The Parts Men Play Part 30

II.

It was after nine o'clock when Selwyn woke from a deep, refreshing sleep. Hurrying into the other room, he found no sign of his guests.

'When did these gentlemen leave?' he asked of his servant, who had answered his ring.

'It must have been about six o'clock, sir. I heard the door open and shut then.'

'Why didn't you call me?'

'I wasn't wanting to disturb you, sir. It's the first good sleep you've had for a long time.'

It was true. The sinking of himself into the personality of another man had released the fetters of his intensive egotism. For a whole night he had forgotten, or at least neglected, his world-mission in simple solicitude for one who had fallen by the wayside.

After the stimulus of a cold shower and a hearty breakfast, he resumed his crusade against the entrenched forces of Ignorance, but in spite of the utmost effort in concentration, the memory of the lonely figure by the Thames intruded constantly on his mind. It was not only that d.i.c.k was the brother of Elise--although Selwyn's longing for her had become a dull pain that was never completely buried beneath his thoughts; nor was it merely the unconscious charm possessed by the boy, a charm that seized on the very heart-strings. To the American the real cruelty of the thing lay in the existence of a Society that could first debase so fine a creature, and then make no effort to retrieve or to atone for its crime.

Putting aside the day's work he had planned, he flung his mind into the arena of England's social conditions. Exerting to the full his gift of mental discipline, he rejected the promptings of prejudice and of sentiment, and brought his sense of a.n.a.lysis to bear on his subject with the cold, callous detachment of a scientist studying some cosmic phenomenon.

For more than an hour his brain skirmished for an opening, until, spreading the blank sheets of paper before him, he wrote: 'THE ISLAND OF DARKNESS.' Tilting his chair back, he surveyed the t.i.tle critically.

'Yes,' he said aloud, squaring his shoulders resolutely, 'I have generalised long enough. Without malice, but without restraint, I will trace the contribution of Britain towards the world's debacle.'

With gathering rapidity and intensity he covered page after page with finely worded paragraphs. He summoned the facts of history, and churning them with his conceptions of humanity's duty to humanity, poured out a flood of ideas, from which he chose the best. Infatuated by the richness of the stream, he created such a powerful sequence of facts that the British began to loom up as a reactionary tribe fighting a rearguard action throughout the ages against the advancing hosts of enlightenment. The Island of Britain, the 'Old Country,' as its people called it, began to shape in his eyes like a hundred-taloned monster sprawling over the whole earth. This was the nation which had forced opium on China, ruled India by tyranny, bl.u.s.tered and bullied America into rebellion, conquered South Africa at the behest of business interests. . . . Those and endless others were the counts against Britain in the open court of history.

And if those had been her crimes in the international sphere, what better record could she show in the management of human affairs at home? She had clung to the feudal idea of cla.s.s distinction, only surrendering a few outposts reluctantly to the imperious onslaught of time; she had maintained a system of public schools which produced first-cla.s.s sn.o.bs and third-rate scholars; she had ignored the rights of women until in very desperation they had resorted to the crudities of violence in order to achieve some outlet for the pent-up uselessness and directionlessness of their s.e.x; she had tolerated vile living conditions for the poor, and had forced men and women to work under conditions which were degrading and an insult to their Maker. . . .

One by one these dragons reared their heads and fell to the gleaming Excalibur of the author.

Selwyn made one vital error--he mistook facts for truth. He forgot that a sequence of facts, each one absolutely accurate in itself, may, when pieced together, create a fabric of falsehood.

There were many contributing influences to Austin Selwyn's denunciation of Britain that morning. Although he had ordered sentiment and prejudice to leave his mind unclogged, these two pa.s.sions cannot be dismissed by mere will-power.

He was keenly moved by the meeting with d.i.c.k Durwent, and, almost unknown to himself, his love for Elise was a smouldering fever whose fumes mounted to his head. Love is so overpowering that it overlaps the confines of hate, and his hunger for her was mixed with an almost savage desire to conquer her, force homage from her. And she was English!

In addition to these undercurrents affecting his thoughts, there was the dislike towards England which lies dormant in so many American b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Gloss it over as they will, no political _entente_ can do away with the mutual dislike of Americans and Englishmen. It is a thing which cannot be eradicated in a day, but will die the sooner for exposure to the light, being an ugly growth of swampy prejudice and evil-smelling provincialism that needs the darkness and the damp for life.

Mingling these subconscious elements with those of logic and reason, Selwyn wrote for two days, almost without an hour's rest, and when it was finished 'The Island of Darkness' was a powerful, vivid, pa.s.sionate arraignment of England, the heart of the British Empire. It was clever, full of big thoughts, and glowed with the genius of a man who had made language his slave.

It lacked only one ingredient, a simple thing at best--_Truth_.

But that is the tragedy of idealism, which studies the world as a crystal-gazer reading the forces of destiny in a piece of gla.s.s.

III.

A week later, in the early afternoon, Selwyn was going up Whitehall, when he heard the sound of pipes, and turned with the crowd to gaze.

With rhythmic pomposity a pipe-major was twirling a staff, while a band of pipes and drums blared out a Scottish battle-song on the frosty air.

Following them in formation of fours were five or six hundred men in civilian clothes, attested recruits on their way to training-centres.

With the intellectual appet.i.te of the psychologist, Selwyn looked searchingly at the faces of the strangely a.s.sorted crowd, and the contrasts offered would have satisfied the most rapacious student of human nature.

His eyes seized on one well-built, well-groomed man of thirty odd years whose slight stoop and cultured air of tolerance marked him a ''Varsity man' as plainly as cap and gown could have done. Just behind him a costermonger in a riot of b.u.t.tons was indulging in philosophic quips of a cheerfully vulgar nature. A few yards back a ma.s.sive labourer with clear untroubled eye and powerful muscles stood out like a superior being to the three who were alongside. Half-way a poet marched. What form his poesy took--whether he expressed beauty in words, or, catching the music of the western wind, wove it into a melody, or whether he just dreamed and never told of what he dreamed--it matters not; he was a poet. His step, his dreamy eyes, the poise of his forehead raised slightly towards the skies, were things which showed his personality as clearly as the mighty forearm or the plethora of b.u.t.tons bespoke the labourer or the costermonger.

With a great sense of pity the American watched them pa.s.s, while the skirl of the bagpipes lessened in the distance. In spite of the dissimilarity of type, there was a community of shyness that embraced almost every one--a silent plea not to be mistaken for heroes. As they pa.s.sed the Horse Guards and saw the two sentries astride their horses still as statues (their glorious trappings, breastplates, helmets, and swords, the embodiment of spectacular militarism) an apologetic, humorous smile was on the face of almost every recruit. The sight was a familiar enough one to the large majority, but in the presence of those grim, superb cavalrymen they felt the self-conscious embarra.s.sment of small boys about to enter a room full of their elders.

In its own way it was Britain's mob saying to Britain's Regulars that it was to be hoped no one would think they imagined themselves soldiers in the real sense of the word.

But to Selwyn the noise of their marching feet on the roadway had the ominous sound of the roll of the tumbrils, bearing their victims to the guillotine.

The procession was nearly ended and he was about to turn away, when his eye was attracted by a peculiar pair of knees encased in trousers that were much too tight, working jerkily from side to side as their owner marched. Although his face was almost hidden by reason of his vagabond hat being completely on one side, it was not difficult to recognise the futurist, Johnston Smyth. He appeared to be in rare form, as an admiring group of fellow-recruits in his immediate vicinity were almost doubled up with laughter, and even the grizzled Highland sergeant marching sternly in the rear had such difficulty in suppressing a loud guffaw that his face was a mottled purple.

And marching beside the humorist, with a slouch-cap low over his eyes, was the lad who was known as 'Boy-blue.'

IV.

_As this tale of the parts men play unfolds itself a pa.s.sing thought comes._

_From the standpoint of fairness, economics, and efficiency, conscription should have been Britain's first move. But nations, like individuals, have great moments that reveal the inner character and leave beacons blazing on the hills of history._

_In a war in which every nation was the loser, Britain can at least reclaim from the wreckage the memory of that glorious hour when the Angelus of patriotism rang over the Empire, and men of every creed, pursuit, and condition dropped their tasks and sank themselves in the great consecration of service._

_What is the paltry glory of a b.l.o.o.d.y victory or the pa.s.sing sting of a defeat?_

_War is base, senseless, and degrading--that was one truth that Selwyn did recognise; but what he failed to see was that in the midst of all the foulness there lay some glorious gems. When battles are forgotten and war is remembered as a hideous anachronism of the past, our children and their children will bow in reverence to that stone set high in Britain's diadem_--THEY SERVED.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE FEMININE TOUCH.

I.

In a small South Kensington flat a young woman was seated before a mirror, adding to her beauty with those artifices which are supposed to lure the male to helpless capitulation. Two candles gave a shadowy, mysterious charm to the reflection--a quality somewhat lacking in the original--and it was impossible for its owner to look on the picture of pensive eyelashes, radiant eyes, and warm cheeks without a murmur of admiration. She smiled once to estimate the exact amount of teeth that should be shown; she leaned forward and looked yearningly, soulfully, into the brown eyes in the gla.s.s. With a sigh of satisfaction she lit a cigarette from one of the candles, and leaning back, watched the smoke pa.s.sing across the face of the reflection.

'h.e.l.lo, Elise!' said the beauty casually, as the door opened and Elise Durwent entered, dressed in the uniform of an ambulance-driver.

'You'll find the room standing on its head, but chuck those things anywhere.'

'Going out again?' asked the new-comer, stepping over several feminine garments that had been thrown on the floor.

'Just a dance up the street--in Jimmy Goodall's studio. Listen, old thing; do put on some water. I'm croaking for a cup of tea.'

Without any comment, Elise went into the adjoining room, used as a kitchen, while the voluptuary dabbed clouds of powder over her neck and shoulders. With a tired listlessness, Elise returned and sank into a chair, from the back of which an underskirt was hanging disconsolately.

'You didn't do the breakfast-dishes, Marian.'

'Didn't I? Oh, well, they're not very dirty. Had a rotten day at the garage?'