The room murmured an unintelligible protest.
“You just pushed me off. You jilted me. You broke off the engagement. Chaps, that broken engagement can’t be mended. We’re all constituted differently, I suppose, but I’m like this: if anybody’s faithful to me I should be glad of the opportunity of going through fire and water for them, if they’re not, then fire and water are things they can go through for themselves. I reckon I’ve been in love with this society for the last year, and I’ve been loyal to it; now I’m in love with somebody else.”
“Who?” demanded the room.
“I’m in love,” said Erb, turning to glance at himself contentedly in the clouded mirror, “in love with my wife.”
“In love with his wife!” said the members to each other amazedly.
“Some people possess a stock of enthusiasm that’s got no limits; mine all vanished, I find, directly you treated me unfairly. My friend who’s kindly come down from Westminster to talk to you knows that I’m giving up prospects that would tempt a good many; it’s only honest to tell you that those prospects, which a month since would have made my head swell, at this moment don’t allure me in the slightest degree. I think—I don’t know, mind—I think I’m seeing things clearer than I did. I thought all the right and all the justice and all the everything was on our side; I’ve come to see that, as a matter of fact, it’s about fairly divided. I’m going to take up a little business on my own account down in Wandsworth as a master carman, and I should be very glad, chaps, if you could manage to—to wish me luck. I’m going now. I’m going to leave you to go on with the business of appointing a secretary. There’s plenty of capable men in the world, and the opportunity always finds them. So I wish you every prosperity, and I wish we may always keep friends, because some day we might find ourselves shoulder to shoulder again. And I wish you—” Erb hesitated for a moment in order to steady his voice, “I wish you good-bye.”
The men crowded towards the doorway as Erb went in that direction.
“Come back to us, old man,” they cried. “We want you. Can’t you see that—”
On the opposite side of the roadway below, warmly jacketed in view of the coolness of an autumn evening, a pleasant figure walked to and fro. Regardless of the circumstances that faces looked down from the windows, Erb hurried across and kissed her.
Up the street they walked, arm-in-arm with each other, and arm-in-arm with happiness.