Israel Zangwill

“ The luxury of speaking one's mind is expensive. I ought never to have joined any Party. I am only fit to be Independent."
"Independence leads nowhere." She rose angrily. "And this is to be the end of your Career! The Career you married me for!"
"I did wrong, Amber. But before one finds the true God, one worships idols."
"And what is the true God, pray?"
"The one whose angel and minister you have always been, Amber "—he lowered his voice reverently—"Love."
"Love!" Her voice was bitter. "Any bench in the Park, any alley in Highmead, swarms with Love." ”

“ The poor lady sighed and went to sleep again.
"Behold the compensations of poverty," observed Walter Bassett. "The gallery-folk have to wait and squeeze before the opera; the carriage-folk after the opera."
"You forget the places they occupy during the opera. Poor Wagner! What a fight! I wish I could have helped his career." And Amber set a wistful smile in the becoming frame of her white hood.
"The form of the career appears to be indifferent to you," he said, with a little laugh.
"As indifferent as the man," she replied, meeting his eyes calmly. ”

“ It took, however, many letters and interviews, full of the subtlest comedy, infinite advancing and retiring, and recrossing and bowing, and courtesying and facing and half-turning, before this leap-year dance could end in the solemn Wedding March.
"You know," she said once, "how I should love the fun of seeing you plough your way through all the mediocrities."
"That is the means, not the end," he reminded her, rebukingly. "One only wants the world to swallow one's pills for the world's sake." ”

“ Love is the only reality—everything else a game played with counters. What are our winnings? A few cheers drowned in the roar that greets the winning jockey, a few leading articles, stale as yesterday's newspaper. ”

“ No, not Power but Powerlessness was life's central reality; not to turn with iron hand the great wheels of Fate, but to faint at a dear touch, to be sucked up as a moth in the flame. And for him, too, it were surely as sweet to leave this strenuous quest for dominance, or to be content with dominating her alone. ”

“ The masses have done me more good than I can ever do them. Next Monday, dear Amber Roan, we'll try our honeymoon over again." And his lips sought hers.
She drew back. "Yes, yes, after the Speech. But now—the Secret!"
"There will be no speech—that is the secret."
She drew away from him altogether. "No speech!" she gasped.
"None save to your adorable ear—and the moonlit waters. Woodham has lent us his yacht—"
"In the middle of a Cabinet Crisis?"
"Which concerns me less than anybody." And he beamed happily.
"Less than anybody?" she repeated. ”

“ Tolshunt and Lord Woodham, in their apprehension of the common foe, began to find each other endurable. If it was politics that attracted her, Tolshunt felt he too could stoop to a career. As for the Marquis, he began to meditate resuming office. Both had freely hinted to her Ladyship that to give a millionaire bride to a man who hadn't a penny savoured of Socialism.
Galled by such terrible insinuations, Lady Chelmer had dared to sound the girl.
"I love his letters," gushed Amber, bafflingly. "He writes such 'cute things."
"He doesn't dress very well," said Lady Chelmer, feebly fighting. ”

“ Few, indeed, were the recalcitrants who could resist Amber's smiles, or her still more seductive sulkiness. Walter Bassett's many enemies declared that the young Cabinet Minister owed his career entirely to his wife. His admirers indignantly pointed out that he had represented Highmead for two sessions before he met Miss Roan. The germ of truth in this was that he had stipulated to himself that he would not accept the contract unless Amber, too, must admit "Value received," and in contributing a career already self-launched, and a good old Huntingdon name, his pride was satisfied. ”

“ So when, at last, towards the end of the holiday season, the pair met in the flesh at a country house (Lady Chelmer still protests it was a coincidence) , Walter Bassett had no apprehension of danger, and his expression of pleasure at the coincidence was unfeigned, for he felt his correspondence would be lightened. In nothing did he feel the want of pence more keenly than in his inability to keep a secretary for his public work. "Money is time," he used to complain; "the millionaire is your only Methuselah." ”

“ He could not but see that she was easily the fairest of that crush of fair women, and to have her prostrated at the foot of his career was more subtly delicious than to have her surrender to his person. ”

“ Tolshunt, languidly. "Isn't that the chap that's always getting chucked out of Parliament?"
"But his name doesn't sound Irish?" queried Amber.
"What are you talking about, Amber!" cried Lady Chelmer. "Why, he comes of a good old Huntingdon family. If he had been his own elder brother, he'd have got in long ago."
"Oh, you mean he never gets into Parliament," said Amber.
"Serve him right. I believe he's one of those independent nuisances," said the old Marquis of Woodham. "How is one ever to govern the country, if every man is a party unto himself?" He said "one," but only out of modesty ”

“ This time Amber did not even inquire what it indicated—she was almost content to take it as an endorsement of Walter Bassett's epigrams. But Lord Woodham eagerly improved the situation. "A fine stroke that," he said, "but a batsman outside a team doesn't play the game."
"It will be a good time for the country, Lord Woodham," Mr. Bassett returned quietly, "when people cease to regard the Parliamentary session as a cricket match, one side trying to bowl over or catch out the other. But then England always has been a sporting nation." ”

“ Walter Bassett had been specially irritating, for he had not come up to the box once, and everybody knows (as the Hon. Tolshunt had said, with unwonted brilliance) the Rheingold is in heavy bars.
"I didn't know you admired Wagner so much," Amber said scathingly, as Walter pushed through the grooms. "Such a rapt devotee!"
"Wagner is the greatest man of the century. He alone has been able to change London's dinner-hour."
Amber could not help smiling. "Poor Lady Chelmer!" she said, nodding towards the drowsing dowager. "Since half-past six!"
"Is that our carriage?" ”

“ Doubtless the pieces in that chess game, which Eastern monarchs are said to play with human figures, come to think they move of themselves. The knight chuckles as he makes his tortuous jump at the queen, and the bishop swoops down on the castle with holy joy. ”

“ Vide the newspapers—'the polling was unusually heavy towards the close.'"
"Really!" intervened Lady Chelmer. "Then at that rate you can unseat him for bribery."
"At that rate—or higher," he replied drily. "To unseat another is even more expensive than to seat oneself."
"Why, it seems all a question of money," said Miss Amber Roan, naïvely.
II
CHASSÉ Lady Chelmer was glad when the season came to an end and the dancing mice had no longer to spin dizzyingly in their gilded cage. "The Prisoner of Pleasure" was Walter Bassett's phrase for her. Even now she was a convict on circuit. ”

“ Tolshunt Darcy and the timid cough of her chaperon.
"I wonder you waste your time on the silly elections," she said. "We don't take much stock in Senators in America."
"It's just because M.P.'s are at such a discount that I want to get in. In the realm of the blind the one-eyed is a king." ”