human
You are worrying about all this!
gpt
Yes, in a way I am worrying, he confessed simply.
human
Not about the storm itself. I am ready to face that and I think I shall be a stronger and a saner man when the battle has started. In the meantime, I think that what has happened to me is this. I have arrived just at that time of life when a man takes stock of himself and his doings, criticises his own past and wonders whether the things he has proposed doing in the future are worth while.
gpt
You of all men in the world need never ask yourself that, she declared warmly.
human
Think of your lifelong devotion to your work. Think of the idlers by whom you are surrounded.
gpt
I work, he admitted,
human
You mean that you have lost your ideals?
gpt
I wonder, he speculated,
human
Tell me exactly how you started life,
gpt
Like any other third or fourth son of a bankrupt baronet, he replied.
human
I went to Eaton and Oxford with the knowledge that I had to carve out my own career and my ambitions when I left the University were entirely personal. I chose diplomacy. I did moderately well, I believe. I remember my first really confidential mission, he went on, with a faint smile,
gpt
You don't need to tell me anything about that part of your career, she interrupted, with a little smile almost of proprietory pride.
human
I never forget it.
gpt
When I came back, he continued,
human
I was almost a fanatic. I worked not from the ranks of the Labour Party itself, because I flatter myself that I was clear-sighted enough to see that the Labour Party as it existed after the war, split up by factions, devoted to the selfish interests of the great trades unions and with the taint of Miller retarding all progress, had nothing in it of the real spirit of freedom. It was every man for his own betterment and the world in which he lived might go hang. I stayed with the Coalitionists, though I was often a thorn in their side, but because I was also useful to them I bent them often towards the light. Then they began to fear me, or rather my principles. It was out of my principles, although I was not nominally one of them, that Dartrey admits freely to-day he built up the Democratic Party. He had been working on the same lines for years, a little too much from the idealistic point of view. He needed the formula. I gave it to him. Horlock came into office again and I worked with him for a time. Gradually, however, my position became more and more difficult. In the end he offered me a post in the Cabinet, induced me to resign my own seat, which I admit was a doubtful one, and sent me to fight Hellesfield, which it was never intended that I should win. Then Miller dug his own grave. He opposed me there and I lost the seat. Horlock was politely regretful, scarcely saw what could be done for me at the moment, was disposed to join in a paltry little domestic plot to send me to the Lords. This was at the time I came down to Martinhoe, the time, except for those brief moments in Paris, when I first met you.
gpt
Pruning roses in a shockingly bad suit of clothes,
human
And taken for my own gardener! Well, then came Dartrey's visit. He laid his programme before me, offered me a seat and I agreed to lead the Democrats in the House. There I think I have been useful. I knew the game, which Dartrey didn't. Whilst he has achieved almost the impossible, has, except so far as regards Miller's influence amongst the trades unions, brought the great army of the people into line, I accomplished the smaller task of giving them their due weight in the House.
gpt
Very well, then, Jane declared, looking at him with glowing eyes,
human
Insight, he answered promptly.
gpt
Don't think that I fear the big fight. I don't. With Dartrey on my side we shall wipe Miller into oblivion. It isn't true to-day to say that he represents the trades unions, for the very reason that the trades unions as solid bodies don't exist any longer. The men have learnt to think for themselves. Many of them are earnest members of the Democratic Party. They have learnt to look outside the interests of the little trade in which they earn their weekly wage. No, it isn't Miller that I am afraid of.
human
Then what is it?
gpt
How can I put it? he went on thoughtfully.
human
Well, first of all, then, I feel that the Democrats, when they come into power, are going to develop as swiftly as may be all the fevers, the sore places, the jealousies and the pettiness of every other political party which has ever tried to rule the State. I see the symptoms already and that is what I think makes my heart grow faint. I have given the best years of my life to toiling for others. Who believes it? Who is grateful? Who would not say that because I lead a great party in the House of Commons, I have all that I have worked for, that my reward is at hand? And it isn't. If I am Prime Minister in three months' time, there will still be something left of the feeling of weariness I carry with me to-day.