Nobodys Man | Page 9

know which
Party to support. I think I shall devote my time to roses."
"And between September and May?"

"I shall hibernate and think about them."
"Of course," she said, with the air of one humoring a child, "you are not
in earnest. You have just been through a very painful experience and
you are suffering from it. As for the rest, you are talking nonsense."
"Explain, please," he begged.
"You said just now that you did not know where your place was," she
continued. "You called yourself nobody's man. Why, the most ignorant
person who thinks about things could tell you where you belong. Even
I could tell you."
"Please do," he invited.
She rose to her feet.
"Walk round the garden with me," she begged, brushing the cigarette
ash from her skirt. "You know what a terrible out-of-door person I am.
This room seems to me close. I want to smell the sea from one of those
wonderful lookouts of yours."
He walked with her along one of the lower paths, deliberately avoiding
the upper lookouts. They came presently to a grass-grown pier. She
stood at the end, her firm, capable fingers clenching the stone wall, her
eyes looking seaward.
"I will tell you where you belong," she said. "In your heart you must
know it, but you are suffering from that reaction which comes from
failure to those people who are not used to failure. You belong to the
head of things. You should hold up your right, hand, and the party you
should lead should form itself about you. No, don't interrupt me," she
went on. "You and all of us know that the country is in a bad way. She
is feeling all the evils of a too-great prosperity, thrust upon her after a
period of suffering. You can see the dangers ahead--I learnt them first
from you in the pages of the reviews, when after the war you foretold
the exact position in which we find ourselves to-day. Industrial wealth
means the building up of a new democracy. The democracy already

exists but it is unrepresented, because those people who should form its
bulwark and its strength are attached to various factions of what is
called the Labour Party. They don't know themselves yet. No Rienzi
has arisen to hold up the looking-glass. If some one does not teach
them to find themselves, there will be trouble. Mind, I am only
repeating what you have told others."
"It is all true," he agreed.
"Then can't you see," she continued eagerly, "what party it is to which
you ought to attach yourself--the party which has broken up now into
half a dozen factions? They are all misnamed but that is no matter. You
should stand for Parliament as a Labour or a Socialist candidate,
because you understand what the people want and what they ought to
have. You should draw up a new and final programme."
"You are a wonderful person," he said with conviction, "but like all
people who are clear-sighted and who have imagination, you are also a
theorist. I believe your idea is the true one, but to stand for Parliament
as a Labour member you have to belong to one of the acknowledged
factions to be sure of any support at all. An independent member can
count his votes by the capful."
"That is the old system," she pointed out firmly. "It is for you to
introduce a new one. If necessary, you must stoop to political cunning.
You should make use of those very factions until you are strong enough
to stand by yourself. Through their enmity amongst themselves, one of
them would come to your side, anyway. But I should like to see you
discard all old parliamentary methods. I should like to see you speak to
the heart of the man who is going to record his vote."
"It is a slow matter to win votes in units," he reminded her.
"But it is the real way," she insisted. "Voting by party and government
by party will soon come to an end. It must. All that it needs is a strong
man with a definite programme of his own, to attack the whole
principle."

He looked away from the sea towards the woman by his side. The wind
was blowing in her face, blowing back little strands of her tightly
coiled hair, blowing back her coat and skirt, outlining her figure with
soft and graceful distinction. She was young, healthy and splendid, full
of all the enthusiasm of her age. He sighed a little bitterly.
"All that you say," he reminded her, "should have been said to me by
the little brown girl in Paris, years ago. I am too old now for great
tasks."
She turned towards him with the