincere." He felt it rather ab- 
 surd to be giving his friend an alliterative character 
 like this and it ruffled him slightly to find Mary per- 
 sisting in a certain blankness of aspect. " I believe 
 you think Sibyl flimsy because she's an actress," he 
 said. " What a Philistine you are, Mary ! " It was 
 good-natured enough, and Mary was not amiss with, 
 " I hope she'll find Mr. Burke's solidity flattering." 
 She added slyly : " It'll be a pity if he's merely Irish." 
 
 In their few meetings she had pursued loyally her 
 274
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 275 
 
 policy of being awfully nice to-Sibyl, who recipro- 
 cated the sentiments with, perhaps, the addition of a 
 shade of irony. Mary had been friendly and almost 
 hearty, and Sibyl had positively achieved cheerfulness. 
 Geoffrey was not so foolish as to insist on intimacy, 
 though he held his protests in reserve. There was 
 nothing very cunning in his selection of Burke for the 
 fourth at their supper-party, though it had occurred to 
 him that any excess of downrightness towards the 
 German girl would react on Mary's sympathies. He 
 wanted to look at Sibyl through Burke's eyes or was 
 it for Burke to see her through his? 
 
 Burke came first, and the drawing-room chill 
 Geoffrey couldn't help feeling that Mary lowered the 
 temperature was qualified by the blunt announce- 
 ment. Burke heard for the first time that Geoffrey 
 was engaged and that Sibyl was German, and the 
 good fellow blinked nervously under the news. He 
 turned to Mary, whose attitude was non-committal, 
 and though he pulled himself together with an at- 
 tempt at congratulation his scared sincerity made a 
 queer boggle of this. And, indeed, it seemed to Geof- 
 frey now that it was too bad to spring this on Burke, 
 who had, for the moment, the aspect of the trapped. 
 And then in came Sibyl, looking incredibly English, 
 beautiful and appealing. She was at her best; she 
 was, it seemed, even a little overwhelming to come in 
 upon quiet folk like this. Mary greeted her gently, 
 politely, and then suddenly took her into her arms. 
 It was extraordinarily generous ; it affected Geoffrey 
 very much. For Sibyl was, indeed, at her best even
 
 276 TRUE LOVE 
 
 if her radiance was veiled; as the opening bud is 
 better than the flower. Her beauty conquered Mary, 
 and it seemed to Geoffrey very noble to be conquered 
 so. The two women held one another closely, and then 
 Sibyl was gently pushed away. In the time to come 
 Mary and Sibyl were to sway to and fro in attraction 
 and repulsion, but Geoffrey would remember this 
 scene. He had a vision of them now which reversed 
 old prepossessions; he saw Mary as impulsive and 
 changeable, Sibyl as constant. 
 
 Burke looked on benevolently, and gallantly at- 
 tacked the subject of the weather. The other greet- 
 ings were almost perfunctory, but Sibyl had tears in 
 her eyes. Rapidly she captured gaiety while Mary 
 became demure. The emotion receded, but they could 
 not at once lose consciousness of it. They passed into 
 the dining-room. 
 
 By accident or design which was it, Geoffrey won- 
 dered for Mary was usually alive to these things 
 there was a rather heavy collection of foliage in the 
 middle of the table. Mary and Geoffrey were very 
 much hidden from one another, though each com- 
 manded Sibyl and Burke. There was a degree of 
 hilarity about Burke. Presently he might go away 
 to think it over, but now the good fellow was doing 
 his best for the company, and Sibyl responded. She 
 kept peeping round the plants to see him, until it be- 
 came a joke, and Burke peeped round at the other side 
 so that they missed one another, and they all laughed 
 like children. Geoffrey was for removing the ob- 
 struction, and Sibyl objected because " it gives Mr.
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 277 
 
 Burke a touch of mystery." Geoffrey rose and laid 
 hands on it, and Burke objected to have his mystery 
 tampered with. They had a comic struggle, and Geof- 
 frey did positively remove the mass of greenery to the 
 sideboard, leaving Burke, as Sibyl expressed it, " bare 
 and bleak." It brought them all nearer to one another, 
 and induced a wave of shyness. And then, reverting 
 to " the touch of mystery," Geoffrey suggested that 
 every one wanted a touch of something, that people 
 were very nearly right and didn't require any gross 
 reform. Burke insisted that Sibyl should apply the 
 principle to the others as well, and, after reflection, 
 she assigned to Mary a touch of sin. Geoffrey dared 
 her to attempt his improvement, and was left cogitat- 
 ing with " A touch of brass." 
 
 "And yourself?" cried Burke. 
 
 Geoffrey said : " A touch of paint." 
 
 " Red paint? " said Burke. " Would you paint the 
 lily?" 
 
 " No explanations," said Mary. " You must take 
 it or leave it." 
 
 " An epigram," said Geoffrey rather ponderously, 
 " is the indivisible atom." 
 
 Burke said they were getting too much like George 
 Meredith, and that he wasn't up to it. He con- 
 sidered, however, that in a company of wits there 
 should always be one man of solid sense to keep things 
 within bounds. Sibyl said : " But he has no right to 
 be witty too." 
 
 " Then," said Geoffrey, " a beautiful woman has no 
 right to pay compliments."
 
 278 TRUE LOVE 
 
 His eyes, met Sibyl's and she blushed. They were 
 happy together; Mary was the benignant hostess, and 
 Burke, no fool, held his own very well and was pleased 
 at it. And then Sibyl broke the surface. They had 
 been keeping off the grimmer preoccupations, but at 
 some distant reference by Burke she turned to Geof- 
 frey and said : " Does he know all about me ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " said Geoffrey, " but he knows 
 you're a sort of German." 
 
 " You must not speak like that," she said. " I am 
 German." 
 
 " I'm sorry. It was stupid," he said. 
 
 " Well, German's very like English, then," said 
 Burke. " We'll accept you." 
 
 "You are generous, Mr. Burke," she said, "but I 
 will not be accepted." 
 
 Poor Burke didn't quite know where he was, and 
 glanced at Geoffrey, who was inscrutable. And poor 
 Sibyl, now and in the days to come, was always want- 
 ing to know where she was. " I know I've spoilt it," 
 she said. " We were all so jolly together. And 
 you're, here, Mr. Burke, as the sensible friend to see 
 how nice I am and how practicable it all is. I know 
 that's it, Geoffrey, but I mustn't be disguised. Per- 
 haps you believe this rubbish about spying, Mr. Burke. 
 Governesses and why not actresses? We're very 
 seductive, you know. You think because we're Ger- 
 man we're capable of any baseness ? " 
 
 Burke blundered into something about brave spies 
 who loved their country. Mary said : " If you'd think 
 less of country and nationality there need be no spies."
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 279 
 
 Then, generously, she said : " Sibyl and I are just two 
 human beings, and you must be decent to us." 
 
 " I'm a German," cried Sibyl. 
 
 " And you love your country? " said Mary sharply. 
 " How much ? Do you love it well enough to betray 
 us?" 
 
 " That would be to betray myself." 
 
 " There's something above country, then," said 
 Mary. 
 
 " There's my immortal soul, Mary. You know I 
 couldn't come here to betray you. It's all foolish- 
 ness." 
 
 Mary pursued her point distressingly : " Won't your 
 immortal soul take care of itself if, for the sake of 
 this country of yours, you take a risk? Why should 
 you not betray me, or I you, if one's country's every- 
 thing?" 
 
 " Because we are two human beings, Mary." 
 
 They were both trembling. Geoffrey was perturbed, 
 and Burke preserved admirably a judicious air. Mary 
 said: "Of course, I know it's ridiculous to think of 
 you as a spy or a traitor. But why shouldn't you be? 
 This love of country seems to be answerable for every 
 crime." 
 
 " It's inhuman not to love your country," said Sibyl. 
 " Would you love other children as much as your 
 own?" 
 
 " Nice to hear these young people accusing one an- 
 other of inhumanity ; " Geoffrey addressed Burke, 
 the seeming imperturbable " what do you say ? " 
 
 Burke, with a deep " Please " to Mary's hurried
 
 280 TRUE LOVE 
 
 invitation to a helping, considered the subject dispas- 
 sionately. " I'm a bit afraid of Miss Drew," he 
 said. 
 
 " Not of me? " cried Mary. " That's humiliating." 
 
 Burke eyed her gravely and her attempt at gaiety 
 wore sharp and thin. " I'm an Irishman in England," 
 he said. " I don't make much of all the blether over 
 there. I'm afraid I'm not romantic. You've got to be 
 decent with the people about you wherever you are." 
 
 Mary said: "You should be passionately for Ire- 
 land." 
 
 She checked any protests against inconsistency: 
 " Not because it's Ireland. Because it's neglected and 
 oppressed." 
 
 "Neglected!" said Geoffrey. "Oh, Lord!" 
 
 Sibyl said : " Must you abandon your country as 
 soon as it's great ? " 
 
 Geoffrey, striving in vain for the mildly pleasant, 
 exclaimed, " Great Heavens ! she's an Imperialist ! " 
 
 " No," said Sibyl. " I only want to be quiet and 
 happy.' 
 
 " That's it," said Mary. " That's what we poor 
 people want. Then you come along with your coun- 
 try and your destiny and your flag and you'll commit 
 any crime." 
 
 " I don't see, Mary," said Geoffrey, " why you 
 shouldn't be passionately for England now. If Sibyl's 
 German friends get their way we stand a fair chance 
 of being oppressed." 
 
 " And if we get our way ? " 
 
 " Well," said Geoffrey. " You can't be fair after
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 281 
 
 a war. There's a mighty momentum about it and the 
 liberal and just spirits are overwhelmed. I'll grant 
 you a great deal, Mary." 
 
 " Then let's hope that nobody will win," she said. 
 
 " And so the beastly war will go on for ever," said 
 Geoffrey. " No. If you'll just hold Sibyl in her chair 
 for a moment I'll say that I think we're a trifle better 
 than her lot. It's better that we should win." 
 
 " I'm holding myself tight in my chair," said Sibyl, 
 and to Geoffrey it appeared that this was hardly a 
 jest. " We are great and strong and efficient and we 
 might enslave the world. And so all the backwards 
 and inefficients must close on us and smother us and 
 make us keep pace with them. And they'll say hu- 
 manity is saved." 
 
 " And we shall have to be a bit nippy to do it," said 
 Burke. 
 
 " You're afraid of us, Mr. Burke? " 
 
 " If they're all as clever as you." 
 
 " Sibyl was brought up in England," said Geoffrey 
 pleasantly. " It's environment that does it." 
 
 " Oh, you beware of German babies ! " she said. 
 
 And then she blushed furiously and pitifully, per- 
 ceiving that there might be a double meaning. It was 
 agitating, and the others, in their commiseration, could 
 not think of anything to turn the situation neatly. So 
 she, herself, with the embarrassment yet upon her, the 
 blood fading slowly from her cheeks, said bravely: 
 " Geoffrey and I are going to snatch something beau- 
 tiful out of all this. We have a compact. We are 
 not going to be small and mean. He will be very gen-
 
 282 TRUE LOVE 
 
 erous and I will do my best. Oh, you'll see ! We are 
 not going to be silent and timid. I think you are a 
 great people. I love the English. I have loved them. 
 Geoffrey will try to see the good in us. And if we 
 have children they will not be ashamed." 
 
 All embarrassment had gone. Geoffrey looked at 
 Mary and was content. He had a ridiculous notion 
 that Burke was going to wipe his eyes with his napkin. 
 Sibyl raised her head slowly and looked at Geoffrey, 
 and when he smiled her eyes kindled suddenly and 
 she smiled nervously, tremulously; a change of mood 
 could not come quickly. Then Mary said : " Your 
 spirit is beautiful, but Geoffrey wants to fight against 
 Germany." 
 
 Sibyl's head was bowed again. " Even that," she 
 said. Mary looked at her attentively, and then she 
 turned to Burke : " Can they do it ? " 
 
 " Do what ? " the poor fellow said, and then he 
 stammered, " I mean yes, it's difficult, very difficult." 
 
 " You don't think I'd do anything very dreadful, 
 Mr. Burke ? " said Sibyl, trying to relieve him. 
 
 " I shouldn't regard you as a practical danger," he 
 said. 
 
 " But to me ? " said Geoffrey boldly. " Never mind 
 about the country. What of the danger to me? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Burke. " You don't matter much." 
 
 And as he looked at Sibyl they realized he meant 
 it was she that mattered. Geoffrey said, " You're an 
 impressionable Irishman." 
 
 Burke, under Sibyl's shy, kind glance, felt that he 
 was that and modestly tried to turn the subject with
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 283 
 
 some platitude about the hopelessness of ever getting 
 the world straight again. 
 
 " And yet," said Geoffrey, " how capable everything 
 is of solution. Look at us four! How different we 
 all are and how we can agree." 
 
 " And every one wants everybody else to have the 
 .biggest peach," said Sibyl. 
 
 " Well," said Burke, " when I go to dine with Lind- 
 say he wants me to have the biggest potato, but that 
 doesn't mean he's going to raise my salary." 
 
 " ' God mend all ! ' as Queen Katherine said," and 
 Geoffrey looked benignly round the table. 
 
 " And we trust Him at least to look after the chosen 
 race," said Mary with a sarcastic eye on Geoffrey and, 
 it seemed, a kindly one on Sibyl. 
 
 "It's difficult, though," said Sibyl, "when the 
 chosen race comes up against the super-race." 
 
 " Ingrate ! " cried Geoffrey. " These wits ! They're 
 at the mercy of their epigrams." He was delighted 
 with her. 
 
 " Even the angels didn't do much," said Mary, 
 " when they revolted against God." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Burke. " You need a long spoon to 
 sup with the devil." 
 
 " Really, Mr. Burke ! " cried Sibyl, " are you refer- 
 ring to me ? " Heaven knows what he had meant, but 
 they all laughed freely, and Mary said it was time 
 for them the ladies to be going. " My nice supper 
 has hardly had a chance with all this talk," she said, 
 and Sibyl confirmed this with a rueful, " Oh, dear ! " 
 and a hurried, self-reproachful glance at the dishes
 
 284. TRUE LOVE 
 
 within view. Burke assured Mary earnestly that he, 
 at least, had done justice to it and she thanked him 
 laughing. Sibyl, with a light affectation of greediness, 
 rifled bon-bon boxes as she and Mary withdrew. At 
 the door she turned to Burke and said : " You're going 
 to talk things over with him and he won't tell me 
 everything." 
 
 Geoffrey said genially : " There's a keyhole for 
 spies." 
 
 Left alone with Burke he fell suddenly serious. 
 They smoked in silence till Geoffrey said : " The other 
 night at the theater I watched her and I said to 
 myself : 'Are these Germans too clever for us ? ' 
 And to-night " He stopped and gazed at his 
 friend. 
 
 " I think these women are too clever for us," said 
 Burke. 
 
 Geoffrey's mind took in Mary and he nodded. She 
 might not have Sibyl's wit, but you could not think 
 of Mary as inferior and his family pride was touched. 
 He returned to the point. 
 
 " Do you advise me to throw her over? " 
 
 " You won't." 
 
 " The cool, common sense of it." 
 
 " You don't want it." 
 
 " Take it that I do." 
 
 " There are lots of nice girls." 
 
 " Fetch 'em and put 'em against her." 
 
 " I'm afraid it's not going to be easy for you." 
 
 " You old scoundrel, if I gave her up I believe you'd 
 propose to her yourself."
 
 LOVERS AND FRIENDS 285 
 
 " I'm the romantic Irishman. "Why did she say I 
 wanted mystery ? " 
 
 " Poor devil ! I believe you're in love with her." 
 
 " Rubbish ! I don't fall in love with my friends' 
 sweethearts." 
 
 " Burke, you are our friend." 
 
 " If you'll have it so." 
 
 When, presently, they went to the drawing-room 
 the two girls were sitting silent on each side of the 
 fire, and Geoffrey saw the traces of tears in Mary's 
 eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 STIRRUP-CUP 
 
 THE next afternoon Geoffrey was in his room at the 
 office, clearing up various matters before he left, when 
 Burke came in, charged, it appeared, with second 
 thoughts. He had found last night's entertainment 
 so agreeable and stimulating that he feared he had 
 not been quite the candid friend. Poor old Tim! 
 He considered that Sibyl had an extraordinary 
 amount of " personal magnetism," and this, added to 
 the geniality of the occasion, had shifted him a bit 
 from his moorings. And now what he had to say 
 amounted to this: that it was a more serious matter 
 to marry a German girl than it had appeared last 
 night. "It's all very well," said Burke, " to have 
 liberal sentiments about niggers, but you can't let your 
 daughter marry one." And then he blushed at the 
 grossness of the analogy and admitted that this was 
 going too far. " I'll tell you what, though," he said ; 
 " if a Herald man marries a German they'll say how 
 unsound we all are." 
 
 " I've thought of it," said Geoffrey, " but I shan't 
 be a Herald man in a week or two. Besides, 
 Lindsay would be the first to tell me to disregard 
 that." 
 
 286
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 287 
 
 Burke shook his head, and cast about for arguments 
 rather faintly. His heart was not in it, and he was 
 but answering the dubious calls of conscience. 
 
 " Do you really think, Burke," said Geoffrey with 
 sudden animation, " that I ought to throw over the 
 girl? Would you think better of me?" 
 
 " Of course not," said Burke. 
 
 " Then what the devil are you bothering about ? " 
 
 And really it looked as though Burke's object was 
 merely to make his friend uncomfortable. Geoffrey 
 suggested this and Burke was indignant in his denial. 
 Presently : " What I like about her," he burst out, 
 " is that she won't throw over her own lot." The 
 true Burke was in this generous appreciation. He 
 had rid his conscience of a burden, and felt the better 
 for it. He would not have Geoffrey desert the charm- 
 ing lady, but he must realize that to stick to her was 
 no light matter. " And you've got plenty on hand as 
 it is," he said. " Your sister, now she's magnificent, 
 but a bit staggering. But I mustn't talk of this." 
 
 " I'd like your impression," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Oh, well ! You know I had a little talk with her 
 last night when you were well; I was very much 
 interested, you know, and she was extremely kind 
 and gentle and most respectful to me made me feel 
 a person of consideration. I dare say you know her 
 attitude. She thinks a deep humiliation may be good 
 for us, and that it might be God's plan for our sal- 
 vation." 
 
 " And, conversely," said Geoffrey, " that the tri- 
 umph of Germany would show His anger with them ? "
 
 288 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I dare say," said Burke. " What I felt was that 
 you might as well try to argue with Jesus Christ." 
 
 " She's not what the orthodox call religious," said 
 Geoffrey. " She invents God now and then for her 
 purposes. She calls Him up." 
 
 Burke stared at him with an inquiring air which 
 struck Geoffrey as comic. And then Burke changed 
 the subject thoroughly with, " By the bye, we're going 
 to dine you." 
 
 Geoffrey objected that, in the circumstances, the 
 farewell dinner was not in the best of taste ; it was apt 
 to imply too much when the guest was off to the wars. 
 He was flattered, however, and consented to grace the 
 occasion. Out of a subtle regard for Geoffrey the 
 dinner was held, not at the garish big hotel, but at the 
 old, rather superior, rather dowdy one associated with 
 the festivities of a bygone Manchester. It had its 
 character and some pride of present achievement ; the 
 dinner was good at least. A dozen or more men at- 
 tended it, and Geoffrey, for once in his life, had the 
 center of the stage. It was a curious sensation to 
 be the target for congratulation, for appreciation, 
 which, when it came to his turn to speak, he could 
 describe with a good infusion of sincerity as ill-de- 
 served. But Arden's modesty was a tradition of the 
 office ; in part it was a jocular tradition. 
 
 He had a childish desire to shatter this tradition, to 
 assert himself, and perhaps he did succeed in puzzling 
 his friends. His health was drunk in the approved 
 fashion, and most of the dozen were permitted to have 
 their say. Secretan was on his amazing adventure
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 289 
 
 and Round was in the chair. YeTwith Lindsay and 
 Secretan away, loyalty to the Herald was always im- 
 plicit, and Geoffrey enjoyed the intimacy of a com- 
 radeship so generously extended to him, so rarely, it 
 seemed, available. He glowed with a proper pride 
 when Round said : " There are no intrigues in this 
 office," even though it might occur to him in some 
 twist of humility that he would never have had the 
 kind of courage necessary for intrigue. He listened 
 critically to all that was said about him, anxious to 
 detach from the words of compliment and comrade- 
 ship something material to his self-respect. There 
 was not much, though a common emotion of fellow- 
 ship glowed reassuringly ; it was something to be one 
 with the rest. Of course they found things to say, 
 for it is a poor life that holds no chance of friendly 
 comment. They touched on his connection with the 
 arts, with commerce, on his prodigious accomplish- 
 ments in miscellaneous reviewing ; it was recalled that 
 he had, on occasion, positively written the long leader 
 without disaster. Round had some beautifully 
 phrased, non-committal references to his books and 
 plays, suitable for any one from Homer downwards, 
 and Geoffrey wondered whether, without any shade of 
 resentment, he might presently suggest that these com- 
 pliments were the pure matter of goodwill, that Round 
 had never read a line of him. Attar spoke with more 
 knowledge, but it remained for Poison, the new, shy 
 sub-editor, whose inclusion in the company had only 
 been determined by Geoffrey's expressed desire, to 
 speak the distinctive word. It was distinct rather than
 
 290 TRUE LOVE 
 
 distinguished, it had the crudeness of young enthusi- 
 asm, it was out of gear with the rest. It made Geof- 
 frey feel queerly grateful to him, queerly apologetic 
 to the others. 
 
 Then came Geoffrey's turn, and he was conscious of 
 the wish that Lindsay could be there to listen to his 
 explanations. They included a defense of drudgery, 
 a defense of skepticism. He defined his position with 
 some seriousness, and the company regarded him 
 rather blankly; this was hardly in the spirit of a 
 genial occasion, but he did gain their interest. He 
 wanted to say to Lindsay that you can be a faithful 
 servant even with the core of your life outside the 
 service; at large, he wanted to say and in some 
 measure did say that self-mistrust is a form of 
 skepticism and that skepticism at its best gives the 
 greatest measure of truth of which this world is 
 capable. He pursued the idea fancifully. We can't 
 all be stimulated to do the work of the world by the 
 illusions of egoism, by the innate or pseudo-logical 
 convictions. He rode his hobby to comic dissolution, 
 he represented himself as a martyr to truth. On his 
 plays and novels he touched very highly in the 
 " prophet without honor " vein, but with a slight 
 hauteur, perhaps a little arrogance, declining, it 
 seemed, the position of an amiable nonentity who 
 amused himself with amateur irrelevancies. And then 
 it did seem to him that his apologia was getting a little 
 uncomfortable, his audience a little chilly, and he 
 switched off to friendliness and jollity. They all re- 
 sponded to that, and, after all, he made a success of
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 291 
 
 his speech. Attar, seated on his^-right, congratulated 
 him upon it, and particularly on his extrication from 
 the serious vein. " As to that notion of yours about 
 having a life of one's own away from the Herald," 
 he said, " I wish Lindsay had been here. We're all 
 in the same position. But, mind you, it's a condition 
 of loyalty that you're not absolutely attached; loyalty 
 implies a soul of your own." 
 
 Geoffrey long remembered incidents of that dinner, 
 he remembered dishes and the effect of wine on his 
 brain if not on his palate. He was older than some 
 of the men and felt older than most; he craved the 
 assurance that these clear, competent young men did 
 not regard him as a variety of the solemn ass, and 
 their plaudits were welcome to him. Round domi- 
 nated the occasion, and Geoffrey recalled Attar's word 
 of him, that he was too lucid for epigram. His writ- 
 ing about the war was already making a reputation. 
 " If there is to be calamity," he had said, " let's define 
 it." He did not seek calamity half-way, but he was 
 far from the alternations of panic and fatuous opti- 
 mism that marked so much of the current comment. 
 " Depressing," the casual readers called him, and more 
 and more of them returned to him for the solidities of 
 reassurance. Round, like any other patriotic Eng- 
 lishman, deplored the war, and yet it could not make 
 him miserable. War was his study, to move calmly 
 among the forces of death and destruction became his 
 life. He never made any attempt to touch the ma- 
 chinery ; glimpses of veritable trenches, concussions 
 of big guns, humanity on the march, were irrelevant
 
 292 TRUE LOVE 
 
 to his purpose. He did not desire to buttonhole gen- 
 erals nor to be made free of the higher gossip. His 
 intellect reduced all to its proportionate value ; he was 
 humane, but he was not diverted by humanity; he 
 was a politician, but politics had no more than their 
 place. Now he took his prominent part in all the 
 genial exchanges of wit, while he and Geoffrey at- 
 tempted a definition of the relations of politics and 
 morals. Round had cited the Dreyfus case as the 
 awful example of politics forced to the extreme, and 
 Geoffrey found another in the Appin murder. " More 
 and more," said Round, " I see the advantages of a 
 simple righteousness." He reflected on Geoffrey's 
 assertion that Christianity now had its great chance 
 and was losing it. " You can't have the pure, primi- 
 tive article, of course," said Geoffrey. " That would 
 forbid our going to war at all. But isn't it possible to 
 have a compromise ? " The clerical surrender to all 
 the basenesses of hate and revenge was one of Geof- 
 frey's obsessions. Round agreed that the spy panic 
 was all nonsense, and the persecution of innocent 
 Germans a sort of blood lust. It only required a little 
 intelligence to find the few real professional spies and 
 shoot 'em. Attar, joining in, suggested the scene at 
 the German Intelligence Department on the arrival of 
 the post. Thousands of reports from Great Britain 
 and Ireland, the colonies, the neutrals, the armies, the 
 navies, the railway-carriages, and the watering-places. 
 Gossip and extracts from Whittaker's Almanac. Des- 
 pair of the Department attempting to cope with all, 
 and months behind already. Discovery of serious dis-
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 293 
 
 crepancies between conversations^ overheard on the 
 Lancashire and Yorkshire, and on the London and 
 North-Western Railways. German thoroughness at 
 fault, but coping bravely with the situation. Enor- 
 mous growth of the Department. Recognition that 
 choice must be made between great reduction in 
 sources of information or abandonment of connection 
 with War Department. German thoroughness pre- 
 vails, and Intelligence Department becomes purely his- 
 torical. Relief of military chiefs. Great struggle be- 
 tween Department and Army for men. Triumph of 
 German historical spirit. End of war. 
 
 So Attar, with some assistance from the others, 
 while Brecher enlarged on the connection between the 
 army and the public schools. Brecher, the Zionist, 
 who looked forward to growing oranges at Jaffa, when 
 this wretched war was over he was more likely to be 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Jew Republic 
 had a reasoned scorn for the public schools and his 
 concession of small virtues to them was particularly 
 scornful. Tradition, discipline, gallantry, of course, 
 and such things are good when dominated by brain. 
 If not, tradition is merely adherence to the ramshackle, 
 discipline is slavery, and gallantry idiotic. He quoted 
 the instance of the five hundred young Frenchmen 
 from the military school who swore an oath together 
 to do what? To serve their country to the utmost 
 of their power? No. To engage in battle wearing 
 white gloves so as to provide a good cock-shy for the 
 enemy. What devotion ! What gallantry ! The senti- 
 mentalists were thrilled, but imagine Brecher's fury
 
 294 TRUE LOVE 
 
 of contempt! "And your Dr. Arnold," he cried, 
 " What's this tradition that he set up ? To teach men 
 how to die. What the devil's the good of that ? You 
 want to live, not to die. Teach men how to live. Face 
 death, of course, but don't play tricks with the infernal 
 old machine. Your nice public-school boy is no good 
 when he comes up against the brainy blackguard." 
 
 " Let's have brainy chivalry, then," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " I want people to be decent," said Brecher mod- 
 erately. 
 
 Geoffrey looked round the table and it occurred to 
 him that half the men were young enough to fight. 
 He had thought of them as gallant young men, but 
 these had not rushed to the great adventure like Secre- 
 tan and the others. Those public-school boys whose 
 native hue had not been sicklied o'er with the pale cast 
 of thought, would go to it eagerly or resignedly when 
 their time came ; these had their preoccupations, their 
 hesitations, their mistrust of the first rush. Geoffrey 
 did not know it, but his own action was working on 
 the feelings and in the brains of several of these men. 
 They had regarded Secretan's enlistment as a brilliant 
 freak, but Arden's had the significance of the world 
 movement. They had their work already ; they would 
 have to be torn up by the roots ; not very deep, per- 
 haps, but still roots. Their enthusiasms had a reason- 
 able basis. Several of them were capable of swim- 
 ming against the stream ; all of taking a direction. 
 
 In the meantime they were lads ready for a lark, 
 and conscious, too, that it was " up to them " to justify 
 the Herald as a school of the lighter humanities.
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 295 
 
 Geoffrey was not altogether averse from such things, 
 but though he might grow familiar in one relation with 
 his companions he would remain shy of another. So 
 he did not take part in the orgy of high spirits that 
 followed the dinner, and next day he heard the details 
 of it rather wistfully. They were not very alarming, 
 and perhaps the most picturesque incident was Burke's 
 progress down Portland Street on the roof of the four- 
 wheeler. Burke had been a little subdued during the 
 formal progress of the dinner, but in the later pro- 
 ceedings he was said to have " taken hold," finding 
 opportunity for an expression of nationality. Attar 
 justified his own participation in the revels by the need 
 for a judicious friend of strong character to head 
 Burke away from the police court. And yet it was 
 Burke to whom Geoffrey turned when he wanted the 
 sane proportion of things. A queer world. 
 
 Geoffrey walked home through the quiet streets, and 
 this time he thought indulgently of Mary sitting up 
 for him in her mistaken loyalty. She was there, no 
 doubt, waiting to hear all about it, and whether he 
 expanded or contracted depended on the chances of 
 his mood. There was so much in the evening that she 
 would not appreciate; Mary, boggling over the mi- 
 nutiae of righteousness, was scared by the large, loose 
 life of men of the world. When they had been dead 
 for centuries it didn't matter. Perhaps to some of 
 the Marys of their time, Oliver Cromwell and Martin 
 Luther had been coarse, reprehensible creatures, but 
 now the dross was separable from the gold. She had 
 something of the historical sense, and didn't trouble
 
 296 TRUE LOVE 
 
 about faded gossip. Ready as she was to make heroes 
 of the leader writers who would espouse lost or doubt- 
 ful causes, Geoffrey had learnt caution in describing 
 their sayings and doings. 
 
 To-night he was conscious of the fumes of wine in 
 his brain, when he found her pathetically warming a 
 bowl of bread and milk for him. Bread and milk! 
 It represented the plunge into domesticity, and, rather 
 surprisingly, he presently found himself eating with 
 fair appetite. He was good-natured, and some per- 
 sistence of his elation carried him through a pretty 
 lively account of the evening's doings. And Mary, it 
 appeared from the books strewn about, had been read- 
 ing Rossetti and the Carolinian poets, for whom she 
 had a curious affection. Seeing him glance at the 
 books, she mentioned that Milly Warde had come in. 
 This meant that Mary had not got on very far with 
 her poets, and Geoffrey was tempted freakishly to ask 
 whether Milly had been reading Rossetti. Mary was 
 silent for a moment, and then, in a little burst of half- 
 indignant defense of her friend, she said : " Milly is 
 not exotic." 
 
 Geoffrey was driven to reflect on the inconsistencies 
 of the sincere. Mary read Rossetti, but it was a sort 
 of virtue for Milly not to read him; it did not con- 
 sort with her particular genius, perhaps. And Geof- 
 frey felt that there was another implication. Sibyl 
 was exotic. In the early days of their acquaintance, 
 Mary had used the word carelessly or tentatively, 
 about her, and Geoffrey had not altogether disliked 
 it. Now he broke through the little play of senti-
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 297 
 
 ments between him and Mary by^saying : " There is 
 no harm in being exotic when you are as true as steel." 
 And Mary looked at him with sullen eyes, and then, 
 conquered herself amazingly. " Yes," she said, " I 
 believe Sibyl is that." They trembled on the brink of 
 some outward expression of emotion, of sympathy, 
 and perhaps the essential was accomplished. It was 
 queer how she seemed to hanker after Milly, cham- 
 pioning her because of her defects, as you would de- 
 fend and be kind to the crippled or infirm. If he had 
 brought home as a wife some peasant lass, or even 
 some preposterous person from the streets, Mary 
 would have been the devoted friend. Sibyl, as the 
 saying is, intrigued her. She blew hot and cold. She 
 would placate him by quoting something from her 
 Carolinians that applied to Sibyl, and he liked it, 
 though he might have liked better something from the 
 great, thundering poets. 
 
 Earlier in the evening, Mary and Milly had talked 
 about Sibyl. Milly had been the hearty, generous one, 
 and Mary seemed always to be making subtle reserva- 
 tions. In her pitiful heart she knew that this good, 
 staunch girl was suffering the loss of a possible, an 
 imagined, a desired lover. Who could help loving 
 Geoffrey? She was conscious of a comic reduction to 
 absurdity in the feeling that the loss of Geoffrey was 
 a serious matter to the maidenhood of Britain. She 
 knew that she must fight against the idea that every- 
 body was perpetually losing something, just as she 
 must refrain from dwelling on the slaughter in the 
 war. On a summer evening she had been struck to
 
 298 TRUE LOVE 
 
 sadness by realizing the mortality of the midges. She 
 had tried to believe in an immortality for midges, in 
 the persistence of all forms of consciousness. And 
 Geoffrey remembered the occasion, long ago, when 
 kind parents had exchanged startled glances at the 
 passion of the girl who refused an immortality that 
 did not embrace dogs, mice, or even black beetles, 
 though she shuddered at the idea of the perpetuation 
 of these. She had hardly changed, for her inveterate 
 truthfulness perceived the logical difficulty in limiting 
 immortality. She could be sarcastic at that fatuous- 
 ness of mankind in conceiving itself as the chosen 
 race. Oh, you could come up against something very 
 sharp in Mary! 
 
 Milly pursued her with formulas of a moderate in- 
 telligence, but she had to fall back sometimes on the 
 fond platitude that " Mary was a queer girl." Milly 
 felt a great deal on the subject of Mary and realized 
 her own inarticulateness. Yet she was useful in giv- 
 ing the plain sense of the occasion to her friend, and 
 on this particular evening she had been round with 
 her. It appeared that Sibyl was to be away playing 
 Juliet, and with some beating about the bush it was 
 made manifest that, in the circumstances Geoffrey 
 being the obvious circumstance a flesh and blood 
 Romeo was intolerable. Mary would not accept the 
 idea of a bride for Geoffrey being kissed by other men, 
 and actresses, unhappily, may be kissed a good deal 
 even in the classical parts. It was not their fault, of 
 course, but their misfortune. There was no way 
 round if plays were to be acted, and Mary worried
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 299 
 
 herself between the impossibility ^f forbidding them 
 she was not a mere Puritan and the horror of the 
 maiden sacrifice involved in being kissed. But Milly 
 made short work of her and, indeed, she was divided 
 against herself. " Nonsense," cried Milly. " It isn't 
 real kissing," and she compared Mary to the Miss 
 Poles with their fine shades and nice feelings. Cer- 
 tainly Meredith would be on the side of art and Sibyl, 
 and in the discussion, which was hardly an argument, 
 Mary was left with nothing but a feeling and that, 
 she felt, was an ungenerous one. Milly was not one 
 to lose an advantage by niceties of consideration, and 
 she asked Mary whether she looked forward to loss of 
 delicacy, to blunted feelings, when she began to nurse. 
 Conscious that this was not a perfect analogy, Mary 
 did not continue the subject. She fell back upon do- 
 mestic policies, and, really, there was a lot to con- 
 sider now ; the house was to be shut up, the furniture 
 stored, and life itself to find new channels. 
 
 She was immersed in these distracting preparations 
 when Sibyl called to say good-by before setting off on 
 her tour. Geoffrey, on the point of beginning his 
 training, was out of the way, and Sibyl, indeed, had 
 chosen to have it so. With the three of them together 
 phe had a ridiculous consciousness of the struggle for 
 Geoffrey; the struggle was attenuated to little jeal- 
 ousies, faint resentments. Indeed, the signs of it 
 were chiefly Mary's reactions the evident impulses 
 of friendliness from which Sibyl, in supersensitive 
 mood, would infer the secret thoughts that were not 
 so friendly. Sibyl thought she had never met any one
 
 300 TRUE LOVE 
 
 so difficult to approach as Mary. Now and then, when 
 she had time to think, she found it very interesting, 
 but she had her pride and dignity; she was ready to 
 respond to kindnesses that were sisterly, but she would 
 not be pitied for being a German. And sometimes she 
 missed the point that Mary, in the breadth of her 
 humanity, was German too. Occasionally, indeed, it 
 had not been humanity but a wilfulness of opposition 
 which had made her extol the German and even the 
 Prussian virtues, as the disconcerted Geoffrey had rea- 
 lized. It was an astounding fact that Mary had read 
 Carlyle's Frederick the Great, and was now threaten- 
 ing to read it again. 
 
 Sibyl, sitting politely on the edge of a chair and 
 looking very elegant, did not appear to have much in 
 common with the great Frederick, nor could she be 
 plausibly ranked with the desolate and oppressed. 
 The two women eyed one another, talking trivialities, 
 and each was conscious of the impalpable barrier. 
 There was no bridge to cross it, and Sibyl felt that 
 the only way was a flying leap. If need be she must 
 ravage Mary's feelings ; she must not pretend that all 
 was colorless between her and Geoffrey. And so she 
 burst out : " Oh, Mary ! Isn't it a beautiful idea of 
 ours Geoffrey's and mine ? " 
 
 And Mary, detesting herself for the coldness of her 
 voice, said, " What idea ? " 
 
 Sibyl tried again. Gallantly she said : " You've got 
 to be nice to us about it. You know what a child is 
 with an idea. It's cruel to be scornful of a child's 
 idea. I think I've infected Geoffrey with it. If I
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 301 
 
 thought he was just pretending andxlidn't see anything 
 in it I should be miserable. It would be it would be 
 disastrous. No, it is not childish, even if I am like a 
 child. It's very, very serious. It's as serious as our 
 love for one another." She stood up as if to go, as 
 if nothing more could be said on her side. Mary felt 
 the relief of being overcome; she said gently: "Tell 
 me about it again." 
 
 Sibyl sat down. " I feel the death of that gallant 
 old man in France," she said. 
 
 "Who? "said Mary. 
 
 " Lord Roberts is dead. He was the enemy of Ger- 
 many, of course, and the Liberals used to think him 
 foolish when he warned you against us. But things 
 weren't so bitter then, and he was single-minded and 
 brave and wanted to help his country. I like people 
 to die in the fullness of their power. He was old 
 and in a strange country, and he must have felt use- 
 less. The greatest things in the world were happen- 
 ing and he was failing and dying. And yet it was 
 good for him to die among it all. It was a sort of 
 glory. He has the soldier's face." 
 
 Mary was bewildered. " I don't understand," she 
 said. " Of course, it's very nice of you very good of 
 you to talk of Lord Roberts like this. Oh, what rub- 
 bish! No. Why shouldn't you? But is this part of 
 the idea?" 
 
 "Oh, dear!" said Sibyl. "I'm afraid it's rather 
 like rehearsing for Geoffrey. I shall say something 
 like that when I see him again. I suppose we actor 
 people get into the way of saying things again and
 
 302 TRUE LOVE 
 
 again." Then she added : " And trying to make them 
 better." 
 
 She had been sincere, but this little bit of illustra- 
 tion from her art struck coldly on Mary, who had 
 told herself before that she must not be on the look- 
 out for the histrionic in Sibyl. However, Mary said 
 mildly enough : " Why must you talk about Lord 
 Roberts to Geoffrey?" 
 
 " The idea is," said Sibyl, " that he is English and I 
 German, and yet that I am to enter into all the noble 
 and beautiful things on his side, and he into those on 
 mine. The stupid people here would say that he will 
 find nothing. Well, I must risk that. Oh, Mary ! It 
 is rather funny to hear him praising the German 
 method and competence. He's so careful and punc- 
 tilious. I'm afraid somethimes that the idea will fizzle 
 out in a joke. But it mustn't. It shan't. And we've 
 so much in common. German boys, English boys, 
 going to the slaughter. Geoffrey's a man and that's 
 different. Am I unnatural in feeling that it isn't so 
 bad for him to go? That's when I get out of myself. 
 We must get 'out of ourselves or it will be too terrible. 
 Face things and then put them aside. In a year from 
 now Geoffrey may be killed. In one year or in fifty 
 years. It's awful, but it's not impossible. What a 
 lot we can stand! It's no use pretending we can't 
 stand things when we can. A few discomforts and 
 slights even persecutions don't seem much when 
 there's death about. Yes, he gives the Germans the 
 benefit of the doubt so politely, and I pay handsome 
 compliments to the English people. We're only at the
 
 STIRRUP-CUP 303 
 
 fringe of things. The idea has got to be tested yet. 
 We're rather shy of the German atrocities. Oh! I 
 can't talk about that." 
 
 " Behind it all," said Mary, " there's your beautiful 
 affection for one another." 
 
 " How nice you can be ! How generous you can 
 be ! " cried Sibyl. " I had begun to wonder whether I 
 was making any impression on you." 
 
 "Impression on me?" said Mary frowning. She 
 detected the cloven foot. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Sibyl. " I say the wrong things. 
 You're so dreadfully sensitive. Well, but why 
 shouldn't I wish to impress you, to move you? Do you 
 think I use you just like an audience? I don't, but 
 remember that audiences are very serious things to 
 me. They are not contemptible. But, Mary, you did 
 say the right thing. Affection. That's it. We may 
 have very little time. A flare of passion is not enough. 
 We want to be wise and safe and permanent. And it 
 may be months, not years. We want the best, the 
 finest. If Geoffrey is to die he shall have that first. 
 I am not unworthy of him, Mary. Am I taking him 
 from you? It has to be. I've thought of that. If it 
 were only I to be considered but you can be you 
 are infinitely generous. It is easy to be generous to 
 him. I ask you humbly humbly, Mary to be kind 
 to me. He would like it. I'm not acting." 
 
 Mary could not speak but she held out her arms.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 TRAINING 
 
 FROM a camp in the Yorkshire dales Geoffrey wrote to 
 
 Sibyl: 
 
 t 
 
 "I feel like a timid swimmer who has taken the 
 plunge and come up gasping, but relieved and even 
 exhilarated. I'm in for it; I've changed my life and 
 so far changed myself that little familiarities of body 
 and soul take on a strange aspect. We're in huts and 
 a barn or two in the spring I think there will be 
 hundreds of tents and my old self is still uncomfort- 
 able, but a new self is growing over it and that gets 
 on pretty well. The military life is wildly exciting 
 and it's an awful bore. You get bored to the stage of 
 positive wretchedness. Will you believe that I turn 
 on the vision of you sometimes because I can't stand 
 things as they are any longer ? This is to acknowledge 
 that I don't think of you all the time? Well, do you 
 know, I use you with a certain economy. I don't think 
 of you all the time. We're going to be honest lovers, 
 aren't we, and I'll acknowledge that sometimes I for- 
 get all about you. Why ! we forget all about the war. 
 We haven't time for it with all these really important 
 things pressing upon us. I'm intensely conscious of 
 my body, of my poor old limbs and my digestion; a 
 
 304
 
 TRAINING 305 
 
 sore toe is very much more to "the point than the 
 question of a Russian advance or retreat. As to the 
 cause the sacred cause one never thinks of it un- 
 less with a conscious effort. One made a choice and 
 must stick to it. Perhaps it was a frigid moral choice 
 or perhaps a generous enthusiasm now we're back 
 on ourselves. I had a touch of toothache the other 
 day it's nothing, it's gone and the only thing in 
 the world worth considering was the absence of tooth- 
 ache. My idea of happiness was to be a sort of 
 Prisoner of Chillon just to exist not having tooth- 
 ache in as much dark and damp as you please. Ah! 
 The body ! The concern with the body ! Write me 
 some jolly, witty letters. I must have an intellectual 
 life. Save me from mental torpor. My dearest, I'm 
 mad for love of you. It's cruel to keep us apart. Did 
 I say that I forgot you sometimes ? What nonsense ! 
 Or I forget you as one forgets the sky and the sun, 
 breath and life. I forget you as I forget myself. 
 
 " We're in a sort of park, and there's a big house 
 near where a Lord Somebody lives, a fine-looking old 
 boy who beams on us when he meets us in his car, 
 and reeks of a goodish brand of patriotism. He's 
 rather decrepit, and has sons in the army. I think 
 he looks on us as being garnished for the sacrifice, 
 fattened for the butcher. When the first drafts came 
 along he made us a speech that was curiously, finely 
 emotional. Emotional and yet austere. He welcomed 
 us as his guests and gave us to understand that it was 
 our privilege to die for our country. I think it hadn't 
 struck us all in that light. We were thinking of a
 
 306 TRUE LOVE 
 
 pleasant outing with some excitement of bursting 
 shells and a triumphant progress to Berlin. I fancy 
 he was told to draw it a little milder next time. He's 
 a popular figure, and the officers go to lunch and dine 
 with him sometimes. They come back smoking large 
 cigars and looking very confident about the military 
 position. It's queer now to think of a swetf dinner- 
 table and coffee and liqueurs and joining the ladies in 
 the drawing-room. The ladies especially. I hanker 
 after exquisite womankind. You, of course, but as 
 you're not about, I don't know but what I should 
 like a little to be going on with. We are to be frank, 
 aren't we? Frank, frank (but not too frank). 
 
 " I resume to say that I'm lance-corporal. Hooray ! 
 The first step. I see that I shall get on. I can't help 
 getting on. I'm an intelligent man and among rather 
 a plain lot. I'm afraid I must include the officers. 
 When I get back to the old life I shall begin to salute, 
 Lindsay and Round and the rest. They're miles ahead 
 of all these people. Yes, I shall prostrate myself and 
 bump my forehead on the ground. I don't say that 
 the officers are all duffers. I don't get at the working 
 of their minds. Very nice fellows some of them are, 
 and nice little bits of humanity peep out. They're 
 ashamed of this because it's not soldierly. They're 
 pretending to be soldiers and overdo it. They imitate 
 the two or three old soldiers that are here. It's like 
 imitating Irving or George Alexander. But the whole 
 machine is rather absurd. It seems to be a machine 
 for machinery's sake ; I suppose it's really for making
 
 TRAINING 307 
 
 us all into machines that will advance and retire and 
 let off guns, and occasionally topple over into the 
 ditch. 
 
 " Perhaps you don't think much of my being a lance- 
 corporal, but let me tell you that it means authority. 
 I've more authority or a different sort than railway 
 directors and mill managers. I can grind down my 
 fellow men and they can't put on their coats and go 
 home. I can ' manage them till they cry ' as the little 
 girl said when her mother left her in charge of the 
 babies. The first step is the great step. You begin 
 to see what a terrific instrument this army is. And 
 one has to be a bit sharp. I mean to keep humane, 
 but I'm going to be d d sharp, I can tell you. Ought 
 we to manage them by love? I feel Mary at my 
 elbow. Privates don't love N.C.O's. I think they do 
 sometimes make beneficent figures of officers. With 
 despair I realize that I can't reform the British army. 
 I can't spiritualize it, Mary. Yes, I'm conscious of 
 Mary. She baffles me; we're more than ever on dif- 
 ferent planes. I don't say she's wrong. The young 
 man with great possessions had a simple problem ; it's 
 the young man with great prepossessions that's in a 
 fix. (Rather witty! What?) 
 
 " I told you we live in huts. It's a squash, and here 
 I am in positive contact with dozens, hundreds, thou- 
 sands (it seems) of my fellow men. I sleep with 
 them, I feed with them, and I know the smell of the 
 battalion as a dog knows that of his master. I don't 
 like it, but I get accustomed to it. I feel that I'm 
 passing through it, and that there's something in the
 
 308 TRUE LOVE 
 
 idea of purgatory, though I used to think of that as 
 fiercer and cleaner. One could write of it all like a 
 'realistic ' novelist, but I won't. I do feel sometimes 
 that I'm in, a morass, and I try to fix my eyes or my 
 mind on a star. These things are fleabites. Yes, but 
 you may wake o' nights with fleabites, hating man- 
 kind. There's snobbery in matters of cleanliness, and 
 I don't want to be too clean. Queer stuff this, for a 
 love letter? But we're serious people, aren't we, and 
 we're in a real world? I've a feeling that I'm getting 
 down to the rock and that I can do it. That's the 
 discovery. I can do it. My spirits rise at that. I 
 wonder, sometimes, whether I could have done it 
 without you. I suppose I could have held on dog- 
 gedly, but you are the star that is always shining over 
 the morass, and when there's a star the morass is as 
 good as anything else. And it seems so irrelevant that 
 I'm preparing to fight Germans and you're a German 
 girl. (I don't quite admit it.) That's far away. We 
 haven't come to that. The great Idea, your magnifi- 
 cent Idea transcends everything. It is a great idea, 
 Sibyl (Gretchen, or whatever your name is. I shall 
 always think of you as Sibyl). 
 
 "What was I saying? Oh! About these men, my 
 pals. What are they like? Well, you know, they're 
 all different. ' As like as two peas ' we say, but the 
 peas aren't like. One's a good pea and the other a 
 bad 'un. There are some bad 'uns here, but I think 
 most are sound or sound in parts. There are some 
 ugly, dirty, lewd brutes, and yes, let's admit it 
 rather a sickening amount of thieving and bawdry.
 
 TRAINING 309 
 
 There would be plenty of drunkenness, but that's not 
 easy. Yes, some of my comrades are thieves, and, as 
 long as I'm a man and not a lance-corporal, they don't 
 cease to be my comrades. I fancy some of the thieves 
 and blackguards (not all don't let us follow the con- 
 ventional novelists, and regard blackguardism and the 
 virtues as very much the same) for comrades in a 
 tight corner. We're all going through the mill, and 
 when we emerge at the other end the values will be 
 different. I'm not quite sure yet whether I shall be 
 a finer creature or broken or crushed. This, of course, 
 is only a first process. The test, the real trial is to 
 come. 
 
 " Yes, I'm considerably puzzled to know why many 
 of these men enlisted. I think some of them were 
 drunk, and couldn't see beyond their noses. Others 
 had flashy impulses when the band played. Don't let 
 us dissect the patriotic ardors. A lot of these fellows 
 would very much like to get out of it, but they're 
 caught by the machine and know it. And don't think 
 I'm growing cynical. On the contrary I'm amazed, 
 I'm thrilled by the persistence of devotion. These 
 are common men of a surprising nobility. Heroes? 
 Well, most of us are heroes yet. I felt myself a hero 
 when I walked through the Manchester streets, with 
 the rest of the rabble to be turned into soldiers. I 
 was extraordinarily happy. I had the heroic emotions. 
 I doubt if you have them after the event. I can con- 
 ceive a V.C. with an ugly, hateful memory of his 
 great deed. It was a time of doubt and terror. You 
 are callous, you are an inhuman freak if you are not
 
 310 TRUE LOVE 
 
 subject to these. We've a wrong conception of the 
 heroic as something with a smooth, impeccable sur- 
 face. It's mistaking the fagade for the building. And 
 these true heroes smile and strut, when the people ac- 
 claim them and the banners wave, while in their hearts 
 there's the grim reality. Fancies, fancies. We haven't 
 come to this yet. 
 
 " I've time for fancies. I see a long, long vista or 
 avenue, and there I am going down it confidently 
 enough. But my figure is lost in the mists and I don't 
 know what happens to it. I imagine a man who does 
 all the preliminaries splendidly: the right tone, the 
 right spirit. His leave takings are beautiful, every 
 pose and gesture right, and then out he goes into the 
 dark. 
 
 " One wants to get rid of the fear of fear. I could 
 wish that the training included being fired at with 
 real bullets. (By very bad shots and at enormous 
 distances, of course.) I suppose, when it comes to 
 the point, I shall be very much like anybody else 
 exceedingly funky at first and gradually becoming 
 brave. What I don't like and I'm not sure whether 
 it's creditable or despicable is the idea of others be- 
 ing braver than I. They may be rasher if they like, 
 or bigger fools, but I rather resent people getting 
 ahead of one in the nobilities. Forgive me, Sibyl, if 
 I'm writing like a prig. I wouldn't say such things 
 to any one but you. These are my secret thoughts. 
 They'll stand accusingly against me if I turn out a 
 rotter. But I couldn't be a coward under your eyes, 
 and you are always with me.
 
 TRAINING 311 
 
 " Now is that just a nice bit o Mover's rhetoric or 
 a simple sincerity? I don't know. I suppose it's 
 sincere now, but there lurks in my mind the notion of 
 a hullabaloo of screaming shells and tremendous ex- 
 plosions in which the loved one's image and stimula- 
 tion might be attenuated. However, it's folly to be 
 always facing facts, especially when the facts are dis- 
 tant, hazy surmises. One isn't simple enough. Or is 
 this another affectation? (Do I bore you ?) If there's 
 to be progress in the world, it can't be just a reversion 
 to simplicities. We're emerging from them. Subtle- 
 ties for ever ! Hurrah for modern poets and dim, con- 
 tortionist painters ! 
 
 " I'm being awfully long. What an appalling, dev- 
 astating blow it would be to realize that I do bore 
 you. Would your sincerity run to telling me so? 
 Just a hint? No, an honest, plain word. I've a vein 
 of garrulity, but I could stop it up, close it out. You 
 might make a better man of me and a more tolerable 
 lover. I should respect you. Every man is the better 
 for one in the eye occasionally. I should have said ' in 
 the neck/ but I wasn't sure whether the idiom would 
 be familiar to a Teuton. Do you like facetious insults 
 on your German birth? I don't know you exactly 
 yet. (Thank Heaven!) Don't get into the way of 
 shrinking and not telling me. 
 
 " Long as this letter is I must tell you of a man I've 
 come across here. He's of what we may call the re- 
 spectable artisan class (How even the conscientious 
 literary man runs to these neat-looking cliches! Why 
 don't I say that he's a cotton operative? Or why
 
 312 TRUE LOVE 
 
 don't I be more definite and say he's a minder 
 in the spinning-room? But as you don't know 
 what a minder is, this is getting too definite. And 
 there's a nice little epitome of the art of exposition for 
 you) and his name is Robert Turner. We made ac- 
 quaintance one night, when we lay alongside of one 
 another and had trouble with fleas. I was friendly and 
 aimed at a comradely bluntness, but very soon he ac- 
 cused me of having a cultivated voice. He wasn't 
 exactly resentful, he didn't certainly call me a toff, but 
 I was made aware that I belonged to the capitalist class. 
 I ridiculed his distinctions and defended the cultivated 
 voice. He bristled at the notion of condescension, and 
 wanted to know what I meant by this gentleman 
 ranker business. Why hadn't I taken a commission? 
 He snorted slightly at my explanations and they 
 weren't very convincing, I'm afraid that I liked a bit 
 of whole-hogging, and he muttered something about 
 playing at it. He was particularly scornful of the 
 idea that this war was going to reconcile the classes, 
 that lion and lamb (or eagle and serpent he knew 
 something about Shelley) would lie down pleasantly 
 together. And all the time were were together he was 
 rather nice to me and did several considerate things. 
 " We had one or two rather tentative discussions on 
 democracy. He was truculent at first, but I think 
 I hit rather a nice manner with him why not! I 
 liked him and chaffed a little. He sneered at man- 
 ners, and I said that they were what mattered most 
 in the world, but that they must go deep and include 
 everything. He quieted down, and I really believe
 
 TRAINING 313 
 
 that he began to imitate me a little^ and then became 
 conscious of it and hectored. He had a pathetic as- 
 pect, but he was too good for mere pathos. He made 
 me realize what shaky stuff my politics are, but his 
 contempt for Liberalism was excessive. We are just 
 to be cut down or effaced, it seems; he ridicules the 
 idea of our making concessions that would get us 
 into line with realities. Like poor German girls in 
 England, there's no place for us. I bothered him by 
 asking what he would do in my place. He asked what 
 my income was and how it was obtained. He was 
 very respectful to the Herald, and appeared to regard 
 it as the finest futility in existence. I made him ac- 
 knowledge that ' in this transition period ' it was 
 more than that. ' Are you going to arrive at a period 
 where there isn't any transition ? ' says I, feeling my- 
 self an acute controversialist, and that bothered him 
 a bit too. He had a great deal of intellectual honesty. 
 " On the general subject I acknowledged that the 
 classes we belong to middle, capitalist, aristocratic, 
 or what not have the not very exhilarating prospect 
 of making concessions followed by concessions. Bet- 
 ter make them gracefully or better still make them 
 with enthusiasm. I tried to put the point, without of- 
 fense, that he must not take away my cultivated accent 
 but make arrangements for getting one himself (and 
 my serious position is that we must compromise on 
 the elimination of drawls and the maintenance of pre- 
 cisions and delicacies). Suddenly he said: 'Would 
 you send your son to a public school ? ' I said I was 
 ready to acquiesce in a great broadening of education
 
 314 TRUE LOVE 
 
 (a bit vague, I'm afraid), but that, as things are and 
 not believing that to send my boy to the Council School 
 would help his to Rugby, I would. I was human and 
 wanted to give my children a good time. I could make 
 them and myself miserable by a violent attempt to 
 enter another social class, but till I could see that it 
 would help somebody and so on. ' A policy of grace- 
 ful drifting,' he sneered, and I reminded him that I 
 was not a politician. ' What are you, then ? ' he asked, 
 and I explained that I was a mere literary gent. He 
 lost interest in me a little when he heard I didn't 
 write political leaders. Then : ' Look here,' he said, 
 * we may get to starvation point in this war. We 
 may have to be rationed. Would you have the chil- 
 dren of the rich fed on a better scale than those of 
 the poor ? ' I said I would not. ' But in time of peace 
 you would, and you'd have them warmer, better 
 housed, clothed, educated. Where's your consistency? 
 Where's your noblesse oblige? You are ready to fight 
 and die with me now but why not then? It's only 
 stupidity that makes the distinction. Are you ready 
 to wage the bigger war after this war? And which 
 side will you be on ? ' 
 
 " He had read his Unto this Last, he knew his 
 Tolstoy or some of him and he told me he had had 
 deep hesitations about enlisting. He had to examine 
 his mind to see whether he had a conscientious objec- 
 tion to any war and nearly decided that he had. I 
 told him that I had gone through very much the same 
 phase and we warmed to one another. It struck me 
 that we were very much alike. I suggested this to him
 
 TRAINING 315 
 
 and he frowned and relented and I think rather 
 liked it. On the whole I agreed to an accelerated rate 
 of democratic progress, and fell back on my novels 
 and plays as an apology for my existence. As to these 
 he was curious and slightly contemptuous. ' We must 
 have literature, of course,' he said. I understood that 
 it would hardly be the sort that I was likely to 
 produce. 
 
 " I confess he got the better of me. I don't think 
 much of our bourgeois liberalism. I respect neither 
 its formulas nor its practices. But, as I keep telling 
 you, I'm not a politician and I can't stop to take up 
 politics. (Am I boring you? Oh, Heavens! Am I 
 boring you?) 
 
 " I hate the idea of being disloyal, even to a class. 
 But how can one keep to one's class ? Typical of it is 
 my Uncle Reggie, whose object in life is to do the 
 right things. I suppose he has some fundamental 
 shrewdness that enabled him to make a bit of money 
 in the shipping line. He appears to be always ticking 
 things off as correct. If you've been to Windermere 
 or to Paris he says : ' Where did you stay ? ' and if you 
 mention the wrong hotel he's troubled. ' What school 
 did you go to ? ' Rugby ? Charterhouse ? Quite cor- 
 rect. Where do you get your boots? He learnt with 
 genuine distress that I didn't use trees. He aims at 
 a sort of perfection. They needn't be perfect boots 
 but they must come from the right shop. His boy was 
 in the army, went out with the first batch and was 
 killed quite correctly. Aunt Lizzie is bearing up 
 wonderfully, and the poor old man never relaxes in
 
 316 TRUE LOVE 
 
 his war work whatever it is and is reassuringly 
 conscious of just the right degree of wonderfulness 
 too. Never anything is to be done that hasn't been 
 done before, and we are to have a world of drilled 
 patriots presently. Literature and the arts? It was 
 time for them to be brought to heel. We were getting 
 decadent, and they tell me Kipling's sales are not what 
 they were. Poor old fellow ! I can't help liking him, 
 and I'm afraid I tolerate this sort of thing more than 
 I ought to. 
 
 " And here, at last, I do come to a stop. Now to 
 go and bully some of those privates. I could write 
 a few more pages about Robert Turner's attitude to- 
 wards the military machine. Rather good ones, but I 
 spare you. He's been drafted off somewhere, by the 
 bye, and we parted with a cordial handshake and a 
 good look at one another. 
 
 " If I could only see you and know when I said 
 the wrong things and when the right ones by those 
 subtle little blinkings and shrinkings! And now I 
 want to write something stupendously tender and, be- 
 ing a literary man, I see that literature's a failure. 
 Imagine imagine, Sibyl, what I would say! Even 
 your imagination cannot overshoot the mark. (What 
 a phrase!) I hope you're happy. Good-by, my dear."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MORE LETTERS 
 SIBYL replied : 
 
 " Do you really fear to bore me ? Sometimes I 
 think of the long years mayn't we hope for long 
 years? and my poor little tricks and accomplish- 
 ments and wonder whether you will be tired of them 
 some day. There are awful examples of beautiful 
 people tiring of one another, aren't there? And how 
 can we be safe? The more brilliant and passionate 
 you are the sooner will it all fade. Are we brilliant 
 and passionate? I can be as quiet as a mouse. I 
 can I think be gently affectionate for a very long 
 time say for ever and not bother you by flares of 
 passion except now and then for a change. Perhaps 
 I could do these when you weren't there. I could sing 
 and wave my arms about and recite the tirades from 
 my parts. 
 
 " Ah, my parts ! I've a touchstone for them now. 
 I say, ' That's true. To love is to be like that,' or 
 ' No, I couldn't feel like that.' Before ever I saw you 
 I used to say such things, but now I say them differ- 
 ently. I wonder if I'm really acting Juliet as beauti- 
 fully as it feels. When Romeo isn't on the stage you 
 are Romeo; when he is you are somehow mixed up 
 
 317
 
 318 TRUE LOVE 
 
 with Mr. Finnemore, who is pleasant and boyish and 
 not very adequate. He thinks me awfully good, but 
 then he thinks himself very good too. The other day 
 I heard him say, ' By Jove ! ' under his breath when I 
 had been, as he would say, coming it strong, and it 
 gave me a thrill of pleasure. I like praise and ap- 
 plause, and the people who know to say I'm very 
 good. The time when you gave me pure, unqualified 
 pleasure was when you first gave me a line or two in 
 the Herald. They were all curious to know what the 
 Herald would say about me. The principles of Herald 
 criticism seem to be a profound mystery to the pro- 
 fession. ' Y'never know where the silly devils will 
 break out,' as an old actor said to me. They pro- 
 fess contempt for you, but they've an uneasy notion 
 that you know something. I've felt that way my- 
 self. 
 
 " I say ' My only love sprung from my only hate,' 
 and there seems a strange, awful appropriateness 
 about it, though, as you know, I don't hate the Eng- 
 lish. I suppose I am as much English as German in 
 my own self, in all the differences that make me a 
 separate creature. I would grow more and more Eng- 
 lish and cleave to you, but this awful hatred of us 
 stiffens me and angers me. I tell myself that it's 
 natural, but, then, it is of an evil nature. I do try 
 to be lofty and philosophic, but I'm afraid that as 
 you might say it isn't my line of parts. I find my- 
 self imitating you, and even do you detect it? writ- 
 ing like you. I mean only a bit like you. Do you 
 notice that I'm learning to make little parentheses,
 
 MORE LETTERS 319 
 
 but I stick to dashes generally because it would be 
 slavish imitation to use brackets? I like ideas to pop 
 up in the middle of a sentence the way you do it. 
 Oh ! I'm afraid I shall just imitate you and become 
 a little, feminine you. So, as I don't like that, I must 
 stick to my Germanism and quarrel with you some- 
 times. But it's the likes that quarrel so I mustn't. 
 (Oh! Heavens! Am I boring you? Already?) 
 Putting love and affection (and infatuation) on one 
 side, have you any idea how much I admire you? 
 (Come! He'll like that. I'm a cunning one.) (No 
 more brackets.) 
 
 " I'm not sure that I want you to see me act the 
 ' potion scene.' I don't know how to do it yet, and 
 there are times when I feel myself just clattering 
 along like anybody else. There, Geoffrey ! Isn't that 
 conceited? A lot of acting is just like that thing at 
 a fair where you punch a sort of cushion, and the 
 harder you punch the higher jumps a little rod. Poor 
 me, who hasn't got a great punch like Mrs. Siddons, 
 has to do some coaxing and subterfuging to make the 
 rod move. I want to do things my own way, but 
 when it says ' shriek ' in the stage directions you can't 
 very well whisper. ' Be not too tame neither,' and I'm 
 trying to be awful and beautiful. Yes, but the great 
 actors are that without trying. They learn their words 
 and their business, and then they just come rushing 
 along. If you see that I'm trying it won't do at all. 
 I'm too intelligent, Geoffrey, but I shall make a good 
 housewife. Don't write plays for me to act in; it 
 would remind you of my limitations. Write splendid
 
 320 TRUE LOVE 
 
 plays and I'll act in them. I'll show you. I did 
 astonish you once, didn't I? 
 
 " I ramble on and I wonder whether you'll like it. 
 We're not just gushing lovers, are we? We shall 
 incite and stimulate one another to terrific heights, 
 and find we're exhausted and come toppling down. 
 Do you fear that? If they are real heights it's not a 
 bad way to die? And you aren't really dead at the 
 bottom, but begin to crawl bravely up again. These 
 are fears for quiet times. You and I will always be 
 hungry for one another, always at the best snatch- 
 ing at moments, ' short leaves,' fragments, fragments. 
 
 " I feel that. I feel that intensely, Geoffrey, and so 
 I say it. Thousands of girls are feeling it and I'm 
 glad, I'm passionately glad, to be one with English 
 girls and German girls. I'm not exactly superstitious, 
 but it's no use pretending you don't feel things un- 
 logically. Perhaps Juliet isn't good for me now. I 
 seem to slip so easily into her forebodings. It's all 
 calamity, calamity coming. But it has to be beautiful. 
 We have to keep it beautiful. It's easy for me. The 
 difficulties are for you, and that's well, for the strength 
 is yours. It's easy to suffer at home. You'll say, 
 generously, that I haven't a home. Well, then, it's 
 easy to suffer. 
 
 " I think of you, and when I drink from the phial 
 I'm a realist and put some stuff in it that nips my 
 throat and cry ' Romeo, I come,' it's like an act of 
 dedication. You are before me then and I'm losing 
 you and all is dark and strange. The future is rush- 
 ing on us and I could hear the guns in France I think
 
 MORE LETTERS 321 
 
 of you as in France. I suppose I'm- just using you for 
 play-acting. Oughtn't I to do that? I couldn't help 
 it. I couldn't possibly help it. Please take my acting 
 seriously. Just now I must have it and it's part of 
 you and me. It helps me and it takes me to you, and 
 if I should tear myself away from it, I should have to 
 think and think about I don't know what. Or ought 
 I to become a nurse like Mary and that kind Miss 
 Warde? Would English soldiers let me dress their 
 wounds ? How gladly I would do it ! 
 
 " Mr. Finnemore is quite a handsome young man, 
 Geoffrey. Would you like to play at being jealous? 
 I can produce rather a nice vein of coquettishness and 
 I'm sure he would respond. As it is I play the elder 
 sister, and it's understood between us that he is very 
 young. He's frightfully unnecessarily respectful, 
 and it makes me feel too mature for Juliet. I sup- 
 pose you critics say that Juliets are either crude or 
 experienced, and that each is worse than the other. 
 I shocked Mr. Finnemore very much by showing him 
 a photograph of Madox Brown's ' Romeo and Juliet,' 
 and asking him if we could get anything like that. He 
 thought at first that I was joking, for Mrs. Madox 
 Brown, who was the model for Juliet, was a rather 
 stout and not very young lady. He likes things pretty, 
 though he talks about passion. He didn't see much 
 point about the Romeo's arm stretched out over the 
 landscape and the Juliet's closed eyes. 
 
 " Yes, he is respectful and kind, and I think it is 
 partly in pity. The murder is out. They all know 
 that I am German, and the public will know it next
 
 322 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and hiss me. But all the actors are kind, or if they 
 are not they do not obtrude. There will always be a 
 world of artists for me. It is the artists who will 
 save the world and keep it fresh and pure. We are 
 a foolish, gadding, jealous lot, but our little sham 
 world is more real than the big one of iron and brass 
 and gold. Quite poetical I'm becoming, Geoffrey. 
 
 " I do like you to tell me about your young Socialist. 
 Can't we reform the world by just being kind and 
 decent to one another, instead of having to get to 
 understand about economics and Acts of Parliament? 
 It's so easy to be kind. That is unless people are 
 annoying. Or unless they bore you? Must I reply 
 seriously to the question whether you bore me? Or 
 whether anything you could say about my being a 
 German girl could hurt me? Am I to consider 
 whether you are a prig or likely to become a rotter 
 or a coward? I suppose a bullet might hit you on 
 the head and make you quite a different person. Let's 
 wait till it happens. There's death, of course. But 
 nothing can take from us what we've had. It's like 
 climbing a mountain; you've always been on the top. 
 I dare say this is illogical but it's conviction. You 
 will always be very noble to me even if you do silly 
 things sometimes. I won't be keeping you at it and 
 nagging at you to live up to ideals. Don't be afraid 
 of that. And don't think I'm always going to bother 
 you with praises and incense. Just a little now while 
 you are away. 
 
 " I saw that little Mr. Imalian the other day ; in- 
 deed, I had tea with him at his invitation, and of
 
 MORE LETTERS 323 
 
 course it was at the tea-shop, as you call it. I'm glad 
 you introduced him to me, for I find him such a re- 
 freshment after you Britishers. He knows how to 
 care for things gently not faintly but gently, and he 
 knows what things are worth caring for. This 
 learnedness about exquisite things is so rare and 
 charming. He showed me some books he had been 
 buying, and I liked to see him handle them. They 
 weren't very good, he explained, and showed me little 
 things about them that weren't quite right, but he 
 treated them with such respect. I felt that I was away 
 from the cruel war, and, as it were, in a peaceful 
 garden. And that made me think of the war. 
 
 " I was conscious that Mr. Imalian felt us to be 
 in a sort of defensive alliance. Being an Armenian, 
 he is technically a Turkish subject, and is liable to 
 ridiculous restrictions as though an Armenian would 
 side with a Turk! His smile, when he told me, was 
 a revelation in irony which I was invited to share. 
 Yes, I think if it were not for you he would be more 
 explicit about the alliance. You are somehow in- 
 volved with all these savages, though he does speak 
 so nicely about you. Why should a civilized man be- 
 come a soldier without compulsion? Yet I can imag- 
 ine him glowing over his country's wrongs. A hint 
 of them made it seem that to him they were the reality 
 and this slaughter in Europe a foolish phantasmagoria. 
 I can't quite see him away from a polite environment, 
 but in some reincarnation he should return to the 
 mysteries of the East. Am I conventional? Is it the 
 true mystery to have him here?
 
 TRUE LOVE 
 
 " He is extraordinarily kind and not in the least 
 in love with me unless it be as he loves his books and 
 engravings. (Oh, dear! Is this conceit?) He offers 
 to lend me precious books to mitigate, to decorate, 
 theatrical lodgings, or he would supply me with books 
 to read. He would get me German books from the 
 Foreign Library if I liked, though to take out Ger- 
 man books now is to put yourself under suspicion. 
 The lady who gives out the books at this library is 
 suffering, it seems, from her environment. The books 
 are mainly French and German. The French are a 
 gallant nation, certainly, but the morals in their books 
 are deplorable, and the blameless lady is anxious to 
 know which books are safe so that she may recom- 
 mend them to the members. But the German books 
 now are filled with unimaginable horrors, and so the 
 poor woman sits all day surrounded by solid wicked- 
 ness, shrinking and feeling as innocuous as she can. 
 Mr. Imalian is funny about it, and says he sometimes 
 accepts her recommendations, but the innocent French 
 book is terribly innocent. The war leaves a few quiet 
 places. Sometimes I feel that I'm in one when I talk 
 to the people in our company. There's Mr. Emerson 
 (Emerson!) who plays the County Paris, understudies 
 Romeo, and watches Mr. Finnemore for incipient dis- 
 ease. He doesn't seem to have heard of the war. I 
 suppose that, like a good many young men, he edges 
 away from it nervously. He's immersed in his old 
 interests and company gossip, and the war is just bad 
 times. He talks to me about ' new readings ' for the 
 part of Romeo, and the way Forbes-Robertson used to
 
 MORE LETTERS 325 
 
 enter the tomb. You remember^-don't you? that 
 little ragging play of yours about the Playhouse and 
 the repertory theaters in which the prompter had lost 
 his voice? It has come round to me that he thinks 
 the joke was not in the best of taste; of course, he 
 doesn't tell me so himself, because that would not 
 be in the best of taste. He likes to talk to me about 
 ' taste.' The other day there was an advertisement of 
 Macbeth as ' the great Shakespearean play,' and he 
 couldn't see that it was funny. 
 
 " Don't I write about trivialities? I clutch at them 
 like a drowning man at straws. No, that's nonsense. 
 There are big and terrible things about and I turn to 
 the little. I sometimes envy you because you have to 
 do just what you're told. 
 
 " It comes to me very strongly sometimes that I'm 
 writing encouragements or would if I could to an 
 English lover who is going out to fight my nation. 
 Am I a sort of traitor? But I want us to be so good, 
 so fine, so superfine. Superfine ! Is that the danger ? 
 Am I just being foolish with my Idea? Is it an idea 
 at all? There are times when it dies down to flatness 
 and I'm miserable and crave excitement and despise it. 
 But I mustn't end on this. My spirit is weak and I 
 won't pretend that it isn't. I can always cheer up 
 wonderfully. And I cheer up now at the notion of 
 sending you chocolates and tobacco. Do not fear. I 
 know the right kind of tobacco ; I know that just any 
 sort won't do, and I've got one of the paper covers 
 put away. Isn't that nice and thoughtful of 
 me?"
 
 326 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Mary wrote to him: 
 
 " I cannot hold out against Sibyl. I am ashamed of 
 my jealousies. And yet I cannot promise that they 
 will not recur. It is old-fashioned, I suppose, to think 
 of eradicating the evil from one's nature. Sometimes 
 I feel poisoned, or poisonous, which is worse. I am 
 all prides and exclusions and I go on pretending to be 
 better than I am. You must pretend and pretend till 
 that better becomes your true life. Just be yourself, 
 the modern people say but if you are full of evil ! 
 There is evil. It is nonsense to say there is no evil. 
 The way is to imitate Christ. Humbly to imitate. 
 That is not to lose your own soul but to find it. The 
 Christ need not be exactly the Christ in the Bible 
 or what you call the legendary Christ. You must 
 make your own Christ, and so imitate what is within 
 you. The Christ in the Bible is adorable, but there is 
 not enough, and I feel that I must put other things 
 in. To keep to what is written of Him may make 
 one cold and narrow. It is a confused story, and it 
 must become orderly in one's mind. As to what hap- 
 pened so long ago, I suppose I am as skeptical as 
 you are. 
 
 " I knew that you would marry some day and that 
 I should never marry. I don't know why, but I 
 thought you would marry some one like Milly Warde. 
 My thoughts were very indefinite, and I see now that 
 they were very stupid. Milly is my friend, and lately 
 I've been resenting the way you think of her. She 
 is good, she is simply good. If she were a village
 
 MORE LETTERS 327 
 
 maiden carrying a pail of milk yotr would rave about 
 her. Poor Milly! I think of all the Millys of the 
 world and men like you passing them by to 
 follow 
 
 " Well, when Sibyl came I thought she was very 
 clever and dangerous and seductive. It was childish, 
 but I am childish, and I'm still Puritan, though I pre- 
 tend to be emancipated. She puzzled me, but I knew 
 I wasn't fair. She seemed to have all sorts of tricks 
 and embroideries, and I was not generous enough to 
 see that a love of beauty may be expressed in all 
 manner of little ways. I was not generous enough to 
 see that the shams and stains of the theater could not 
 harm her. 
 
 " One person can never quite understand another, 
 and it has been strange to me that she, a German 
 woman, could agree calmly that you should go to 
 fight against her nation. And yet there, again, my 
 unfairness creeps in, for I want people not to be Ger- 
 mans and English, unless it be as they are dark or fair, 
 but just human creatures helping one another. She 
 glows at the idea of your going to this horrible slaugh- 
 ter, and it seems to me a twisted romance ; it is the 
 Old Testament, not the New. They say conscription 
 will come, and I think that then there will be many 
 to suffer for their conscience's sake. They will be to 
 me the true successors of Hampden and Pym. At 
 any rate when that time comes people who think like 
 me will have to keep alive in the world something that 
 your wars and your patriotism would sweep away. 
 You have no room for it; you, or those whom you
 
 328 TRUE LOVE 
 
 serve, dare not let it modify by ever so little their 
 blood and iron lest it should spread like a corruption. 
 I write in pride and I would be humble. I do not 
 know God's way. It may be that you are doing His 
 work in the rough and that it can only be done that 
 way. 
 
 " Sibyl is beautiful, and you deserve a beautiful 
 love. It was base of me to think you might be con- 
 tent with something inferior, a compromise. No, it 
 must be the great thing. 
 
 " I have given you nothing. I have been brooding 
 at home, I have been exacting, I have been foolishly 
 waiting. Yet at the back of everything we've been 
 staunch friends, haven't we? 
 
 " There are times when Sibyl seems to me so charm- 
 ing and so strong in her fineness that I could hardly 
 dare to love her. It is not at such times that I am 
 jealous. She gives me extraordinary pleasure. 
 
 " I write of such things while the war goes thunder- 
 ing on outside. And here I am learning to be a nurse, 
 and finding myself very clumsy. I try to be thor- 
 ough and obedient, but I can't take to it naturally 
 like Milly. You did know that she is here ? She likes 
 Sibyl so frankly and heartily! Must I confess that I 
 think of a schoolgirl handling delicate china? I be- 
 lieve I could be rather good at malice."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HONEYMOON 
 
 IT was not ordained that Geoffrey should have his 
 experience of the trenches as a private or even as a 
 corporal. He was marked for promotion and felt 
 that it would be affectation to refuse it. And so it 
 came about that at the beginning of May, 1915, he 
 was a second-lieutenant on leave, which was under- 
 stood to be probably " last leave," when Sibyl and 
 he set off on their honeymooning. Their wedding was 
 of the least announced, most casual kind, but they 
 rejected the aridness of the Registry Office, and made 
 one of half a dozen couples at the Manchester Cathe- 
 dral, overcoming the faint compunctions which the 
 Church ritual stirred. " For folk like us," said Geof- 
 frey, "a cathedral is grandiose, but for us it's a big 
 occasion, and I wish St. Paul's had been handy." 
 They liked their walk through the busy Manchester 
 streets, with their secret of the tremendous occasion 
 unguessed at by preoccupied citizens who glanced 
 kindly at them. Sibyl learnt with approval that the 
 Cathedral had been, in the affectionate remembrance 
 of bygone inhabitants, the Old Church; the venerable 
 and stable had a peculiar appeal on this morning of 
 fluttering happiness and gathering apprehensions. Be- 
 fore they entered they turned to look at the miserable 
 
 329
 
 330 TRUE LOVE 
 
 fagade of the railway station with its warning clock. 
 Luggage reposed there ready for the northern flight, 
 and prosaic circumstances became a dazzling aspect of 
 romance. 
 
 Mary, nursing in a southern hospital, had tele- 
 graphed messages ; Burke was on the high seas. Geof- 
 frey had made no effort to collect his friends, and 
 the day before had gone round to Attar, who agreed 
 with alacrity to be best man. Two or three Herald 
 men came in hastily while the ceremony was in process. 
 Imalian, looking queerly decorous in a pew, contem- 
 plated them gravely, and Sibyl was vaguely aware 
 of the Wibberleys and one or two other acquaint- 
 ances. Attar tried to describe the perfunctoriness of 
 the ceremony as a sketch in a tremendous frame. They 
 were all friendly, but not very high-spirited. The 
 little crowd drifted across the station with Sibyl and 
 Geoffrey, and there was sandwich-eating at the buffet. 
 Mr. Wibberley made a feeble proposal of champagne, 
 but Sibyl demurred, and he was never sure that it 
 would have been in the best taste. So some had coffee 
 and some bitter beer, and cheerfulness was spasmodic. 
 Attar said, in an aside, " The husk of ecstasy is no 
 great matter." The other man said, "Yes, but it's 
 all husk for us." They moved slowly towards the 
 train. There was a despairing examination of " seven- 
 pennys," and the hesitation between good things read 
 and the wilderness of mediocrity. A joke about spy 
 stories was considered by the Wibberleys in more 
 than doubtful taste, though Sibyl had responded to it 
 with a flash of gaiety. On the platform time went
 
 HONEYMOON 331 
 
 slowly till a real joke gladdened^the last minutes. 
 Attar, intercepted by a carriage-cleaner, came to tell 
 them that he had had an offer of second-hand confetti 
 recently swept up after a genial occasion. The ex- 
 perienced eye had seen what the party lacked. " There 
 will be no difficulty about the price," said Attar to 
 Sibyl. " It is well within our means. You have only 
 to say the word." 
 
 " I thought those things were a spontaneous joy 
 offering," said Sibyl. "Are we to say whether the 
 sun must shine on us or not ? " 
 
 " It amounts to that," said Attar. " You are not 
 in the grove. You want to do things your own way. 
 You choose. It's difficult to modify an old ritual." 
 
 " We have acted pretty simply," said Sibyl with 
 some disappointment. 
 
 " It has all been charming to-day," said Attar, and 
 he was ready to tell a bigger lie than that. But the 
 guard was whistling and everything became hurried 
 and cordial. When Sibyl, after her wavings of fare- 
 well, sank back in the carriage she said : " And they're 
 asking one another how he's going to get on with his 
 German girl." 
 
 " We'll answer that presently," said Geoffrey. The 
 present was good enough. The present was of enor- 
 mous dimensions or to look at it another way it 
 was a world of one entire and perfect chrysolite. 
 They made a leisurely progress, putting up at an 
 hotel on the skirts of the Lake country before pen- 
 etrating to the recesses of the mountains. They 
 thought they would stay there a few days, and though
 
 332 TRUE LOVE 
 
 they joked about them they took a childlike pleasure 
 in the hotel luxuries. Sibyl had not tasted often of 
 such things and was ready to enjoy them frankly. 
 " It's nicer than theatrical lodgings," she said mod- 
 erately, "and there's no sign of danger." They had 
 actually discussed the possible dangers of their situa- 
 tion, which were, in brief, in the possibilities of con- 
 tacts with fellow-guests. Geoffrey's khaki was a pro- 
 tection, of course, but was Sibyl ready to swear that 
 nothing would ruffle her ? " Ridiculous people stay 
 at these places," said Geoffrey, and he suggested pleas- 
 antly that a St. Bartholomew massacre of the idle 
 rich in the holiday resort hotels would, on the whole, 
 be a benefit to the community. " A few decent people 
 like ourselves would suffer, but think what a splendid 
 clearance of sour, faded women ! " Sibyl shuddered 
 at the cruel pleasantry and warned him that men, 
 too, grow old and useless. She questioned his asser- 
 tion that these women had never been alive. 
 
 Their particular apprehension was that they might 
 be drawn into Anglo-German discussion in which Sibyl 
 could not be expected to shine. They made a com- 
 pact to be very discreet and to take all humorously; 
 even to delight in the excesses of ferocious patriot- 
 ism. So they gave smiling assent which tended to 
 become the set grin when naive ladies vied with one 
 another in assertions of the ruthless, they shook their 
 heads over flickers of the window-blind that might 
 be communications to England's enemies, they agreed 
 that a shale tennis court might be a cover for a bed 
 of concrete. They were two fond young people,
 
 HONEYMOON 333 
 
 strangely insensible to these serious issues of the war 
 and nods and winks soon put them poor things 
 into their place as honeymooners. The only thing 
 against them was the Manchester Herald, which Geof- 
 frey received every morning, and, whether or not it 
 was as bad as some reports indicated, it was certainly 
 a " Radical rag " as the gentlemen say and very 
 different from the Morning Post. These ladies clung 
 to the Morning Post, and would not for worlds have 
 been seen with any other journal. The Times, of 
 course, was quite the right thing for the gentlemen, 
 and it was sometimes whispered that the Daily Tele- 
 graph was a very comfortable paper and might be 
 read at home; to be seen reading it here would be 
 like being discovered with a bottle of gin. Literary 
 the Manchester Herald might be, but what is litera- 
 ture at such a time? And this is no time to make 
 too much of commerce so long as one's dividends 
 are paid regularly and, besides, very good authority 
 says that the Herald's commercial policy is now most 
 unsound. However, perhaps the young soldier knew 
 no better. 
 
 Sibyl and Geoffrey continued to smile assents, and 
 Geoffrey found that his smile was sometimes inter- 
 cepted by a companionable fellow whom he had met 
 in the smoke-room. This Mr. Doveton had borrowed 
 the Herald, and some guarded comment on it had led 
 to conversation. He was not exactly a Herald man, 
 though he remarked that certain organs of the Yellow 
 Press appeared to be written by criminal lunatics for 
 imbeciles. He thought the Herald's distinction be-
 
 334 TRUE LOVE 
 
 tween a military caste and the German nation could 
 not be maintained, and Geoffrey interpreted this rather 
 ingeniously as a point in favor of the military caste. 
 To the suggestion that there must be a core of sound- 
 ness he demurred. His theory was that Germany had 
 many virtues, but no appreciable part with a balance 
 of virtues. " I admire the Germans extremely," he 
 said. " They've got ahead in the general application 
 of intelligence I wouldn't say intellectually and they 
 think they see their way to an efficient policing of 
 the world. Economical efficiency follows and the 
 humanities depend on this. I'm not speaking of mil- 
 itary pundits, but of the intelligent classes. They're 
 quite capable many of them of an ordered attempt 
 to regenerate humanity. Of course, they must begin 
 by being inhuman if that's the only way to get on 
 top. Any sacrifice for logic! The bigger the better. 
 What I blame them for is that they're not frank. A 
 few enfants terribles of the Bernhardi type, perhaps, 
 but they might make out a great case on pure effi- 
 ciencies. The world is fighting for the old Liberal 
 formula: Better govern yourselves ill than be gov- 
 erned well. Certainly there's no real fusion in Ger- 
 many of the military, the commercial, and economic, 
 and the humanitarian. They pretend it. The old 
 illusion of the chosen race. It's stupid to regard the 
 Kaiser as a hypocrite. He believes in God and him- 
 self. And of course we must beat them or forever 
 hold our peace." 
 
 As to atrocities, Mr. Doveton shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. " They've a severe theory of war," he said,
 
 HONEYMOON 335 
 
 " which is founded on intellectuarconviction. When 
 you give license to your soldiers on theory they'll play 
 the devil and all in practice. Must we infer the bru- 
 tality of the race? Well, hardly, or but partly. In 
 war the one side always exaggerates the atrocities of 
 the other. Do we inquire into the morals of possible 
 allies? We would accept help from any of these 
 Balkan scoundrels. Don't let us be too self-righteous 
 or we shall never find any one good enough to make 
 peace with." 
 
 Geoffrey quoted a half-remembered story of some 
 negotiator who failed to come to terms with the great 
 Napoleon, because he insisted on the formal address : 
 " usurper and enemy of the human race." 
 
 Doveton laughed approvingly, and appreciating an 
 auditor who did not demand mere beatings of the 
 patriotic drum, he continued : " The invasion of Bel- 
 gium was bad, of course, but no treaty is ever main- 
 tained after the time to break it has come. This is 
 a platitude, but once grant that Germany must go 
 through Belgium or lose the war and ' scrap of paper ' 
 is a reasonable description of the barrier. Germany's 
 real offense was not in violating Belgium's neutrality, 
 but in behaving like an arrogant brute in Belgium. 
 One condemns all that, of course. We talk about 
 Germany's confidence, and she is eternally boasting, 
 but there's no such thing as confidence when you go 
 to war. She is impelled to cruelty by fear. She is 
 in terror of her life." 
 
 They were in the hotel lounge, and the time was 
 late afternoon. A boy brought in evening papers
 
 336 TRUE LOVE 
 
 and Doveton unfolded one. His exclamation annoyed 
 Geoffrey inexplicably ; it revealed a disconcerting con- 
 dition of nerves. " They've sunk the Lusitania" said 
 Doveton. He began to curse like any other man, his 
 intellectual detachment abandoned. Indeed, it seemed 
 that his half-cynical tolerations vexed him now. " I 
 withdraw all I said in mitigation," he cried. " They're 
 brutes, to be treated as brutes." The news was 
 meager but definite. Geoffrey read it with a sinking 
 heart. His commiseration was for Sibyl; he was to 
 reflect presently that he had taken the calamity cal- 
 lously. As the two men stood together frowning and 
 stiff, Sybil appeared. 
 
 She had a bowing acquaintance with Mr. Doveton, 
 who handed her the paper, and with a gesture that 
 seemed to renounce an unbearable world, with- 
 drew. She read, and looked blankly at Geoffrey 
 over the top of the paper, read again and laid it 
 down. 
 
 " Perhaps it is not true," she said. 
 
 " Let us hope so." 
 
 " Geoffrey, do you feel any resentment towards 
 me?" 
 
 "You?" he cried. 
 
 "That's what I think of first. It isn't all these 
 poor people children, babies. That's far away. I 
 only feel it bluntly yet. It's you and me. Have we 
 made an awful mistake? Are you thinking she's a 
 German? Because I am. It's my people who have 
 done this. Tell me what you feel. No, don't come 
 near me just yet."
 
 HONEYMOON 337 
 
 " What I feel," he said, " is tfiat this hurts you. 
 I can hardly feel anything else." 
 
 "Oh, Geoffrey!" she said. "Is that true? Is it 
 wrong of me, even now, to feel a little happiness? 
 Just for a moment. No, don't kiss me don't it is 
 wicked to be happy now. We are both thinking of 
 ourselves when all this horror and misery has come." 
 
 "We feel together about it," he said. "There is 
 no difference of feeling or opinion between us." 
 
 "Do yoa say that to test me?" she said. 
 
 " No." And then he added : " To reassure myself." 
 
 " Then there is a difference," she cried. " There 
 is." 
 
 " I hope not, my dear." 
 
 " Geoffrey, I feel that this is a cruel and abominable 
 deed that nothing can justify it." 
 
 " I knew you would." 
 
 " And yet it has been done. Do you want me to 
 turn now, to renounce everything? To become Eng- 
 lish and hate the Germans ? " 
 
 " You are English," he said. 
 
 " That's nonsense. Forgive me. We must be very 
 careful with one another now. Geoffrey, all sorts of 
 resentments are boiling in me. I'm afraid of your 
 saying something that I might think not quite gener- 
 ous. You want me to say : They are all wicked. I've 
 done with them. I cannot do that. I should just 
 become a hypocrite. I'm casting round in my mind 
 for excuses, for defenses. Yes, I mean excuses for 
 slaughtering all these innocent people. Be generous 
 to me, Geoffrey. I am in extreme need of it."
 
 338 TRUE LOVE 
 
 She sank into a cushioned seat. He sat beclde her 
 and she repulsed him gently. She was pale and quiet. 
 She whispered : " Say some hard, clear things if you 
 like." 
 
 She did not resist when he took her hand and he 
 held it while he made his recital. " Granting," he 
 said, "that the news is true and that Germany does 
 not repudiate the act, what sort of defense could be 
 set up? I dare say both sides quibble about inter- 
 national law. I can only look at the thing broadly. 
 I think the Germans begin with the assumption that 
 they must win. Our jingoes threaten them with na- 
 tional extinction if they don't. So anything becomes 
 legitimate. Their war book maintains that true hu- 
 manity may lie in ruthlessness, and it is a dictum of 
 one of their chief military writers, that military action 
 can only be barbarous when it is taken without a pur- 
 pose. And, of course, Germany maintains that our 
 blockade is a ruthless exercise of power without in- 
 ternational sanction, so that we are attempting to 
 starve the population. What is the difference, they'll 
 say, between drowning people suddenly and starving 
 them slowly? And when you begin to kill, what does 
 it matter whom you kill? A soldier's life is not less 
 precious than that of a woman or a child. As to 
 the means, what paltry distinctions there are between 
 poisoning with gas and blowing into fragments ! You 
 are permitted by civilization to do one and not the 
 other. There's a novel by Disraeli in which his hero 
 as a boy at school got the other boy down. The by- 
 standers were horrified when he continued to pummel
 
 HONEYMOON 339 
 
 him. * What did I care for their silly rules of mock 
 combat ? ' said the young Jew I think he was a Jew. 
 He had him and wasn't going to let him go. Chivalry 
 is not for modern States." 
 
 It was a cold exposition and his grasp on her hand 
 had slackened. She pulled her hand away, exclaim- 
 ing : " You hate saying all this." 
 
 " My heart is not in it, certainly," he said ; " it 
 doesn't convince me." 
 
 " But but," she said, " mayn't the German people 
 some of them, many of them hate it and know they 
 can't help it? If you if the English did equally 
 terrible things would everybody here revolt ? " 
 
 " I suppose they'd say the others did it first." 
 
 " This has come between us," she said. 
 
 " Don't say that, my dear." 
 
 " I know you have been very just and very gen- 
 erous too in all you've said. But I only know it 
 coldly. You don't blame me, but you feel differ- 
 ently." 
 
 " I want you to think of this as a horrible crime," 
 he said. 
 
 " I feel it so." 
 
 " And an awful stupidity." 
 
 " I dare say." 
 
 He shook her hand again. "We've had a great 
 shock together and we've endured it," he said. 
 
 " Thank you, Geoffrey." 
 
 She said she would lie down a little before dinner 
 and they parted tenderly. 
 
 The next day he smoked an after-breakfast ciga-
 
 340 TRUE LOVE 
 
 rette with Doveton, who had regained his philosophic 
 bearing. They were digesting the morning confirma- 
 tions of the disaster and their comments ran pretty 
 well in unison. Sibyl entered suddenly and Geoffrey 
 saw that she was agitated. She stopped, looking at 
 Doveton, who rose, but she included both when she 
 said : " They're turning those poor old people 
 out." 
 
 " You mean " but Geoffrey knew whom she 
 
 meant. 
 
 Addressing Doveton, Sibyl said : " They're German, 
 it seems. The old couple that sit at the little table 
 by the window. I didn't know or I would have spoken 
 to them. I did speak to them just now. The guests 
 here have protested against their remaining. I heard 
 the manager tell them, and the old man was so 
 gentle and polite. His wife took his arm, and they 
 stood there before that manager, who thought he was 
 being tactful. I spoke to them in German, and it 
 was quite startling and pathetic. Geoffrey, I cannot 
 bear it. I cannot keep to the agreement." 
 
 " My wife is German," said Geoffrey. 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Geoffrey ! That's beautiful of 
 you." 
 
 Doveton was mystified, but vaguely sympathetic. 
 He murmured something about not having the least 
 idea, hesitating over his line. " They looked harmless 
 enough," he said, trying to turn the awkward cor- 
 ner. 
 
 " What is so amazing to me," said Sibyl, frankly 
 including Doveton, " is that these people who have
 
 HONEYMOON 341 
 
 been so cruel to an innocent old -man and woman 
 are now making their plans for a pleasant day." 
 
 " The sense of duty done," said Doveton, coming 
 down on Sibyl's side of the fence. 
 
 " I've wondered sometimes," Sibyl continued, 
 " whether there's anything more merciless than the 
 English of the comfortable class. Forgive me, Geof- 
 frey. Perhaps they are just, but they do not enter 
 into the feelings of others. You see it with their 
 servants and even with their children. They may say 
 kind things but they are implacable." 
 
 " A strong sense of order," said Doveton. He was 
 finding the position interesting. 
 
 " Think of those old Germans packing now up- 
 stairs. Think of the old lady folding her dresses 
 hastily." 
 
 " We mustn't be too sentimental," said Doveton. 
 " We've other things to thinks about." 
 
 " You mean the Lusitania? " said Sibyl. " If they 
 were passionate I might forgive them. They are only 
 spiteful. And to me this is a far greater calamity 
 than to you. If this were a duty that hurt, I could 
 respect them. But we mustn't bore Mr. Doveton. 
 What now, Geoffrey ? " 
 
 " Well, I suppose we'd better be going," he said. 
 
 "Oh, but is that necessary?" said Doveton. "If 
 nobody knows I mean there couldn't be any objection 
 I'm sure Madam would not speak so freely to others 
 as very much honored and sympathize in difficult 
 position." 
 
 " I don't insist on a melodramatic exit," Sibyl said
 
 342 TRUE LOVE 
 
 to Geoffrey, " but you will say why we're going, won't 
 you?" 
 
 " Dash it all ! " said Geoffrey, grinning ruefully, 
 " and here's this fellow coming." 
 
 The suave manager, recipient of congratulations 
 and ready for more, paused as Geoffrey indicated that 
 he wished to speak to him. Full of his subject, he 
 said : " They will be gone in half an hour. Quite 
 quietly." 
 
 " No bloodshed ? " said Sibyl, and the idea of those 
 gentle old people putting up a fight had its humor. 
 The manager looked at her' doubtfully. This was 
 the lady who had spoken to them impulsively, and 
 it appeared in their own language. 
 
 " We are obliged to be very particular," he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes," said Geoffrey, " and we must do our best 
 to help you. My wife is German and decides that 
 as her compatriots are turned out she cannot stay 
 here. Please prepare our bill and let us have a car- 
 riage in " he consulted his watch and Sibyl's eye 
 " an hour. Say, half-past eleven." 
 
 The manager hesitated, rubbing his chin, and los- 
 ing something of his grace of demeanor. " Do people 
 know ? " he said bluntly. 
 
 " Know what ? " said Geoffrey. 
 
 " About the lady." 
 
 "You may inform them as soon as you please," 
 said Geoffrey. 
 
 But that, of course, was not at all what he meant. 
 Taking in Doveton as a friend of the party he sug-
 
 HONEYMOON 343 
 
 v 
 
 gested that there was no need toilet it out. He 
 murmured something about British officer shouldn't 
 dream of interfering his directors difficult posi- 
 tion. 
 
 "At half-past eleven, then," said Geoffrey. 
 
 Doveton said : " You might let me have my bill 
 immediately after lunch. There's a coach about half- 
 past two, I think ? " 
 
 The manager looked from one to another and with- 
 drew muttering. Sibyl bowed to Doveton and went 
 to her room. Geoffrey said : " Look here ! Your 
 going has nothing to do with us ? " 
 
 Doveton considered. " It was an impulse," he said. 
 " Mind you, I don't find the action of these people 
 so unnatural. This Lusitania affair calls for protest. 
 Unphilosophic if you like. You know what people 
 are." 
 
 " Then why do you go ? " 
 
 He considered again. " Frankly," he said, " I think 
 it was an instinctive tribute to your wife. I'm ready 
 to hang the whole German nation this morning. She's 
 another matter." 
 
 " I can hardly thank you," said Geoffrey, " for I 
 think she would resent your attitude." 
 
 " It isn't an attitude," said Doveton. " That's ex- 
 actly what it isn't." 
 
 " Well, well ! " said Geoffrey. " I hope we may 
 meet in happier times. But go and make peace with 
 your friend the manager." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Doveton. " Tell your wife that I'm 
 going because I can't stand the slippery devil."
 
 344. TRUE LOVE 
 
 A little later Sibyl whispered to Geoffrey : " No 
 tips." 
 
 "Why?" he said. 
 
 " They refused them from the Germans. I think 
 the manager told them." 
 
 And so several deserving menials stared blankly 
 after the officer and his wife who had so strangely 
 neglected the usages of civilized society. 
 
 They drove away with their modest luggage, de- 
 termined to avoid hotels, and a puzzled driver changed 
 directions according to their fancy. It became neces- 
 sary to bait and lunch, and presently they set off again. 
 He pulled up at last and asked them where they were 
 going. There was veiled menace in his voice, for 
 the poor man was conscious of lengthening distances, 
 a mounting bill, and some lack of sanity in his fares. 
 " What place is this ? " cried Sibyl, and it appeared 
 that it was Skelwith Bridge. " Drive over the bridge," 
 she said, and they crossed the rushing, foaming stream. 
 They stopped again, and the man said it was a big 
 hill into Little Langdale. But Sibyl descended, walked 
 a few yards forward to a cottage, and in an incredibly 
 short time emerged crying, " Here ! " 
 
 And here it was. They found quiet, friendly folk 
 to whom the war was but a distant alarm; they lived 
 simply, climbing the fells, bathing in the river, watch- 
 ing the clouds. The country sights and sounds and 
 smells were welcome and sufficient. They had peace 
 and an intimate affection. Nothing disturbed them 
 but the flight of time. They were conscious of the 
 inexorable, but they were happy.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 
 
 FROM France Geoffrey wrote to Sibyl: 
 
 " I'm one of those who liked to keep their desks 
 tidy, and have some sort of program for the day and 
 the week. And so one of the things that oppresses 
 my spirit is the monstrous confusion of this life. We 
 are more settled than we were, but we are not settled 
 at all. The definite commands, the clicking of all 
 sorts of machinery, give an illusion of order, but 
 there are times when it seems that there is no order; 
 that all is lapses and omissions, waste and repetition. 
 I can see that it must be so, that war and parade are 
 two different things. And this illusion or pretense 
 of orderliness somewhere is necessary for our sanity. 
 I must not give you details, but everything done here 
 is like gathering a handful and letting most of it 
 slip through your fingers. I am trying my best 
 to be a good officer, and I don't think I am worse 
 than most, but I'm fearfully conscious of being un- 
 tried, of giving orders with a lack of conviction, or 
 insisting on useless performances. I want to have 
 human relations with the men under me, but I'm 
 so afraid of letting down discipline that I hardly 
 dare experiment in the affabilities to say nothing 
 of the humanities. I've tried the paternal sometimes 
 
 345
 
 346 TRUE LOVE 
 
 borrowing the idea from the Russians in Tolstoy's 
 war stories but it doesn't quite come off. Perhaps 
 this is because I do it nervously. It's like trying to 
 be literary, trying to be the artist. 
 
 " There are fashions in this war and it's a good 
 one for the officer to admire his men. I follow it, 
 of course, but being a bit superfine and superior, I 
 do it with a difference. All my life I've been trying 
 to join in the chorus and then breaking out into some 
 discordance of my own. And here, at the heart of 
 reality, one is haunted by cliches; we are all saying 
 the same resounding things, but we get them out of 
 the newspapers. Have you noticed that when a man 
 comes back from the war he quotes the newspaper 
 to you? He has a precious experience of his own, 
 but he makes it like the newspapers. Ah! the news- 
 papers! They run the war, and the history of it 
 will never be disentangled from their plausibilities. 
 Few, indeed, of these correspondents are strong 
 enough to see events with their own eyes. I'm not 
 in the middle of it yet, but I've seen enough to shake 
 my faith in history. Less and less do I believe in 
 it. A strong man makes history? A strong writer 
 might. Even our attitude towards the Germans is 
 derived from the newspapers. 
 
 " Naturally, my dear, you will take all this with a 
 grain of salt. So much depends on one's mood, and 
 I can veer from the sentimental to the savagely cyn- 
 ical. My men some of them are dirty brutes and 
 they are potential heroes. Any one of them may 
 turn out a better man than I. This is a great school
 
 "FROM THE TRENCHES" 347 
 
 of humility or, at any rate, of proportion. I think 
 the man I shall dislike the most is the hard, fearless 
 hero. Confound him! I shall want to line up to 
 him with quite the wrong sort of temperament. 
 Shan't I be down on the men who expose themselves 
 unnecessarily ? 
 
 " But at present we're none of us heroes. We hear 
 guns going off in the distance and wonder whether 
 we shall wobble when our turn comes. There's a 
 difference between the men who have taken the plunge 
 and those on the brink, though we pretend to ignore 
 it. I amuse myself sometimes by trying to distinguish 
 between those who have and those who haven't, and 
 though I'm often wrong, the difference is there. Do 
 I dwell on the point morbidly? Do you fear that I 
 may be one of the unhappy ones who cannot face 
 it? Don't fear. I shall try so uncommonly hard." 
 
 Again he wrote: 
 
 " Sibyl, I'm in a curious state of exaltation and hor- 
 ror; I hardly know which predominates. I've got the 
 plunge over, and it's an enormous relief, but the blood 
 and violence sicken me. I turn to you, I must write 
 to you. I am all raw and (metaphorically) bleeding. 
 I've crossed an abyss and it separates me from you, 
 but in spirit (in spirit, Sibyl) I must come to you. 
 I want to be comforted and healed, and I dare say I'm 
 selfish, but yet I know that in appealing to you, 
 I make everything between us stronger and finer. 
 I'm not whining, I've not lost control (thank
 
 348 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Heaven!), but I feel that if I'm not frank now I 
 never shall be. And yet I don't know that I've much 
 to say. I seem to want to convey to you pure emotion 
 rather than experiences. I'm frightfully alone (every 
 man is), and I fight against that terrible idea that we 
 must be alone. You are infinitely helpful and com- 
 forting. 
 
 " You realize now, don't you, that there's the ordi- 
 nary chance of my being killed or wounded any day? 
 I want to say it, though it's not necessary, because 
 we want frankness. I shall let you know my move- 
 ments as well as I can so that you may sometimes 
 be relatively at ease. I think this way is best for us. 
 I talked the other night to a boy here who told me 
 he had promised his mother to let her know all he 
 could of the dangers of his movements. He said they 
 had ' decided it was best.' Perhaps the mother would 
 concentrate in prayer. I feel some softening of my 
 heart (not of my brain) towards prayer. Ah! But 
 think of the mother who does not pray and yet would 
 know when her boys go to battle ! What noble things 
 this war has brought to us! I hasten, as a good 
 citizen of the world, to say that it's damnable on 
 balance. 
 
 " We were rushed up unexpectedly to the trenches. 
 There was no gradual initiation in safe places for us. 
 We had heard a vast cannonade, and as we marched 
 up in the twilight we met a lot of stragglers, stretcher- 
 bearers with wounded, walking cases, and some that 
 were not wounded. It seemed an appalling muddle, 
 but there was some reassurance in our marching stiffly
 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 349 
 
 together. I think I was rather nervously emphatic 
 about trifles such as dressing the line, feeling that 
 everything depended on precision, and that these poor 
 devils who were running away must be taught a lesson 
 by the novices. Crowding up the communication 
 trenches shattered this notion of one irresistible force 
 it was never very strong, perhaps and the sensa- 
 tions of confusion, aimlessness, and danger were al- 
 most overwhelming. But there was growing in me a 
 hope that might swell into confidence; I was shaky, 
 but I was not going to lose control; I had moments 
 of pure funk, but I overcame them. I began to realize 
 that it could be done. There in that slushy, dark 
 communication trench, when we paused to let the con- 
 gestion in front of us remove itself, I had a moment 
 of self-communion that is a high-water mark in my 
 poor life. I was to pass through many phases of 
 discouragement during the next few hours, but there 
 for the moment I did rise above my circumstances. 
 I was calm and I was romantic. I was no end of a 
 fine fellow and, figuratively, shook hands with myself. 
 And quite gaily yes, gaily, Sibyl I kissed my hand 
 to you. 
 
 " Splendid, wasn't it ? I came back to the real thing 
 when we moved on again, but I was the better, I think, 
 for that bit of masquerading. I got good control of 
 my voice, which I'd been rather afraid to use, and 
 was pleased to be able to pitch it low with authority ; 
 I think it heartened the men. But stumbling along 
 that plashy trench was poor fun. 
 
 " We held the front trench till morning and when
 
 350 TRUE LOVE 
 
 I say that I'm speaking conventionally, for there wasn't 
 really the sensation of holding anything. We cowered 
 in a deep, dirty ditch, and wondered what was going 
 to happen next. Death, we imagined, was just round 
 the corner, and the bolder spirits among the men did 
 some rather strained joking on the subject. It was 
 chilly, but not really cold, and as nothing happened 
 we gained a little confidence. I couldn't recapture 
 my moment of bravado, and I tried the line of emo- 
 tional comradeship ; I tried to think of these fellows 
 as brothers in a great quest. It wasn't very successful, 
 but you must occupy your mind somehow, and I'm 
 learning that the mind is a recalcitrant member that 
 has to obey the will. I suppose it was stupid of me 
 to try to sentimentalize at such a moment, but I think 
 I wanted something human and decent to die on if 
 death was coming. At first I suppose one thinks 
 too much of the danger of death, and then, perhaps, 
 too little. I'll be canny on your account if not on 
 my own. Well, I found that fancies and niceties 
 wouldn't do, and that the higher emotions are for 
 quiet times. The only thing is to hold on to say 
 ' I will ' or ' I will not,' as the case may be. That's 
 all you can do. 
 
 " In the gray of the dawn both sides began with 
 their guns again, and it was all I could do to bear 
 it. The noise ! I, who used to spin round and curse 
 when a whistle went off in a railway station! The 
 noise is the worst thing in war. Or is it the smells? 
 Or the cold ? I'm not going to spare you and pretend 
 that I like it. That morning I had an ugly glimpse
 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 351 
 
 of nervous collapse. I knew I mustn't, I thought I 
 knew I wouldn't, but how could I know? This hold- 
 ing on is the greatest thing in life. So it seemed and 
 so it seems. It was the only thing that mattered. 
 What amazing creatures we are! I was just man- 
 aging not to make a fool of myself and it was the 
 extreme of heroism morally I felt that I was a great 
 hero. But the others were doing the same. Could 
 they possibly have felt the noise and terror as I did? 
 I was doing it all, so to speak, on my noblesse oblige, 
 but I wasn't any better than the others. There were 
 a few exceptions. Cowardice is like sea-sickness and 
 you mustn't encourage it. There was one poor boy 
 who was sobbing and I kicked him. I wasn't exactly 
 angry with him, and I think it was a sort of attempt 
 at reasonable action. I kicked him pretty hard, but 
 I spoke jocularly. He said, 'All right, sir,' in a 
 frightened way and he pulled himself together fairly 
 well. The wonderful thing is that it was fairly well. 
 You may get to the bottom, or you may recover and 
 reach the top, but to go on striving and holding your 
 own on the inclined plane is the real heroism. I could 
 have cried over this lad. I watched him and gave 
 him some encouragement. I wanted to apologize for 
 kicking him, but I thought I mustn't. He was rather 
 dog-like and bore no malice. I'm afraid he was killed ; 
 we lost him. 
 
 " This failure of nerve is an awful, permeating 
 disease which takes many forms. Lots of fine sol- 
 diers are at home with it, and there is an amiable 
 conspiracy to call it by some harmless name. Here
 
 352 TRUE LOVE 
 
 a brutal frankness prevails, and nothing is more diffi- 
 cult than to shirk with credit. Men do stupid, rash 
 things because they're afraid of cynical comment 
 or afraid of themselves. There's a great deal of 
 charity to a genuine breakdown ; it's what might hap- 
 pen to any of us. There was an awful scene the 
 other day with a young subaltern, and yet I had it 
 from those who know him that he had behaved mag- 
 nificently a few days before. 
 
 " Why do I harp on this sort of thing to you ? My 
 sympathies run strongly to the moral, mental struggle. 
 I think I'm through the worst of this phase of it my- 
 self, and I can take a sort of beneficent, understand- 
 ing attitude to others. But who knows what's to 
 come? 
 
 " I evade the point. The Germans attacked at dawn 
 and got into our trenches. I'm not going to describe 
 this minutely. For one thing, I can't ; for another, I 
 don't want to. I can't because it was all such an 
 extraordinary confusion, and because I can't remem- 
 ber the order of things. The incredible (and expected) 
 happened, and we had the fellows tumbling down on to 
 us. Poor devils! Sweaty brutes! It's strange that 
 physical contact with a man you're trying to kill. 
 Glimpses, touches, are vivid beyond belief. It was 
 ugly, horrible. It transcended all of ugly or horrible 
 I could have conceived. And yet I was not a mere 
 ravening beast. Don't think that. Perhaps I didn't 
 get to the true fighting madness, but I had a bit 
 of sanity left. I had even the ghost of compunction 
 mixed up with evil passions. At the worst I could
 
 FROM THE TRENCHES " 353 
 
 have responded to an appeal of reason. I think so. 
 I was horribly frightened, and yet, I suppose, I was 
 brave rather than otherwise. I laid about me. Ah! 
 No details. One has to face things and to tuck them 
 away. Horror and exaltation! I think of you now. 
 I try in a futile way to exalt the experience. I've 
 a craving for the spiritual, for something mystical 
 or quietist or even strenuous. I want to purify my- 
 self for you. Without you I'm lost. Somebody to 
 believe in me, to pity me love me. But I must keep 
 myself in hand. In this life you must always be ready 
 to turn on stoicism. Don't think I'm just raving with 
 emotion. I'm aiming at the truth. 
 
 " The poor devils who got to us were killed or 
 wounded perhaps one or two were captured, but it's 
 hard for a man in your trench to persuade you he's 
 harmless and presently we had to counter-attack. 
 To go over the top for the first time is the strangest 
 sensation. You have just a lurking hope that nobody 
 will see you and that nothing will happen, and then 
 you see men falling and you experience the most 
 awful loneliness. I've heard a man put it that ' you 
 feel there's nobody between you and God'; it's a 
 kind of nakedness. In the trenches, even when the 
 shells are thickest, you cling to the idea of safety, 
 but outside you're the sport of malignant fireworks. 
 You advance but you don't know where you're going 
 or why or what comes next. As an officer you 
 must act confidently, but you are not sure of anything. 
 There is nothing stable or fixed in the world, and 
 even the men whom you know intimately have be-
 
 354. TRUE LOVE 
 
 come strangers to you ; their expressions are so differ- 
 ent that they are hardly recognizable. Those that 
 can do it speak to one another with a kind of hectic 
 jocosity; when things are at the worst, or nearly at 
 the worst, you retain your consciousness as a social 
 being who has presently to put a face on things. And 
 you can still wonder whether a nice little bone-splin- 
 tering wound may presently stretch you on an ambu- 
 lance bound for home, or whether it will be a thud 
 on the head and blackness evermore. You mustn't 
 think too much of that nice little wound; it's de- 
 moralizing and unsportmanlike. As to whether it's 
 good to try to face the idea of death or to put it away 
 from you, I'm in two minds. Perhaps this doesn't 
 matter, for these things decide themselves. A man 
 here one of my fellow-officers put a strange ques- 
 tion to me lately. He asked whether I felt that the 
 effects of high explosive shattered the idea of an 
 after life. The point wasn't arguable, of course, and 
 it was queer to find him suggesting the innate, the 
 deeply instinctive as ground for disbelief. He had 
 got the notion from a book he had been reading and 
 he couldn't get away from it. We talked about im- 
 mortality and really, you know, it's an interesting 
 question for men in our position. Immortality! Is 
 belief in it ' the last infirmity of noble mind ' ? The 
 spirit here seems too fragile to count much. I am 
 brutal with you in the French sense. What I feel 
 queerly is that I don't want the idea of immor- 
 tality to go out of the world altogether. Let us keep 
 a few childish, credulous people to maintain the idea.
 
 "FROM THE TRENCHES" 355 
 
 How frank one can become! Ultra-frank? Fanci- 
 fully frank? 
 
 "This counter-attack. What happened? I'm not 
 very clear. We got somewhere for anything I know 
 it may have been the German trenches but it wasn't 
 tenable and we came back. We didn't run away, but 
 we came back. I see that I must strive to keep a 
 clearer notion of what's going on if I'm to be a good 
 officer. It was all distractions and holding oneself 
 together, and I don't know what happened. It's par- 
 donable, and I think I didn't do badly for a first time. 
 I've lost the sense of fighting a machine, and I can 
 conceive Germans as gasping inefficients, poor devils 
 who would rather be at home. I shall have my 
 terrors and alarms, but I feel so much better now 
 that I know what? That I'm not the exceptional 
 coward. Do you want me to be the exceptional 
 hero? I like the idea of just doing a good, honest 
 share. 
 
 " Yes, that desire for comfort in an ambulance is 
 despicable, but we all have times when the one wish 
 is that this cup should pass. We all sentimentalize 
 a bit, and feel like writing rhetorical letters home. 
 We all think of days in the country, and of our stu- 
 pidity in having omitted to be happy when we could. 
 Ah ! But I've something to remember, I've not missed 
 the best of life. One has glimpses, reminders, even 
 here that bring back Skelwith Bridge with its quiet 
 fields and the cows, and even the hens. You re- 
 member the evening when we stood on Little Lough- 
 rigg and watched the clouds drift away from Bow
 
 356 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Fell. The beautiful lines and the peak came out, and 
 you spoke of the accident of beauty, and how rough, 
 chance groupings of rock became exquisite form when 
 you look at them from far away. And as to this 
 accident, this irrelevance of beauty, I said it was the 
 same with a woman's face, and that you really hadn't 
 any moral right to be as beautiful as you are. (I 
 withdraw. I never believed that. You were lucky 
 in the original structure, I dare say, but you've lived 
 your life into your face. I see that more and more.) 
 And you in your modesty turned to the mountains 
 again and said that there were no ugly ones, and 
 that blunt old Wetherlam that aged mountain was 
 almost as beautiful as Bow Fell. But Bow Fell be- 
 came our symbol of the eternal, the impregnable, the 
 beautiful. When the Romans were at Hard Knott 
 they watched the mists clear from its top just as we 
 did, and as those who come thousands of years after 
 us will. Permit me a little of the wider platitude. 
 There are times when one wants to feel small. 
 
 " I'm an incurable skeptic, a doubter, and sometimes 
 I wonder whether I'm missing the mark awfully with 
 you. When you are there I can see faintest indica- 
 tions and we play upon one another subtly (don't 
 we?), but now my thoughts go on unchecked. Should 
 I have been more reticent? Do I ask too much of 
 you? And do I analyze and expose myself too much? 
 Is it undignified and wearisome? Fancy an awful 
 refinement of The Egoist in which Sir Willoughby 
 is a modest gentleman to the world and concentrates 
 on the unfortunate one. A refinement ! What cheek !
 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 357 
 
 Poor Clara! Poor Sibyl! Is it possible to explain 
 until there's no mystery ? Why ! I love you for your 
 mystery. You can only love a mystery. You can't 
 love anything you thoroughly understand. 
 
 " Could you send me a pocket-handkerchief now and 
 then? The wash is not very regular. I'm getting to 
 see that, up to a point, dirt doesn't matter. We've 
 been pedantic about dirt and permitted idle exquisites 
 to set the fashion instead of the men who go to dark- 
 est Africa and the North Pole. But will this war 
 abolish the picnic? 
 
 " Oh ! And thank you for sending me my old 
 Golden Treasury. Yes, I find I can read it even here. 
 Read it! I cling to it. It's a symbol of what I'm 
 ready to die for. I learn the Shakespeare sonnets in 
 it by heart and repeat them to myself in queer con- 
 ditions. I feel sometimes that I can't do justice to 
 the new poets now the ' Georgians ' and people. 
 I've got my fill from the old ones. I'm struck by 
 something and then I can't remember it, or whether 
 it's by Gordon Bottomley or Wilfred Wilson Gibson. 
 It's not fair. But I read the old familiar things again 
 and again. Do you know Hood's 
 
 " * I remember, I remember, 
 
 The house where I was born ' ? 
 
 I con it over now with deep emotion. Such simple, 
 exquisite old things are more to me than ever. And 
 I've been reading ' The Affliction of Margaret,' and it's 
 still greatly tragic. It isn't less tragic because mil-
 
 358 TRUE LOVE 
 
 lions are being killed, or even because while I read 
 I can hear bullets hitting the sandbags. They talk 
 about a new literature after the war. It's nonsense. 
 These things are as steadfast as the stars, and they are 
 the heart of the England I am fighting for." 
 
 Sibyl replied to him : 
 
 " I can bear anything you tell me. I read your letter 
 and thought I couldn't. I thought I would write and 
 ask you to stop, to deceive me, to pretend it's not so 
 bad. I say I thought it, but I didn't exactly think it. 
 I must have known all the time that I couldn't write 
 that. And all the time I did feel that I must know 
 everything, that if you once began to deceive me I 
 should know no rest. Yes, I know that you may be 
 killed any day. I think the news would hardly startle 
 me. It would take its place in my thoughts. I am 
 not trembling when the postman comes, and looking 
 for telegraph boys. I seem to be listening for some- 
 thing farther away than that. I have happy times. 
 At least they're very like happiness. I feel is this 
 strange or affected? that you and I have accom- 
 plished something prodigious. It's like having won 
 something that can't be taken away. 
 
 " I mustn't go on like this. I'm minded to go to 
 the other extreme and be an ordinary, spiteful Ger- 
 man girl. (Does anybody look at your letters, and 
 will they put me in prison?) 
 
 " Well, I get a little tired of your patriot here. He 
 always wants to go one better, as the saying is. If
 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 359 
 
 you would shoot a German, he would hang; if you 
 would impeach Haldane, he would follow with 
 Asquith and Grey. I think I might manage to get 
 nicely bored by him; it's so stupid, if you are at war 
 with cannibals, to be always denouncing cannibalism. 
 Ah ! these Germans ! Geoffrey, I think of arguments. 
 Is it against our compact? Is it being false to the 
 Idea? Forgive me. I must be just to my poor coun- 
 try too. For I feel all this power that is being brought 
 against it. I don't think all the time of you. Think 
 of the Germans with a great army on each side and 
 Great Britain on the sea! There are some dreadful 
 arguments about what your side does, but you can't 
 get at the truth by arguing ; you can only settle your- 
 self in a position. The German case is that they must 
 win. Would you, at the last resort, break the rules 
 rather than lose? Then why not begin by breaking 
 them? Am I depraved? I try to think. Geoffrey, 
 we are in desperate straits. You boast that you will 
 utterly destroy us. Starve us. To crush a great 
 country is not right. And so we take any means. 
 Do you say it's all us? But I can't feel that, and 
 millions and millions of Germans can't. I try to think 
 beyond my feelings. I want peace and quietness. I 
 am not evil. I can be gentle and loving. I wish this 
 hadn't come. You are nobler and clearer than I. Yes, 
 I can feel spite in me. Geoffrey, can you keep back 
 millions of people by writing something on a scrap 
 of paper? Oh! Am I depraved? Isn't it a non- 
 sensical distinction between high explosives and gas? 
 If the Hague Conference made it, wasn't that silly?
 
 360 TRUE LOVE 
 
 Did we agree? I suppose we are ruthless. Do you 
 think better of the nations that are pitiably soft? 
 
 " I'm letting you see the worst of me. Am I being 
 false to the Idea? That old Idea! And to write to 
 you like this when you 
 
 " There are times when I feel thoroughly German 
 and bad in your eyes. But I do try. And if they 
 wouldn't vex me so I should love and admire the Eng- 
 lish. I do. So often I feel that you are not guided 
 by self-interest. There! Is that a nice concession, 
 Geoffrey? It's not all anger and spite against us; 
 there's indignation and resentment. There! I sup- 
 pose if I lived among the Germans I might be hating 
 them as well as loving. There is no place for me. 
 And Germans here are changing their names and try- 
 ing to range themselves. They denounce German mis- 
 deeds publicly, and they send their sons to the slaugh- 
 ter, pathetically out-Britishing the British. I will not 
 do that. I should like to return to my old German 
 name, but I am not foolish and would not make it 
 difficult for you. 
 
 " I see the English boys go off to fight and I could 
 love them for it. This readiness of sacrifice because 
 it's right. Good form, says the cynic. Well, good 
 form. It's magnificent. How great the world is show- 
 ing itself ! There are so many things that we should 
 not have known. In these gallant boys I see some- 
 thing of you. Their fearlessness is so splendid, as 
 yours would be seen from outside. I know something 
 of the inside, and that makes it beautiful and pathetic. 
 I know you always think of me, and I do appreciate
 
 " FROM THE TRENCHES " 361 
 
 your trusting me. Tell me the best and the worst. 
 I tell you the worst. I could cross out some that I 
 have written, but it's part of my life, of me, and I 
 mustn't shirk it. 
 
 " I think of you and me as great lovers, like the 
 famous ones of the world, like Romeo and Juliet, or 
 Laura and Petrarch, or what are the others ? I don't 
 want fame not publicity but isn't it all very won- 
 derful? It excites me to think how nobly romantic 
 we are. We are showing what love can do. 
 
 " I'm not being absurd, Geoffrey, I hope. We 
 mustn't be too noble. Not like chilly statues. I can 
 fancy nobleness growing on you till there was noth- 
 ing warm or comfortable anywhere. Don't let's be 
 great marble prigs incapable of annoyance. You may 
 show a little spite, as I do. 
 
 " Yes, I do not forget Bow Fell. We'll see it again, 
 we'll climb it again. I don't think, really, it's less 
 mysterious to me because I've seen it close. Don't 
 fear that I shall understand you too much. Why! 
 I adore you. All the time I'm arguing I adore you. 
 My letters would be just repetitions of that if I let 
 them. I'm not so foolish. But I've got a tight hold 
 on you." 
 
 Geoffrey wrote to Mary. He was moved to write 
 about the bayonet charge, to grasp his nettle effec- 
 tually. If you cannot justify the hand-to-hand fight- 
 ing, you cannot justify war. He tried to reason about 
 this descent into hell. " It is a hell in which you can- 
 not merely endure but must work with the instruments
 
 362 TRUE LOVE 
 
 of hell. These are not the innocent iron, the chemical 
 reactions that spread death abroad, but our own pas- 
 sions. You must kill passionately and brutally, and 
 then return to sanity. Your spirit is bruised and 
 humbled, and you have a black remembrance. For 
 duty, for your belief in an ultimate justice, you must 
 submit to that. You must be ready not only to die 
 but to kill. To kill will degrade me? Then I must 
 be degraded." 
 
 He continued : " There is a weight on my spirits all 
 the time. A dead weight. I suppose we are all so. 
 I wake in the morning to remember it. Sometimes 
 there is a kind of champagne gaiety, a flare in the 
 dark, a moment of exaltation, but all the time I am 
 deeply conscious of this awful oppression of the spirit. 
 I suppose it means that I haven't conquered myself, 
 that I can't. I shall go on behaving all right, but I 
 cannot get control as I would. I am the Unhappy 
 Warrior. 
 
 " I write this to you. I must tell some one. Do 
 not repeat it to Sibyl. I am not secret and disloyal, 
 but with her I must aspire. I can tell her terrible 
 things, but not this. And you are a part of me. 
 Perhaps this will pass." 
 
 Sibyl wrote to Geoffrey : 
 
 " I saw Mary the other day, and she was very good 
 to me. She let out that she had heard from you, but 
 she didn't show me the letter. Why should she? I 
 don't show her mine. And yet I wanted to see that
 
 FROM THE TRENCHES " 363 
 
 letter. I couldn't quite understancLJier. Was she 
 exalted? Was she depressed? What did you say 
 to her? It had to do with you. Geoffrey, there is a 
 sort of jealousy between us yet. She was kind enough. 
 You didn't write anything to her that I was not to 
 know? Would that be fair? But, oh! do give her 
 anything that would make her happy. I tell you 
 everything." 
 
 Geoffrey replied to this : 
 
 " I did say something to her to her alone. It 
 seemed at the time to be something between her and 
 me. Is that wrong? I say a thousand things to you 
 that are for you alone." 
 
 Sibyl wrote in generous acquiescence.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 LAST LETTERS 
 IT was more than a year later that Geoffrey wrote : 
 
 " I'm yet in hopes that I may get another leave be- 
 fore our child is born. Or soon after ? Would that be 
 better? I shouldn't like leaving you just before the 
 event. The awful thing about leave is its definiteness ; 
 you are always conscious that the sands are running 
 out. I've specialized in that sort of consciousness. It 
 used to spoil my holidays. 
 
 "What you say about the persecutions (I'll call 
 them that) to which you are subjected is immensely 
 disturbing to me. Of course they must intern dan- 
 gerous Germans, or those who might be dangerous. 
 I can conceive circumstances in which you and I might 
 acquiesce in your internment. It would be ridiculous, 
 certainly, but, after all, you are a German, aren't you, 
 and you have sympathies which they might fear could 
 be translated into action. (By the bye, I can write 
 freely as I'm censoring my own letters.) But this 
 mean spite, this pseudo-indignation with innocent peo- 
 ple is maddening. What horrifies me is this break- 
 down of Christianity (I find myself becoming a sort 
 of Christian,) this revelation of ungenerousness. It 
 has nothing to do with efficiency in the war, and the 
 proportion of moral indignation is a grain to the ton. 
 
 364
 
 LAST LETTERS 365 
 
 " I've some leisure now and then, and I've been 
 reading a book by a Frenchman named Gaston Riou. 
 He was a Red Cross orderly, good enough to be men- 
 tioned in despatches, and he was wounded and taken 
 as a prisoner to Germany. There is some magnani- 
 mity left in the world. Riou was badly treated not, 
 perhaps, with positive malignity, but with the stupid 
 severity that is almost as bad and he maintains a 
 philosophic detachment. He can appreciate German 
 ideals and see the good in individual Germans. He 
 is not sentimental at all, he never acquiesces in in- 
 justice, he remains alert, even gay, helpful to his com- 
 rades. Ah, these gallant French ! It's a pride to be 
 with them. I think you are half French. 
 
 " Gaston Riou is alive still, I hope, but there's an 
 awful spiritual waste going on. In Germany, too, 
 I'm sure. I remember, in the old days, at that little 
 cellar of a tea-shop, how we used to talk about the 
 artist and whether he was to be kept out of danger. 
 Would you let a young Shakespeare go to the war if 
 you knew it? So much the less Shakespeare he if he 
 claimed privilege. Fancy a tribunal deciding which 
 of the poets were good enough for exemption! The 
 artist is a man among men and he has shown him- 
 self so. If my poor little plays and novels were a 
 thousand times better than they are, I couldn't shelter 
 behind them. 
 
 " There's a spiritual waste, but there's rebirth too. 
 Men like Rupert Brooke and Julian Grenfell and 
 Dixon Scott, lost in the war, are shining lights to us. 
 I've not won the V.C. or even the D.S.O., but I've
 
 366 TRUE LOVE 
 
 always got it in my mind that I must * draw the breath 
 of finer air,' as Meredith says. I suppose I'm not the 
 kind for rash heroics, but I must take a reasonable 
 turn and hold up my head with the rest. Ah! but I 
 wish I could be rid of this soldiering. It's not a natu- 
 ral life. I look back on the old days of the Herald 
 as happiness yes, and usefulness. More and more 
 I believe in the reason and generosity it represents. 
 I am passionately for it and for my comrades there. 
 I want peace peace in my heart, peace with our foes, 
 but I want a passionate life, too. I'm prone to sink 
 back in mental and bodily indolence and you'll have 
 to prod me on. The subtleties of indolence are in- 
 calculable. I think some of the conscientious objectors 
 have drifted into their position through a sort of indo- 
 lence, an initial timidity. Others, of course, are just 
 the most pugnacious of mankind. I think there are 
 some simple and beautiful sincerities among them. The 
 other day there was a case reported of a man who 
 affirmed that he had put the case before Christ, that 
 he had Christ's support; the people on the tribunal 
 thought him insane. And that man Arnold Grey, who 
 has become a ' case ' I knew him, I talked to him, 
 and his punishment revolts me. When you don't agree 
 with a man you think that somewhere far back in his 
 consciousness there must be a sort of moral kink. 
 It can never be straightened out, but all manner of 
 sincerities and nobilities may come on top of it. I 
 didn't quite like Grey, but I can't help feeling that 
 he has become tougher and finer; if he became base 
 or cowardly we should cease to punish him.
 
 LAST LETTERS 367 
 
 " Yes, this question of Christianity becomes an ob- 
 session to me. Christianity is on its trial. I shouldn't 
 say that it is failing, but the Christians are failing. 
 They are not making a decent compromise. They 
 seem to think that Christ would have made an ex- 
 ception in disfavor of the Germans. A simple Chris- 
 tian would see that it is the very case he had in 
 mind. When he said, ' Forgive your enemies/ if he 
 didn't mean the Germans he meant nothing. Christ 
 would not be in favor of a commercial boycott. He 
 could not make much of a Christian Church become a 
 vast organization, all machinery and salaries and posi- 
 tions and vain repetitions with a few fine people wan- 
 dering in the maze. 
 
 " I think it's common sense that we cannot turn the 
 other cheek to Germany. We must be, in a sense, 
 ruthless in carrying on the war. But we must carry 
 peace in our hearts and love for all that's lovable. 
 To suppose that there is nothing fine and lovable in 
 Germany is f oolishnes. We are not to remember that 
 till after the war ? I believe in the truth. It does not 
 need a lie to make me do my best here. But the mil- 
 lions on whom we depend will only carry on the war 
 if they believe the lie? And so we others must pre- 
 tend to believe it ? Have we come to that ? 
 
 " I read another book by an American, I think, 
 who called the German fighting machine the most piti- 
 ful and devitalized thing that ever ran up and down 
 the earth. You cannot be chivalrous to a crashing 
 machine, but you can be pitiful to a mad dog. It is 
 deeply pathetic. When it attacks you, you try to
 
 368 TRUE LOVE 
 
 batter out its brains, but you don't let it change you 
 into a mad dog. There is much at the door of the 
 human race. Our self -righteousness must accept that. 
 These German excesses humiliate us. They are what 
 we are capable of ; what, at the worst, we are guilty 
 of. Forgive me if I say that we are better than they, 
 and that the difference is worth dying for. 
 
 " But you shake me, you terrify me, when you tell 
 me of cruelty to yourself. You are right to tell me 
 for it is part of our compact. I broke that once when 
 I wrote to Mary in bitterness and dejection, wishing 
 to spare you. The mood is outlived, outworn. You'll 
 forgive that. I tell you the truth now as I would 
 have my eyes and ears tell the truth to my own 
 soul. 
 
 " Now that I'm a captain you'll think I ought to 
 be able to tell you how the war goes on and when it 
 will end ? Who knows ? I know nothing. There are 
 famous generals here, and I don't know whether they 
 are Napoleons or duffers. I have no means of know- 
 ing, and I sometimes wonder whether those above me 
 (and them!) have. I am skeptical and mistrust my- 
 self. I'm not born to lead. In despatches about this 
 war I can find nothing better than what Ian Hamilton 
 wrote about Gallipoli. I can see that he is an intelli- 
 gent man. And yet I wonder sometimes whether his 
 opposite might not have done the work better. His 
 opposite, as I conceive it, is General Montero in Nos- 
 tromo. Do you remember that egregious soldier 
 ' imbecile and domineering ' ? What a world in which 
 such a creature could prevail! No. I'll not believe
 
 LAST LETTERS 369 
 
 that even war is as bad as that. Ill believe in Ian 
 Hamilton in brains and character. 
 
 " The psychology of the trenches is a queer thing. 
 We are up one day and down the next. It's a point 
 of honor not to write home dolefully, and I'm afraid 
 my letters to you would be considered quite wrong. 
 I'm not doleful, I hope, but I hate deceiving myself, 
 and you've taught me, bravely, not to deceive you. 
 
 " Sibyl, if they persecute you in England, if they 
 are cruel to you, I cannot bear it. I will not bear it. 
 I will refuse my duty. I have not a sword or I would 
 break it. You are more to me than England, more 
 than honor. You rank yourself with the enemies of 
 England, but all the best that I can conceive of loyalty 
 and service and love comes through you. I haven't 
 lived in vain. And the child is coming. A little Ger- 
 man? Englishman? (or woman which you will). 
 The child will not know how to hate." 
 
 Sibyl replied: 
 
 " No, Geoffrey, you will not break your sword, you 
 will not refuse your duty. I will not accept from 
 you anything less than the best. If you failed in 
 your duty through me it would make me miserable 
 always. Think! You have only to think. Remem- 
 ber our old Idea. It has not failed, has it? We did 
 ' bring it off ' ? I want you to tell our child about it 
 some day. 
 
 " Geoffrey, it is not an important matter that a few 
 Germans should not be treated politely. No, I will
 
 370 TRUE LOVE 
 
 not write like that; it's insincere. I do feel that I 
 am wronged. I am deeply wronged. I am not bad. 
 I have done no harm. It may be right to imprison 
 me or to kill me, but it cannot be right to look at me 
 or think of me unkindly. What are we to do? And 
 what are nobly-minded men and women in Germany 
 to do? Perhaps you are all right and we are all 
 wrong. I rebel against what I hear and read among 
 you, and yet all that great sum of conviction and in- 
 dignation dinning in my ears affects me; there are 
 times when I am confused and abased. This talk 
 of Germans being fiends is nonsense. I am superior 
 to that. 
 
 " Geoffrey, we all think too much of the mere win- 
 ning. Partly I stand aside and can see. You may 
 be beaten and yet be greater than you were ; you may 
 be second and yet greater than when you were first. 
 You may lose the war to your infinite gain. Yet it 
 seems that mercy comes neither with victory nor de- 
 feat. 
 
 " I would not ask English people for mercy, but I 
 would wish them to be merciful, for they are your 
 people and even mine. Everywhere I hear them cry- 
 ing : ' We must not have mercy.' It is possible to 
 be ruthless nobly and not spitefully. Geoffrey, I have 
 known what it is to be hissed on the stage. It is 
 unkind to poor actors who are doing their best. It 
 is wicked to hiss me because I am a German. I felt 
 it very bitterly. 
 
 " I do not keep back anything. I often thought 
 about your having written to Mary what I must not
 
 LAST LETTERS 371 
 
 see, but that's nothing now. There^was a time when 
 I said to Mary : ' You that should love me ! ' And 
 she replied : ' I'd do anything in the world for you.' 
 Do ! I've never conquered quite the last bit of Mary, 
 but we're friends now. I trust her and love her. 
 
 " Yes, Geoffrey, I do understand what you say 
 about being a Christian. More and more I turn to 
 Christ. The legend is like any other. I am not be- 
 coming superstitious. I know you can't always be 
 meek, I know it was right of you to go and fight, but 
 Christ's meekness must save the world. You English 
 may be in the right I do not know perhaps the Jews 
 and Pontius Pilate were in the right. If I am buffeted 
 and spat upon I dare to use such words I feel my 
 fellowship with Him. I could turn to Mary, the 
 mother of Christ, now that my child is coming. I 
 am just like the other mothers. Sometimes I think 
 of it as a pleasant English boy, but I am not super- 
 stitious; I don't know whether it's a boy or a girl. 
 But not peace but a sword ! My child is born into a 
 world of strife. I shall lose it. All mothers lose 
 their children. The sharp pain of loss may not be 
 worse than to see them drifting away from you. Will 
 it be a perpetual reproach to have had a German 
 mother? Ah! You implacable English. No, Geof- 
 frey. Noble English, noble England." 
 
 He never replied. The letter came to him on an 
 evening of anxious preparation. He re-read it in the 
 gray of the dawn of his last evening, while he waited 
 for the signal to advance.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 SPECTATORS 
 
 FRESH from the East, with the bronze of the sun and 
 the pallor of sickness contending on his face, Burke 
 turned into the old tea-shop, wondering whether that 
 former repository for gossip would be good for news. 
 The light was dim in the lower room which was nearly 
 empty. But Imalian sat there, turning the pages of a 
 book which rested on the table. He turned listless 
 eyes on Burke, and then rose hesitatingly and they 
 shook hands. " You back ? " said Imalian politely, 
 and then he added with commiseration : " You look 
 bad." 
 
 " That's nothing," said Burke. " Touches of fever." 
 After a remark or two, Burke said "What's the 
 news ? " 
 
 " Attar is wounded. Severe. Not dangerous, I 
 hope." 
 
 " I didn't know he was out." 
 
 " You've heard about Arden ? " 
 
 " I saw his name among the killed. Where was it 
 and how ? " 
 
 "What does it matter?" said Imalian. 
 
 "Oh! Come!" 
 
 " I beg pardon. I'm exasperated. I seem to be 
 always exasperated now." 
 
 372
 
 SPECTATORS 373 
 
 Burke said : " I find it hard to see you so." 
 
 " Yes," said Imalian. " Do you remember Arden 
 chaffing me about my Eastern calm? He used to 
 throw about such words as mystical and philosophic. 
 And there was that line of Rossetti's : ' The years 
 recede, the years advance.' I was the sphinx-like one 
 that saw it all without blinking. And I dare say there 
 was something in it. I seem to have lost all 
 that." 
 
 " You'll get it back," said Burke. " But why are 
 you exasperated ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I suppose the world's folly, my powerless- 
 ness." 
 
 Weakly, Burke said : " You have your books." 
 
 Imalian glared at him. " Yes," he said, " I have my 
 books." 
 
 They were silent awhile, and then Burke said : 
 "Does Mrs. Arden how does she ?" 
 
 Imalian looked at him quickly and turned away. 
 He said gently : " She is dead." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " said Burke. " The pretty, charming 
 creature. How was it what ?" 
 
 " You are a great nation," said Imalian. 
 
 " I don't understand." 
 
 " What is one German girl ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say," said Burke, " that she was 
 used badly?" 
 
 " She was very sensitive." 
 
 "Persecution! And Arden fighting?" 
 
 " She died after their child was born," said Imalian. 
 " She had no strength left."
 
 374. TRUE LOVE 
 
 " Do you mean that the brutes harried her to 
 death?" 
 
 " Oh ! You're a great nation." 
 
 " I'm an Irishman." 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I'd lost sight of that. Yes ; 
 perhaps you're one of us." 
 
 "One of what?" 
 
 " The beaten. The forlorn. And we Armenians 
 should be grateful to the English. They have often 
 been indignant about us." 
 
 " What happened to her? " 
 
 " She died after childbirth. I don't say it wasn't a 
 natural death. I don't know. I had been seeing her 
 sometimes. I had come to regard her as the finest 
 person in the world. In my world. I tried to make 
 her amused with things. She was too sensitive. And 
 then there was Arden's death." 
 
 "She knew of that?" 
 
 " They were keeping it from her. She learnt it by 
 some inference. She was very sharp. Sharp ! What 
 a word to use of her! Her beautiful intuitions." 
 
 "That killed her?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. If you like. I'm not quite 
 sane about it." 
 
 " The child lives." 
 
 " Yes. It's a boy. In the care of Miss Arden 
 Mary Arden. All right, I believe." 
 
 " What will she do with the poor boy ? " 
 
 "Do with him?" 
 
 " She's a fanatic. She'll make him something that 
 there's no place for in this world."
 
 SPECTATORS 375 
 
 " No. I think not. She wants b efface herself. 
 She'll try to do what her brother would have done. 
 And then her conscience will bring the mother in. 
 The child's bent, too. You needn't fear that he'll be 
 dragooned into her sort of pacifism. She'll worry 
 herself over it, of course." 
 
 " Imalian, were those two women friends? " 
 
 Imalian pondered it. " Not exactly. And yet they 
 were devoted to one another, too. I think Mary 
 Arden reproaches herself. Needlessly? I can't say 
 what are the needs of such a nature. Yes, she was 
 devoted to her. She speaks of her as of a saint." 
 
 " It's a stupid question, but did she Mrs. Arden 
 die peacefully ? " 
 
 " Quietly at the last, I think. But there was a time 
 before the end when she couldn't be controlled. She 
 shouted that she was German, that she was English, 
 I don't know what. And constantly it was ' The noble 
 English the noble English.' " 
 
 "What! Ironical?" 
 
 " No, no. She was thinking of him. She was call- 
 ing to him." 
 
 They were silent again. Imalian got up and, look- 
 ing at Burke, said kindly : " I hope you're getting on 
 all right." 
 
 Burke assented listlessly. 
 
 Imalian tucked his book under his arm and stood 
 there staring into vacancy. " Yes," he said, " a very 
 great nation. And you're in the right. I mean those 
 damned British. I'm glad you're an Irishman." 
 
 And he shook hands with him.
 
 COLAS BREUGNON Burgundian 
 
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