It was only natural perhaps, that Dilling should suffer the full and
terrible force of Sullivan’s temptation after he thought he had
conquered it, for it was only then that he permitted himself the
dangerous pleasure of examining its possibilities. In his silent office,
surrounded by the hush of a building deserted now save by the Dominion
Police who never relaxed their vigilance, he considered the
might-have-beens, and wrestled with beasts that threatened to rise up
and devour him.
Sullivan’s implications recurred in their most convincing aspect.
Sullivan was so nearly right. Must not a statesman possess flexibility
of mind as well as rigidity of principle? Must not he be able to adapt
himself to the exigencies of the time? Dilling required none to remind
him that the whole fabric of Canada’s political life was changed, that
the policy in ante-bellum days was, in many cases, inimical to the
public good, to-day. He saw, clearly, that concentration of the
Dominion’s resources upon Returned Soldiers and their re-establishment
was an inevitable consequence of War. He knew that Freight, Elevator and
Railway projects must be postponed. And he was in favour of postponing
them. But Sullivan asked more. He asked that the very principles that
had inspired his support be abandoned in exchange for a post of power.
Ambition’s seductive voice whispered of compromise. What else is
diplomacy, indeed? Supreme issues have been won by a trick;
statesmanship is permitted greater latitude than is allowed the private
individual.
He had learned that a sensitive conscience is a disability in political
life. If a man is revolted by the corruptness of his Party, he can not
lead it with spirit, nor can he justify it as a medium for serving the
State. It is sadly true that rather to his imperfections than to the
fineness of his qualities is the success of the statesman due.
On the other hand, public men of genius, in these days, are not excused
for their _dulcia vitia_ as they used to be. “I would be damned,” he
reflected, “for the frailties that seemed to endear Pitt to the
populace. So long as a leader is chaste and sober, he may be
unscrupulous with impunity.”
His spirit cried out in anguish, and he was tortured by the whirling orb
of thought that compels great minds to suffer the perturbation of a
common life-time in the space of a moment. He raised his eyes to the
window, unconsciously seeking strength from the glory framed there.
Suddenly, his soul was quickened; he became alive to the wonder of God
in Nature . . . the sun was setting in amber dust . . . pale greenish
streaks stretched overhead and dissolved in a pansy mist. Upon the
horizon, masses of heavy cloud lay banked like a mountain range bathed
in violet rain.
The words of the psalmist flashed across Dilling’s mind and he murmured,
“‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’
If God can pour strength into a frail vessel, may He pour it generously
into me.”
There was a light tap on the door, and Azalea entered the room.
Dilling stared at her without speaking. He had never attached much
importance to coincidences. They were, he thought, significant only in
the world of fiction. When they occurred in reality, they only
emphasised the incoherency of the substance. But Azalea’s coming was
like an answer to prayer. He could think of nothing to say.
“Marjorie told me you had not come home,” she began, “and I thought that
perhaps the work—Why, what is it?” Her tone changed. “What is the
matter?”
Briefly, he told her. “They have given me until to-morrow morning to
make up my mind.”
“Perhaps I’d better go,” she said.
“No, no! Stay and help me. I don’t feel as if I could fight this thing
out alone.”
Heavily, he threw himself into a chair. His thinness, his pallor, his
general air of frailness, made Azalea faint with pity for him. Sitting
in the half-tone of departing daylight, his hair seemed silvered with
frost, his face was drawn, his body sagged like that of an old man.
“What do you think I should do?” he asked her.
“What you know is right.”
“But if I don’t know what is right?”
“Ah, but you must! None knows it better. Education is only a matter of
knowing what is right and then having the courage to do it.”
He objected almost petulantly, supposing that he lacked the necessary
courage. Azalea smiled, and there was pride behind the gesture.
“That, above all others, is the virtue you possess. It is the foundation
upon which all the rest are built. It is that which helps them to endure
. . .”
Dilling listened to the quiet confident voice with an emotion so
profound that it was like a deep-bosomed bell ringing in his soul. He
was conscious of a curious sensation, as though his spirit had escaped a
crushing weight—(a weight that still cramped his body)—as though it
had been set free.
In a low voice, and in phrases that were disjointed and but half spoken,
he began to talk about himself, his ambitions, his career; and Azalea
listened feeling that part of him had died, and that she was hearing but
the echo of his voice.
“It never occurred to me that my life was barren,” she heard him say,
“barren and grim . . . just a brain . . . a machine that, given
direction, could drive on with peculiar force and vanquish those of
different constitution . . . Never felt the need of friends . . . nor
the lack of them . . . Alone and grim . . . But I loved Canada!” A
suggestion of warmth stole into his voice. “I loved the West . . . I
asked for nothing better than to serve my country—it may be that some
men serve women that way . . . I wanted to get into the heart of it, to
feel the throb, the life-waves beating out across the land . . . Then
the Capital . . . so different . . . The men, the administration . . .
Bewildering to find that I could take my place with those upon whom I
had looked as gods . . . Poor Marjorie! This would mean much to her
. . .”
“When the facts are known, you will go down in history,” Azalea told
him, “as a shining example of political integrity.”
“I’m not so sure. More likely, I will be held up to illustrate the
failure of Success. My God,” he cried, suddenly, “why can’t I live . . .
why can’t I live?”
His suffering was terrible for her to bear. Yet, she held herself in
strict control. “Success has become an odious word to me,” she said, “a
juggernaut to which Truth and Justice are too often sacrificed. You have
achieved . . . there is achievement even in failure . . .”
Her words filled him with bleak despair. He had hoped that she would
argue his decision, try to persuade him to alter it, show him that he
was wrong. For a fleeting second, he was guilty of resentment, doubting
that she divined his pain at relinquishing his career. But he looked
into her face and was ashamed.
“Azalea!”
“Raymond!”
A flame of delight ran through his being. It was as though his whole
body had been transfused with the ultimate beauty of life. “Do you think
I have achieved?”
“Yes . . . the expression of a great spiritual truth,” she answered. “No
compromise, no diplomacy—another name for deceit. That you have been
misunderstood and defamed was only to have been expected. It is the
price men pay for putting forth the truth. But you, who have been so
fearless—you are not weakening now?”
“No,” he said. “I cannot weaken with you to help me. I will go back.
There is no other way.”
“Go back?” she echoed. “Go back to the West?”
“Life would be intolerable here—especially for Marjorie.”
“You will leave Ottawa altogether?” The words were scarcely audible. She
had not anticipated this.
“Not altogether. Part of me will remain. This is my soul’s graveyard,
Azalea . . . They say a soul cannot die, but never was there a more
soothing untruth spread abroad for the peace of the credulous. Mine died
to-day—only a few hours after it was born.”
“My dear, my dear,” she whispered, trying to keep her voice free from
the coldness of death that lay upon her own spirit.
They sat in silence a space, while waves of misery welled up about them.
Then Azalea’s control broke. She covered her face with her hands.
“Don’t!” cried Dilling, sharply. “Don’t! Tell me the truth—do you want
me to stay?”
“No!”
Suddenly, he left his chair and knelt beside her, burying his face in
the folds of her dress, and groping for her hand. For a time, he could
not speak, could not tell how much he loved her, could not articulate
the thought that hers was the power to make vocative his life’s stern
purpose. He could only cling to her and suffer.
“Azalea,” he cried, at last, “how can I go? I can’t live without
you—I’m not even sure that I can die!”
She felt strangled and heard words falling from her lips without
understanding how she spoke them. “Are you forgetting the needs of the
West—the opportunity for your talents, there? Will you close your ears
to the call of your ambition?”
He denied the existence of ambition. It had died when life was stricken
from his soul.
She raised his head between her hands. They trembled and were cold.
“Raymond, do you love me?”
“You know it.”
“Then pick up the standard once more! Carry on! Respond to that inner
voice that presently will cry out to you. Ambition is inspired by
emotion rather than intellect. If you love me, don’t fling down the
torch!”
“But I need you,” he protested. “You are the fount, the source of all my
power. You are my torch. Without you, the world is plunged in darkness.
I can see to do nothing.”
“There is an inextinguishable beam of friendship. More . . . When one
achieves an understanding such as ours, one enters into a spiritual
romance.”
He bowed his head against her breast. Gently, she encircled his body
with her arms. Twilight quivered in the still room.
Presently, he looked up.
“And what of you, my dear? Yours is the harder part . . . Will you
suffer very much, Azalea?”
She closed her eyes to hide from him her agony. “Emotions, even the most
happy ones, are shot with pain,” she said.
“Yes, I’m learning that, myself, God pity me! But I don’t want you to
suffer through my love. Oh, Azalea . . . woman . . . you have been my
white angel, my guiding star, that I took for granted as naturally as
that one, in the sky! You have been for me the Truth and the Light, the
balm for which I cried in all my agony and strife. You have accepted me
as I am, nor asked a profession of my love in any way that was not _me_.
And I leave you, never having served you. What is there of me that can
hold a place in your life?”
She thought a moment, then,
“Listen,” she whispered. “Here is my answer. I wrote it yesterday . . .
“Sometimes I wake and say, ‘I love him!’
And sometimes, ‘He loves me!’
But whichever way it is
The day is filled with a finer purpose.”
“Azalea, let me kneel at your feet!”
“No, no! Kiss me . . . Oh, my dear love, kiss me . . .”
For a time, they clung to one another, and when at last she withdrew
from him, the room was plunged in utter darkness.