CHAPTER V.
While she and Hallin were sitting thus, momentarily out of tune witheach other, the silence was suddenly broken by a familiar voice.
"I say, Hallin--is this all right?"
The words came from a young man who, having knocked unheeded, opened thedoor, and cautiously put in a curly head.
"Frank!--is that you? Come in," cried Hallin, springing up.
Frank Leven came in, and at once perceived the lady sitting in thewindow.
"Well, I _am_ glad!" he cried, striding across the room and shakingHallin's hand by the way. "Miss Boyce! I thought none of your friendswere ever going to get a sight of you again! Why, what--"
He drew back scanning her, a gay look of quizzing surprise on his fairboy's face.
"He expected me in cap and apron," said Marcella, laughing; "or means topretend he did."
"I expected a sensation! And here you are, just as you were, only twiceas--I say, Hallin, doesn't she look well!"--this in a stage aside toHallin, while the speaker was drawing off his gloves, and still studyingMarcella.
"Well, _I_ think she looks tired," said Hallin, with a little attempt ata smile, but turning away. Everybody felt a certain tension, a certaindanger, even in the simplest words, and Miss Hallin's call to supper wasvery welcome.
The frugal meal went gaily. The chattering Christchurch boy brought toit a breath of happy, careless life, to which the threeothers--over-driven and over-pressed, all of them--responded with a kindof eagerness. Hallin especially delighted in him, and would have out allhis budget--his peacock's pride at having been just put into the'Varsity eleven, his cricket engagements for the summer, his rows withhis dons, above all his lasting amazement that he should have justscraped through his Mods.
"I thought those Roman emperors would have done for me!" he declared,with a child's complacency. "_Brutes!_ I couldn't remember them. Ilearnt them up and down, backwards and forwards--but it was no good;they nearly dished me!"
"Yet it comes back to me," said Hallin, slily, "that when a certainperson was once asked to name the winner of the Derby in some obscureyear, he began at the beginning, and gave us all of them, from first tolast, without a hitch."
"The winner of the _Derby_!" said the lad, eagerly, bending forward withhis hands on his knees; "why, I should rather think so! That isn'tmemory; that's _knowledge_!--Goodness! who's this?"
The last remark was addressed _sotto voce_ to Marcella. Supper was justover, and the two guests, with Hallin, had returned to the window, whileMiss Hallin, stoutly refusing their help, herself cleared the table andset all straight.
Hallin, hearing a knock, had gone to the door while Leven was speaking.Four men came crowding in, all of them apparently well known both toHallin and his sister. The last two seemed to be workmen; the otherswere Bennett, Hallin's old and tried friend among the Labour-leaders,and Nehemiah Wilkins, M.P. Hallin introduced them all to Marcella andLeven; but the new-comers took little notice of any one but their host,and were soon seated about him discussing a matter already apparentlyfamiliar to them, and into which Hallin had thrown himself at once withthat passionate directness which, in the social and speculative field,replaced his ordinary gentleness of manner. He seemed to be in strongdisagreement with the rest--a disagreement which troubled himself andirritated them.
Marcella watched them with quick curiosity from the window where she wassitting, and would have liked to go forward to listen. But Frank Leventurned suddenly round upon her with sparkling eyes.
"Oh, I say! don't go. Do come and sit here with me a bit. Oh, isn't itrum! isn't it _rum_! Look at Hallin,--those are the people whom he_cares_ to talk to. That's a shoemaker, that man to the left--really anawfully cute fellow--and this man in front, I think he told me he was amason, a Socialist of course--would like to string _me_ up to-morrow.Did you ever see such a countenance? Whenever that man begins, I thinkwe must be precious near to shooting. And he's pious too, would prayover us first and shoot us afterwards--which isn't the case, Iunderstand, with many of 'em. Then the others--you know them? That'sBennett--regular good fellow--always telling his pals not to make foolsof themselves--for which of course they love him no more than they areobliged--And Wilkins--oh! _Wilkins_"--he chuckled--"they say it'll cometo a beautiful row in the House before they've done, between him and mycharming cousin, Harry Wharton. My father says he backs Wilkins."
Then suddenly the lad recollected himself and his clear cheek coloured alittle after a hasty glance at his companion. He fell to silence andlooking at his boots. Marcella wondered what was the matter with him.Since her flight from Mellor she had lived, so to speak, with her headin the sand. She herself had never talked directly of her own affairs toanybody. Her sensitive pride did not let her realise that,notwithstanding, all the world was aware of them.
"I don't suppose you know much about your cousin!" she said to him witha little scorn.
"Well, I don't want to!" said the lad, "that's one comfort! But I don'tknow anything about anything!--Miss Boyce!"
He plunged his head in his hands, and Marcella, looking at him, saw atonce that she was meant to understand she had woe and lamentation besideher.
Her black eyes danced with laughter. At Mellor she had been severaltimes his confidante. The handsome lad was not apparently very fond ofhis sisters and had taken to her from the beginning. To-night sherecognised the old symptoms.
"What, you have been getting into scrapes again?" she said--"how manysince we met last?"
"There! you make fun of it!" he said indignantly from behind hisfingers--"you're like all the rest."
Marcella teased him a little more till at last she was astonished by aflash of genuine wrath from the hastily uncovered eyes.
"If you're only going to chaff a fellow let's go over there and talk!And yet I did want to tell you about it--you were awfully kind to medown at home. I want to tell you--and I don't want to tell you--perhapsI _oughtn't_ to tell you--you'll think me a brute, I dare say, anungentlemanly brute for speaking of it at all--and yet somehow--"
The boy, crimson, bit his lips. Marcella, arrested and puzzled, laid ahand on his arm. She had been used to these motherly ways with him atMellor, on the strength of her seniority, so inadequately measured byits two years or so of time!
"I won't laugh," she said, "tell me."
"No--really?--shall I?"
Whereupon there burst forth a history precisely similar it seemed tosome half dozen others she had already heard from the same lips. Apretty girl--or rather "an exquisite creature!" met at the house of somerelation in Scotland, met again at the "Boats" at Oxford, and yet againat Commemoration balls, Nuneham picnics, and the rest; adored andadorable; yet, of course, a sphinx born for the torment of men, takingher haughty way over a prostrate sex, kind to-day, cruel to-morrow; notto be won by money, yet, naturally, not to be won without it; possessedlike Rose Aylmer of "every virtue, every grace," whether of form orfamily; yet making nothing but a devastating and death-dealing use ofthem--how familiar it all was!--and how many more of them there seemedto be in the world, on a man's reckoning, than on a woman's!
"And you know," said the lad, eagerly, "though she's so _frightfully_pretty--well, frightfully fetching, rather--and well dressed and all therest of it, she isn't a bit silly, not one of your empty-headedgirls--not she. She's read a _lot_ of things--a lot! I'm sure, MissBoyce"--he looked at her confidently,--"if _you_ were to see her you'dthink her awfully clever. And yet she's so little--and so dainty--andshe dances--my goodness! you should see her dance, skirt-dance Imean--Letty Lind isn't in it! She's good too, awfully good. I think hermother's a most dreadful old bore--well, no, I didn't mean that--ofcourse I didn't mean that!--but she's fussy, you know, and invalidy, andhas to be wrapped up in shawls, and dragged about in bath chairs, andBetty's an angel to her--she is really--though her mother's alwayssnapping her head off. And as to the _poor_--"
Something in his tone, in the way he had of fishing for her approval,sent Marcella into a sudden fit of laughter. Then
she put out a hand torestrain this plunging lover.
"Look here--do come to the point--have you proposed to her?"
"I should rather think I have!" said the boy, fervently. "About once aweek since Christmas. Of course she's played with me--that sort alwaysdoes--but I think I might really have a chance with her, if it weren'tfor her mother--horrible old--no, of _course_ I don't mean that! Butnow it comes in--what I oughtn't to tell you--I _know_ I oughtn't totell you! I'm always making a beastly mess of it. It's because I can'thelp talking of it!"
And shaking his curly head in despair, he once more plunged his redcheeks into his hands and fell abruptly silent.
Marcella coloured for sympathy. "I really wish you wouldn't talk inriddles," she said. "What is the matter with you?--of course you musttell me."
"Well, I know you won't mind!" cried the lad, emerging. "As if you couldmind! But it sounds like my impudence to be talking to youabout--about--You see," he blurted out, "she's going to Italy with theRaeburns. She's a connection of theirs, somehow, and Miss Raeburn'staken a fancy to her lately--and her mother's treated me like dirt eversince they asked her to go to Italy--and naturally a fellow sees what_that_ means--and what her mother's after. I don't believe Betty_would_; he's too old for her, isn't he? Oh, my goodness!"--this time hesmote his knee in real desperation--"now I _have_ done it. I'm simply_bursting_ always with the thing I'd rather cut my head off than say.Why they make 'em like me I don't know!"
"You mean," said Marcella, with impatience--"that her mother wants herto marry Mr. Raeburn?"
He looked round at his companion. She was lying back in a deep chair,her hands lightly clasped on her knee. Something in her attitude, in thepose of the tragic head, in the expression of the face stamped to-nightwith a fatigue which was also a dignity, struck a real compunction intohis mood of vanity and excitement. He had simply not been able to resistthe temptation to talk to her. She reminded him of the Raeburns, and theRaeburns were in his mind at the present moment by day and by night. Heknew that he was probably doing an indelicate and indiscreet thing, butall the same his boyish egotism would not be restrained from theheadlong pursuit of his own emotions. There was in him too such aburning curiosity as to how she would take it--what she would say.
Now however he felt a genuine shrinking. His look changed. Drawing hischair close up to her he began a series of penitent andself-contradictory excuses which Marcella soon broke in upon.
"I don't know why you talk like that," she said, looking at himsteadily. "Do you suppose I can go on all my life without hearing Mr.Raeburn's name mentioned? And don't apologise so much! It really doesn'tmatter what I suppose--that _you_ think--about my present state of mind.It is very simple. I ought never to have accepted Mr. Raeburn. I behavedbadly. I know it--and everybody knows it. Still one has to go on livingone's life somehow. The point is that I am rather the wrong person foryou to come to just now, for if there is one thing I ardently wish aboutMr. Raeburn, it is that he should get himself married."
Frank Leven looked at her in bewildered dismay.
"I never thought of that," he said.
"Well, you might, mightn't you?"
For another short space there was silence between them, while the rushof talk in the centre of the room was still loud and unspent.
Then she rated herself for want of sympathy. Frank sat beside her shyand uncomfortable, his confidence chilled away.
"So you think Miss Raeburn has views?" she asked him, smiling, and inher most ordinary voice.
The boy's eye brightened again with the implied permission to go onchattering.
"I know she has! Betty's brother as good as told me that she and Mrs.Macdonald--that's Betty's mother--she hasn't got a father--had talked itover. And now Betty's going with them to Italy, and Aldous is going toofor ten days--and when I go to the Macdonalds Mrs. Macdonald treats meas if I were a little chap in jackets, and Betty worries me to death.It's sickening!"
"And how about Mr. Raeburn?"
"Oh, Aldous seems to like her very much," he said despondently. "She'salways teasing and amusing him. When she's there she never lets himalone. She harries him out. She makes him read to her and ride with her.She makes him discuss all sorts of things with her you'd _never_ thinkAldous would discuss--her lovers and her love affairs, and being inlove!--it's extraordinary the way she drives him round. At Easter sheand her mother were staying at the Court, and one night Betty told meshe was bored to death. It was a very smart party, but everything was soflat and everybody was so dull. So she suddenly got up and ran across toAldous. 'Now look here, Mr. Aldous,' she said; 'this'll never do! you'vegot to come and dance with me, and _push_ those chairs and tablesaside'--I can fancy the little stamp she'd give--'and make those otherpeople dance too.' And she made him--she positively made him. Aldousdeclared he didn't dance, and she wouldn't have a word of it. Andpresently she got to all her tricks, skirt-dancing and the rest ofit--and of course the evening went like smoke."
Marcella's eyes, unusually wide open, were somewhat intently fixed onthe speaker.
"And Mr. Raeburn liked it?" she asked in a tone that soundedincredulous.
"Didn't he just? She told me they got regular close friends after that,and he told her everything--oh, well," said the lad, embarrassed, andclutching at his usual formula--"of course, I didn't mean that. Andshe's fearfully flattered, you can see she is, and she tells me that sheadores him--that he's the only great man she's ever known--that I'm notfit to black his boots, and ought to be grateful whenever he speaks tome--and all that sort of rot. And now she's going off with them. I shallhave to shoot myself--I declare I shall!"
"Well, not yet," said Marcella, in a soothing voice; "the case isn'tclear enough. Wait till they come back. Shall we move? I'm going overthere to listen to that talk. But--first--come and see me whenever youlike--3 to 4.30, Brown's Buildings, Maine Street--and tell me how thisgoes on?"
She spoke with a careless lightness, laughing at him with a halfsisterly freedom. She had risen from her seat, and he, whose thoughtshad been wrapped up for months in one of the smallest of the sex, wassuddenly struck with her height and stately gesture as she moved awayfrom him.
"By Jove! Why didn't she stick to Aldous," he said to himselfdiscontentedly as his eyes followed her. "It was only her cranks, and ofcourse she'll get rid of _them_. Just like my luck!"
* * * * *
Meanwhile Marcella took a seat next to Miss Hallin, who looked up fromher knitting to smile at her. The girl fell into the attitude oflistening; but for some minutes she was not listening at all. She wasreflecting how little men knew of each other!--even the most intimatefriends--and trying to imagine what Aldous Raeburn would be like,married to such a charmer as Frank had sketched. His friendship for hermeant, of course, the attraction of contraries--one of the mostpromising of all possible beginnings. On the whole, she thought Frank'schances were poor.
Then, unexpectedly, her ear was caught by Wharton's name, and shediscovered that what was going on beside her was a passionate discussionof his present position and prospects in the Labour party--a discussion,however, mainly confined to Wilkins and the two workmen. Bennett had theair of the shrewd and kindly spectator who has his own reasons fortreating a situation with reserve; and Hallin was lying back in hischair flushed and worn out. The previous debate, which had now merged inthese questions of men and personalities, had made him miserable; he hadno heart for anything more. Miss Hallin observed him anxiously, andmade restless movements now and then, as though she had it in her mindto send all her guests away.
The two Socialist workmen were talking strongly in favour of anorganised and distinct Labour party, and of Wharton's leadership. Theyreferred constantly to Parnell, and what he had clone for "those Irishfellows." The only way to make Labour formidable in the House was tolearn the lesson of Unionism and of Parnellism, to act together andstrike together, to make of the party a "two-handed engine," ready tosmite Tory and Liberal impartially. To this end a separate o
rganisation,separate place in the House, separate Whips--they were ready, nayclamorous, for them all. And they were equally determined on HarryWharton as a leader. They spoke of the _Clarion_ with enthusiasm, anddeclared that its owner was already an independent power, and was,moreover, as "straight" as he was sharp.
The contention and the praise lashed Wilkins into fury. After making oneor two visible efforts at a sarcastic self-control which came tonothing, he broke out into a flood of invective which left the rest ofthe room staring. Marcella found herself indignantly wondering who thisbig man, with his fierce eyes, long, puffy cheeks, coarse black hair,and North-country accent, might be. Why did he talk in this way, withthese epithets, this venom? It was intolerable!
Hallin roused himself from his fatigue to play the peace-maker. But someof the things Wilkins had been saying had put up the backs of the twoworkmen, and the talk flamed up unmanageably--Wilkins's dialect gettingmore pronounced with each step of the argument.
"Well, if I'd ever ha' thowt that I war coomin' to Lunnon to put myselfand my party oonder the heel o' Muster Harry Wharton, I'd ha' stayed at_home_, I tell tha," cried Wilkins, slapping his knee. "If it's to bethe People's party, why, in the name o' God, must yo put a yoongripstitch like yon at the head of it? a man who'll just mak _use_ of usall, you an' me, and ivery man Jack of us, for his own advancement, an'ull kick us down when he's done with us! Why shouldn't he? What is he?Is he a man of _us_--bone of our bone? He's a _landlord_, and anaristocrat, I tell tha! What have the likes of him ever been but thornsin our side? When have the landlords ever gone with the people? Havethey not been the blight and the curse of the country for hun'erds ofyears? And you're goin' to tell me that a man bred out o' _them_--livingon his rent and interest--grinding the faces of the poor, I'll be boundif the truth were known, as all the rest of them do--is goin' to lead_me_, an' those as'll act with me to the pullin' down of the landlords!Why are we to go lickspittlin' to any man of his sort to do our work forus? Let him go to his own class--I'm told Mr. Wharton is mighty fond ofcountesses, and they of him!--or let him set up as the friend of theworking man just as he likes--I'm quite agreeable!--I shan't make anybones about takin' his _vote_; but I'm not goin' to make him master overme, and give him the right to speak for my mates in the House ofCommons. I'd cut my hand off fust!"
Leven grinned in the background. Bennett lay back in his chair with aworried look. Wilkins's crudities were very distasteful to him both inand out of the House. The younger of the Socialist workmen, a mason,with a strong square face, incongruously lit somehow with the eyes ofthe religious dreamer, looked at Wilkins contemptuously.
"There's none of you in the House will take orders," he said quickly,"and that's the ruin of us. We all know that. Where do you think we'dhave been in the struggle with the employers, if we'd gone about ourbusiness as you're going about yours in the House of Commons?"
"I'm not saying we shouldn't _organise_," said Wilkins, fiercely. "WhatI'm sayin' is, get a man of the working class--a man who has the _wants_of the working class--a man whom the working class can get a hold on--todo your business for you, and not any bloodsucking landlord orcapitalist. It's a slap i' the face to ivery honest working man i' thecoontry, to mak' a Labour party and put Harry Wharton at t' head of it!"
The young Socialist looked at him askance. "Of course you'd like ityourself!" was what he was thinking. "But they'll take a man as can holdhis own with the swells--and quite right too!"
"And if Mr. Wharton _is_ a landlord he's a good sort!" exclaimed theshoemaker--a tall, lean man in a well-brushed frock coat. "There's manyon us knows as have been to hear him speak, what he's tried to do aboutthe land, and the co-operative farming. E's _straight_ is Mr. Wharton.We 'aven't got Socialism yet--an' it isn't 'is fault bein' a landlord.Ee was born it."
"I tell tha he's playin' for his own hand!" said Wilkins, doggedly, thered spot deepening on his swarthy cheek--"he's runnin' that paper forhis own hand--Haven't I had experience of him? I know it--And I'll proveit some day! He's one for featherin' his own nest is Mr. Wharton--andwhen he's doon it by makkin' fools of us, he'll leave us to whistle forany good we're iver likely to get out o' _him. He_ go agen the landlordswhen it coom to the real toossle,--I know 'em--I tell tha--I know 'em!"
A woman's voice, clear and scornful, broke into the talk.
"It's a little strange to think, isn't it, that while we in London go ongroaning and moaning about insanitary houses, and making our smallattempts here and there, half of the country poor of England have beenre-housed in our generation by these same landlords--no fuss aboutit--and rents for five-roomed cottages, somewhere about one andfourpence a week!"
Hallin swung his chair round and looked at the speaker--amazed!
Wilkins also stared at her under his eyebrows. He did not likewomen--least of all, ladies.
He gruffly replied that if they had done anything like as much as shesaid--which, he begged her pardon, but he didn't believe--it was donefor the landlords' own purposes, either to buy off public opinion, orjust for show and aggrandisement. People who had prize pigs and prizecattle must have prize cottages of course--"with a race of slavesinside 'em!"
Marcella, bright-eyed, erect, her thin right hand hanging over her knee,went avengingly into facts--the difference between landlords' villagesand "open" villages; the agrarian experiments made by different greatlandlords; the advantage to the community, even from the Socialist pointof view of a system which had preserved the land in great blocks, forthe ultimate use of the State, as compared with a system like theFrench, which had for ever made Socialism impossible.
Hallin's astonishment almost swept away his weariness.
"Where in the world did she get it all from, and is she standing on herhead or am I?"
After an animated little debate, in which Bennett and the two workmenjoined, while Wilkins sat for the most part in moody, contemptuoussilence, and Marcella, her obstinacy roused, carried through her defenceof the landlords with all a woman's love of emphasis and paradox,everybody rose simultaneously to say good-night.
"You ought to come and lead a debate down at our Limehouse club," saidBennett pleasantly to Marcella, as she held out her hand to him; "you'dtake a lot of beating."
"Yet I'm a Venturist, you know," she said, laughing; "I _am_."
He shook his head, laughed too, and departed.
When the four had gone, Marcella turned upon Hallin.
"Are there many of these Labour members like _that_?"
Her tone was still vibrating and sarcastic.
"He's not much of a talker, our Nehemiah," said Hallin, smiling; "but hehas the most extraordinary power as a speaker over a large popularaudience that I have ever seen. The man's honesty is amazing,--it's histempers and his jealousies get in his way. You astonished him; but, forthe matter of that, you astonished Frank and me still more!"
And as he fell back into his chair, Marcella caught a flash ofexpression, a tone that somehow put her on her defence.
"I was not going to listen to such unjust stuff without a word. Politicsis one thing--slanderous abuse is another!" she said, throwing back herhead with a gesture which instantly brought back to Hallin the scene inthe Mellor drawing-room, when she had denounced the game-laws andWharton had scored his first point.
He was silent, feeling a certain inner exasperation with women and theirways.
"'She only did it to annoy,'" cried Frank Leven; "'because she knows itteases.' _We_ know very well what she thinks of us. But where did youget it all from, Miss Boyce? I just wish you'd tell me. There's a horridRadical in the House I'm always having rows with--and upon my word Ididn't know there was half so much to be said for us!"
Marcella flushed.
"Never mind where I got it!" she said.
In reality, of course, it was from those Agricultural Reports she hadworked through the year before under Wharton's teaching, with so muchangry zest, and to such different purpose.
* * * * *
When the door closed upon her and upon Frank Leven, who was to escorther home, Hallin walked quickly over to the table, and stood looking fora moment in a sort of bitter reverie at Raeburn's photograph.
His sister followed him, and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Do go to bed, Edward! I am afraid that talk has tired you dreadfully."
"It would be no good going to bed, dear," he said, with a sigh ofexhaustion. "I will sit and read a bit, and see if I can get myself intosleeping trim. But you go, Alice--good-night."
When she had gone he threw himself into his chair again with thethought--"She must contradict here as she contradicted there! _She_--andjustice! If she could have been just to a landlord for one hour lastyear--"
He spent himself for a while in endless chains of recollection,oppressed by the clearness of his own brain, and thirsting for sleep.Then from the affairs of Raeburn and Marcella, he passed with a freshsense of strain and effort to his own. That discussion with those fourmen which had filled the first part of the evening weighed upon him inhis weakness of nerve, so that suddenly in the phantom silence of thenight, all life became an oppression and a terror, and rest, eitherto-night or in the future, a thing never to be his.
He had come to the moment of difficulty, of tragedy, in a career whichso far, in spite of all drawbacks of physical health and crampedactivities, had been one of singular happiness and success. Ever sincehe had discovered his own gifts as a lecturer to working men, content,cheerfulness, nay, a passionate interest in every hour, had been quitecompatible for him with all the permanent limitations of his lot. Thestudy of economical and historical questions; the expression throughthem of such a hunger for the building of a "city of God" among men, asfew are capable of; the evidence not to be ignored even by his modesty,and perpetually forthcoming over a long period of time, that he had thepower to be loved, the power to lead, among those toilers of the worldon whom all his thoughts centred--these things had been his joy, and hadled him easily through much self-denial to the careful husbanding ofevery hour of strength and time in the service of his ideal end.
And now he had come upon opposition--the first cooling of friendships,the first distrust of friends that he had ever known.
Early in the spring of this year a book called _To-morrow and the Land_had appeared in London, written by a young London economist of greatability, and dealing with the nationalisation of the land. It did notoffer much discussion of the general question, but it took up thequestion as it affected England specially and London in particular. Itshowed--or tried to show--in picturesque detail what might be theconsequences for English rural or municipal life of throwing all landinto a common or national stock, of expropriating the landlords, andtransferring all rent to the people, to the effacement of taxation andthe indefinite enrichment of the common lot. The book differed from_Progress and Poverty_, which also powerfully and directly affected theEnglish working class, in that it suggested a financial scheme, of greatapparent simplicity and ingenuity, for the compensation of thelandlords; it was shorter, and more easily to be grasped by the averageworking man; and it was written in a singularly crisp and taking style,and--by the help of a number of telling illustrations borrowed directlyfrom the circumstances of the larger English towns, especially ofLondon--treated with abundant humour.
The thing had an enormous success--in popular phrase, "caught on." SoonHallin found, that all the more active and intelligent spirits in theworking-class centres where he was in vogue as a lecturer weretouched--nay, possessed--by it. The crowd of more or less socialisticnewspapers which had lately sprung up in London were full of it; theworking men's clubs rang with it. It seemed to him a madness--aninfection; and it spread like one. The book had soon reached an immensesale, and was in every one's hands.
To Hallin, a popular teacher, interested above all in the mingledproblems of ethics and economics, such an incident was naturally ofextreme importance. But he was himself opposed by deepest conviction,intellectual and moral, to the book and its conclusions. The more itssuccess grew, the more eager and passionate became his own desire tobattle with it. His platform, of course, was secured to him; hisopenings many. Hundreds and thousands of men all over England were keento know what he had to say about the new phenomenon.
And he had been saying his say--throwing into it all his energies, allhis finest work. With the result that--for the first time in elevenyears--he felt his position in the working-class movement giving beneathhis feet, and his influence beginning to drop from his hand. Coldness inplace of enthusiasm; critical aloofness in place of affection; readinessto forget and omit him in matters where he had always hitherto belongedto the inner circle and the trusted few--these bitter ghosts, with theirhard, unfamiliar looks, had risen of late in his world of idealisteffort and joy, and had brought with them darkness and chill. He couldnot give way, for he had a singular unity of soul--it had been thesource of his power--and every economical or social conviction was insome way bound up with the moral and religious passion which was hisbeing--his inmost nature. And his sensitive state of nerve and brain,his anchorite's way of life, did not allow him the distractions of othermen. The spread of these and other similar ideas seemed to him aquestion of the future of England; and he had already begun to throwhimself into the unequal struggle with a martyr's tenacity, and withsome prescience of the martyr's fate.
Even Bennett! As he sat there alone in the dim lamp-light, his head bentover his knees, his hands hanging loosely before him, he thoughtbitterly of the defection of that old friend who had stood by himthrough so many lesser contests. It was _impossible_ that Bennettshould think the schemes of that book feasible! Yet he was one of thehonestest of men, and, within a certain range, one of the mostclear-headed. As for the others, they had been all against him.Intellectually, their opinion did not matter to him; but morally it wasso strange to him to find himself on the side of doubt and dissent,while all his friends were talking language which was almost thelanguage of a new faith!
He had various lecturing engagements ahead, connected with this greatdebate which was now surging throughout the Labour world of London. Hehad accepted them with eagerness; in these weary night hours he lookedforward to them with terror, seeing before him perpetually thousands ofhostile faces, living in a nightmare of lost sympathies and brokenfriendships. Oh, for _sleep_--for the power to rest--to escape thiscorrosion of an ever active thought, which settled and reconcilednothing!
"_The tragedy of life lies in the conflict between the creative will ofman and the hidden wisdom of the world, which seems to thwart it_."These words, written by one whose thought had penetrated deep into hisown, rang in his ears as he sat brooding there. Not the hidden fate, orthe hidden evil, but the hidden _wisdom_. Could one die and stillbelieve it? Yet what else was the task of faith?