"I can't help remembering them."
"No, dear. Forget them." She drew his face down and kissed him on the lips. Then she led him out to the front door and accompanied him down the steps to the kerb where the car with its weary chauffeur was waiting. The night had cleared and the stars shone bright in the sky. She pointed to one, haphazard. "Your star, Paul. Believe in it still."
He drove off. She entered the house, and, flinging herself on the floor by Barney Bill, buried her head on the old man's knees and sobbed her brave heart out.
THE next morning amazement fluttered over a million breakfast tables and throbbed in a million railway carriages. For all the fierceness of political passions, parliamentary elections are but sombre occurrences to the general public. Rarely are they attended by the picturesque, the dramatic, the tragic. But already the dramatic had touched the election of Hickney Heath, stimulating interest in the result. Thousands, usually apathetic as to political matters, opened their newspapers to see how the ex-convict candidate had fared. They read, with a gasp, that he was dead; that his successful opponent had proclaimed himself to be his son. They had the dramatic value of cumulative effect. If Paul had ever sought notoriety he had it now. His name rang through the length and breadth of the land. The early editions of the London afternoon papers swelled the chorus of amazed comment and conjecture. Some had even routed out a fact or two, Heaven knows whence, concerning father and son. According to party they meted out praise or blame. Some, unversed in the law, declared the election invalid. The point was discussed in a hundred clubs.
There was consternation in the social world. The Duchesses' boudoirs with which Paul had been taunted hummed with indignation. They had entertained an adventurer unawares. They had entrusted the sacred ark of their political hopes to a charlatan. Their daughters had danced with the offspring of gaol and gutter. He must be cast out from the midst of them. So did those that were foolish furiously rage together and imagine many a vain thing. The Winwoods came in for pity. They had been villainously imposed upon. And the Young England League to which they had all subscribed so handsomely—where were its funds? Was it safe to leave them at the disposal of so unprincipled a fellow? Then germs of stories crept in from the studios and the stage and grew perversely in the overheated atmosphere. Paul's reputation began to assume a pretty colour. On the other hand, there were those who, while deploring the deception, were impressed by the tragedy and by Paul's attitude. He had his defenders. Among the latter first sprang forward Lord Francis Ayres, the Chief Whip, officially bound to protect his own pet candidate.
He called early at the house in Portland Place, a distressed and anxious man. The door was besieged by reporters from newspapers, vainly trying to gain, entrance. His arrival created a sensation. At any rate there was a headline "Opposition Whip calls on Savelli." One or two attempted to interview him on the doorstep. He excused himself courteously. As-yet he knew as much or as little as they. The door opened. The butler snatched him in hurriedly. He asked to see the Winwoods. He found them in the library.
"Here's an awful mess," said he, throwing up his hands. "I thought I'd have a word or two with you before I tackle Savelli. Have you seen him this morning?"
"Oh, yes."
"Well, what do you think about it?"
"I think," said Ursula, "that the best thing I can do is to take him away with me for a rest as soon as possible. He's at the end of his tether."
"You seem to take it pretty calmly."
"How do you expect us to take it, my dear Frank?" she asked. "We always expected Paul to do the right thing when the time came, and we consider that he has done it."
The Chief Whip smoothed a perplexed brow. "I don't quite follow. Were you, vulgarly speaking, in the know all the time?"
"Sit down, and I'll tell you."
So he sat down and Miss Winwood quietly told him all she knew about Paul and what had happened during the past few weeks, while the Colonel sat by his desk and tugged his long moustache and here and there supplemented her narrative.
"That's all very interesting," Ayres remarked when she had finished, "and you two have acted like bricks. I also see that he must have had a devil of a time of it. But I've got to look at things from an official point of view."
"There's no question of invalidity, is there?" asked Colonel Winwood.
"No. He was known as Paul Savelli, nominated as Paul Savelli, and elected as Paul Savelli by the electors of Hickney Heath. So he'll sit as Paul Savelli. That's all right. But how is the House going to receive him when he is introduced? How will it take him afterwards? What use will he be to the party? We only ran him because he seemed to be the most brilliant of the young outsiders. We hoped great things of him. Hasn't he smashed up himself socially? Hasn't he smashed up his career at the very beginning? All that is what I want to know."
"So do I," groaned Colonel Winwood. "I didn't have a wink of sleep last night."
"I didn't either," said Ursula, "but I don't think it will matter a row of pins to Paul in his career."
"It will always be up against him," said Ayres.
"Because he has acted like a man?"
"It's the touch of Ruy Blas that I'm afraid of."
"You must remember that he wasn't aware of his relation to the dead man until the eve of the election."
"But he was aware that he wasn't a descendant of a historical Italian family, which everyone thought him to be. I don't speak for myself," said Ayres. "I'm fond of the chap. One can't help it. He has the charm of the great gentleman, confound him, and it's all natural. The cloven hoof has never appeared, because I personally believe there's no cloven hoof. The beggar was born well bred, and, as to performance—well—he has been a young meteor across the political sky. Until this election. Then he was a disappointment. I frankly confess it. I didn't know what he was playing at. Now I do. Poor chap. I personally am sympathetic. But what about the cold-blooded other people, who don't know what you've told me? To them he's the son of an ex-convict—a vendor of fried fish—I put it brutally from their point of view—who has been masquerading as a young St. George on horseback. Will he ever be forgiven? Officially, have I any use for him? You see, I'm responsible to the party."
"Any party," said Ursula, "would be a congregation of imbeciles who didn't do their best to develop the genius of Paul Savelli."
"I'm fond of Paul," said Colonel Winwood, in his tired way, "but I don't know that I would go as far as that."
"It's only because you're a limited male, my dear James. I suppose Caesar was the only man who really crossed the Rubicon. And the fuss he made about it! Women jump across with the utmost certainty. My dear Frank, we're behind Paul, whatever happens. He has been fighting for his own hand ever since he was a child, it is true. But he has fought gallantly."
"My dear Miss Winwood," said Frank Ayres, "if there's a man to be envied, it's the one who has you for his champion!"
"Anyone, my dear Frank, is to be envied," she retorted, "who is championed by common-sense."
"All these fireworks illuminate nothing," said Colonel Winwood. "I think we had better ask Paul to come down and see Frank. Would you like to see him alone?"
"I had rather you stayed," said Frank Ayres.
A message was sent to Paul, and presently he appeared, very pale and haggard.
Frank Ayres met him with outstretched hand, spoke a courteous word of sympathy, apologized for coming in the hour of tragic bereavement.
Paul thanked him with equal courtesy. "I was about to write to you, Lord Francis," he continued, "a sort of statement in explanation of what happened last night—"
"Our friends have told me all, I think, that you may have to say."
"I shall still write it," said Paul, "so that you can have it in black and white. At present, I've given the press nothing."
"Quite right," said Frank Ayres. "For God's sake, let us work together as far as the press is concerned. That's one of the reasons why I've forced myself upon you. It's horrible, my dear fellow, to intrude at such a time. I hate it, as you can well imagine. But it's my duty."
"Of course it is," said Paul. There was a span of awkward silence. "Well," said he, with a wan smile, "we're facing, not a political, but a very unimportant party situation. Don't suppose I haven't a sense of proportion. I have. What for me is the end of the world is the unruffled continuance of the cosmic scheme for the rest of mankind. But there are relative things to consider. You have to consider the party. I'm sort of fly-blown. Am I any use? Let us talk straight. Am I or am I not?"
"My dear chap," said Frank Ayres, with perplexed knitting of the brows, "I don't quite know what to say. You yourself have invited me to talk straight. Well! Forgive me if I do. There may be a suggestion in political quarters that you have won this election under false pretences."
"Do you want me to resign my seat?"
The two men looked deep into each other's eyes.
"A Unionist in is a Liberal out," said Frank Ayres, "and counts two on division. That's one way of looking at it. We want all we can get from the enemy. On the other hand, you'd come in for a lot of criticism and hostility. You'd have to start not only from the beginning, but with a handicap. Are you strong enough to face it?"
"I'm not going to run away from anything," said Paul. "But I'll tell you what I'm prepared to do. I'll resign and fight the constituency again, under my real name of Kegworthy, provided, of course, the local people are willing to adopt me—on the understanding, however, that the party support me, or, at least, don't put forward another candidate. I'm not going to turn berserk."
"That's a sporting offer, at any rate. But, pardon me—we're talking business—where is the money for another election to come from?"
"My poor father's death makes me a wealthy man," replied Paul.
Miss Winwood started forward in her chair. "My dear, you never told us."
"There were so many other things to talk about this morning," he said gently; "but of course I would have told you later. I only mention it now"—he turned to the Chief Whip—"in answer to your direct and very pertinent question."
Now between a political free-lance adopting a parliamentary career in order to fight for his own hand, as all Paul's supporters were frankly aware that he was doing, and a wealthy, independent and brilliant young politician lies a wide gulf. The last man on earth, in his private capacity, to find his estimate of his friends influenced by their personal possessions was the fine aristocrat Lord Francis Ayres. But he was a man of the world, the very responsible head of the executive of a great political party. As that executive head he was compelled to regard Paul from a different angle. The millions of South Africa or the Middle West might vainly knock at his own front door till the crack of doom, while Paul the penniless sauntered in an honoured guest. But in his official room in the House of Commons more stern and worldly considerations had to prevail.
"Of course I can't give you an answer now," said he. "I'll have to discuss the whole matter with the powers that be. But a seat's a seat, and though I appreciate your Quixotic offer, I don't see why we should risk it. It's up to you to make good. It's more in your own interest that I'm speaking now. Can you go through with it?"
Paul, with his unconquerable instinct for the dramatic, hauled out the little cornelian heart at the end of his watch-chain. "My dear fellow," said he. "Do you see that? It was given to me for failing to win a race at a Sunday-school treat, when I was a very little boy. I didn't possess coat or stockings, and my toes came out through the ends of my boots, and in order to keep the thing safe I knotted it up in the tail of my shirt, which waggled out of the seat of my breeches. It was given to me by a beautiful lady, who, I remember, smelled like all the perfumes of Araby. She awakened my aesthetic sense by the divine and intoxicating odour that emanated from her. Since then I have never met woman so—so like a scented garden of all the innocences. To me she was a goddess. I overheard her prophesy things about me. My life began from that moment. I kept the cornelian heart all my life, as a talisman. It has brought me through all kinds of things. Once I was going to throw it away and Miss Winwood would not let me. I kept it, somewhat against my will, for I thought it was a lying talisman. It had told me, in the sweet-scented lady's words, that I was the son of a prince. Give me half an hour to-morrow or the day after," he said, seeing a puzzled look in Frank Ayres's face, "and I'll tell you a true psychological fairy tale—the apologia pro vita mea. I say, anyhow, that lately, until last night, I thought this little cornelian heart was a lying talisman. Then I knew it didn't lie. I was the son of a prince, a prince of men, although he had been in gaol and spent his days afterwards in running emotional Christianity and fried-fish shops. His name was Silas. Mine is Paul. Something significant about it, isn't there? Anyhow"—he balanced the heart in the palm of his hand—"this hasn't lied. It has carried me through all my life. When I thought it failed, I found it at the purest truth of its prophecy. It's not going to fail me now. If it's right for me to take my seat I'll take it—whether I make good politically, or not, is on the knees of the gods. But you may take it from me that there's nothing in this wide world that I won't face or go through with, if I've set my mind to it."
So the child who had kicked Billy Goodge and taken the spolia opima of paper cocked hat and wooden sword spoke through the man. As then, in a queer way, he found himself commanding a situation; and as then, commanding it rightfully, through sheer personal force. Again, at a sign, he would have broken the sword across his knee. But the sign did not come.
"Speaking quite unofficially," said Frank Ayres, "I think, if you feel like that, you would be a fool to give up your seat."
"Very well," said Paul, "I thank you. And now, perhaps, it would be wise to draw up that statement for the press, if you can spare the time."
So Paul made a draft and Frank Ayres revised it, and it was sent upstairs to be typed. When the typescript came down, Paul signed and dispatched it and gave the Chief Whip a duplicate.
"Well," said the latter, shaking hands, "the best of good luck!"
Whereupon he went home feeling that though there would be the deuce to pay, Paul Savelli would find himself perfectly solvent; and meeting the somewhat dubious Leader of the Opposition later in the day he said: "Anyhow, this 'far too gentlemanly party' has got someone picturesque, at last, to touch the popular imagination."
"A new young Disraeli?"
"Why not?"
The Leader made a faint gesture of philosophic doubt. "The mould is broken," said he.
"We'll see," said Frank Ayres, confidently.
Meanwhile, Paul returned to his room and wrote a letter, three words of which he had put on paper—"My dear Princess"—when the summons to meet the Chief Whip had come. The unblotted ink had dried hard. He took another sheet.
"My dear Princess," he began.
He held his head in his hand. What could he say? Ordinary courtesy demanded an acknowledgment of the Princess's message of inquiry. But to write to her whom he had held close in his arms, whose lips had clung maddeningly to his, in terms of polite convention seemed impossible. What had she meant by her message? If she had gone scornfully out of his life, she had gone, and there was an end on't. Her coming back could bear only one interpretation—that of Jane's passionate statement. In spite of all, she loved him. But now, stripped and naked and at war with the world, for all his desire, he would have none of her love. Not he.... At last he wrote:
PRINCESS,—A thousand grateful thanks for last night's gracious act—the act of the very great lady that I have the privilege of knowing you to be.PAUL SAVELLI.
He rang for a servant and ordered the note to be sent by hand, and then went out to Hickney Heath to see to the burying of his dead. On his return he found a familiar envelope with the crown on the flap awaiting him. It contained but few words:
PAUL, come and see me. I will stay at home all day.SOPHIE.
His pulses throbbed. Her readiness to await his pleasure proved a humility of spirit rare in Princess Sophie Zobraska. Her hands were held out towards him. But he hardened his heart. The fairy-tale was over. Nothing but realities lay before him. The interview was perilous; but he was not one to shirk danger. He went out, took a cab and drove to Berkeley Square.
She rose shyly as he entered and advanced to meet him. He kissed her hand, but when he sought to release it he found his held in her warm clasp. "Mon Dieu! How ill you are looking!" she said, and her lips quivered.
"I'm only tired."
"You look so old. Ah!" She moved away from him with a sigh. "Sit down. I suppose you can guess why I've asked you to come," she continued after a pause. "But it is a little hard to say. I want you to forgive me."
"There is nothing to forgive," said Paul.
"Don't be ungenerous; you know there is. I left you to bear everything alone."
"You were more than justified. You found me an impostor. You were wounded in everything you held sacred. I wounded you deliberately. You could do nothing else but go away. Heaven forbid that I should have thought of blaming you. I didn't. I understood."
"But it was I who did not understand," she said, looking at the rings on her fingers. "Yes. You are right. I was wounded—like an animal, I hid myself in the country, and I hoped you would write, which was foolish, for I knew you wouldn't. Then I felt that if I had loved you as I ought, I should never have gone away."
"I thought it best to kill your love outright," said Paul.
She lay back on her cushions, very fair, very alluring, very sad. From where he sat he saw her face in its delicate profile, and he had a mighty temptation to throw himself on his knees by her side.
"I thought, too, you had killed it," she said.
"Still think so," said Paul, in a low voice.
She raised herself, bent forward, and he met the blue depths of her gaze. "And you? Your love?"
"I never did anything to kill it."
"But I did."
"No, you couldn't. I shall love you to the hour of my death." He saw the light leap into her eyes. "I only say it," he added somewhat coldly, "because I will lie to you no longer. But it's a matter that concerns me alone."
"How you alone? Am not I to be considered?"
He rose and stood on the hearthrug, facing her. "I consider you all the time," said he.
"Listen, mon cher ami," she said, looking up at him. "Let us understand one another. Is there anything about you, your birth or your life that I still don't know—I mean, anything essential?"
"Nothing that matters," said Paul.
"Then let us speak once and for all, soul to soul. You and I are of those who can do it. Eh bien. I am a woman of old family, princely rank and fortune—you—"
"By my father's death," said Paul, for the second time that day, "I am a rich man. We can leave out the question of fortune—except that the money I inherit was made out of a fried-fish shop business. That business was conducted by my father on lines of peculiar idealism. It will be my duty to carry on his work—at least"—he inwardly and conscientiously repudiated the idea of buying fish at Billingsgate at five o'clock in the morning—"as far as the maintenance of his principles is concerned."
"Soit," said the Princess, "we leave out the question of fortune. You are then a man of humble birth, and the rank you have gained for yourself."
"I am a man of no name and of tarnished reputation. Good God!" he blazed out suddenly, losing control. "What is the good of torturing ourselves like this? If I wouldn't marry you—before—until I had done something in the front of the world to make you proud of me, what do you think I'll do now, lying in the gutter for every one to kick me? Would it be to the happiness of either of us for me to sneak through society behind your rank? It would be the death of me and you would come to hate me as a mean hound."
"You? A mean hound?" Her voice broke and the tears welled up in her eyes. "You have done nothing for me to be proud of? You? You who did what you did last night? Yes, I was there. I saw and heard. Listen!" She rose to her feet and stood opposite to him, her eyes all stars, her figure trembling and her hands moving in her Frenchwoman's passionate gestures. "When I saw in the newspapers about your father, my heart was wrung for you. I knew what it meant. I knew how you must suffer. I came up straight to town. I wanted to be near you. I did not know how. I did not want you to see me. I called in my steward. 'How can I see the election?' We talked a little. He went and hired a room opposite the Town Hall. I waited there in the darkness. I thought it would last forever. And then came the result and the crowd cheered and I thought I should choke. I sobbed, I sobbed, I sobbed—and then you came. And I heard, and then I held out my arms to you alone in the dark room—like this—and cried: 'Paul, Paul!"' Woman conquered. Madness surged through him and he flung his arms about her and they kissed long and passionately.
"Whether you do me the honour of marrying me or not," she said a while later' flushed and triumphant, "our lives are joined together."
And Paul, still shaken by the intoxication of her lips and hair and clinging pressure of her body, looked at her intensely with the eyes of a man's longing. But he said: "Nothing can alter what I said a few minutes ago—not all the passion and love in the world. You and I are not of the stuff, thank God, to cut ourselves adrift and bury ourselves in some romantic island and give up our lives to a dream. We're young. We're strong. We both know that life is a different sort of thing altogether from that. We're not of the sort that shirks its responsibilities. We've got to live in the world, you and I, and do the world's work."
"Parfaitement, mon bien aime." She smiled at him serenely. "I would not bury myself with you in an Ionian island for more than two months in a year for anything on earth. On my part, it would be the unforgivable sin. No woman has the right, however much she loves him, to ruin a man, any more than a man has the right to ruin a woman. But if you won't marry me, I'm perfectly willing to spend two months a year in an Ionian island with you," and she looked at him, very proud and fearless.
Paul took her by the shoulders and shook her, more roughly than he realized. "Sophie, don't tempt me to a madness that we should both regret."
She laughed, wincing yet thrilled, under the rude handling, and freed herself. "But what more can a woman offer the man who loves her—that is to say if he does love her?"
"I not love you?" He threw up his hands—"Dear God!"
She waved him away and retreated a step or two, still laughing, as he advanced. "Then why won't you marry me? You're afraid."
"Yes," he cried. "It's the only thing on this earth that I'm afraid of."
"Why?"
"The sneers. First you'd hate them. Then you'd hate and despise me."
She grew serious. "Calme-toi, my dearest. Just consider things practically. Who is going to sneer at a great man?"
"I the first," replied Paul bitterly, his self-judgment warped by the new knowledge of the vanities and unsubstantialities on which his life had been founded. "I a great man, indeed!"
"A very great man. A brilliant man I knew long ago. A brave man I have known, in spite of my pride, these last two or three awful weeks. But last night I knew you were a great man—a very great man. Ah, mon Paul. La canaille, whether it lives in Whitechapel or Park Lane, what does it matter to us?"
"The riff-raff, unfortunately," said Paul, "forms the general judgment of society."
The Princess drew herself up in all her aristocratic dignity. "My Paul well-beloved," said she, "you have still one or two things to learn. People of greatness and rank march with their peers, and they can spit upon the canaille. There is canaille in your House of Lords, upon which, the day after to-morrow, you can spit, and it will take off its coronet and thank you—and now," she said, resuming her seat on the sofa, among the cushions, "let us stop arguing. If there is any more arguing to be done, let us put it off to another occasion. Let us dismiss the questions of marriage and Ionian islands altogether, and let us talk pleasantly like dear friends who are reconciled."
And with the wit of the woman who loves and the subtlety of the woman of the world she took Paul in her delicate hands and held him before her smiling eyes and made him tell her of all the things she wanted to know. And so Paul told her of all his life, of Bludston, of Barney Bill, of the model days, of the theatre, of Jane, of his father; and he showed her the cornelian heart and expounded its significance; and he talked of his dearest lady, Miss Winwood, and his work on the Young England League, and his failure to grip in this disastrous election, and he went back to the brickfield and his flight from the Life School, and his obsessing dream of romantic parentage and the pawning of his watch at Drane's Court; and in the full tide of it all a perturbed butler appeared at the door.
"Can I speak a word to Your Highness?"
She rose. The butler spoke the word. She burst out laughing. "My dear," she cried, "it's past nine o'clock. The household is in a state of agitation about dinner. We'll have it at once, Wilkins."
The butler bowed and retired.
The Princess laughed again. "Of course you'll stay. I left Stephanie at Morebury."
And Paul stayed to dinner, and though, observing the flimsy compact, they dismissed the questions of Ionian islands and marriage, they talked till midnight of matters exceedingly pleasant.
SO the lovers were reconciled, although the question of marriage was farther off than ever, and the Princess and Miss Winwood wept on each other's shoulders after the way of good women, and Paul declared that he needed no rest, and was eager to grapple with the world. He had much to do. First, he buried his dead, the Princess sending a great wreath and her carriage, after having had a queer interview with Jane, of which neither woman would afterwards speak a word; but it was evident that they had parted on terms of mutual respect and admiration. Then Paul went through the task of settling his father's affairs. Jane having expressed a desire to take over the management of a certain department of the business, he gladly entrusted it to her capable hands. He gave her the house at Hickney Heath, and Barney Bill took up his residence there as a kind of old watch-dog. Meanwhile, introduced by Frank Ayres and Colonel Winwood, he faced the ordeal of a chill reception by the House of Commons and took his seat. After that the nine-days' wonder of the scandal came to an end; the newspapers ceased talking of it and the general public forgot all about him. He only had to reckon with his fellow-members and with social forces. His own house too he had to put in order. He resigned his salary and position as Organizing Secretary of the Young England League, but as Honorary Secretary he retained control. To assure his position he applied for Royal Letters Patent and legalized his name of Savelli, Finally, he plunged into the affairs of Fish Palaces Limited, and learned the many mysteries connected with that outwardly unromantic undertaking.
These are facts in Paul's career which his chronicler is bound to mention. But on Paul's development they exercised but little influence. He walked now, with open eyes, in a world of real things. The path was difficult, but he was strong. Darkness lay ahead, but he neither feared it nor dreamed dreams of brightness beyond. The Vision Splendid had crystallized into an unconquerable purpose of which he felt the thrill. Without Sophie Zobraska's love he would have walked on doggedly, obstinately, with set teeth. He had proved himself fearless, scornful of the world's verdict. But he would have walked in wintry gloom with a young heart frozen dead. Now his path was lit by warm sunshine and the burgeon of spring was in his heart. He could laugh again in his old joyous way; yet the laughter was no longer that of the boy, but of the man who knew the place that laughter should hold in a man's life.
On the day when he, as chairman, had first presided over a meeting of the Board of Directors of Fish Palaces Limited, he went to the Princess and said: "If I bring with me 'an ancient and fish-like smell, a kind of, not of the newest, Poor-John,' send me about my business."
She bade him not talk foolishly.
"I'm talking sense," said he. "I'm going through with it. I'm in trade. I know to the fraction of a penny how much fat ought to be used to a pound of hake, and I'm concentrating all my intellect on that fraction of a penny of fat."
"Tu as raison," she said.
"N'est-ce-pas? It's funny, isn't it? I've often told you I once thought myself the man born to be king. My dreams have come true. I am a king. The fried-fish king."
Sophie looked at him from beneath her long lashes. "And I am a princess. We meet at last on equal terms."
Paul sprang forward impulsively and seized her hands. "Oh, you dear, wonderful woman! Doesn't it matter to you that I'm running fried-fish shops?"
"I know why you're doing it," she said. "I wouldn't have you do otherwise. You are you, Paul. I should love to see you at it. Do you wait at table and hand little dishes to coster-mongers, ancien regime, en emigre?"
She laughed deliciously. Suddenly she paused, regarded him wide-eyed, with a smile on her lips.
"Tiens! I have an idea. But a wonderful ideal Why should I not be the fried-fish queen? Issue new shares. I buy them all up. We establish fish palaces all over the world? But why not? I am in trade already. Only yesterday my homme d'affaires sent me for signature a dirty piece of blue paper all covered with execrable writing and imitation red seals all the way down, and when I signed it I saw I was interested in Messrs. Jarrods Limited, and was engaged in selling hams and petticoats and notepaper and furniture and butter and—remark this—and fish. But raw fish. Now what the difference is between selling raw fish and fried fish, I do not know. Moi, je suis deja marchande de poissons, voila!"
She laughed and Paul laughed too. They postponed, however, to an indefinite date, consideration of the business proposal.
As Paul had foreseen, Society manifested no eagerness to receive him. Invitations no longer fell upon him in embarrassing showers. Nor did he make any attempt to pass through the once familiar doors. For one thing, he was proud: for another he was too busy. When the Christmas recess came he took a holiday, went off by himself to Algiers. He returned bronzed and strong, to the joy of his Sophie.
"My dear," said Miss Winwood one day to the curiously patient lady, "what is to come of it all? You can't go on like this for ever and ever."
"We don't intend to," smiled the Princess. "Paul is born to great things. He cannot help it. It is his destiny, I believe in Paul."
"So do I," replied Ursula. "But it's obvious that it will take him a good many years to achieve them. You surely aren't going to wait until he's a Cabinet Minister."
The Princess lay back among her cushions and laughed. "Mais non. It will all come in woman's good time. Laissez-moi faire. He will soon begin to believe in himself again."
At last Paul's opportunity arrived. The Whips had given him his chance to speak. His luck attended him, in so far that when his turn came he found a full House. It was on a matter of no vital importance; but he had prepared his speech carefully. He stood up for the first time in that strangely nerve-shaking assembly in which he had been received so coldly and in which he was still friendless, and saw the beginning of the familiar exodus into the lobbies. A sudden wave of anger swept through him and he tore the notes of his speech across and across, and again he metaphorically kicked Billy Goodge. He plunged into his speech, forgetful of what he had written, with a passion queerly hyperbolic in view of the subject. At the arresting tones of his voice many of the withdrawing members stopped at the bar and listened, then as he proceeded they gradually slipped back into their places. Curiosity gave place to interest. Paul had found his gift again, and his anger soon lost itself completely in the joy of the artist. The House is always generous to performance. There was something novel in the spectacle of this young man, who had come there under a cloud, standing like a fearless young Hermes before them, in the ring of his beautiful voice, in the instinctive picturesqueness of phrase, in the winning charm of his personality. It was but a little point in a Government Bill that he had to deal with, and he dealt with it shortly. But he dealt with it in an unexpected, dramatic way, and he sat down amid comforting applause and circumambient smiles and nods. The old government hand who rose to reply complimented him gracefully and proceeded of course to tear his argument to tatters. Then an ill-conditioned Socialist Member got up, and, blundering and unconscious agent of Destiny in a fast-emptying House, began a personal attack on Paul. Whereupon there were cries of "Shame!" and "Sit down!" and the Speaker, in caustic tones, counselled relevancy, and the sympathy of the House went out to the Fortunate Youth; so that when he went soon afterwards into the outer lobby—it was the dinner hour—he found himself surrounded by encouraging friends. He did not wait long among them, for up in the Ladies' Gallery was his Princess. He tore up the stairs and met her outside. Her face was pale with anger.
"The brute!" she whispered. "The cowardly brute!"
He snapped his fingers. "Canaille, canaille! He counts for nothing. But I've got them!" he cried exultingly, holding out clenched fists. "By God, darling, I've got them! They'll listen to me now!"
She looked at him and the sudden tears came. "Thank God," she said, "I can hear you talk like that at last."
He escorted her down the stone stairs and through the lobby to her car, and they were objects of many admiring eyes. When they reached it she said, with a humorous curl of the lip, "Veux-tu m'epouser maintenant?"
"Wait, only wait," said he. "These are only fireworks. Very soon we'll get to the real thing."
"We shall, I promise you," she replied enigmatically; and she drove off.
One morning, a fortnight later, she rang him up. "You're coming to dine with me on Friday, as usual, aren't you?"
"Of course," said he. "Why do you ask?"
"Just to make sure. And yes—also—to tell you not to come till half-past eight."
She rang off. Paul thought no more of the matter. Ever since he had taken his seat in the House he had dined with her alone every Friday evening. It was their undisturbed hour of intimacy and gladness in the busy week. Otherwise they rarely met, for Paul was a pariah in her social world.
On the Friday in question his taxi drew up before an unusual-looking house in Berkeley Square. An awning projected from the front door and a strip of carpet ran across the pavement. At the sound of the taxi, the door opened and revealed the familiar figures of the Princess's footmen in their state livery. He entered, somewhat dazed.
"Her Highness has a party?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. A very large dinner party."
Paul passed his hand over his forehead. What did it mean? "This is Friday, isn't it?"
"Of course, sir."
Paul grew angry. It was a woman's trap to force him on society. For a moment he struggled with the temptation to walk away after telling the servant that it was a mistake and that he had not been invited. At once, however, came realization of social outrage. He surrendered hat and coat and let himself be announced. The noise of thirty voices struck his ear as he entered the great drawing-room. He was confusedly aware of a glitter of jewels, and bare arms and shoulders and the black and white of men. But radiant in the middle of the room stood his Princess, with a tiara of diamonds on her head, and beside her stood a youngish man whose face seemed oddly familiar.
Paul advanced, kissed her hand.
She laughed gaily. "You are late, Paul."
"You said half-past, Princess. I am here to the minute."
"Je te dirai apres," she said, and the daring of the intimate speech took his breath away.
"Your Royal Highness," she turned to the young man beside her—and then Paul suddenly recognized a prince of the blood royal of England—"may I present Mr. Savelli."
"I'm very pleased to meet you," said the Prince graciously. "Your Young England League has interested me greatly. We must have a talk about it one of these days, if you can spare the time. And I must congratulate you on your speech the other night."
"You are far too kind, sir," said Paul.
They chatted for a minute or two. Then the Princess said: "You'll take in the Countess of Danesborough. I don't think you've met her; but you'll find she's an old friend."
"Old friend?" echoed Paul.
She smiled and turned to a pretty and buxom woman of forty standing near. "My dear Lady Danesborough. Here is Mr. Savelli, whom you are so anxious to meet."
Paul bowed politely. His head being full of his Princess, he was vaguely puzzled as to the reasons for which Lady Danesborough desired his acquaintance.
"You don't remember me," she said.
He looked at her squarely for the first time; then started back. "Good God!" he cried involuntarily. "Good God! I've been wanting to find you all my life. I never knew your name. But here's the proof."
And he whipped out the cornelian heart from his waistcoat pocket. She took it in her hand, examined it, handed it back to him with a smile, a very sweet and womanly smile, with just the suspicion of mist veiling her eyes.
"I know. The Princess has told me."
"But how did she find you out—I mean as my first patroness?"
"She wrote to the vicar, Mr. Merewether—he is still at Bludston—asking who his visitor was that year and what had become of her. So she found out it was I. I've known her off and on ever since my marriage."
"You were wonderfully good to me," said Paul. "I must have been a funny little wretch."
"You've travelled far since then."
"It was you that gave me my inspiration," said he.
The announcement of dinner broke the thread of the talk. Paul looked around him and saw that the room was filled with very great people indeed. There were chiefs of his party and other exalted personages. There was Lord Francis Ayres. Also the Winwoods. The procession was formed.
"I've often wondered about you," said Lady Danesborough, as they were walking down the wide staircase. "Several things happened to mark that day. For one, I had spilled a bottle of awful scent all over my dress and I was in a state of odoriferous misery."
Paul laughed boyishly. "The mystery of my life is solved at last." He explained, to her frank delight. "You've not changed a bit," said he. "And oh! I can't tell you how good it is to meet you after all these years."
"I'm very, very glad you feel so," she said significantly. "More than glad. I was wondering ... but our dear Princess was right."
"It seems to me that the Princess has been playing conspirator," said Paul.
They entered the great dining-room, very majestic with its long, glittering table, its service of plate, its stately pictures, its double row of powdered and liveried footmen, and Paul learned, to his amazement, that in violation of protocols and tables of precedence, his seat was on the right hand of the Princess. Conspiracy again. Hitherto at her parties he had occupied his proper place. Never before had she publicly given him especial mark of her favour.
"Do you think she's right in doing this?" he murmured to Lady Danesborough.
It seemed so natural that he should ask her—as though she were fully aware of all his secrets.
"I think so," she smiled—as though she too were in the conspiracy.
They halted at their places, and there, at the centre of the long table, on the right of the young Prince stood the Princess, with flushed face and shining eyes, looking very beautiful and radiantly defiant.
"Mechante," Paul whispered, as they sat down. "This is a trap."
"Je le sais. Tu est bien prise, petite souris."
It pleased her to be gay. She confessed unblushingly. Her little mouse was well caught. The little mouse grew rather stern, and when the great company had settled down, and the hum of talk arisen, he deliberately scanned the table. He met some friendly glances—a Cabinet Minister nodded pleasantly. He also met some that were hostile. His Sophie had tried a dangerous experiment. In Lady Danesborough, the Maisie Shepherd of his urchindom, whose name he had never known, she had assured him a sympathetic and influential partner. Also, although he had tactfully not taken up that lady's remark, he felt proud of his Princess's glorious certainty that he would have no false and contemptible shame in the encounter. She had known that it would be a joy to him; and it was. The truest of the man was stirred. They talked and laughed about the far-off day. Incidents flaming in his mind had faded from hers. He recalled forgotten things. Now and then she said: "Yes, I know that. The Princess has told me." Evidently his Sophie was a conspirator of deepest dye.
"And now you're the great Paul Savelli," she said.
"Great?" He laughed. "In what way?"
"Before this election you were a personage. I've never run across you because we've been abroad so much, you know—my husband has a depraved taste for governing places—but a year or two ago we were asked to the Chudleys, and you were held out as an inducement."
"Good Lord!" said Paul, astonished.
"And now, of course, you're the most-discussed young man in London. Is he damned or isn't he? You know what I refer to."
"Well, am I?' he asked pleasantly.
"I'm glad to see you take it like that. It's not the way of the little people. Personally, I've stuck up for you, not knowing in the least who you were. I thought you did the big, spacious thing. It gave me a thrill when I read about it. Your speech in the House has helped you a lot. Altogether—and now considering our early acquaintance—I think I'm justified in calling you 'the great Paul Savelli.'"
Then came the shifting of talk. The Prince turned to his left-hand neighbour; Lady Danesborough to her right. Paul and the Princess had their conventional opportunity for conversation. She spoke in French, daringly using the intimate "tu"; but of all sorts of things—books, theatres, picture shows. Then tactfully she drew the Prince and his neighbour and Lady Danesborough into their circle, and, pulling the strings, she at last brought Paul and the Prince into a discussion over the pictures of the Doges in the Ducal Palace in Venice. The young Prince was gracious. Paul, encouraged to talk and stimulated by precious memories, grew interesting. The Princess managed to secure a set of listeners at the opposite side of the table. Suddenly, as if carrying on the theme, she said in a deliberately loud voice, compelling attention: "Your Royal Highness, I am in a dilemma."
"What is it?"
She paused, looked round and widened her circle. "For the past year I have been wanting Mr. Savelli to ask me to marry him, and he obstinately refuses to do so. Will you tell me, sir, what a poor woman is to do?"
She addressed herself exclusively to the young Prince; but her voice, with its adorable French intonation, rang high and clear. Paul, suddenly white and rigid, clenched the hand of the Princess which happened to lie within immediate reach. A wave of curiosity, arresting talk, spread swiftly down. There was an uncanny, dead silence, broken only by a raucous voice proceeding from a very fat Lord of Appeal some distance away:
"After my bath I always lie flat on my back and bring my knees up to my chin."
There was a convulsive, shrill gasp of laughter, which would have instantly developed into an hysterical roar, had not the young Prince, with quick, tactful disregard of British convention, sprung to his feet, and with one hand holding champagne glass, and the other uplifted, commanded silence. So did the stars in their courses still fight for Paul. "My lords, ladies and gentlemen," said the Prince, "I have the pleasure to announce the engagement of Her Highness the Princess Sophie Zobraska and Mr. Paul Savelli. I ask you to drink to their health and wish them every happiness."
He bowed to the couple, lifted his glass, and standing, swept a quick glance round the company, and at the royal command the table rose, dukes and duchesses and Cabinet Ministers, the fine flowers of England, and drank to Paul and his Princess.
"Attrape!" she whispered, as they got up together, hand in hand. And as they stood, in their superb promise of fulfilment, they conquered. The Princess said: "Mais dis quelque chose, toi."
And Paul met the flash in her eyes, and he smiled. "Your Royal Highness, my lords, ladies and gentlemen," said he, while all the company were racking their brains to recall a precedent for such proceedings at a more than formal London dinner party; "the Princess and myself thank you from our hearts. For me this might almost seem the end of the fairy-tale of my life, in which—when I was eleven years old—her ladyship the Countess of Danesborough" (he bowed to the Maisie of years ago), "whom I have not seen from that day to this, played the part of Fairy Godmother. She gave me a talisman then to help me in my way through the world. I have it still." He held up the cornelian heart. "It guided my steps to my dearest lady, Miss Winwood, in whose beloved service I lived so long. It has brought me to the feet of my Fairy Princess. But now the fairy-tale is over. I begin where the fairy-tales end"—he laughed into his Sophie's eyes—"I begin in the certain promise of living happy ever afterwards."
In this supreme hour of his destiny there spoke the old, essential Paul, the believer in the Vision Splendid. The instinctive appeal to the romantic ringing so true and so sincere awoke responsive chords in hearts which, after all, as is the simple way of hearts of men and women, were very human.
He sat down a made man, amid pleasant laughter and bowings and lifting of glasses, the length of the long table.
Lady Danesborough said gently: "It was charming of you to bring me in. But I shall be besieged with questions. What on earth shall I tell them?"
"The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," he replied. "What do the Princess and I care?"
Later in the evening he managed to find himself alone for a moment with the Princess. "My wonderful Sophie, what can I say to you?"
She smiled victoriously. "Cry quits. Confess that you have not the monopoly of the grand manner. You have worked in your man's way—I in my woman's way."
"You took a great risk," said he.
Her eyes softened adorably. "Non, mon Paul, cheri. C'etait tout arrange. It was a certainty."
And then, Paul's dearest lady came up and pressed both their hands. "I am so glad. Oh, so glad." The tears started. "But it is something like a fairy-tale, isn't it?"
Well, as far as his chronicler can say at present, that is the end of the Fortunate Youth. But it is really only a beginning. Although his party is still in opposition, he is still young; his sun is rising and he is rich in the glory thereof. A worldful of great life lies before him and his Princess. What limit can we set to their achievement? Of course he was the Fortunate Youth. Of that there is no gainsaying. He had his beauty, his charm, his temperament, his quick southern intelligence—all his Sicilian heritage—and a freakish chance had favoured him from the day that, vagabond urchin, he attended his first and only Sunday-school treat. But personal gifts and favouring chance are not everything in this world.
On the day before his wedding he had a long talk with Barney Bill.
"Sonny," said the old man, scratching his white poll, "when yer used to talk about princes and princesses, I used to larf—larf fit to bust myself. I never let yer seen me do it, sonny, for all the time you was so dead serious. And now it has come true. And d'yer know why it's come true, sonny?" He cocked his head on one side, his little diamond eyes glittering, and laid a hand on Paul's knee. "D'yer know why? Because yer believed in it. I ain't had much religion, not having, so to speak, much time for it, also being an old crock of a pagan—but I do remember as what Christ said about faith—just a mustard seed of it moving mountains. That's it, sonny. I've observed lots of things going round in the old 'bus. Most folks believe in nothing. What's the good of 'em? Move mountains? They're paralytic in front of a dunghill. I know what I'm talking about, bless yer. Now you come along believing in yer 'igh-born parents. I larfed, knowing as who yer parents were. But you believed, and I had to let you believe. And you believed in your princes and princesses, and your being born to great things. And I couldn't sort of help believing in it too."
Paul laughed. "Things happen to have come out all right, but God knows why."
"He does," said Barney Bill very seriously. "That's just what He does know. He knows you had faith."
"And you, dear old man?" asked Paul, "what have you believed in?"
"My honesty, sonny," replied Barney Bill, fixing him with his bright eyes. "'Tain't much. 'Tain't very ambitious-like. But I've had my temptations. I never drove a crooked bargain in my life."
Paul rose and walked a step or two.
"You're a better man than I am, Bill."
Barney Bill rose too, rheumatically, and laid both hands on the young man's shoulders. "Have you ever been false to what you really believed to be true?"
"Not essentially," said Paul.
"Then it's all right, sonny," said the old man very earnestly, his bent, ill-clad figure, his old face wizened by years of exposure to suns and frosts, contrasting oddly with the young favourite of fortune. "It's all right. Your father believed in one thing. I believe in another. You believe in something else. But it doesn't matter a tuppenny damn what one believes in, so long as it's worth believing in. It's faith, sonny, that does it. Faith and purpose."
"You're right," said Paul. "Faith and purpose."
"I believed in yer from the very first, when you were sitting down reading Sir Walter with the bead and tail off. And I believed in yer when yer used to tell about being 'born to great things!"
Paul laughed. "That was all childish rubbish," said he.
"Rubbish?" cried the old man, his head more crooked, his eyes more bright, his gaunt old figure more twisted than ever. "Haven't yer got the great things yer believed yer were born to? Ain't yer rich? Ain't yer famous? Ain't yer a Member of Parliament? Ain't yer going to marry a Royal Princess? Good God Almighty! what more d'yer want?"
"Nothing in the wide, wide world!" laughed Paul.