The New Machiavelli Part 51

"Yes," he said, and ripped open the envelope of a fresh aspirant.

I was silent while he read.

"You're going away with Isabel Rivers," he said abruptly.

"Well!" I said, amazed.

"I know," he said, and lost his breath. "Not my business. Only--"

It was queer to find Britten afraid to say a thing.

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

"What do you know?"

"Everything that matters."

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

There came a pause between us.

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

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

"Sorry--sorry you don't approve."

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

I did not answer.

"You're going away then?"

"Yes."

"Soon?"

"Right away."

"There's your wife."

"I know."

"Shoesmith--whom you're pledged to in a manner. You've just picked him out and made him conspicuous. Every one will know. Oh! of course--it's nothing to you. Honour--"

"I know."

"Common decency."

I nodded.

"All this movement of ours. That's what I care for most.... It's come to be a big thing, Remington."

"That will go on."

"We have a use for you--no one else quite fills it. No one.... I'm not sure it will go on."

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

He shrugged his shoulders, and rejected two papers unread.

"I knew," he remarked, "when you came back from America. You were alight with it." Then he let his bitterness gleam for a moment. "But I thought you would stick to your bargain."

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

"There's always a choice."

"No," I said.

He scrutinised my face.

"I can't live without her--I can't work. She's all mixed up with this--and everything. And besides, there's things you can't understand.

There's feelings you've never felt.... You don't understand how much we've been to one another."

Britten frowned and thought.

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

"Some things one can't do."

"These infernal inst.i.tutions--"

"Some one must begin," I said.

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

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

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

It matters to me. It matters immensely to me. In a way--it's a thing one doesn't often say to a man--I've loved you. I'm the sort of man who leads a narrow life.... But you've been something fine and good for me, since that time, do you remember? when we talked about Mecca together."

I nodded.

"Yes. And you'll always be something fine and good for me anyhow. I know things about you,--qualities--no mere act can destroy them.. .. Well, I can tell you, you're doing wrong. You're going on now like a man who is hypnotised and can't turn round. You're piling wrong on wrong. It was wrong for you two people ever to be lovers."

He paused.

"It gripped us hard," I said.