Potterism Part 6

He's forgetting because I don't get a chance.... She's stealing him....

She was always a selfish little cad, grabbing, and not really caring.

She can't care as I do, she's not made that way.... She cares for nothing but herself.... She gets everything, just by sitting still and not bothering.... College makes girls awful.... Peggy says men don't like them, but they do. They seem not to care about men, but they care just the same. They don't bother, but they get what they want....

Pig.... Oh, I can't bear it. Why should I?... I love him, I love him, I love him.... Oh, I must go to sleep. I shall go mad if I have another night like last night.'

Clare got out of bed, stumbled to the washstand, splashed her burning head and face with cold water, then lay s.h.i.+vering.

It may or may not be true that the power to love is to be found in the human being in inverse ratio to the power to think. Probably it is not; these generalisations seldom are. Anyhow, Clare, like many others, could not understand, but loved.

6

Lady Pinkerton said to her lord next day, 'How much longer will the peace take being made, Percy?'

'My dear, I can't tell you. Even I don't know everything. There are many little difficulties, which have to be smoothed down. Allies stand in a curious and not altogether easy relation to one another.'

'Italy, of course....'

'And not only Italy, dearest.'

'Of course, China is being very tiresome.'

'Ah, if it were only China!'

Lady Pinkerton sighed.

'Well, it is all very sad. I do hope, Percy, that after this war we English will never again forget that we hate _all_ foreigners.'

'I hope not, my dear. I am afraid before the war I was largely responsible for encouraging these fraternisations and discriminations. A mistake, no doubt. But one which did credit to our hearts. One must always remember about a great people like ourselves that the heart leads.'

'Thank G.o.d for that,' said Leila Yorke, illogically. Then Lady Pinkerton added, 'But this peace takes too long.... I suppose a lasting and righteous peace must ... Shall you have to be running to and fro like this till it's signed, dear?'

'To and fro, yes. I must keep an office going here.'

'Jane is enjoying it,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'She sees a lot of Oliver Hobart, I suppose, doesn't she?'

'He's in and out, of course. He and the child get on better than they used to.'

'There is no doubt about that,' said Lady Pinkerton. 'If you don't know it, Percy, I had better tell you. Men never see these things. He is falling in love with her.'

Lord Pinkerton fidgeted about the room.

'Rilly. Rilly. Very amusing. You used to think it was Clare, dearest.'

He c.o.c.ked his head at her accusingly, convicting her of being a woman of fancies.

'Oh, you dear novelists!' he said, and shook a finger at her.

'Nonsense, Percy. It is perfectly obvious. He used to be attracted by Clare, and now he is attracted by Jane. Very strange: such different types. But life _is_ strange, and particularly love. Oh, I don't say it's love yet, but it's a strong attraction, and may easily lead to it. The question is, are we to let it go on, or shall we head him back to Clare, who has begun to care, I am afraid, poor child?'

'Certainly head him back if you like and can, darling. I don't suppose Babs wants him, anyhow.'

'That is just it. If Jane did, I shouldn't interfere. Her happiness is as dear to me as Clare's, naturally. But Jane is not susceptible; she has a colder temperament; and she is often quite rude to Oliver Hobart.

Look how different their views about everything are. He and Clare agree much better.'

'Very well, mother. You're the doctor. I'll do my best not to throw them together when next Hobart comes over. But we must leave the children to settle their affairs for themselves. If he really wants fat little Babs we can't stop him trying for her.'

'Life is difficult,' Lady Pinkerton sighed. 'My poor little Clare is looking like a wilted flower.'

'Poor little girl. M'm yes. Poor little girl. Well, well, we'll see what can be done.... I'll see if I can take Janet home for a bit, perhaps--get her out of the way. She's very useful to me here, though. There are no flies on Jane. She's got the Potter wits all right.'

But Lady Pinkerton loved better Clare, who was like a flower, Clare, whom she had created, Clare, who might have come--if any girl could have come--out of a Leila Yorke novel.

'I shall say a word to Jane,' Lady Pinkerton decided. 'Just to sound her.'

But, after all, it was Jane who said the word. She said it that evening, in her cool, leisurely way.

'Oliver Hobart asked me to marry him yesterday morning. I wrote to-day to tell him I would.'

7

I append now the personal records of various people concerned in this story. It seems the best way.

PART II:

TOLD BY GIDEON

CHAPTER I

SPINNING

1

Nothing that I or anybody else did in the spring and summer of 1919 was of the slightest importance. It ought to have been a time for great enterprises and beginnings; but it emphatically wasn't. It was a queer, inconclusive, lazy, muddled, reckless, unsatisfactory, rather ludicrous time. It seemed as if the world was suffering from vertigo. I have seen men who have been badly hit spinning round and round madly, like dancing dervishes. That was, I think, what we were all doing for some time after the war--spinning round and round, silly and dazed, without purpose or power. At least the only purpose in evidence was the fierce quest of enjoyment, and the only power that of successfully s.h.i.+rking facts. We were like bankrupts, who cannot summon energy to begin life and work again in earnest. And we were represented by the most comic parliament that ever sat in Westminster, upon which it would be too painful here to expatiate.

One didn't know what had happened, or what was happening, or what was going to happen. We had won the war. But what was that going to mean?

What were we going to get out of it? What did we want the new world to be? What did we want this country to be? Every one shouted a different answer. The December elections seemed to give one answer. But I don't think it was a true one. The public didn't really want the England of _John Bull_ and Pemberton Billing; they showed that later.

A good many people, of course, wanted and want revolution and the International. I don't, and never did. I hate red-flaggery, and all other flaggery. The sentimentalism of Bob Smillie is as bad as the sentimentalism of the Pinkerton press; as untruthful, as greedy, as muddle-headed. Smillie's lot are out to get, and the Potterites out to keep. The under-dog is more excusable in its aims, but its methods aren't any more attractive. Juke can swallow it all. But Jukie has let his naturally clear head get muddled by a mediaeval form of religion.

Religion is like love; it plays the devil with clear thinking. Juke pretended not to hate even Smillie's interview with the coal dukes. He applauded when Smillie quoted texts at them. Though I know, of course, that that sort of thing is mainly a pose on Juke's part, because it amuses him. Besides, one of the dukes was a cousin of his, who bored him, so of course he was pleased.

But those texts d.a.m.ned Smillie for ever in my eyes. He had those poor imbeciles at his mercy--and he gave his whole case away by quoting irrelevant remarks from ancient Hebrew writers. I wish I had had his chance for ten minutes; I would have taken it. But the Labour people are always giving themselves away with both hands to the enemy. I suppose facts have hit them too hard, and so they shrink away from them--pad them with sentiment, like uneducated women in villas. They all need--so do the women--a legal training, to make their minds hard and clear and sharp.