Part 64

“Damn them!”

“They are ORGANISING scandal.”

“It's no good waiting for things to overtake us,” I echoed; “they have overtaken us.” I turned on her. “What do you want to do?”

“Everything,” she said. “Keep you and have our work. Aren't we Mates?”

“We can't.”

“And we can't!”

“I've got to tell Margaret,” I said.

“Margaret!”

“I can't bear the idea of any one else getting in front with it. I've been wincing about Margaret secretly--”

“I know. You'll have to tell her--and make your peace with her.”

She leant back against the bookcases under the window.

“We've had some good times, Master;” she said, with a sigh in her voice.

And then for a long time we stared at one another in silence.

“We haven't much time left,” she said.

“Shall we bolt?” I said.

“And leave all this?” she asked, with her eyes going round the room. “And that?” And her head indicated Westminster. “No!”

I said no more of bolting.

“We've got to screw ourselves up to surrender,” she said.

“Something.”

“A lot.”

“Master,” she said, “it isn't all sex and stuff between us?”

“No!”

“I can't give up the work. Our work's my life.”

We came upon another long pause.

“No one will believe we've ceased to be lovers--if we simply do,” she said.

“We shouldn't.”

“We've got to do something more parting than that.”

I nodded, and again we paused. She was coming to something.