The Fortunate Youth

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"We didn't know," said Jane. "We thought that either you were dead
or had forgotten us--or had grown too big a man for us."

"Axing your pardon," said Barney Bill, taking his blackened clay
from his lips and holding it between his gnarled fingers, "you said
so. I didn't. I always held that, if he wasn't dead, the time would
come when, as it was to-night, the three of us would be sitting
round together. I maintained," he added solemnly after a puff or
two, "that his heart was in the right place. I'm a broken-down old
crock, no longer a pagan; but I'm right. Ain't I, sonny?" He thrust
an arm into the ribs of Paul, who was sitting between them.

Paul looked at Jane. "I think this proves it."

She returned his look steadily. "I own I was wrong. But a woman only
proves herself to be right by always insisting that she is wrong."

"My dear Jane," cried Paul. "Since when have you become so
psychological?"

"Gorblime," said Barney Bill, "what in thunder's that?"

"I know," said Jane. "You"--to Paul--"were good enough to begin
my education. I've tried since to go on with it."

"It's nothing to do with edication," said Barney Bill. "It's fac's.
Let's have fac's. Jane and I have been tramping the same old
high-road, but you've been climbing mountains--yer and yer gold
cigarette cases. Let's hear about it."

So Paul told his story, and as he told it, it seemed to him, in its
improbability, more like a fairy-tale than the sober happenings of
real life.

"You've said nothing about the princess," Jane remarked, when he had
ended.

"The princess?"

"Yes. Where does she come in?"

"The Princess Zobraska is a friend of my employers."

"But you and she are great friends," Jane persisted quietly. "That's
obvious to anybody. I was standing quite close when you helped her
into the motor car."

"I didn't see you."

"I took care you didn't. She looks charming."

"Most princesses are charming--when they've no particular reason
to be otherwise," said Paul. "It is their metier--their
profession."

There was a little silence. Jane, cheek on hand, looked thoughtfully
into the fire. Barney Bill knocked' the ashes out of his pipe and
thrust it in his pocket. "It's getting late, sonny."

Paul looked at his watch. It was past one o'clock. He jumped up. "I
hope to goodness you haven't to begin work at half-past five," he
said to Jane.

"No. At eight." She rose as he stretched out his hand. "You don't
know what it is to see you again, Paul. I can't tell you. Some
things are upsetting. But I'm glad. Oh, yes, I'm glad, Paul dear.
Don't think I'm not."

Her voice broke a little. They were the first gentle words she had
given him all the evening. Paul smiled and kissed her hand as he had
kissed that of the princess, and, still holding it, said: "Don't I
know you of old? And if you suppose I haven't thought of you and
felt the need of you, you're very much mistaken. Now I've found you,
I'm not going to let you go again."

She turned her head aside and looked down; there was the slightest
movement of her plump shoulders. "What's the good? I can't do
anything for you now, and you can't do anything for me. You're on
the way to becoming a great man. To me, you're a great man already.
Don't you see?"

"My dear, I was an embryonic Shelley, Raphael, Garrick, and Napoleon
when you first met me," he said jestingly.

"But then you didn't belong to their--to their sphere. Now you do.
Your friends are lords and ladies and--and princesses--"

"My friends," cried Paul, "are people with great true hearts--like
the Winwoods--and the princess, if you like--and you, and Barney
Bill."

"That's a sentiment as does you credit," said the old man. "Great
true hearts! Now if you ain't satisfied, my dear, you're a damn
criss-cross female. And yer ain't, are yer?' She laughed and Paul
laughed. The little spell of intensity was broken. There were
pleasant leave-takings.

"I'll set you on your road a bit," said Barney Bill. "I live in the
neighbourhood. Good-bye, Jane."

She went with them to the front door, and stood in the gusty air
watching them until they melted into the darkness.

CHAPTER XIV

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 lie
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, be 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."

"Ohl" 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."

I 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 fold 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.

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