“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.
There came a silence that I was impelled to end. I began a stiff
dissertation from the hearthrug. “I am going over, because I think I
may join in an intellectual renascence on the Conservative side. I
think that in the coming struggle there will be a partial and altogether
confused and demoralising victory for democracy, that will stir the
classes which now dominate the Conservative party into an energetic
revival. They will set out to win back, and win back. Even if my
estimate of contemporary forces is wrong and they win, they will still
be forced to reconstruct their outlook. A war abroad will supply the
chastening if home politics fail. The effort at renascence is bound to
come by either alternative. I believe I can do more in relation to
that effort than in any other connexion in the world of politics at the
present time. That's my case, Margaret.”
She certainly did not grasp what I said. “And so you will throw aside
all the beginnings, all the beliefs and pledges--” Again her sentence
remained incomplete. “I doubt if even, once you have gone over, they
will welcome you.”
“That hardly matters.”