Theft Part 25

Almost do I regret--almost do I regret that I did not do it sooner--it has been crowned with such success. You have held me in your arms--your arms. Oh, you will never know what that first embrace meant to me. I am not a clod. I am not iron nor stone. I am a woman--a warm, breathing woman--.

(_She rises, and draws him to his feet._)

Kiss me, my dear lord and lover. Kiss me. (_They embrace._)

{Knox}

(_Pa.s.sionately, looking about him wildly as if in search of something._) What shall we do?

(_Suddenly releasing her and sinking back in his own chair almost in collapse._) No. It cannot be. It is impossible. Oh, why could we not have met long ago? We would have worked together. What a comradeship it would have been.

{Margaret}

But it is not too late.

{Knox}

I have no right to you.

{Margaret}

(_Misunderstanding. _) My husband? He has not been my husband for years. He has no rights. Who, but you whom I love, has any rights?

{Knox}

No; it is not that.

(_Snapping his fingers._) That for him.

(_Breaking down._) Oh, if I were only the man, and not the reformer! If I had no work to do!

{Margaret}

(_Coming to the back of his chair and caressing his hair._) We can work together.

{Knox}

(_Shaking his head under her fingers._) Don't! Don't!

(_She persists, and lays her cheek against his._) You make it so hard. You tempt me so.

(_He rises suddenly, takes her two hands in his, leads her gently to her chair, seats her, and reseats himself in desk-chair._) Listen. It is not your husband. But I have no right to you. Nor have you a right to me.

{Margaret}

(_Interrupting, jealously._) And who but I has any right to you?

{Knox}

(_Smiling sadly._) No; it is not that. There is no other woman.

You are the one woman for me. But there are many others who have greater rights in me than you. I have been chosen by two hundred thousand citizens to represent them in the Congress of the United States. And there are many more--

(_He breaks off suddenly and looks at her, at her arms and shoulders._) Yes, please. Cover them up. Help me not to forget.

(_Margaret does not obey._) There are many more who have rights in me--the people, all the people, whose cause I have made mine. The children--there are two million child laborers in these United States. I cannot betray them. I cannot steal my happiness from them. This afternoon I talked of theft. But would not this, too, be theft?

{Margaret}

(_Sharply._) Howard! Wake up! Has our happiness turned your head?

{Knox}

(_Sadly._) Almost--and for a few wild moments, quite. There are all the children. Did I ever tell you of the tenement child, who when asked how he knew when spring came, answered: When he saw the saloons put up their swing doors.

{Margaret}

(_Irritated._) But what has all that to do with one man and one woman loving?

{Knox}

Suppose we loved--you and I; suppose we loosed all the reins of our love. What would happen? You remember Gorki, the Russian patriot, when he came to New York, aflame with pa.s.sion for the Russian revolution. His purpose in visiting the land of liberty was to raise funds for that revolution. And because his marriage to the woman he loved was not of the essentially legal sort worshiped by the shopkeepers, and because the newspapers made a sensation of it, his whole mission was brought to failure. He was laughed and derided out of the esteem of the American people.

That is what would happen to me. I should be slandered and laughed at. My power would be gone.

{Margaret}

And even if so--what of it? Be slandered and laughed at. We will have each other. Other men will rise up to lead the people, and leading the people is a thankless task. Life is so short. We must clutch for the morsel of happiness that may be ours.

{Knox}

Ah, if you knew, as I look into your eyes, how easy it would be to throw everything to the winds. But it would be theft.

{Margaret}

(_Rebelliously._) Let it be theft. Life is so short, dear. We are the biggest facts in the world--to each other.

{Knox}

It is not myself alone, nor all my people. A moment ago you said no one but I had any right to you. You were wrong. Your child--

{Margaret}

(_In sudden pain, pleadingly._) Don't!

{Knox}

I must. I must save myself--and you. Tommy has rights in you.

Theft again. What other name for it if you steal your happiness from him?

{Margaret}