ome it. If he laid hold of any idea, he would
carry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion.
Only let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an
inevitable conclusion.

For a few moments she was borne away on the wild wings of ambition.
Gerald, with his force of will and his power for comprehending the
actual world, should be set to solve the problems of the day, the
problem of industrialism in the modern world. She knew he would, in the
course of time, effect the changes he desired, he could re-organise the
industrial system. She knew he could do it. As an instrument, in these
things, he was marvellous, she had never seen any man with his
potentiality. He was unaware of it, but she knew.

He only needed to be hitched on, he needed that his hand should be set
to the task, because he was so unconscious. And this she could do. She
would marry him, he would go into Parliament in the Conservative
interest, he would clear up the great muddle of labour and industry. He
was so superbly fearless, masterful, he knew that every problem could
be worked out, in life as in geometry. And he would care neither about
himself nor about anything but the pure working out of the problem. He
was very pure, really.

Her heart beat fast, she flew away on wings of elation, imagining a
future. He would be a Napoleon of peace, or a Bismarck--and she the
woman behind him. She had read Bismarck's letters, and had been deeply
moved by them. And Gerald would be freer, more dauntless than Bismarck.

But even as she lay in fictitious transport, bathed in the strange,
false sunshine of hope in life, something seemed to snap in her, and a
terrible cynicism began to gain upon her, blowing in like a wind.
Everything turned to irony with her: the last flavour of everything was
ironical. When she felt her pang of undeniable reality, this was when
she knew the hard irony of hopes and ideas.

She lay and looked at him, as he slept. He was sheerly beautiful, he
was a perfect instrument. To her mind, he was a pure, inhuman, almost
superhuman instrument. His instrumentality appealed so strongly to her,
she wished she were God, to use him as a tool.

And at the same instant, came the ironical question: 'What for?' She
thought of the colliers' wives, with their linoleum and their lace
curtains and their little girls in high-laced boots. She thought of the
wives and daughters of the pit-managers, their tennis-parties,