“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!”
“I don't think Liberalism has a monopoly of progress.”
She did not answer that. She sat quite still looking in front of her. “WHY have you gone over?” she asked abruptly as though I had said nothing.