that held between us
should be obliged to part and shun one another, or murder half the
substance of their lives. We felt ourselves crushed and beaten by an
indiscriminating machine which destroys happiness in the service of
jealousy. "The mass of people don't feel these things in quite the same
manner as we feel them," she said. "Is it because they're different in
grain, or educated out of some primitive instinct?"

"It's because we've explored love a little, and they know no more
than the gateway," I said. "Lust and then jealousy; their simple
conception--and we have gone past all that and wandered hand in
hand...."

I remember that for a time we watched two of that larger sort of gull,
whose wings are brownish-white, circle and hover against the blue. And
then we lay and looked at a band of water mirror clear far out to sea,
and wondered why the breeze that rippled all the rest should leave it so
serene.

"And in this State of ours," I resumed.

"Eh!" said Isabel, rolling over into a sitting posture and looking out
at the horizon. "Let's talk no more of things we can never see. Talk to
me of the work you are doing and all we shall do--after we have parted.
We've said too little of that. We've had our red life, and it's over.
Thank Heaven!--though we stole it! Talk about your work, dear, and the
things we'll go on doing--just as though we were still together. We'll
still be together in a sense--through all these things we have in
common."

And so we talked of politics and our outlook. We were interested to the
pitch of self-forgetfulness. We weighed persons and forces, discussed
the probabilities of the next general election, the steady drift of
public opinion in the north and west away from Liberalism towards us.
It was very manifest that in spite of Wardenham and the EXPURGATOR, we
should come into the new Government strongly. The party had no one else,
all the young men were formally or informally with us; Esmeer would have
office, Lord Tarvrille, I... and very probably there would be something
for Shoesmith. "And for my own part," I said, "I count on backing on the
Liberal side. For the last two years we've been forcing competition in
constructive legislation between the parties. The Liberals have not been
long in following up our Endowment of Motherhood lead. They'll have to
give votes and lip service anyhow. Half the readers of the BLUE WEEKLY,
they say, are Liberals....

"I remember talking about things