He was not to remain for long with the delusion that he had silenced her in their first talk. There followed many other talks, although she was coming to the conclusion that talking would not do the business for her. It helped, it made a preparation of the ground, but it was stubborn clay in which he had his roots. Talking did not dig deep enough; she must uproot, she must transplant.
“Politics,” he had said to pulverize her argument.
“Another thing,” she told him, “which is not quite the mystery for women that it was. Politics, but—why?”
And he replied with the word which had raised him to ecstasy. “Power,”; he said.
“Yes?” she questioned. “Business leads you to money, money to politics, and politics to power. And after that? You want power—for what?”
“Why,” he cried, “power is power.”
“An end in itself?”
“At least, it’s an ambition,” he replied.
It was, and so had Ada had her ambition to be married, an end, the end. He did not think of Ada, but he found it difficult to justify himself. He could not even tell her that he was a Liberal, because he had a decent hatred of a Tory; he wasn’t in politics for a faith which enabled him to endure their artifice; he relished the artifice, he was in with an axe to grind, but with no clear idea of the use he wished to make of his axe when it was sharp. Ambition, purpose narrowed to two letters—M.P. He wanted to be M.P. for Branstone, that Bran-stone might hear the voice of Branstone speaking in the House of Commons.
She watched him slyly, and thought her leaven worked. “Of course,” she said casually, “it would be useful for your business if you were an M.P.”