“To leave it all and come with me?” she said; “away, away.”
Ascher did not speak; but she knew and I knew that his decision was not that.
The scene was very painful. I felt that I had no right whatever to witness it Gorman, I am sure, would have been glad to escape. But it was very difficult for us to get away. Neither Ascher nor his wife seemed, conscious of our presence. We stood helpless a little apart from them. Gorman, with that unfailing tact of his, did, or tried to do the only thing which could have relieved the intolerable tension. He made an effort to get us all back to the commonplace.
“You’re in a devil of an awkward situation, Ascher,” he said. “A good deal seems to me to depend on whether you are a naturalised British subject or not. If you have been naturalised you ought to be able to pull through, though it won’t be pleasant even then.”
“I have not been naturalised,” said Ascher. “I never thought of it.”
“That’s a pity,” said Gorman. “Still—in the case of a man in your position I daresay it can be managed even now. I’ll use my influence. I know most of the members of the Cabinet pretty well. I can put it to them that, from an English point of view, considering the tremendous importance of your business, considering the financial collapse which would follow—oh, we’ll be able to manage.”
“Thank you,” said Ascher, “but that purely legal aspect of the matter does not at the moment strike me as the most important or the most pressing. No doubt it is important and your kindness will be helpful. But just now I cannot speak about that. There is, you see, my country and the loyalty I owe to it. I do not seem to escape from that obligation by a process of law. I may legalise, but do I really justify, treachery to the claim of patriotism?”
I have always felt,—felt rather than known,—that there is a queer strain of mysticism in Gorman. His arid common sense, his politics, his rhetoric, his tricky money-making, are the outside, visible things about him. Behind them, deep down, seldom seen, is a strange, emotional love for his country. When Ascher spoke as he did about the claim of patriotism Gorman understood. The innermost part of the man was reached. Without hesitating for an instant, without consideration or debate, Gorman leaped to a solution of the problem.
“Loyalty to your country comes first,” he said; “it must. Everything else goes by the board. I did not know you felt that way about Germany; but since you do There is no more to be said. Go back to your own country of course. You can’t help yourself.”
I have no doubt that Gorman meant exactly what he said. If he had been in Ascher’s position, if once the issue became quite plain to him and the tangle of political alliances were swept away, he would have thrown all his interests and every other kind of honour to the wind. He would have sacrificed his business, would if necessary have parted with his wife; he would have been loyal to the land of his birth, entirely contemptuous of any other call or any claim.