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‘Oh yes, I suppose so!’ he replied wearily. And then after a little pause: ‘I could never have satisfied you, Nelly — my darling!’

She thought in her heart, How can I tell him that I love him with everything that is best in me? How can I tell him that I love him because he is strong and good; and that I love my poor Richard because he is weak, and anything but good?

And she also thought in her heart, Am I different from other women and much less moral? Am I doing something callous and selfish in sitting here eating Robert’s food while I am still Richard’s wife? And then, sweeping aside both Richard and Robert, there rose up within her that fierce blind instinct to protect the unborn at any cost; to take from one, to take from another, to exploit them all — if only this flesh of her flesh, this bone of her bone, might live and grow in peace! And she thought to herself, How little, really, is anything in the world important except the creation of life! This idea had come to her several times during these last weeks as she listened to Canyot’s conservatism and Karmakoff’s radicalism. ‘These men understand nothing!’ she had heard her heart whisper. ‘All their theories are superficial! All their words leave the truth untouched!’

‘It is destiny, Robert dear,’ she said at last. ‘I certainly little thought in those old days that we should be sitting together like this this autumn united by your faithfulness, separated by my … nature!’

They finished their lunch in silence after this; then he made her lie down on his studio couch, while he washed up the things.

At two o’clock punctually Karmakoff turned up. He was excited beyond his usual wont. There had been a police raid upon some peculiarly inoffensive Russian utopians, and one Herculean Irish official had used his baton savagely. ‘The absurdity of the whole thing is,’ he said, ‘that these people were not political revolutionaries at all. They were a sect of mystical Tolstoyans — quiet nervous saintly men, like medieval hermits — the sort of people that in any other community would be protected by the populace, as innocents sacred to God.’

‘What annoys me,’ remarked Canyot in his most surly manner, ‘is the way all you fellows appeal to what you call bourgeois justice and bourgeois morality as long as you are persecuted. And then, directly it’s your turn to be the upper dog, to the devil with such scruples! It’s then a case of saving the revolution at the cost of any bloodshed. If you are allowed by the moral law to save your revolution by breaking heads, why isn’t the capitalist allowed to save his system by breaking heads? With both of you it becomes a sheer matter of who can use the greatest force. I never can see what right either of you have to appeal to these moral principles, principles that are just simply human, and quite outside your class struggles.’

‘Nothing,’ replied Karmakoff, smiling patiently, recovering his normal poise; ‘nothing is outside the class struggle. The class struggle is the very thing that has given birth to all these abstract human principles you’re referring to. The principle of the sacredness of property, for instance, is simply the enforced will of the people who have possessed themselves of property. And all these doctrines of justice and order and legality and so forth are really nothing at all but just the will and pleasure of those in possession of power.’

‘Order is the one essential thing!’ cried Canyot. ‘How can anyone work or think without order? What becomes of art without order?’

Karmakoff bowed his head politely. ‘I entirely agree with you,’ he said. ‘It’s you who’re the anarchist, not I. Certainly we must have order. The question is who are to enforce this order — a privileged few or the whole community?’

‘The whole community can enforce nothing,’ cried Canyot controlling his anger with difficulty, his face growing flushed and wrinkled. ‘The whole community is a set of silly sheep!’

‘Precisely,’ replied the other in his most purring voice. ‘And the whole question resolves itself, then, into what set of people are to give this desirable order to these silly sheep. Are they to be people with sheep’s blood in their veins — old horned rams for instance, like myself? Or are they to be wolves in sheep’s clothing? I believe it will be found in the long run that the silly sheep prefer the former!’

‘I wish,’ broke in Nelly, ‘that the day would hurry up and come, when the sheep stop being silly and throw you both overboard!’

Karmakoff laughed heartily at this. ‘The woman speaks!’ he said. ‘But seriously, you know, Mrs Storm, you and I are in much closer agreement than you and Mr Canyot. I am perfectly ready to admit that the dictatorship of certain representatives of the proletariat is only a temporary and transitional thing — an interregnum of horned rams, shall we call it? — until the sheep grow accustomed to power. Mr Canyot would have the poor wretches left for ever at the mercy of the wolves.’

At this point there was a rapid tap at the door and without waiting for a reply Catharine Gordon swung into the room. She had just bought herself a new smock of the very latest futurist design, and though it was so early in the afternoon, she wore a black silk skirt.

‘Ha! you’re here first, then!’ she threw out at Karmakoff while she gravely shook hands with Canyot, who at once, turned away and busied himself with his palette of colours.

Then she rushed across to Nelly who still reclined on the couch. ‘I’ve got a job! I’ve got a job! I’ve got a job!’ she shouted, throwing herself down on the floor by the end of the couch and possessing herself of Nelly’s hand. ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted. The very nicest thing in the world. Try and guess what it is, Ivan!’

‘Not anything on the stage?’ Karmakoff inquired.

‘Oh dear no! I’m sick of that. I’m not vulgar enough for Broadway; and I know too much about the theatre for the art people.’

‘Is it dancing, my dear?’ asked Nelly. “I’ve always thought if you only got a chance—’

‘No! it’s not dancing. That may come later, of course, and probably will; but it’s not dancing yet. Shall I tell you what it is — oh, and I’ve got something else by the way to tell you, Nelly, in private, presently, something very comical, something about your husband — well, I’ll tell you. It’s that I’m to be secretary to Elise Angel!’

There was a general exclamation of surprise. Even Canyot turned round from his work. ‘I didn’t know you could typewrite,’ he said.

‘I can’t! That’s just the fun of it. But Elise said it didn’t matter a bit. She liked her letters written in ordinary script. She made me show her my hand and liked it awfully!’

‘Do you mean that she liked your hand or your handwriting?’ inquired Canyot.

‘Both! She made me write on a piece of paper. And when I had written my name, she took my hand in hers and played with my fingers, and said she liked their longness. And — just think — when I said goodbye she kissed me. Yes! kissed me. Oh, isn’t it lovely? I’ve been kissed by Elise Angel! And I’m to go to her this very night to begin!’

‘Surely she doesn’t write her letters by night?’ growled Canyot.

‘Are you going to live with her?’ inquired Karmakoff gravely.

‘Oh no. I’m not going to live with her. She doesn’t want me to do that. I’m going in the daytime, in the morning, in the evening — any old time; just as she wants me, you know.’

As the girl spoke she fixed her eyes steadily upon Karmakoff. The Russian walked up and down the room, frowning, his hands behind his back. Presently he stopped in front of her. ‘You’ll have to introduce me to Elise,’ he said. There is a chance they might invite her to Moscow to take charge of the whole art movement there.’