What Not Part 9

On one such morning she came down to find a letter from Neil Desmond in its thin foreign envelope addressed in his flat, delicate hand. He wrote from a Pacific island where he was starting a newspaper for the benefit of the political prisoners confined there; it was to be called "Freedom"

(in the British Isles no paper of this name would be allowed, but perhaps the Pacific Island censorship was less strict) and he wanted Kitty to come and be sub-editor....

Kitty, instead of lunching out that day, took sandwiches to the office and spent the luncheon-hour breaking off her engagement again. The reason why Neil never got these letters was the very reason which impelled her to write them--the lack of force about him which made his enterprises so ephemeral, and kept him ever moving round the spinning world to try some new thing.

Force. How important it was. First Brains, to perceive and know what things we ought to do, then Power, faithfully to fulfil the same. In another twenty or thirty years, perhaps the whole British nation would be full of both these qualities, so full that the things in question really would get done. And then what? Kitty's mind boggled at the answer to this. It might be strangely upsetting....

She stamped her letter and lit a cigarette. The room, empty but for her, had that curious, flat, dream-like look of arrested activity which belongs to offices in the lunch hour. If you watch an office through that empty hour of suspension you may decipher its silent, patient, cynical comment (slowly growing into distinctness like invisible ink) on the work of the morning which has been, and of the afternoon which is to be. Kitty watched it, amused, then yawned and read _Stop It_, the newest weekly paper. It was a clever paper, for it had succeeded so far (four numbers) in not getting suppressed, and also in not committing itself precisely to any direct statement as to what it wanted stopped. It was produced by the Stop It Club, and the government lived in hopes of discovering one day, by well-timed police raids on the Club premises, sufficient lawless matter to justify it in suppressing both the Club and the paper. For Dora had recently been trying to retrieve her character in the eyes of those who blackened it, and was endeavouring to act in a just and temperate manner, and only to suppress those whose guilt was proven. Last Sunday, for instance, a Stop It procession had been allowed to parade through the city with banners emblazoned with the ambiguous words. There were, of course, so many things that, it was quite obvious, should be stopped; the command might have been addressed to those of the public who were grumbling, or to the government who were giving them things to grumble at; to writers who were producing books, journalists producing papers, parliaments producing laws, providence producing the weather, or the agents of any other regrettable activity at the moment in progress. Indeed, the answer to the enquiry "Stop what?" might so very plausibly be "Stop it all," that it was a profitless question.

It was just after two that the telephone on Prideaux's table rang.

(Kitty was working in Prideaux's room now.) "Hullo," said a voice in answer to hers, "Mr. Prideaux there? Or anyone else in his room I can speak to? The Minister speaking."

Not his P.S. nor his P.A., but the Minister himself; an unusual, hardly seemly occurrence, due, no doubt, to lunch-time. Kitty was reminded of a story someone had told her of a pert little office flapper at one end of a telephone, chirping, "Hullo, who is it?" and the answer, slow, dignified, and crushing, from one of our greater peers--"Lord Blankson ..." (pause) "HIMSELF."

"Mr. Prideaux isn't in yet," said Kitty. "Can I give him a message?"

There was a moment's pause before the Minister's voice, somehow grown remote, said, "No, thanks, it's all right. I'll ring him up later."

He rang off abruptly. (After all, how can one ring off in any other way?) He had said, "Or anyone else in his room I can speak to," as if he would have left a message with any chance clerk; but he had not, apparently, wished to hold any parley with her, even over the telephone, which though it has an intimacy of its own (marred a little by a listening exchange) is surely a sufficiently remote form of intercourse.

But it seemed that he was avoiding her, keeping her at a distance, ringing her off; his voice had sounded queer, abrupt, embarra.s.sed, as if he was shy of her. Perhaps he had thought things over and perceived that he had been encouraging one of his clerks to step rather too far out of her position; perhaps he was afraid her head might be a little turned, that she might think he was seeking her out....

Kitty sat on the edge of Prideaux's table and swore softly. She'd jolly well show him she thought no such thing.

"These great men," she said, "are insufferable."

7

When they next met it was by chance, in a street aeroplane. The aero was full, and they didn't take much notice of each other till something went wrong with the machinery and they were falling street-wards, probably on the top of that unfortunate shop, Swan and Edgar's. In that dizzy moment the Minister swayed towards Kitty and said, "Relax the body and don't protrude the tongue," and then the crash came.

They only grazed Swan and Edgar's, and came down in Piccadilly, amid a crowd of men who scattered like a herd of frightened sheep. No one was much hurt (street aeros were carefully padded and springed, against these catastrophes), but Kitty chanced to strike the back of her head and to be knocked silly. It was only for a moment, and when she recovered consciousness the Minister was bending over her and whispering, "She's killed. She's killed. Oh G.o.d."

"Not at all," said Kitty, sitting up, very white. "It takes quite a lot more than that."

His strained face relaxed. "That's all right, then," he said.

"I'm dining in Hampstead in about ten minutes," said Kitty. "I must get the tube at Leicester Square."

"A taxi," said the Minister, "would be better. Here is a taxi. I shall come too, in case there is another mischance, which you will hardly be fit for alone at present." He mopped his mouth.

"You have bitten your tongue," said Kitty, "in spite of all you said about not protruding it."

"It was while I was saying it," said the Minister, "that the contact occurred. Yes. It is painful."

They got into the taxi. The Minister, with his scarlet-stained handkerchief to his lips, mumbled, "That was a very disagreeable shock.

You were very pale. I feared the worst."

"The worst," said Kitty, "always pa.s.ses me by. It always has. I am like that."

"I am not," he said. "I am not. I have bitten my tongue and fallen in love. Both bad things."

He spoke so indistinctly that Kitty was not sure she heard him rightly.

"And I," she said, "only feel a little sick.... No, don't be anxious; it won't develop."

The Minister looked at her as she powdered her face before the strip of mirror.

"I wouldn't put that on," he advised her. "You are looking too pale, already."

"Quite," said Kitty. "It's pink powder, you see. It will make me feel more myself."

"You need nothing," he told her gravely. "You are all right as you are.

It is fortunate that it is you and not I who are going out to dinner. I couldn't talk. I can't talk now. I can't even tell you what I feel about you."

"Don't try," she counselled him, putting away her powder-puff and not looking at him.

He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, looking at her with his pained-humorist's face and watchful eyes.

"I expect you know I've fallen in love with you?" he mumbled. "I didn't mean to; in fact, I've tried not to, since I began to notice what was occurring. It's excessively awkward. But ... I have not been able to avoid it."

Kitty said "Oh," and swallowed a laugh. One didn't laugh when one was receiving an avowal of love, of course. She felt giddy, and seas seemed to rush past her ears.

"There are a good many things to talk about in connection with this,"

said the Minister. "But it is no use talking about them unless I first know what you feel about it--about me, that is. Will you tell me, if you don't mind?"

He asked it gently, considerately, almost humbly. Kitty, who did mind rather, said "Oh," again, and lay back in her corner. She still felt a little dizzy, and her head ached. It is not nice having to say what one feels; one would rather the other person did it all. But this is not fair or honourable. She remembered this and pulled herself together.

"I expect," she said, swinging her gla.s.ses by their ribbon, cool and yet nervous, "I expect I feel pretty much the same as you do about it."

After a moment's pause he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much for telling me. Then it is of use talking about it. Only not now, because I'm afraid we're just getting there. And to-morrow I am going to a conference at Leeds. I don't think I can wait till the day after. May I call for you to-night and we'll drive back together?"

"Yes," said Kitty, and got out of the taxi.

8

When they were in it again they comported themselves for a little while in the manner customary on these occasions, deriving the usual amount of pleasurable excitement therefrom.

Then the Minister said, "Now we must talk. All is not easy about our situation."

"Nothing is easy about it," said Kitty. "In fact, we're in the demon of a mess."

He looked at her, biting his lips.

"You know about me, then? That I'm uncertificated? But of course you do.

It is, I believe, generally known. And it makes the position exactly what you say. It means ..."

"It means," said Kitty, "that we must get over this unfortunate pa.s.sion."

He shook his head, with a shrug.