sion in it. But a profound physical dislike. Almost, it seemed to her, she had married him because she disliked him, in a secret, physical sort of way.

he was aware only of the physical aversion. It rose up in her from

t was insane. Civilized society is insane. Money and so-called love are its two great manias; money a long way first. The individual asserts himself in h

ll that wild struggling to push himself forwards! It was

on to Mrs Bolton. He did not know it. Like many insane people, his insanity might be m

of insanity in modern woman. She thought she was utterly subservient and living for others. Clifford fascinated her because he always, or so o

been his charm,

aressive, persuasive voice. `I should think you'd enjoy a

here, that yellow one. And I think I

nced it with the `y' sound: be-yutiful

bject to,' he said. `I

le offended, but impressed. And she carried the hyacinths

rather do it yourself?' Always the same soft

ind waiting a while. I'

t and submissive, withdrawing quietly. But eve

e, she would appear at on

her you shaved m

thrill, and she replie

d, Sir Cl

a growing voluptuousness. He let her shave him nearly every day: her face near his, her eyes so very concentrated, watching that she did it right. And gradually her fing

eyes bright, but revealing nothing. Gradually, with infinite softness, almo

body in her charge, absolutely, to the last menial offices. She said to Connie one day: `All men are babies, when you come to the bottom of them. Why, I've handled some of the toughes

her. But gradually, as she came to the bottom of him, to use her own term, she found he was like the rest, a baby grown to man's proportions: but a baby with

etimes tempted

hands of that woman!' But she found she didn't

ead together, or go over his manuscript. But the thrill had gone out of it. She was bored by his man

assiduously. So now Clifford would sometimes dictate a letter to her, and she would take it down rather slowly, but correctly. And he was very pa

a headache as an excuse for goi

l play piquet with you,

ll right. You go to your ow

all these games. And Connie found it curiously objectionable to see Mrs Bolton, flushed and tremulous like a little girl, touching her queen

t say j'

right, startled eyes, then

doub

into possession of all that the gentry knew, all that made them upper class: apart from the money. That thrilled her. And at

was in love with him would be putting it wrongly. She was thrilled by her contact with a man of the upper class, this titled gentleman, this author who could write books and poems, and whose photograph appeared in the illustrated newspapers. She was thrilled to a weird passion. And his `educ

ed so handsome and so young, and her grey eyes were sometimes marvellous. At the same time, there was a lurking soft sa

ed him, in her persistent fashion, and put herself absolutely at hi

than any book, about the lives of the people. She knew them all so intimately, and had such a peculiar, flamey zest in all their affairs, it was wonderful, if just a trifle humiliating to listen to her. At first she had not ventured to `talk Tevershall', as she called it, to Clifford. But once started, it went on. Clifford was listening for `material', an

a spirit of fine, discriminative sympathy. For even satire is a form of sympathy. It is the way our sympathy flows and recoils that really determines our lives. And here lies the vast importance of the novel, properly handled. It can inform and lead into new places the flow of our sympathetic conscious

us, and, like gossip, all the more vicious because it is always ostensibly on the side of the angels. Mrs Bolton's gossip was always on the side of the angels. `And he was such a bad fellow, and she was such a nice woman.' Whereas, as Connie could see even fr

reason, most novels, especially popular ones, are humiliatin

e it seemed: not at all the flat drabness it looked from outside. Clifford of course knew by sight most of the people me

nstructive film, but do for goodness sake keep away from these melodramas and love films. Anyhow keep the children away! But there you are, grown-ups are worse than the children: and the old ones beat the band. Talk about morality! Nobody cares a thing. Folks does as they like, and much better off they are for it, I must say. But they're having to draw their horns in nowadays, now th' pits are working so bad, and they haven't got the money. And the grumbling they do, it's awful, especially the women. The men are so good and patient! What can they do, poor chaps! But the women, oh, they do carry on! They go and show off, giving contributions for a wedding present for Princess Mary, and then when they see all the grand things that's been given, they simply rave: who's she, any better than anybody else! Why doesn't Swan & Edgar give me one fur coat, instead of giving her six. I wish I'd kept my ten shillings! What's she going to give me, I should like to know? Here I can't get a new spring coat, my dad's working that bad, and she gets van-loads. It's time as poor folks had some money to spend, rich ones 'as 'ad it long enough. I want a new spring coat, I do, an' wheer am I going to get it? I say to them, be thankful you're well fed and well clothed, without all the new finery you want! And they fly back at me: "Why isn't Princess Mary thankful to go about in her old rags, then, an' have nothing! Folks like her get van-loads, an' I can't have a new spring coat. It's a damned shame. Princess! Bloomin' rot about Princess! It's munney as matters, an' cos she's got lots, they give her more! Nobody's givin' me any, an' I've as much right as an

lage. The place had always frightened him, but

sm, Bolshevism, among

shall men into reds. They're too decent for that. But the young ones blether sometimes. Not that they care for it really. They only want a bit of money in their pocket, to

nk there's

n't make them serious. The serious ones dress up in evening clothes and go off to the Pally to show off before a lot of girls and dance these new Charlestons and what not. I'm sure sometimes the bus'll be full of young fellows in evening suits, collier lads, off to the Pally: let alone those that have gone with their girls in motors or on

hey do when th

do---and go to the Pally or the pictures or the Empire, with some gi

hen they haven't the m

lads want is just money to enjoy themselves, and the girls the same, with fine clothes: and they don't care about another thing. Th

e thing over again, Tevershall or Mayfair or Kensington. There was only one class nowadays: moneyboys.

belonged. A new sort of self-assertion came into him. After all, he was the real boss in Tevershall, h

once been a famous mine, and had made famous money. But its best days were over. New London was never very rich, an

it's a sinking ship, and it's time they all got out. Doesn't it sound awful! But of course there's a lot as'll never go till they have to. They don't like these new fangled mines, such a depth, and all machinery to work them. Some of them simply dreads those iron men, as they call them, those machines for hewing the coal, where men always did it before. And they say it's wasteful as well. But what goes in waste is saved in wages, and a lot more. It seems soon there'll be no use for men on the face of the earth, it'll be all machines. But they say that's what folks said when they had to give up the old stocking frames. I can remember one or two. But my word, the more machines, the more people, that's what it looks like! They say you can't get the same chemicals out of Tevershall coal as you can out of Stacks Gate, and that's funny, they're not three miles apart. But they say so. But everybody says it's a shame something can't be started, to keep the men going a bit better, and employ the girls. All the girls traipsing off to Sheffield every day! My word, it would be something to talk about if Tevershall

secure, from his father's trust, even though it was not large. The pits did not really concern him. It was th

r the populace of pleasure. And he had caught on. But beneath the populace of pleasure lay the populace of work, grim, grimy, and rather terrible. They too had to have their providers. And it wa

troking and tickling such as writers and artists gave her; but the other a grimmer appetite for meat and

e other, much less showy, much more savage breed, those who gave her meat, the real substance of money. The well-groomed showy dogs of amusement wrangled and snarled

er this other fight, to capture the bitch-goddess by brute me

him sensitive and conscious of himself and his own states. Mrs Bolton made hint aware only of

the workings. Things he had learned before the war, and seemed utterly to have forgotten, now came back to him. He sat there, cripple

of methods and means, a study of by-products and the chemical possibilities of coal, it was astounding the ingenuity and the almost uncanny cleverness of the modern technical mind, as if really the devil himself had lent fiend's wits to the technical scientists of industry. It was far more interesting than art, than literature, poor emotional half-witted stuff, was this techn

n' mind, Clifford did not care. Let all that go hang. He was interested in the t

nager, and the engineers through a mill they had never dreamed of. Power! He felt a new sense of power flowing through him: pow

et it sleep. He simply felt life rush into him out of the coal, out of the pit. The very stale air of the colliery was better than oxygen to him. It gave him a sense of power, power. He was do

came. The Germans invented a new locomotive engine with a self feeder, that did not need a fireman. And i

d Clifford. There must be some sort of external stimulus of the burning of such fuel, not merely air supply.

lled his life-long secret yearning to get out of himself. Art had not d

h he depended on her. But for all that, it was evident that when he was with

was obvious he had a secret dread of her. The new Achilles in hint had a heel, and in this heel the woman, the woman like Connie, his wife, could lame him fatally. He went in a

oice ran on with her almost as easily and garrulously as her own could run. And he let h