"You're on that Indian barracks, aren't you?"
"Yes. They're in a Hades of a hurry."
"Well, my factory is in much more of a hurry."
George was startled. He had heard nothing of the factory for a month, and had assumed that the war had scotched the enterprise.
He said:
"Then the war won't stop you?"
Sir Isaac shook his head slowly, with an arrogant smile. It then occurred to George that this man differed strangely from all other men--because the sinister spell of the war had been powerless over him alone. All other men bore the war in their faces and in their gestures, but this man did not.
"I'm going to make munitions now--explosives. I'm going to have the biggest explosives factory in the world. However, the modifications in the general plan won't be serious. I want to talk to you about that."
"Have you got contracts, then, already?"
"No. Both the War Office and the Admiralty have told me they have all the explosives they want," he sneered. "But I've made a few inquiries, and I think that by the time my factory's up they'll be wanting more explosives than they can get. In fact I wish I could build half a dozen factories. Dare say I shall."
"Then you think we're in for a long war?"
"Not specially that. If it's a long war you English will win. If it's a short war the Germans will win, and it will be the end of France as a great power. That's all."
"Won't it be the end of your factory too?"
"Noh!" exclaimed Sir Isaac, with careless compassion in his deep, viscid voice. "If it's a short war, there'll be another war. You English will never leave it alone. So that whatever happens, if I take up explosives, I can't go wrong. It's velvet."
"It seems to me we shall bust up the whole world if we aren't careful, soon."
Sir Isaac smiled more compassion.
"Not at all," he said easily. "Not at all. Things are always arranged in the end--more or less satisfactorily, of course. It's up to the individual to look out for himself."
George said:
"I was thinking of going into the Army."
The statement was not strictly untrue, but he had never formulated it, and he had never thought consecutively of such a project, which did indeed appear too wild and unpractical for serious consideration.
"This recruiting's been upsetting you."
George's vague patriotism seemed to curdle at these half-dozen scornful words.
"Do you think I oughtn't to go into the Army, Sir Isaac?"
"My dear boy, any----can go into the Army. And if you go into the Army you'll lose your special qualities. I see you as the best factory designer we have, architecturally. You've only just started, but you have it in you. And your barracks is pretty good. Of course, if you choose to indulge in sentimentality you can deprive the country of an architect in a million and make it a present of a mediocre soldier--for you haven't got the mind of a soldier. But if you do that, mark my words--you'll only do it to satisfy the egotism that you call your heart, you'll only do it in order to feel comfortable; just as a woman gives a penny to a beggar and thinks it's charity when it's nothing of the sort. There are fellows that go and enlist because they hear a band play."
"Yes," George concurred. He hated to feel himself confronted by a mind more realistic than his own, but he was realistic enough to admit the fact. What Sir Isaac said was unanswerable, and it appealed very strongly to George. He cast away his sentimentality, ashamed of it. And at the same time he felt greatly relieved in other ways.
"You'd better put this Indian barracks on one side as much as you can, or employ some one to help you. I shall want all your energies."
"But I shall probably have to go to India. The thing's very urgent."
Sir Isaac scorned him in a profound gaze. The smoke from their two magnificent cigars mingled in a canopy above them.
"Not it!" said Sir Isaac. "What's more, it's not wanted at all. They think it is, because they're absolutely incapable of thought. They know the word 'war' and they know the word 'barracks.' They put them together and imagine it's logic. They say: 'We were going to build a barracks, and now we're at war. Therefore we must hurry up with the barracks.'
That's how they reason, and the official mind will never get beyond it.
_Why_ do they want the barracks? If they want the barracks, what's the meaning of what they call 'the response of the Indian Empire'? Are they going to send troops to India or take them away from India? They're going to take them away, of course. Mutiny of India's silent millions?
Rubbish! Not because a mutiny would contradict the far-famed 'response of the Indian Empire,' but because India's silent millions haven't got a rifle amongst them. You needn't tell me they've given you forty reasons for getting on with that barracks. I know their reasons. All of 'em put together only mean that in a dull, dim Oxford-and-Cambridge way they see a connexion between the word 'war' and the word 'barracks.'"
George laughed, and then, after a few seconds, Sir Isaac gave a short, rough laugh.
"But if they insist on me going to India--" George began, and paused.
Sir Isaac grew meditative.
"I say, speaking of voyages," he murmured in a tone almost dreamy. "If you have any loose money, put it into ships, and keep it there. You'll double it, you'll treble it.... Any ships. No matter what ships."
"Well, I haven't got any loose money," said George curtly. "And what I want to know is, if they insist on me going to India, what am I to do?"
"Tell them you can't go. Tell 'em your professional engagements won't permit it. They'll lick your boots, and ask humbly if you can suggest any suitable person to represent you. I shall want all your energies, and my factory will be worth more to this country in the war than all the barracks under heaven. Now just bend your eye to these."
He took some papers from his tail-pocket. The discussion grew technical.
III
George sailed down Piccadilly westwards on the top of a motor-bus. The August afternoon was superb. Piccadilly showed more than its usual splendour of traffic, for the class to whom the sacred word 'England'
signified personal dominion and a vast apparatus of personal luxury either had not gone away for its holiday or had returned therefrom in a hurry. The newspaper placards spoke of great feats of arms by the Allies. Through the leafage of Hyde Park could be seen uncountable smart troops manoeuvring in bodies. On the top of the motor-bus a student of war was explaining to an ignorant friend that the active adhesion of Japan, just announced, meant the beginning of the end for Germany. From Japan he went to Namur, seeing that Namur was the 'chief bastion' of the defensive line, and that hence the Germans would not be 'allowed' to take it. Almost every motor-bus carried a fine specimen of this type of philosopher, to whom the whole travelling company listened while pretending not to listen. George despised him for his manner, but agreed with some of his reasoning.
George was thinking chiefly about Sir Isaac. Impressive person, Sir Isaac, even if hateful! It was remarkable how the fellow seemed always to have leisure. Organization, of course! Indubitably the fellow's arguments could not be gainsaid. The firing-line was not the only or even the most important part of the national war machine. To suppose otherwise was to share the crude errors of the childlike populace and its Press. Men were useless without guns, guns without shot, shot without explosives; and explosives could not be produced without a factory. The populace would never understand the close interdependence of various activities; it would never see beyond the recruiting station; it was meet only for pity. Sir Isaac had uttered a very wise saying: "Things are always arranged in the end ... It's up to the individual to look out for himself." Sir Isaac was freed from the thrall of mob-sentimentality. He was a super-man. And he was converting George into a super-man. George might have gone back to the office, but he was going home instead, because he could think creatively just as well outside the office as inside--so why should he accept the convention of the ordinary professional man. (Sir Isaac assuredly did not.) He had telephoned to the office. A single consideration appealed to him: How could he now best serve his country? Beyond question he could now serve his country best as an architect. If his duty marched with his advantage, what matter? It was up to the individual to look out for himself. And he, George, with already an immense reputation, would steadily enhance his reputation, which in the end would surpass all others in the profession. The war could not really touch him--no more than it could touch Sir Isaac; by good fortune, and by virtue of the impartiality of his intelligence, he was above the war.... Yes, Sir Isaac, disliked and unwillingly but deeply respected, had cleared his ideas for him.
In Elm Park Gardens he met the white-clad son of a Tory M.P. who lived in that dignified street.
"The very man! Come and make a fourth, will you, Cannon?" asked the youth, dandiacal in flannels, persuasively and flatteringly.
George demanded with firmness:
"Who are the other two?"
"Miss Horton and Gladys What's-her-name."
Why shouldn't he play at tennis? It was necessary to keep fit.
"All right. But not for long, you know."
"That's all right. Hurry up and get into your things."