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It was not really very odd that Lord Bramley and Christopher Harington should enquire whether Inchbold had a relative on the Allied Control Commission in Germany. It had a perfectly simple explanation though a very painful one—most alarming, abominable, and heart-breaking in the mind of Harington.

He was very much in love with Pamela Faraday, daughter of Lord Bramley. He had wanted to marry her as soon after the War as possible when he became demobilized. The old man Bramley was quite agreeable to it.

“Shouldn’t want a better husband for Pam, my dear fellow,” he said one night in his smoking-room at Longacre, his country house in Sussex. “She’ll give you hell, having a high spirit and quick temper, but that’s your look-out.”

Lady Bramley had been equally complaisant.

“I should like Pamela to settle down after her disorderly life in the Wrens, and present me in due course with at least four grandchildren. I was afraid she might marry a Communist or some disreputable fellow without any morals. She has met the queerest people.”

But Pamela had not wanted to settle down. Far from it. She had accepted the offer of this job in Berlin—nothing more than that of a typist-secretary—and had announced the fact after she had fixed it up.

“But, my dearest Pam,” Harington told her, “it’s all wrong. You can’t go to Berlin for two years. It’s all arranged that we should get married within the next few months.”

“Who arranged it?” she asked him with that challenging look which jumped into her eyes now and then.

“Fate,” he told her, “and the estate agents in Kensington, and my love for you.”

“Leaving me out?” she asked. “Willy-nilly, so to speak?”

“Not leaving you out,” he told her. “Putting you right in the middle of the picture and the most beautiful object therein. Sometimes I wish you weren’t so beautiful and so lovely in mind and spirit. I shall be very much distracted from my duties in the House of Commons.” He grinned at her but meant what he said.

“This beautiful creature,” answered Pamela, “so lovely in mind and spirit—God save the Wrens!—will not distract you for at least two years. You’ll be able to get on with your political career undistracted by a critic on the hearth.”

They had fenced with each other like Beatrice and Benedick. It was in the garden of Longacre during an amazing summer which went on and on without rain, and with one golden day after another. The lawns of Longacre were already brown in early summer. The rose garden was a glory of colour where Lady Bramley spent much time snipping off the heads of the dead blooms to make way for young buds. Presently Harington spoke seriously, with emotion.

“Pam, don’t go to Berlin. It’s not playing fair. I want you. I thought you wanted me. All through the War in the North African desert—and lots of places—I dreamed of this time. I yearned for it like a parched man craves for water. Now you dash the cup from my lips. Damned cruelty, I call it.”

Pamela Faraday fluttered her eyelashes, avoiding the passion in his eyes.

“Kit,” she said, “I don’t want to be heartless. I love you very much but I don’t want marriage just yet and I’ve made no promise. We’re not formally or informally engaged. I feel quite free to plan my own life for a while. I want to get more experience. I feel so young and immature. We’re both Babes in the Wood, and marriage is a difficult relationship anyhow.”

“Why difficult?” he asked. “It’s natural. It’s nature’s law.”

“One has to adjust oneself to the other person,” said Pamela, thoughtfully. “Mutual give and take, the surrender of one’s own egotism. And sometimes one side loves more than the other. There’s a French proverb about that. Entre deux amants il y a toujours un gui aime et l’autre qui se laisse aimer. It’s always a bit of a risk, Kit. Look at all the unhappy war marriages!”

“Are you funking marriage?” he asked. “Are you afraid of it, Pam?”

“A little bit,” she admitted, with a shy laugh. “Anyhow I’m not ready for it. I want my freedom. I want to see things and do things. I’m keen on this experience in Berlin. Kit, be patient, won’t you? Give me a little rope.”

They had been walking and talking on a grass path between blue cypresses. Suddenly she came close to him and smiled into his very blue eyes filled with trouble, and put her fingers through his carroty hair which looked on fire as a shaft of sun caught it.

“What a baby you are, Kit!” she exclaimed. “You look like a boy who has cut his knees and wants to weep on his mammy’s breast.”

“Somebody has cut my heart,” he told her. “I’m bleeding inwardly.”

He put his arms round her and kissed her lips though she tried to hold him back.

He had argued with her afterwards, pleaded with her, become angry with her. She countered all his arguments, sometimes gaily, sometimes, but not often, seriously.

He wanted her to give up her job. Was he willing to give up his political career? He had already made a mark for himself on the back benches, perhaps because of his intense vitality and the distinction of his red hair and very blue eyes and whimsical mouth and touch of wit. One of our coming leaders, she had heard it said. One of the brilliant young Tories. If she gave up Berlin would he give up the House of Commons? She asked him that teasingly, as a test.

“By the lord, no!” he answered angrily. “Why the deuce should I?”

“Then why ask me to give up my career? Egoist! Red-poll! Politician!”

“Your career!” he jeered. “Typist-secretary to some nit-wit in uniform.”

“Helping to shape the destiny of Europe!” she answered with mock solemnity.

“Making a hideous mess of it,” answered Harington bitterly. “I say, Pam, chuck it! Give up the idea for my sake.”

“I’ve signed on the dotted line,” she reminded him.

“For how long?”

“Not more than a year, unless I sign on another dotted line.”

“O God!” he cried, not in blasphemy, but prayer. “O God, help me to get some sense into this woman’s head and to soften the hardness of her heart!”

“A year will pass like the whiff of a cigarette,” she told him. “But I may return a different kind of woman—wiser but possibly repulsive.”

“You’re always pulling my leg,” he answered. “You’re always mocking. If you weren’t such a hefty wench I’d put you across my knee and spank you.”

“I’d pull that red hair of yours,” she answered, “I’d make you squeal. I’d defend myself with tooth and claw.”

She had gone to Germany.

Kit Harington was too busy to pine for her and too much interested in the affairs of life to mope as a melancholy Jacques. As a back-bencher on the Tory side of the House he was excited and amused by the political game which he took seriously, though with that verbal flippancy which he had learnt as President of the Oxford Union. His scarlet hair among bald heads, grey heads and brown heads was as noticeable as a railway signal, and helped to catch the Speaker’s eye after the front benches had monopolized a debate. His very pleasant voice and manner and his whimsical smile disarmed even his political opponents when he rose to question them with a desire for information which was not so innocent as it seemed, followed by supplementary questions too artful to please a Government spokesman whatever his gift of evasion.

In the smoking-room of the House he was generally with a group of the younger Conservatives. He was a vivacious, excitable talker because he felt deeply and emotionally about the international situation and the economic crisis at home, getting worse and worse as the months passed. A likable fellow, they thought him in the House of Commons. Those very blue eyes of his under his red hair were often lighted by a charming and rather boyish smile. It was remarked by his friends, not without criticism, that in the smoking-room or the lobbies some of the Labour members went out of their way to chat with him and he seemed to have struck up a close friendship with Halliday Norton, most promising among the tiny group which had survived the wreckage of the old Liberal Party.

“You’re too damned tolerant, Harington,” said one of his Conservative friends one day. “I saw you in earnest conversation yesterday with that very poisonous fellow Horace Darnsley, ‘Our ’Orace’, who is mainly responsible for leading this unfortunate country to the edge of the deep black pit. I don’t believe in getting on too friendly terms with crypto-Communists and political charlatans, especially when they drop their ‘h’s’ and can’t speak the King’s English.”

Harington laughed at this criticism.

“Snob stuff, Jaggers! It’s only by accident and privilege that you and I aspirate certain words. And it doesn’t matter a row of beans anyhow. ‘Our ’Orace’, as you call him, is a very decent fellow and no more a crypto-Communist than you are. At the core of him he’s an old-fashioned Liberal like so many of the moderate men on the Labour side, including the P.M. Except for the two extremes we’ve all taken over the Liberal tradition. That’s why so much of this party stuff is very unreal, though I enjoy the game. I’m groping my way towards the idea of a new Party including all those who stand for liberty against totalitarianism. If we could shed some of our own die hards and join forces with the moderate centre we might get this country out of the ditch.”

His friend, who was young Philip Jaggers, stared at him incredulously.

“Shut up, Carrots! You’re talking heresy. If you walk along that road, Kit, you’ll wreck your political career and have the Whips up against you. Get off it, laddy! The only salvation for this country is to turn those Labour blighters out with all their ignorance and incompetence and class consciousness.”

“I wonder if we should do much better?” asked Harington with that disarming smile in his very blue eyes. “We should have to face the same problems of a bankrupt nation drained of dollars. We should have to keep on many of the controls. For the sake of argument...”

He was off again talking partly to discover his own inmost convictions, to get down to the root of things by the Socratic method, and to study every point of view without prejudice. It was very annoying sometimes to his friends who felt naked without prejudice and disarmed without intolerance, and devitalized without the fire of political hatred.

With these political interests and his work as assistant editor of a weekly review on economic affairs, which paid him a living wage supplementing his Parliamentary salary, Christopher Harington did not spend his time sighing as an inconsolable lover, but it was not a case of out of sight out of mind. He kept Pamela in his heart, wrote to her chatty and humorous and affectionate letters, and felt himself hardly treated because her answers were not more frequent than once a month. They were good letters when they came. She had a gift of description and character-drawing and was amusing in her sketches of the staff with whom she was working and some of the other girls with whom she was billeted in what were once workmen’s flats in Berlin. Each girl had a tiny bedroom to herself. The bathrooms had to be shared. They lunched in a canteen which had once been a communal restaurant for German working folk. These conditions of life were somewhat primitive and austere but Pamela seemed to be glad of that, and confessed to a feeling of guilt when she was taken out to dinner in some expensive restaurant which was only frequented by British officials and German racketeers making money on the Black Market.

I can’t bear to eat and drink [she wrote], when I think of the semi-starvation of the people in Berlin, the pallid faces of working women, the wretched underfed look of so many men, the thin, pinched look of the children. It’s not so bad in the country districts to which I go on excursions now and then—Captain Inchbold is very friendly in that way—but here in Berlin it is ghastly and miserable. All one’s hatred of German cruelties evaporates in the face of the suffering and hunger of fellow mortals. The desolation of the ruins in which they live—Berlin is one great heap of rubble and twisted iron—and the utter hopelessness which stares out of their eyes, tends to get one down. Pity is one’s dominant emotion, at least mine, though I find that other people, like Julian Inchbold, are harder than I am.

Inchbold. Julian Inchbold. That name crept into her letters many times. Presently Harington noticed that she began to call him Julian—a faun-like young man, she described him once. Christopher Harington, reading her letters, did not like the recurrence of that name. He had a distinct twinge of jealousy though he realized that she would inevitably make new friends and could not be denied some social life after working hours. It was natural that colonels and majors on the Allied Control Commission should make rather a fuss of her. But this Julian Inchbold, this faun-like fellow, seemed to be monopolizing her.

Harington questioned her about this young man but in her answering letters she failed to satisfy his morbid curiosity. Then he wrote one letter to her which was more than a weekly narrative of personal affairs.

Dearest heart [he wrote],

Your time of service in Berlin is nearing its end and I look forward eagerly and excitedly to your homecoming. I am already searching around and sending out scouts for a house or flat which will make that home for you, with myself as the slave of the lamp. It’s incredibly difficult to do so. London Estate Agents just laugh at one, but sometimes, with a bit of luck, one can hear privately of something going. That is our chance now and I rush this letter by air mail to tell you. Bill Joicey and Phyllis have to leave their little house in Edwardes Square in two months’ time when they are going to South Africa. Bill has been offered a first-class job in the School of Mines out there. I have been to see the house. It’s a gem, and just the right size for us. Darling, will you let me know without delay if you advise me to take it, if you are willing now to share a home with me, if new friends and scenes have not made me fade out of your mind and heart? Dare I hope for such happiness? Dare I plan for it?

He wrote a postscript hurriedly in one of the writing-rooms in the House of Commons.

I bought an adorable little Queen Anne mirror for your dressing-table this afternoon. I could not resist it. I yearn for the time when I shall look over your shoulders while you are doing your hair in our little home, and in our new life together. Come back soon!

How very rash of this young man to take her love for granted! They had never been engaged. She had never promised herself to him. They had played Beatrice and Benedick in her father’s garden and in others. They had been laughing friends teasing each other but there was no pledge on her side.

When the answer came it was a staggering blow. She wrote in tenderness and kindness but there was the blow which struck at his heart like a sharp dagger. She was very sorry to hurt him, she wrote. She knew his love for her and was glad of it but something had happened. It had come out of the blue, touching her with the madness of primitive passion. She supposed it was that. Julian—Julian Inchbold—had blotted out everything including common sense. She found him irresistible. He had stepped into modern life out of Greek mythology—or perhaps he was just a Gypsy. At first they had just been friendly. But he had made a dead set at her and she hadn’t been able to keep him off. Almost immediately she knew that he had put a spell on her. There was something in his eyes which made her feel silly, emotional, out of control. If this passionate love meant anything she was caught up in it. She had tried to fight against it, but Julian had only to raise his little finger and she would follow him barefoot if need be, to a Gypsy camp or a dark forest. He wasn’t quite a gentleman. She knew that. But he was her man. She would marry him as soon as he could get demobilized.

I’m sorry, Kit [she wrote]. I know this will seem like treachery to you but it isn’t really. I was quite free. I told you so many times. I’ve made my own plan of life and that is with Julian Inchbold for better or worse. In a way I can’t help myself. In a way I’m like a snared bird. But I love Julian, and that’s all there is about it. So don’t take the house in Edwardes Square unless, as I hope, there is some other girl who would make you happy there. Susan Greenways? She’s very charming and loves you dearly. Or Sybil Bravington, that exquisite little lady like a portrait by Reynolds. In any case, Kit, don’t smudge me out of your heart altogether. I shall always love you as a good comrade. How much we have laughed together! How much we have chipped each other, you and I! My love to you now and if you have to forgive me, forgive.

Christopher Harington was in his bed-sitting-room in Belgrave Road when he read this letter which he found on a chest in the hall downstairs when he returned from a late sitting in the House. In the corner of his room was the little Queen Anne mirror and dressing-table which he had bought at great expense for Pamela’s room in Edwardes Square. He read the letter twice and his fair skin—the fair skin of red-headed men—became slightly pale. He let the letter fall to the floor and stood motionless for a few seconds. Suddenly he gave a queer cry of anguish like a wounded animal, and seizing the mirror raised it above his head and flung it against the iron bars of the fireplace, smashing it badly.

The noise of the crash disturbed the man in the bed-sitting-room next to his, a Home Office man named Jordan with whom Harington exchanged a ‘good morning’ on the stairs. Harington heard his voice outside the door.

“Anything wrong, old man?”

“A trivial accident,” answered Harington. “I smashed a glass, that’s all.”

“It sounded like the Crystal Palace falling down. Well, good night.”

Harington went down on his hands and knees and picked up bits of the broken mirror. Bad luck, didn’t they say? Seven years’ bad luck. It was childish anyhow to have behaved like that. A man was a fool to lose control like that because of bitter disappointment and frustrated love. Perhaps his love for Pamela was utterly selfish. If he loved her perfectly he would desire only her happiness. This jealousy, this rage, was cave-man stuff. It was uncivilized. It was just egotism and possessiveness.

Harington picked himself up with the bits of broken glass which he put carefully into his wastepaper-basket. Presently he was overcome by emotion again and stifled a harsh groan. He mustn’t make noises like that. That damn’ fellow in the next room would hear him.

What was the name of that young swine whom Pamela was going to marry? Inchbold—Julian Inchbold. There was a Labour member of that name. Steenie Inchbold who spoke with a rough provincial accent.

Harington’s voice—he was a good actor—was very calm and casual in the lavatory of the House of Commons when he asked Steenie Inchbold whether he had a relative on the Allied Control in Berlin.

“My boy Julian,” he had answered.