“I thought,” she began again, “when you came into Parliament—”
There came another silence. “It's all gone so differently,” she said. “Everything has gone so differently.”
I had a sudden memory of her, shining triumphant after the Kinghampstead election, and for the first time I realised just how perplexing and disappointing my subsequent career must have been to her.
“I'm not doing this without consideration,” I said.
“I know,” she said, in a voice of despair, “I've seen it coming. But—I still don't understand it. I don't understand how you can go over.”
“My ideas have changed and developed,” I said.
I walked across to her bearskin hearthrug, and stood by the mantel.
“To think that you,” she said; “you who might have been leader—” She could not finish it. “All the forces of reaction,” she threw out.
“I don't think they are the forces of reaction,” I said. “I think I can find work to do—better work on that side.”
“Against us!” she said. “As if progress wasn't hard enough! As if it didn't call upon every able man!”