The Fortunate Youth

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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.

CHAPTER XXIII

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 thin 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.

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