Читать книгу Wintersmoon онлайн

55 страница из 136

"Tom, my boy, don't set yourself on this too completely. Keep yourself a bit outside of it if you can until you know she cares for you. It's easy enough for someone who isn't in it to advise you, but all the same you're yourself. Nobody can touch you. I've learnt that from life. Life can hurt like the devil, and the more it sees it hurts the more it uses its power. I remember there was a woman once...." He broke off again. "No, what's the use? You've got to take your own medicine. If she did marry you what would you live on? She hasn't got anything, has she?"

"No, she hasn't, but I've got my Foreign Office pay and—and—don't laugh at me, but I fancy I can write a bit."

"Write? That's a new idea. Write what?"

"Well, articles—politics. I'm frightfully keen on politics, Uncle Tom. I mean to go into Parliament later on and then——"

"Politics!" Beaminster shook his head. "It's a dirty game, especially nowadays the way things are going."

"No, but that's just what it oughtn't to be. There are a number of us—Forsyte, Harry Grendon, Godfrey Maule, Bum Chichester, the Darrants, Humphrey Weddon—we've formed a club of our own; we all have the same idea."