BETWEEN the young man of immaculate vesture, of impeccable manners, of undeniable culture, of instinctive sympathy with the great world where great things are done, of unerring tact, of mythological beauty and charm, of boundless ambition, of resistless energy, of incalculable promise, in outer semblance and in avowed creed the fine flower of aristocratic England, professing the divine right of the House of Lords and the utilitarian sanctity of the Church of England—between Paul, that is to say, and the Radical, progressive councillor of Hickney Heath, the Free Zionist dissenter (not even Congregationalist or Baptist or Wesleyan, or any powerfully organized Non-conformist whose conscience archbishops consult with astute patronage), the purveyor of fried fish, the man of crude, uncultivated taste, there should have been a gulf fixed as wide as the Pacific Ocean. As a matter of fact, whatever gulf lay between them was narrow enough to be bridged comfortably over by mutual esteem. Paul took to visiting Mr. Finn. Accustomed to the somewhat tired or conventional creeds of his political world, he found refreshment in the man's intense faith. He also found pathetic attraction in the man's efforts towards self-expression. Mr. Finn, who lived a life of great loneliness—scarcely a soul, said Jane, crossed his threshold from month's end to month's end—seemed delighted to have a sympathetic visitor to whom he could display his painted treasures. When he was among them the haunting pain vanished from his eyes, as sometimes one has seen it vanish from those of an unhappy woman among her flowers. He loved to take Paul through his collection and point out the beauties and claim his admiration. He had converted a conservatory running along one side of the house into a picture gallery, and this was filled with his masterpieces of pictorial villainy. Here Paul was at first astonished at recognizing replicas of pictures which hung in other rooms. Mr. Finn explained.
"These," said he, "are the originals."
Paul pondered over the dark saying for a moment or two until he came upon a half-finished canvas on an easel. It was the copy of a landscape on the wall. He turned questioningly to his host. The latter smiled.
"I'm a bit of an artist myself," he said. "But as I've never had time for lessons in painting, I teach myself by copying good pictures. It's a Saunders"—a name unknown to Paul—"and a very good example. It's called Noontide. The cow is particularly good, isn't it? But it's exceedingly difficult. That fore-shortening—I can't get it quite right yet. But I go on and on till I succeed. The only way."
Paul acquiesced and asked him where he had picked up his Saunders. Indeed, where had he picked up all the others? Not an exhibition in London would have admitted one of them. This "Saunders" represented a wooden cow out of drawing lying in the shade of a conventional tree. It was peculiarly bad.
"I bought it direct from the artist," replied Mr. Finn. "He's an unrecognized genius, and now he's getting old, poor fellow. Years ago he offended the Royal Academy, and they never forgot it. He says they've kept him under all his life. I have a great many of his pictures." He looked admiringly at the cow for a while, and added: "I gave him four pounds ten for this one."
Paul could not forbear saying, though his tone betrayed no irony: "A good price."
"I think so," replied Mr. Finn. "That's what he asked. I could never haggle with an artist. His work is of the spirit, isn't it?"
And Paul marvelled at the childlike simplicity of the man, the son of the Sicilian woman who went about with a barrel-organ, who, starting in the race on a level with Barney Bill, had made a fortune in the exploitation of fried fish. To disturb his faith in the genius of Saunders were a crime—as base a crime as proving to a child the non-existence of fairies. For Paul saw that Silas Finn found in this land of artistic illusion a refuge from many things; not only from the sordid cares of a large business, but perhaps also from the fierce intensity of his religion, from his driving and compelling deity. Here God entered gently.
There was another reason, which Paul scarcely confessed to himself, for the pleasure he found in the older man's company. The veil which he had thrown so adroitly over his past history, which needed continuous adroitness to maintain, was useless in this house. Both Barney Bill and Jane had spoken of him freely. Silas Finn knew of Bludston, of his modeldom, of his inglorious career on the stage. He could talk openly once more, without the never-absent subconscious sense of reserve. He was still, in his own, eyes, the prince out of the fairy-tale; but Silas Finn and the two others alone of his friends shared the knowledge of the days when he herded swine. Now a prince out of a fairy-tale who has herded swine is a romantic figure. Paul did not doubt that he was one. Even Jane, in spite of her direct common sense, admitted it. Barney Bill proclaimed it openly, slapping him on the back and taking much credit to himself for helping the prince on the way to his kingdom. And Mr. Finn, even in the heat of political discussion or theological asseveration, treated him with a curious and pathetic deference.
Meanwhile Paul pursued his own career of glory. The occasional visits to Hickney Heath were, after all, but rare, though distinct, episodes in his busy life. He had his parliamentary work for Colonel Winwood, his work for Miss Winwood, his work for the Young England League. He had his social engagements. He had the Princess Zobraska. He also began to write, in picturesque advocacy of his views, for serious weekly and monthly publications. Then Christmas came and he found himself at Drane's Court, somewhat gasping for breath. A large houseparty, however, including Lord Francis Ayres, the chief Opposition Whip, threatened to keep him busy.
The Princess drove over from Chetwood Park for dinner on Christmas Day. He had to worship from afar; for a long spell of the evening to worship with horrible jealousy. Lord Francis Ayres, a bachelor and a man of winning charm, as men must be whose function it is to keep Members of Parliament good and pleased with themselves and sheeplike, held the Princess captive, in a remote corner, with his honeyed tongue. She looked at him seductively out of her great, slumberous blue eyes, even as she had looked, on occasion, at him, Paul. He hated Lord Francis, set himself up against him, as of old he had set himself up against Billy Goodge. He was a better man than Frank Ayres. Frank Ayres was only a popinjay. Beneath the tails of his coat he snapped his fingers at Frank Ayres, while he listened, with his own agreeable smile, to Mademoiselle de Cressy's devilled gossip.
He was very frigid and courtly when he bade the Princess good night at the door of her limousine.
"Ah, que vous etes bete!" she laughed.
He went to bed very angry. She had told him to his face that he was a silly fool. And so he was. He thought of all the brilliantly dignified things he might have said, if the relentless engine had not whirred her away down the drive. But the next morning Lord Francis met him in the wintry garden and smiled and held out a winning hand. Paul hid his hatred beneath the mask of courtesy. They talked for a few moments of indifferent matters. Then Frank Ayres suddenly said: "Have you ever thought of standing for Parliament?"
Paul, who had been sauntering between flowerless beds with his companion, stood stock still. The Chief Whip of a political party is a devil of a fellow. To the aspiring young politician he is much more a devil of a fellow than the Prime Minister or any Secretary of State. If a Chief Whip breathes the suggestion that a man might possibly stand for election as a Member of Parliament, it means that at any suitable vacancy, or at a general election, he will, with utter certainty, have his chance as a candidate with the whole force of his party behind him. It is part of the business of Chief Whips to find candidates.
"Of course," said Paul, rather stupidly. "Eventually. One of these days."
"But soon?"
"Soon?"
Paul's head reeled. What did he mean by soon? "Well," Lord Francis laughed, "not to-morrow. But pretty soon. Look here, Savelli. I'm going to speak frankly. The party's in for a long period out of office. That's obvious. Look at the majority against us. We want the young blood—not the old hacks—so that when we come in again we shall have a band of trained men in the heyday of their powers. Of course I know—it's my business to know—what generally you have done for the Young England League, but I missed your speech at Flickney Heath in the autumn. You had an immense success, hadn't you?"
"They seemed pleased with what I had to say," replied Paul modestly. "When did you hear about it?"
"Last night."
"The Winwoods are the dearest people in the world," said Paul, walking warily, "but they are prejudiced in my favour."
"It wasn't the Winwoods."
The beautiful truth flashed upon Paul.
"Then it was the Princess Zobraska."
The other laughed. "Never mind. I know all about it. It isn't often one has to listen to speeches at second-hand. The question is: Would you care to stand when the time comes?"
"I should just think I would," cried Paul boyishly.
All his jealous resentment had given place to exultation. It was the Princess who had told Frank Ayres. If she had been laying him under the spell of her seduction it was on his, Paul's, account. She had had the splendid audacity to recite his speech to the Chief Whip. Frank Ayres was suddenly transformed from a popinjay into an admirable fellow. The Princess herself sat enthroned more adorable than ever.
"The only difficulty," said Paul, "is that I have to earn my living."
"That might be arranged," said Lord Francis.
So Paul, as soon as he found an opportunity, danced over to Chetwood Park and told his Princess all about it, and called her a tutelary goddess and an angel and all manner of pretty names. And the Princess, who was alone, poured for him her priceless Russian tea into egg-shell China tea-cups and fed him on English crumpets, and, in her French and feminine way, gave him the outer fringe of her heart to play with—a very dangerous game. She had received him, not as once before in the state drawing room, but in the intimacy of her own boudoir, a place all soft lights and cushions and tapestries and gleaming bits of sculpture. After tea and crumpets had been consumed, the dangerous game proceeded far enough for Paul to confess his unjust dislike of Frank Ayres.
"Gros jaloux," said the Princess.
"That was why you said que vous etes bete," said he.
"Partly."
"What were the other reasons?"
"Any woman has a thousand reasons for calling any man stupid."
"Tell me some of them at any rate."
"Well, isn't it stupid of a man to try to quarrel with his best friend when he won't be seeing her again for three or four months?"
"You're not going away soon?"
"Next week."
"Oh!" said Paul.
"Yes. I go to Paris, then to my villa at Mont Boron. I have the nostalgia of my own country, you see. Then to Venice at Easter."
Paul looked at her wistfully, for life seemed suddenly very blank and dismal. "What shall I do all that time without my best friend?"
"You will probably find another and forget her."
She was lying back among cushions, pink and terra-cotta, and a round black cushion framed her delicate head.
Paul said in a low voice, bending forward: "Do you think you are a woman whom men forget?"
Their eyes met. The game had grown very perilous. "Men may remember the princess," she replied, "but forget the woman."
"If it weren't for the woman inside the princess; what reason should I have for remembering?" he asked.
She fenced. "But, as it is, you don't see me very often."
"I know. But you are here—to be seen—not when I want you, for that would be every hour of the day—but, at least, in times of emergency. You are here, all the same, in the atmosphere of my life."
"And if I go abroad I shall no longer be in that atmosphere? Did I not say you would forget?"
She laughed. Then quickly started forward, and, elbow on knee and chin on palm, regarded him brightly. "We are talking like a couple of people out of Mademoiselle de Scudery," she said before he had time to reply. "And we are in the twentieth century, mon pauvre ami. We must be sensible. I know that you will miss me. And I will miss you too. Mais que voulez-vous? We have to obey the laws of the world we live in."
"Need we?" asked Paul daringly. "Why need we?"
"We must. I must go away to my own country. You must stay in yours and work and fulfill your ambitions." She paused. "I want you to be a great man," she said, with a strange tenderness in her voice.
"With you by my side," said he, "I feel I could conquer the earth."
"As your good friend I shall always be by your side. Vous voyez, mon cher Paul," she went on quickly in French. "I am not quite as people see me. I am a woman who is lonely and not too happy, who has had disillusions which have embittered her life. You know my history. It is public property. But I am young. And my heart is healed—and it craves faith and tenderness and—and friendship. I have many to flatter me. I am not too ugly. Many men pay their court to me, but they do not touch my heart. None of them even interest me. I don't know why. And then I have my rank, which imposes on me its obligations. Sometimes I wish I were a little woman of nothing at all, so that I could do as I like. Mais enfin, I do what I can. You have come, Paul Savelli, with your youth and your faith and your genius, and you pay your court to me like the others. Yes, it is true—and as long as it was amusing, I let it go on. But now that you interest me, it is different. I want your success. I want it with all my heart. It is a little something in my life—I confess it—quelque chose de tres joli—and I will not spoil it. So let us be good friends, frank and loyal—without any Scudery." She looked at him with eyes that had lost their languor—a sweet woman's eyes, a little moist, very true. "And now," she said, "will you be so kind as to put a log on the fire."
Paul rose and threw a log on the glowing embers, and stood by her side. He was deeply moved. Never before had she so spoken. Never before had she afforded a glimpse of the real woman. Her phrases, so natural, so sincere, in her own tongue, and so caressive, stirred the best in him. The glamour passed from the royal lady; only the sweet and beautiful woman remained.
"I will be what you will, my Princess," he said.
At that moment he could not say more. For the first time in his life he was mute in a woman's presence; and the reason was that for the first time in his life love for a woman had gripped his heart.
She rose and smiled at him. "Bons amis, francs et loyaux?"
"Francs et loyaux."
She gave him her hand in friendship; but she gave him her eyes in love. It is the foolish way of women.
"May a frank and loyal friend write to you sometimes?" he asked.
"Why, yes. And a frank and loyal friend will answer."
"And when shall I see you again?"
"Did I not tell you," she said, moving to the bell, for this was leave-taking—"that I shall be in Venice at Easter?"
Paul went out into the frosty air, and the bright wintry stars shone down on him. Often on such nights he had looked up, wondering which was his star, the star that guided his destiny. But to-night no such fancy crossed his mind. He did not think of the stars. He did not think of his destiny. His mind and soul were drenched in thought of one woman. It had come at last, the great passion, the infinite desire. It had come in a moment, wakened into quivering being by the caressive notes of the dear French voice—"mais je suis jeune, et mon coeur est gueri, et il lui manque affreusement de la foi, de la tendresse, de—de"—adorable catch of emotion—"de l'amitie." Friendship, indeed! For amitie all but her lips said amour. He walked beneath the wintry stars, a man in a perfect dream.
Till then she had been but his Princess, the exquisite lady whom it had amused to wander with him into the pays du tendre. She had been as far above him as the now disregarded stars. She had come down with a carnival domino over her sidereal raiment, and had met him on carnival equality. He beau masque! He, knowing her, had fallen beneath her starry spell. He was Paul Kegworthy, Paul Savelli, what you like; Paul the adventurer, Paul the man born to great things. She was a beautiful woman, bearing the title of Princess, the title that had haunted his life since first the Vision Splendid dawned upon him as he lay on his stomach eavesdropping and heard the words of the divinely-smelling goddess who had given him his talisman, the cornelian heart. To "rank himself with princes" had been the intense meaning of his life since ragged and fiercely imaginative childhood. Odd circumstances had ranked him with Sophie Zobraska. The mere romance of it had carried him off his feet. She was a princess. She was charming. She frankly liked his society. She seemed interested in his adventurous career. She was romantic. He too. She was his Egeria. He had worshipped her romantically, in a mediaeval, Italian way, and she had accepted the homage. It had all been deliciously artificial. It had all been Mademoiselle de Scudery. But to-day the real woman, casting off her carnival domino, casting off too the sidereal raiment, had spoken, for the first time, in simple womanhood, and her betraying eyes had told things that they had told to no other man living or dead. And all that was artificial, all that was fantastic, all that was glamour, was stripped away from Paul in the instant of her self-revelation. He loved her as man loves woman. He laughed aloud as his young feet struck the frozen road. She knew and was not angry. She, in her wonder, gave him leave to love her. It was obvious that she loved him to love her. Dear God! He could go on loving her like this for the rest of his life. What more did he want? To the clean man of nine-and-twenty, sufficient for the day is the beauty thereof.
An inspired youth took his place at the Winwoods' dinner table that evening. The elderly, ugly heiress, Miss Durning, concerning whom Miss Winwood had, with gentle malice, twitted him some months before, sat by his side. He sang her songs of Araby and tales of far Cashmere—places which in the commonplace way of travel he had never visited. What really happened in the drawing room between the departure of the ladies and the entrance of the men no one knows. But before the ladies went to bed Miss Winwood took Paul aside.
"Paul dear," she said, "you're never going to marry an old woman for money, are you?"
"Good God, no! Dearest lady, what do you mean?"
His cry was so sincere that she laughed.
"Nothing," she said.
"But you must mean something." He threw out his hands.
"Are you aware that you've been flirting disgracefully with Lizzle Durning?"
"I?" said Paul, clapping a hand to his shirt-front.
"You."
He smiled his sunny smile into the clear, direct eyes of his dearest lady—all the more dear because of the premature white of her hair. "I would flirt to-night with Xantippe, or Kerenhappuch, or Queen Victoria," said he.
"Why?"
He laughed, and although none of the standing and lingering company had overheard them, he gently led her to the curtained embrasure of the drawing-room window.
"This is perhaps the biggest day of my life. I've not had an opportunity of telling you. This morning Frank Ayres offered me a seat in Parliament."
"I'm glad," said Ursula Winwood; but her eyes hardened. "And so—Lizzie Durning—"
He took both her elbows in his hands—only a Fortunate Youth, with his laughing charm, would have dared to grip Ursula Winwood's elbows and cut her short. "Dearest lady," said he, "to-day there are but two women in the world for me. You are one. The other—well—it isn't Miss Durning."
She searched him through and through, "This afternoon?"
"Yes."
"Paul!" She withdrew from his grasp. In her voice was a touch of reproach.
"Dearest lady," said he, "I would die rather than marry a rich woman, ugly or beautiful, if I could not bring her something big in return—something worth living for."
"You've told me either too much or too little. Am I not entitled to know how things stand?"
"You're entitled to know the innermost secrets of my heart," he cried; and he told thereof as far as his love for the Princess was concerned.
"But, my poor boy," said Ursula tenderly, "how is it all going to end?"
"It's never going to end," cried Paul.
Ursula Winwood smiled on him and sighed a little; for she remembered the gallant young fellow who had been killed in the Soudan in eighteen eighty-five.
IT would never end. Why should it? Could a Great Wonder be merely a transient thrill? Absurd. Dawn followed night, day after day, and the wonder had not faded. It would never fade. Letter followed letter, each more precious than the last.
She began with "Mon cher Paul." Then "Mon cher," then sometimes "Paul." She set the tone of the frank and loyal friendship in a style very graceful, very elusive, a word of tenderness melting away in a laugh; she took the friendship, pulled it to pieces and reconstructed it in ideal form; then she tied blue ribbon round its neck, and showed him how beautiful it was. She sat on the veranda of her villa and looked out on the moonlit Mediterranean and wanted to cry—"J'avais envie de Pleurer"—because she was all alone, having entertained at dinner a heap of dull and ugly people. She had spent a day on the yacht of a Russian Grand-Duke. "Il m'a fait une cour effrenee"—Paul thirsted immediately for the blood of this Grand-Duke, who had dared to make violent love to her. But when, a few lines farther on, he found that she had guessed his jealousy and laughed at it, he laughed too. "Don't be afraid. I have had enough of these people." She wanted une ame sincere et candide; and Paul laid the flattering unction to his own sincere and candid soul. Then she spoke prettily of his career. He was to be the flambeau eveilleur, the awakening torch in the darkness before the daybreak. But he musn't overwork. His health was precious. There was a blot and erasure in the sentence. He took the letter to the light, lover-wise, and looked at it through a magnifying glass—and his pulses thrilled when it told him that she had originally written, "Votre sante m'est precieuse," and had scrabbled out the "m." "Your health is precious to me." That is what her heart had said. Did lover ever have a dearer mistress? He kissed the blot, and the thick French ink coming off on his lips was nectar.
And he began his letters with "My dear Princess;" then it was "Dearest Princess;" then "My Princess." Then she rallied him on the matter. It came to "Mais enfin j'ai un petit nom comme tout le monde." In common with the rest of humanity she had a Christian name—and she was accustomed to be called by it by her frank and loyal friends. "And they are so few." Paul heard the delicate little sigh and saw the delicate rise and fall of the white bosom. And again he fed on purple ink. So he began his next letter with "Dear Sophie." But he could not pour the same emotion into "Dear Sophie" as he could into "My Princess"—and "My Sophie" was a step beyond the bounds of frank and loyal friendship. So it came to his apostrophizing her as "Dear" and scattering "Sophies" deliciously through the text. And so the frank and loyal friendship went on its appointed course, as every frank and loyal friendship between two young and ardent souls who love each other has proceeded since the beginning of a sophisticated world.
The first three months of that year were a period of enchantment. He lived supremely. The daily round of work was trivial play. He rose at seven, went to bed at two, crowded the nineteen hours of wakefulness with glorious endeavour. He went all over the country with his flambeau eveilleur, awakening the Youth of England, finding at last the great artistic gift the gods had given him, the gift of oratory. One day he reminded Jane of a talk long ago when he had fled from the studios: "You asked me how I was going to earn my living. I said I was going to follow one of the Arts."
"I remember," said Jane, regarding him full-eyed. "You said you thought you were a poet—but you might be a musician or painter. Finally you decided you were an actor."
He laughed his gay laugh. "I was an infernally bad actor," he acknowledged.
Then he explained his failure on the stage. He was impatient of other people's inventions, wanting to play not Hamlet or Tom or Dick or Romeo or Harry, but himself. Now he could play himself. It was acting in a way. Anyhow it was an Art; so his boyish prophecy had come true. He had been struggling from childhood for a means of self-expression. He had tried most of them save this. Here he had found it. He loved to play upon a crowd as if they were so many notes of a vast organ.
On this occasion Jane said: "And my means of self-expression is to play on the keys of a typewriter."
"Your time hasn't come," he replied. "When you have found your means you will express yourself all the more greatly."
Which was ingenious on the part of Paul, but ironically consoling to Jane.
One week-end during the session he spent at the Marchioness of Chudley's place in Lancashire. He drove in a luxurious automobile through the stately park, which once he had traversed in the brakeful of urchins, the raggedest of them all, and his heart swelled with pardonable exultation. He had passed through Bludston and he had caught a glimpse of what had once been his brickfield, now the site of more rows of mean little houses, and he had seen the grim factory chimneys still smoking, smoking.... The little Buttons, having grown up into big Buttons, were toiling away their lives in those factories. And Button himself, the unspeakable Button? Was he yet alive? And Mrs. Button, who had been Polly Kegworthy and called herself his mother? It was astonishing how seldom he thought of her.... He had run away a scarecrow boy in a gipsy van. He came back a formative force in the land, the lover of a princess, the honoured guest of the great palace of the countryside. He slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and felt the cornelian heart.
Yes, in the great palace he found himself an honoured guest. His name was known independently of his work for the Winwoods. He was doing good service to his party. The word had gone abroad—perhaps Frank Ayres had kindly spoken it—that he was the coming man. Lady Chudley said: "I wonder if you remember what we talked about when I first met you."
Paul laughed, for she did not refer to the first meeting of all. "I'm afraid I was very young and fatuous," said he. "It was years ago. I hadn't grown up."
"Never mind. We talked about waking the country from its sleep."
"And you gave me a phrase, Lady Chudley—'the Awakener of England.' It stuck. It crystallized all sorts of vague ambitions. I've never forgotten it for five consecutive minutes. But how can you remember a casual act of graciousness to an unimportant boy?"
"No boy who dreams of England's greatness is unimportant," she said. "You've proved me to be right. Your dreams are coming true—see, I don't forget!"
"I owe you far more than you could possibly imagine," said Paul.
"No, no. Don't. Don't exaggerate. A laughing phrase—that's nothing."
"It is something. Even a great deal. But it's not all," said he.
"What else is there?"
"You were one of the two or three," he said earnestly, thinking of the Bludston factory, "who opened new horizons for me."
"I'm a proud woman," said Lady Chudley.
The next day, Sunday, old Lord Chudley dragged him into his own private den. He had a very red, battered, clean-shaven face and very red hair and side whiskers; and he was a very honest gentleman, believing implicitly in God and the King and the House of Lords, and Foxes, and the Dutch School of Painting, and his responsibility as a great landowner toward the two or three thousand human beings with whom he had business relations.
"Look here, Savelli. I've looked into your League. It's a damned good thing. About the only thing that has been invented which can stem the tide of Socialism. Catch 'em young. That's the way. But you want the sinews of war. You get subscriptions, but not enough; I've seen your last balance sheet. You want a little army of—what the devil shall we call 'em?"
"Big Englanders," Paul suggested at a venture.
"Good. We want an army of 'em to devote their whole time to the work. Open a special fund. You and Ursula Winwood will know how to work it. What Ursula Winwood doesn't know in this sort of business isn't worth knowing—and here's something to head the list with."
And he handed Paul a cheque, which after a dazed second or two he realized to be one for five thousand pounds.
That was the beginning of the financial prosperity and the real political importance of the Young England League. Paul organized a great public dinner with the Leader of the Opposition in the chair and an amazing band of notables around the tables. Speeches were made, the Marquis of Chudley's patriotism extolled, and subscription lists filled up and handed to a triumphant organizing secretary.
A powerful daily newspaper took up the cause and made strong appeal. The Lodges made simultaneous efforts in their respective districts. Money flowed into the League's coffers.
When Parliament rose for the Easter recess Paul, the most tired, yet the most blissful, youth among the Fortunate, flew straight to Venice, where a happy-eyed princess welcomed him. She was living in a Palazzo on the Grand Canal, lent to her—that is the graceful Italian way of putting it—by some Venetian friends; and there, with Mademoiselle de Cressy to keep off the importunate, she received such acquaintance as floated from the ends of the earth through the enchanted city.
"I have started by seeing as few people as I can," she said. "That's all on account of you, monsieur."
He pressed her hand. "I hope we don't see a single soul we know as long as I'm here," he declared.
His hope was gratified, not completely, but enough to remove grounds for lover's fretfulness. He passed idyllic days in halcyon weather. Often she would send her gondola to fetch him from the Grand Hotel, where he was staying. Now and then, most graciously audacious of princesses, she would come herself. On such occasions he would sit awaiting her with beating heart, juvenis fortunatus nimium, on the narrow veranda of the hotel, regardless of the domed white pile of Santa Maria della Salute opposite, or the ceaseless life on the water, or the sunshine, or anything else in Venice, his gaze fixed on the bend of the canal; and then at last would appear the tall curved prow, and then the white-clad, red-sashed Giacomo bending to his oar, and then the white tenda with the dear form beneath, vaguely visible, and then Felipe, clad like Giacomo and bending, too, rhythmically with the foremost figure. Slowly, all too slowly, the gondola would near the steps, and beneath the tenda would smile the dearest face in the world, and the cheeks would be delicately flushed and the eyes tender and somewhat shy. And Paul would stand, smiling too, a conquering young figure with green Marienbad hat tilted with ever so tiny a shade of jauntiness, the object of frankly admiring and curious glances from a lone woman or two on the veranda, until the gondola was brought up to the wave-washed steps, and the hotel porter had fixed the bridge of plank. Then, with Giacomo supporting his elbow, he would board the black craft and would creep under the tenda and sink on the low seat by her side with a sense of daring and delicious intimacy, and the gondola would glide away into fairyland.
"Let us be real tourists and do Venice thoroughly," she had said. "I have never seen it properly."
"But you've been here many times before."
"Yes. But—"
She hesitated.
"Eh bien?"
"Je ne peux pas le dire. Il faut deviner."
"Will you forgive me if I guess right? Our great Shakespeare says: 'Love lends a precious seeing to the eye.'"
"That—that's very pretty," said the Princess in French. "I love much your Shakespeare."
Whereupon Paul recognized her admission of the correctness of his conjecture; and so, with the precious vision they had borrowed, they went about tourist-wise to familiar churches and palaces, and everything they saw was lit with exceeding loveliness. And they saw the great pictures of the world, and Paul, with his expert knowledge, pointed out beauties she had not dreamed of hitherto, and told her tales of the painters and discoursed picturesquely on Venetian history, and she marvelled at his insight and learning and thought him the most wonderful man that had ever dropped, ready-made, from heaven. And he, in the flush of his new love, was thrilled by her touch and the low tones of her voice when she plucked him by the sleeve and murmured: "Ah, Paul, regardez-moi ca. It is so beautiful one wants to weep with joy."
They spoke now half in French, half in English, and she no longer protested against his murderous accent, which, however, he strove to improve. Love must have lent its precious hearing too, for she vowed she loved to hear him speak her language.
In the great Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace they looked at the seventy-six portraits of the illustrious succession of Doges—with the one tragic vacant space, the missing portrait of Marino Faliero, the Rienzi of Venice, the man before his time.
"It seizes one's heart, doesn't it?" said the Princess, with her impulsive touch on his sleeve. "All these men were kings—sovereigns of a mighty nation. And how like they are to one another—in this essential quality one would say they were brothers of a great family."
"Why, yes," he cried, scanning the rows of severe and subtle faces. "It's true. Illuminatingly true."
He slid up his wrist quickly so that his hand met hers; he held it. "How swift your perception is! And what is that quality—that quality common to them all—that quality of leadership? Let us try to find it."
Unconsciously he gripped her hand, and she returned his pressure; and they stood, as chance willed it, alone, free from circumambulant tourists, in the vast chamber, vivid with Paul Veronese's colour on wall and ceilings, with Tintoretto and Bassano' with the arrogant splendour of the battles and the pomp and circumstance of victorious armies of the proud and conquering republic, and their eyes were drawn from all this painted and riotous wonder by the long arresting frieze of portraits of serene, masterful and subtle faces.
"The common factor—that's what we want, isn't it?"
"Yes," she breathed.
And as they stood, hand in hand, the unspoken thought vibrating between them, the memory came to him of a day long ago when he had stood with another woman—a girl then—before the photographs in the window of the London Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, and he had scanned faces of successful men. He laughed—he could not help it—and drew his Princess closer to him. Between the analogous then and the wonderful now, how immense a difference! As he laughed she looked swiftly up into his face.
"I know why you laugh."
"No, my Princess. Impossible."
"Mais oui. Tell me. All these great princes"—she swept her little gloved hand toward the frieze. "What is their common factor?"
Paul, forgetful of his mirth, looked round. "'Indomitable will," said he seriously. "Unconquerable ambition, illimitable faith. They all seem to be saying their creed. 'I believe in myself almighty, and in Venice under my control, and in God who made us both, and in the inferiority of the remnant of the habitable globe.' Or else: 'In the beginning God created Venice. Then He created the rest of the world. Then He created Me. Then He retired and left me to deal with the situation.' Or else: 'I am an earthly Trinity. I am myself. I am Venice. I am God.'"
"It is magnificent!" she cried. "How you understand them! How you understand the true aristocratic spirit! They are all, what you call, leaders of men. I did not expect an analysis so swift and so true. But, Paul"—her voice sank adorably—"all these men lack something—something that you have. And that is why I thought you laughed."
He smiled down on her. "Do you think I was measuring myself with these men?"
"Naturally. Why should you not?" she asked proudly.
"And what have I got that they lack?"
"Happiness," said the Princess.
Paul was silent for a while, as they moved slowly away to the balcony which overlooks the lagoon and San Giorgio Maggiore glowing warm in the sunshine, and then he said: "Yet most of those men loved passionately in their time, and were loved by beautiful women."
"Their love was a thing of the passions, not of the spirit. You cannot see a woman, that is to say happiness, behind any of their faces."
He whispered: "Can you see a woman behind mine."
"If you look like that," she replied, with a contented little laugh, "the whole world can see it." And so their talk drifted far away from Doges, just as their souls were drifting far from the Golden Calf of the Frank and Loyal Friendship which Sophie the Princess had set up.
How could they help it—and in Venice of all places in the world? If she had determined on maintaining the friendship calm and austere, why in Minerva's name had she bidden him hither? Sophie Zobraska passed for a woman of sense. None knew better than she the perils of moonlit canals and the sensuous splash of water against a gondola, and the sad and dreamy beauty which sets the lonely heart aching for love. Why had she done it? Some such questions must Mademoiselle de Cressy have asked, for the Princess told him that Stephanie had lectured her severely for going about so much in public alone with a beau jeune homme.
"But we don't always want Stephanie with us," she argued, "and she is not sympathetic in Venice. She likes restaurants and people. Besides, she is always with her friends at Danielli's, so if it weren't for you I should be doing nothing all by myself in the lonely palazzo. Forcement we go about together."
Which was all sophistical and nonsensical; and she knew it, for there was a mischievous little gleam in her eye as she spoke. But none the less, shutting her ears to the unsympathetic Stephanie, did she continue to show herself alone in public with the beautiful youth. She had thrown her crown over the windmills for a few happy days; for a few happy days she was feeding her starved nature, drinking in her fill of beauty and colour and the joy of life. And the pair, thus forcibly thrown together, drifted through the narrow canals beneath the old crumbling palaces, side by side, and hand in hand while Giacomo and Felipe, disregarded automata, bent to their oars.
One afternoon, one mellow and memorable afternoon, they were returning from Murano. Not a breath of wind ruffled the lagoon. The islands in their spring verdure slumbered peacefully. Far away the shipping in the bacino lay still like enchanted craft. Only a steamer or two, and here and there the black line of a gondola with its standing, solitary rower, broke the immobility of things. And Venice, russet and rose and grey, brooded in the sunset, a city of dreams. They murmured words of wonder and regret. Instinctively they drew near and their shoulders touched. Their clasp of fingers tightened and their breath came quickly, and for a long time they were silent. Then at last he whispered her name, in the old foolish and inevitable way. And she turned her face to him, and met his eyes and said "Paul," and her lips as she said it seemed to speak a kiss. And all the earth was wrapped in glory too overwhelming for speech.
It was only when they entered the Grand Canal and drew up by the striped posts of the palazzo that she said: "I have those Roman people and the Heatherfields coming to dinner. I wish I hadn't." She sighed. "Would you care to come?"
He smiled into her eyes. "No, my Princess, not to-night. I should do silly things. To-night I will go and talk to the moon. To-morrow, when can I come?"
"Early. As early as you like."
And Paul went away and talked to the moon, and the next morning, his heart tumultuous, presented himself at the palazzo. He was shown into the stiff Italian drawing-room, with its great Venetian glass chandelier, its heavy picture-hung walls, its Empire furniture covered in yellow silk. Presently the door opened and she entered, girlish in blouse and skirt, fresh as the morning. "Bon jour, Paul. I've not had time to put on my hat, but—"
She did not end, for he strode toward her and with a little laugh of triumph took her in his arms and kissed her. And so what had to be came to pass.
"I LOVE you too much, my Sophie, to be called the Princess Zobraska's husband."
"And I love you too much, dear, to wish to be called anything else than Paul Savelli's wife."
That was their position, perfectly defined, perfectly understood. They had arrived at it after many arguments and kisses and lovers' protestations.
"Such as I am I am," cried Paul. "A waif and stray, an unknown figure coming out of the darkness. I have nothing to give you but my love."
"Are there titles or riches on earth of equal value?"
"But I must give you more. The name Paul Savelli itself must be a title of honour."
"It is becoming that," said the Princess. "And we can wait a little, Paul, can't we? We are so happy like this. Ah!" she sighed. "I have never been so happy in my life."
"Nor I," said Paul.
"And am I really the first?"
"The first. Believe it or not as you like. But it's a fact. I've told you my life's dream. I never sank below it; and that is why perhaps it has come true."
For once the assertion was not the eternal lie. Paul came fresh-hearted to his Princess.
"I wish I were a young girl, Paul."
"You are a star turned woman. The Star of my Destiny in which I always believed. The great things will soon come."
They descended to more commonplace themes. Until the great things came, what should be their mutual attitude before Society?
"Until I can claim you, let it be our dear and beautiful secret," said Paul. "I would not have it vulgarized by the chattering world for anything in life."
Then Paul proved himself to be a proud and delicate lover, and when London with its season and its duties and its pleasures absorbed them, he had his reward. For it was sweet to see her in great assemblies, shining like a queen and like a queen surrounded by homage, and to know that he alone of mortals was enthroned in her heart. It was sweet to meet her laughing glance, dear fellow-conspirator. It was sweet every morning and night to have the intimate little talk through the telephone. And it was sweetest of all to snatch a precious hour with her alone. Of such vain and foolish things is made all that is most beautiful in life.
He took his dearest lady—though Miss Winwood, now disclaimed the title—into his confidence. So did the Princess. It was very comforting to range Miss Winwood on their side; and to feel themselves in close touch with her wisdom and sympathy. And her sympathy manifested itself in practical ways—those of the woman confidante of every love affair since the world began. Why should the Princess Zobraska not interest herself in some of the philanthropic schemes of which the house in Portland Place was the headquarters? There was one, a Forlorn Widows' Fund, the presidency of which she would be willing to resign in favour of the Princess. The work was trivial: it consisted chiefly in consultation with Mr. Savelli and in signing letters. The Princess threw her arms round her neck, laughing and blushing and calling her delicieuse. You see it was obvious that Mr. Savelli could not be consulted in his official capacity or official letters signed elsewhere than in official precincts.
"I'll do what I can for the pair of you," said Miss Winwood to Paul. "But it's the most delightfully mad and impossible thing I've ever put my hand to."
Accepting the fact of their romance, however, she could not but approve Paul's attitude. It was the proud attitude of the boy who nearly six years ago was going, without a word, penniless and debonair out of her house. All the woman in her glowed over him.
"I'm not going to be called an adventurer," he had declared. "I shall not submit Sophie to the indignity of trailing a despised husband after her. I'm not going to use her rank and wealth as a stepping-stone to my ambitions. Let me first attain an unassailable position. I shall have owed it to you, to myself, to anybody you like—but not to my marriage. I shall be somebody. The rest won't matter. The marriage will then be a romantic affair, and romantic affairs are not unpopular dans le monde ou l'on s'ennuie."
This declaration was all very well; the former part all very noble, the latter exhibiting a knowledge of the world rather shrewd for one so young. But when would he be able to attain his unassailable position? Some years hence. Would Sophie Zobraska, who was only a few months younger than he, be content to sacrifice these splendid and irretrievable years of her youth? Ursula Winwood looked into the immediate future, and did not see it rosy. The first step toward an unassailable position was flight from the nest. This presupposed an income. If the party had been in power it would not have been difficult to find him a post. She worried herself exceedingly, for in her sweet and unreprehensible way she was more than ever in love with Paul. Meeting Frank Ayres one night at a large reception, she sought his advice.
"Do you mind a wrench?" he asked. "No? Well, then—you and Colonel Winwood send him about his business and get another secretary. Let Savelli give all his time to his Young England League. Making him mug up material for Winwood's speeches and write letters to constituents about football clubs is using a razor to cut butter. His League's the thing. It can surely afford to pay him a decent salary. If it can't I'll see to a guarantee."
"The last thing we see, my dear Frank," she said after she had thanked him, "is that which is right under our noses."
The next day she went to Paul full of the scheme. Had he ever thought of it? He took her hands and smiled in his gay, irresistible way. "Of course, dearest lady," he said frankly. "But I would have cut out my tongue sooner than suggest it."
"I know that, my dear boy."
"And yet," said he, "I can't bear the idea of tearing myself away from you. It seems like black ingratitude."
"It isn't. You forget that James and I have our little ambitions too—the ambition of a master for a favourite pupil. If you were a failure we should both be bitterly disappointed. Don't you see? And as for leaving us—why need you? We should miss you horribly. You've never been quite our paid servant. And now you're something like our son." Tears started in the sweet lady's clear eyes. "Even if you did go to your own chambers, I shouldn't let our new secretary have this room"—they were in what the household called "the office"—really Paul's luxuriously furnished private sitting room, which contained his own little treasures of books and pictures and bits of china and glass accumulated during the six years of easeful life—"He will have the print room, which nobody uses from one year's end to another, and which is far more convenient for the street door. And the same at Drane's Court. So when you no longer work for us, my dear boy, our home will be yours, as long as you're content to stay, just because we love you."
Her hand was on his shoulder and his head was bent. "God grant," said he, "that I may be worthy of your love."
He looked up and met her eyes. Her hand was still on his shoulder. Then very simply he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
He told his Princess all about it. She listened with dewy eyes. "Ah, Paul," she said. "That 'precious seeing' of love—I never had it till you came. I was blind. I never knew that there were such beautiful souls as Ursula Winwood in the world."
"Dear, how I love you for saying that!" cried Paul.
"But it's true."
"That is why," said he.
So the happiest young man in London worked and danced through the season, knowing that the day of emancipation was at hand. His transference from the Winwoods to the League was fixed for October 1. He made great plans for an extension of the League's, activities, dreamed of a palace for headquarters with the banner of St. George flying proudly over it, an object-lesson for the nation. One day in July while he was waiting for Colonel Winwood in the lobby of the House of Commons, Frank Ayres stopped in the middle of a busy rush and shook hands.
"Been down to Hickney Heath again? I would if I were you. Rouse 'em up."
As the words of a Chief Whip are apt to be significant, Paul closeted himself with the President of the Hickney Heath Lodge, who called the Secretary of the local Conservative Association to the interview. The result was that Paul was invited to speak at an anti-Budget meeting convened by the Association. He spoke, and repeated his success. The Conservative newspapers the next morning gave a resume of his speech. His Sophie, coming to sign letters in her presidential capacity, brought him the cuttings, a proceeding which he thought adorable. The season ended triumphantly.
For a while he lost his Princess. She went to Cowes, then to stay with French relations in a chateau in the Dordogne. Paul went off yachting with the Chudleys and returned for the shooting to Drane's Court. In the middle of September the Winwoods' new secretary arrived and received instruction in his duties. Then came the Princess to Morebury Park. "Dearest," she said, in his arms, "I never want to leave you again. France is no longer France for me since I have England in my heart."
"You remember that? My wonderful Princess!"
He found her more woman, more expansive, more bewitchingly caressing. Absence had but brought her nearer. When she laid her head on his shoulder and murmured in the deep and subtle tones of her own language: "My Paul, it seems such a waste of time to be apart," it took all his pride and will to withstand the maddening temptation. He vowed that the time would soon come when he could claim her, and went away in feverish search for worlds to conquer.
Then came October and London once more.
Paul was dressing for dinner one evening when a reply-paid telegram was brought to him.
"If selected by local committee will you stand for Hickney Heath? Ayres."
He sat on his bed, white and trembling, and stared at the simple question. The man-servant stood imperturbable, silver tray in hand. Seeing the reply-paid form, he waited for a few moments.
"Is there an answer, sir?"
Paul nodded, asked for a pencil, and with a shaky hand wrote the reply. "Yes," was all he said.
Then with reaction came the thrill of mighty exultation, and, throwing on his clothes, he rushed to the telephone in his sitting room. Who first to hear the wondrous news but his Princess? That there was a vacancy in Hickney Heath he knew, as all Great Britain knew; for Ponting, the Radical Member, had died suddenly the day before. But it had never entered his head that he could be chosen as a candidate.
"Mais j'y ai bien pense, moi," came the voice through the telephone. "Why did Lord Francis tell you to go to Hickney Heath last July?"
How a woman leaps at things! With all his ambition, his astuteness, his political intuition, he had not seen the opportunity. But it had come. Verily the stars in their courses were fighting for him. Other names, he was aware, were before the Committee of the Local Association, perhaps a great name suggested by the Central Unionist Organization; there was also that of the former Tory member, who, smarting under defeat at the General Election, had taken but a lukewarm interest in the constituency and was now wandering in the Far East. But Paul, confident in his destiny, did not doubt that he would be selected. And then, within the next fortnight—for bye-elections during a Parliamentary session are matters of sweeping swiftness—would come the great battle, the great decisive battle of his life, and he would win. He must win. His kingdom was at stake—the dream kingdom of his life into which he would enter with his loved and won Princess on his arm. He poured splendid foolishness through the telephone into an enraptured ear.
The lack of a sense of proportion is a charge often brought against women; but how often do men (as they should) thank God for it? Here was Sophie Zobraska, reared from childhood in the atmosphere of great affairs, mixing daily with folk who guided the destiny of nations, having two years before refused in marriage one of those who held the peace of Europe in his hands, moved to tense excitement of heart and brain and soul by the news that an obscure young man might possibly be chosen to contest a London Borough for election to the British Parliament, and thrillingly convinced that now was imminent the great momentous crisis in the history of mankind.
With a lack of the same sense of proportion, equal in kind, though perhaps not so passionate in degree, did Miss Winwood receive the world-shaking tidings. She wept, and, thinking Paul a phoenix, called Frank Ayres an angel. Colonel Winwood tugged his long, drooping moustache and said very little; but he committed the astounding indiscretion of allowing his glass to be filled with champagne; whereupon he lifted it, and said, "Here's luck, my dear boy," and somewhat recklessly gulped down the gout-compelling liquid. And after dinner, when Miss Winwood had left them together, he lighted a long Corona instead of his usual stumpy Bock, and discussed with Paul electioneering ways and means.
For the next day or two Paul lived in a whirl of telephones, telegrams, letters, scurryings across London, interviews, brain-racking questionings and reiterated declarations of political creed. But his selection was a foregone conclusion. His youth, his absurd beauty, his fire and eloquence, his unswerving definiteness of aim, his magic that had inspired so many with a belief in him and had made him the Fortunate Youth, captivated the imagination of the essentially unimaginative. Before a committee of wits and poets, Paul perhaps would not have had a dog's chance. But he appealed to the hard-headed merchants and professional men who chose him very much as the hero of melodrama appeals to a pit and gallery audience. He symbolized to them hope and force and predestined triumph. One or two at first sniffed suspiciously at his lofty ideals; but as there was no mistaking his political soundness, they let the ideals pass, as a natural and evanescent aroma.
So, in his thirtieth year, Paul was nominated as Unionist candidate for the Borough of Hickney Heath, and he saw himself on the actual threshold of the great things to which he was born. He wrote a little note to Jane telling her the news. He also wrote to Barney Bill: "You dear old Tory—did you ever dream that ragamuffin little Paul was going to represent you in Parliament? Get out the dear old 'bus and paint it blue, with 'Paul Savelli forever' in gold letters, and, instead of chairs and mats, hang it with literature, telling what a wonderful fellow P. S. is. And go through the streets of Hickney Heath with it, and say if you like: 'I knew him when' he was a nipper—that high.' And if you like to be mysterious and romantic you can say: 'I, Barney Bill, gave him his first chance,' as you did, my dear old friend, and Paul's not the man to forget it. Oh, Barney, it's too wonderful"—his heart went out to the old man. "If I get in I will tell you something that will knock you flat. It will be the realization of all the silly rubbish I talked in the old brickfield at Bludston. But, dear old friend, it was you and the open road that first set me on the patriotic lay, and there's not a voter in Hickney Heath who can vote as you can—for his own private and particular trained candidate."
Jane, for reasons unconjectured, did not reply. But from Barney Bill, who, it must be remembered, had leanings toward literature, he received a postcard with the following inscription: "Paul, Hif I can help you konker the Beastes of Effesus I will. Bill."
And then began the furious existence of an electioneering campaign. His side had a clear start of the Radicals, who found some hitch in the choice of their candidate. The Young England League leaped into practical enthusiasm over their champion. Seldom has young candidate had so glad a welcome. And behind him stood his Sophie, an inspiring goddess.
It so happened that for a date a few days hence had been fixed the Annual General Meeting of the Forlorn Widows' Fund, when Report and Balance Sheet were presented to the society. The control of this organization Paul had not allowed to pass into the alien hands of Townsend, the Winwoods' new secretary. Had not his Princess, for the most delicious reasons in the world, been made President? He scorned Ursula Winwood's suggestion that for this year he would allow Townsend to manage affairs. "What!" cried he, "leave my Princess in the lurch on her first appearance? Never!" By telephone he arranged an hour for the next day, when they could all consult together over this important matter.
"But, my dear boy," said Miss Winwood, "your time is not your own. Suppose you're detained at Hickney Heath?"
"The Conqueror," he cried, with a gay laugh, "belongs to the Detainers—not the Detained."
She looked at him out of her clear eyes, and shook an indulgent head.
"I know," said he, meeting her glance shrewdly. "He has got to use his detaining faculty with discretion. I've made a study of the little ways of conquerors. Ali! Dearest lady!" he burst out suddenly, in his impetuous way, "I'm talking nonsense; but I'm so uncannily happy!"
"It does me good to look at you," she said.