'HERE IS MY THRONE--BID KINGS COME BOW TO IT'
London, eager for a lion, lionised Ericson. That royal sport of
lion-hunting, practised in old times by kings in Babylon and Nineveh, as
those strange monuments in the British Museum bear witness, is the
favourite sport of fashionable London to-day. And just at that moment
London lacked its regal quarry. The latest traveller from Darkest
Africa, the latest fugitive pretender to authority in France, had
slipped out of the popular note and the favours of the Press. Ericson
came in good time. There was a gap, and he filled it.
He found himself, to his amazement and his amusement, the hero of the
hour. Invitations of all kinds showered upon him; the gates of great
houses yawned wide to welcome him; had he been gifted like Kehama with
the power of multiplying his personality, he could scarcely have been
able to accept every invitation that was thrust upon him. But he did
accept a great many; indeed, it might be said that he had to accept a
great many. Had he had his own way, he might, perhaps, have buried
himself in Hampstead, and enjoyed the company of his aunt and the mild
society of Mr. Gilbert Sarrasin. But the impetuous, indomitable Hamilton
would hear of no inaction. He insisted copying a famous phrase of Lord
Beaconsfield's, that the key of Gloria was in London. 'We must make
friends,' he said; 'we must keep ourselves in evidence; we must never
for a moment allow our claim to be forgotten, or our interests to be
ignored. If we are ever to get back to Gloria we must make the most of
our inevitable exile.'
The Dictator smiled at the enthusiasm of his young henchman. Hamilton
was tremendously enthusiastic. A young Englishman of high family, of
education, of some means, he had attached himself to Ericson years
before at a time when Hamilton, fresh from the University, was taking
that complement to a University career--a trip round the world, at a
time when Ericson was just beginning that course of reform which had
ended for the present in London and Paulo's Hotel. Hamilton's enthusiasm
often proved to be practical. Like Ericson, he was full of great ideas
for the advancement of mankind; he had swallowed all Socialisms, and had
almost believed, before he fell in with Ericson, that he had elaborated
the secret of social government. But his wide knowledge was of service;
and his devotion to the Dictator showed itself of sterling stuff on that
day in the Plaza Nacional when he saved his life from the insurgents. If
the Dictator sometimes smiled at Hamilton's enthusiasm, he often allowed
himself to yield to it. Just for the moment he was a little sick of the
whole business; the inevitable bitterness that tinges a man's heart who
has striven to be of service, and who has been misunderstood, had laid
hold of him; there were times when he felt that he would let the whole
thing go and make no further effort. Then it was that Hamilton's
enthusiasm proved so useful; that Hamilton's restless energy in keeping
in touch with the friends of the fallen man roused him and stimulated
him.
He had made many friends now in London. Both the great political parties
were civil to him, especially, perhaps, the Conservatives. Being in
power, they could not make an overt declaration of their interest in
him, but just then the Tory Party was experiencing one of those
emotional waves which at times sweep over its consciousness, when it
feels called upon to exalt the banner of progress; to play the old Roman
part of lifting up the humble and casting down the proud; of showing a
paternal interest in all manner of schemes for the redress of wrong and
suffering everywhere. Somehow or other it had got it into its head that
Ericson was a man after its own heart; that he was a kind of new Gordon;
that his gallant determination to make the people of Gloria happy in
spite of themselves was a proof of the application of Tory methods. Sir
Rupert encouraged this idea. As a rule, his party were a little afraid
of his advanced ideas; but on this occasion they were willing to accept
them, and they manifested the friendliest interest in the Dictator's
defeated schemes. Indeed, so friendly were they that many of the
Radicals began to take alarm, and think that something must be wrong
with a man who met with so cordial a reception from the ruling party.
Ericson himself met these overtures contentedly enough. If it was for
the good of Gloria that he should return some day to carry out his
dreams, then anything that helped him to return was for the good of
Gloria too, and undoubtedly the friendliness of the Ministerialists was
a very important factor in the problem he was engaged upon. He did not
know at first how much Tory feeling was influenced by Sir Rupert; he did
not know until later how much Sir Rupert was influenced by his daughter.
Helena had aroused in her father something of her own enthusiasm for the
exiled Dictator. Sir Rupert had looked into the whole business more
carefully, had recognised that it certainly would be very much better
for the interests of British subjects under the green and yellow banner
that Gloria should be ruled by an Englishman like Ericson than by the
wild and reckless Junta, who at present upheld uncertain authority by
martial law. England had recognised the Junta, of course; it was the _de
facto_ Government, and there was nothing else to be done. But it was not
managing its affairs well; the credit of the country was shaken; its
trade was gravely impaired; the very considerable English colony was
loud in its protests against the defects of the new _régime_. Under
these conditions Sir Rupert saw no reason for not extending the hand of
friendship to the Dictator.
He did extend the hand of friendship. He met the Dictator at a
dinner-party given in his honour by Mr. Wynter, M. P.: Mr. Wynter, who
had always made it a point to know everybody, and who was as friendly
with Sir Rupert as with the chieftains of his own party. Sir Rupert had
expressed to Wynter a wish to meet Ericson; so when the dinner came off
he found himself placed at the right-hand side of Ericson, who was at
his host's right-hand side. The two men got on well from the first. Sir
Rupert was attracted by the fresh unselfishness of Ericson, by something
still youthful, still simple, in a man who had done and endured so much,
and he made himself agreeable, as he only knew how, to his neighbour.
Ericson, for his part, was frankly pleased with Sir Rupert. He was a
little surprised, perhaps, at first to find that Sir Rupert's opinions
coincided so largely with his own; that their views of government agreed
on so many important particulars. He did not at first discover that it
was Ericson's unconstitutional act in enforcing his reforms, rather than
the actual reforms themselves, that aroused Sir Rupert's admiration. Sir
Rupert was a good talker, a master of the manipulation of words, knowing
exactly how much to say in order to convey to the mind of his listener a
very decided impression without actually committing himself to any
pledged opinion. Ericson was a shrewd man, but in such delicate
dialectic he was not a match for a man like Sir Rupert.
Sir Rupert asked the Dictator to dinner, and the Dictator went to the
great house in Queen's Gate and was presented to Helena, and was placed
next to her at dinner, and thought her very pretty and original and
attractive, and enjoyed himself very much. He found himself, to his
half-unconscious surprise, still young enough and human enough to be
pleased with the attention people were paying him--above all, that he
was still young enough and human enough to be pleased with the very
obvious homage of a charming young woman. For Helena's homage was very
obvious indeed. Accustomed always to do what she pleased, and say what
she pleased, Helena, at three-and-twenty, had a frankness of manner, a
straightforwardness of speech, which her friends called original and her
detractors called audacious. She would argue, unabashed, with the great
leader of the party on some high point of foreign policy; she would talk
to the great chieftain of Opposition as if he were her elder brother.
People who did not understand her said that she was forward, that she
had no reserve; even people who understood her, or thought they did,
were sometimes a little startled by her careless directness. Soame
Rivers once, when he was irritated by her, which occasionally happened,
though he generally kept his irritation to himself, said that she had a
'slap on the back' way of treating her friends. The remark was not kind,
but it happened to be fairly accurate, as unkind remarks sometimes are.
But from the first Helena did not treat the Dictator with the same
brusque spirit of _camaraderie_ which she showed to most of her friends.
Her admiration for the public man, if it had been very enthusiastic, was
very sincere. She had, from the first time that Ericson's name began to
appear in the daily papers, felt a keen interest in the adventurous
Englishman who was trying to introduce free institutions and advanced
civilisation into one of the worm-eaten republics of the New World. As
time went on, and Ericson's doings became more and more conspicuous, the
girl's admiration for the lonely pioneer waxed higher and higher, till
at last she conjured up for herself an image of heroic chivalry as
romantic in its way as anything that could be evolved from the dreams of
a sentimental schoolgirl. To reform the world--was not that always
England's mission, if not especially the mission of her own party?--and
here was an Englishman fighting for reform in that feverish place, and
endeavouring to make his people happy and prosperous and civilised, by
methods which certainly seemed to have more in common with the
benevolent despotism of the Tory Party than with the theories of the
Opposition. Bit by bit it came to pass that Helena Langley grew to look
upon Ericson over there in that queer, ebullient corner of new Spain, as
her ideal hero; and so it happened that when at last she met her hero in
the flesh for the first time her frank audacity seemed to desert her.
Not that she showed in the slightest degree embarrassment when Sir
Rupert first presented to her the grave man with the earnest eyes, whose
pointed beard and brown hair were both slightly touched with grey. Only
those who knew Helena well could possibly have told that she was not
absolutely at her ease in the presence of the Dictator. Ericson himself
thought her the most self-possessed young lady he had ever met, and to
him, familiar as he was with the exquisite effrontery belonging to the
New Castilian dames of Gloria, self-possession in young women was a
recognised fact. Even Sir Rupert himself scarcely noticed anything that
he would have called shyness in his daughter's demeanour as she stood
talking to the Dictator, with her large fine eyes fixed in composed gaze
upon his face. But Soame Rivers noticed a difference in her bearing; he
was not her father, and he was accustomed to watch every tone of her
speech and every movement of her eyes, and he saw that she was not
entirely herself in the company of the 'new man,' as he called Ericson;
and seeing it he felt a pang, or at least a prick, at the heart, and
sneered at himself immediately in consequence. But he edged up to Helena
just before the pairing took place for dinner, and said softly to her,
so that no one else could hear, 'You are shy to-night. Why?'--and moved
away smiling at the angry flash of her eyes and the compression of her
mouth.
Possibly the words of Rivers may have affected her more than she was
willing to admit; but she certainly was not as self-composed as usual
during that first dinner. Her wit flashed vivaciously; the Dictator
thought her brilliant, and even rather bewildering. If anyone had said
to him that Helena Langley was not absolutely at her ease with him, he
would have stared in amazement. For himself, he was not at all dismayed
by the brilliant, beautiful girl who sat next to him. The long habit of
intercourse with all kinds of people, under all kinds of conditions, had
given him the experience which enabled him to be at his ease under any
circumstances, even the most unfamiliar, and certainly talking to Helena
Langley was an experience that had no precedent in the Dictator's life.
But he talked to her readily, with great pleasure; he felt a little
surprise at her obvious willingness to talk to him and accept his
judgment upon many things; but he set this down as one of the few
agreeable conditions attendant upon being lionised, and accepted it
gratefully. 'I am the newest thing,' he thought to himself, 'and so this
child is interested in me and consequently civil to me. Probably she
will have forgotten all about me the next time we meet; in the meanwhile
she is very charming.' The Dictator had even been about to suggest to
himself that he might possibly forget all about her; but somehow this
did not seem very likely, and he dismissed it.
He did not see very much of Helena that night after the dinner. Many
people came in, and Helena was surrounded by a little court of adorers,
men of all ages and occupations, statesmen, soldiers, men of letters,
all eagerly talking a kind of talk which was almost unintelligible to
the Dictator. In that bright Babel of voices, in that conversation which
was full of allusions to things of which he knew nothing, and for which,
if he had known, he would have cared less, the Dictator felt his sense
of exile suddenly come strongly upon him like a great chill wave. It was
not that he could feel neglected. A great statesman was talking to him,
talking at much length confidentially, paying him the compliment of
repeatedly inviting his opinion, and of deferring to his judgment. There
was not a man or woman in the room who was not anxious to be introduced
to Ericson, who was not delighted when the introduction was accorded,
and when he or she had taken his hand and exchanged a few words with
him. But somehow it was Helena's voice that seemed to thrill in the
Dictator's ears; it was Helena's face that his eyes wandered to through
all that brilliant crowd, and it was with something like a sense of
serious regret that he found himself at last taking her hand and wishing
her good-night. Her bright eyes grew brighter as she expressed the hope
that they should meet soon again. The Dictator bowed and withdrew. He
felt in his heart that he shared the hope very strongly.
The hope was certainly realised. So notable a lion as the Dictator was
asked everywhere, and everywhere that he went he met the Langleys. In
the high political and social life in which the Dictator, to his
entertainment, found himself, the hostilities of warring parties had
little or no effect. In that rarefied air it was hard to draw the breath
of party passion, and the Dictator came across the Langleys as often in
the houses of the Opposition as in Ministerial mansions. So it came to
pass that something almost approaching to an intimacy sprang up between
John Ericson on the one part and Sir Rupert and Helena Langley on the
other. Sir Rupert felt a real interest in the adventurous man with the
eccentric ideas; perhaps his presence recalled something of Sir Rupert's
own hot youth when he had had eccentric ideas and was looked upon with
alarm by the steady-going. Helena made no concealment of her interest in
the exile. She was always so frank in her friendships, so off-hand and
boyish in her air of comradeship with many people, that her attitude
towards the Dictator did not strike any one, except Soame Rivers, as
being in the least marked--for her. Indeed, most of her admirers would
have held that she was more reserved with the Dictator than with others
of her friends. Soame Rivers saw that there was a difference in her
bearing towards the Dictator and towards the courtiers of her little
court, and he smiled cynically and pretended to be amused.
Ericson's acquaintance with the Langleys ripened into that rapid
intimacy which is sometimes possible in London. At the end of a week he
had met them many times and had been twice to their house. Helena had
always insisted that a friendship which was worth anything should
declare itself at once, should blossom quickly into being, and not grow
by slow stages. She offered the Dictator her friendship very frankly and
very graciously, and Ericson accepted very frankly the gracious gift.
For it delighted him, tired as he was of all the strife and struggle of
the last few years, to find rest and sympathy in the friendship of so
charming a girl; the cordial sympathy she showed him came like a balm to
the humiliation of his overthrow. He liked Helena, he liked her father;
though he had known them but for a handful of days, it always delighted
him to meet them; he always felt in their society that he was in the
society of friends.
One evening, when Ericson had been little more than a month in London,
he found himself at an evening party given by Lady Seagraves. Lady
Seagraves was a wonderful woman--'the fine flower of our modern
civilisation,' Soame Rivers called her. Everybody came to her house; she
delighted in contrasts; life was to her one prolonged antithesis. Soame
Rivers said of her parties that they resembled certain early Italian
pictures, which gave you the mythological gods in one place, a battle in
another, a scene of pastoral peace in a third. It was an astonishing
amalgam.
Ericson arrived at Lady Seagraves' house rather late; the rooms were
very full--he found it difficult to get up the great staircase. There
had been some great Ministerial function, and the dresses of many of the
men in the crowd were as bright as the women's. Court suits, ribands,
and orders lent additional colour to a richly coloured scene. But even
in a crowd where everybody bore some claim to distinction the arrival of
the Dictator aroused general attention. Ericson was not yet sufficiently
hardened to the experience to be altogether indifferent to the fact that
everyone was looking at him; that people were whispering his name to
each other as he slowly made his way from stair to stair; that pretty
women paused in their upward or downward progress to look at him, and
invariably with a look of admiration for his grave, handsome face.
When he got to the top of the stairs Ericson found his hostess, and
shook hands with her. Lady Seagraves was an effusive woman, who was
always delighted to see any of her friends; but she felt a special
delight at seeing the Dictator, and she greeted him with a special
effusiveness. Her party was choking with celebrities of all kinds,
social, political, artistic, legal, clerical, dramatic; but it would not
have been entirely triumphant if it had not included the Dictator. Lady
Seagraves was very glad to see him indeed, and said so in her warm,
enthusiastic way.
'I'm so glad to see you,' Lady Seagraves murmured. 'It was so nice of
you to come. I was beginning to be desperately afraid that you had
forgotten all about me and my poor little party.'
It was one of Lady Seagraves' graceful little affectations to pretend
that all her parties were small parties, almost partaking of the nature
of impromptu festivities. Ericson glanced around over the great room
crammed to overflowing with a crowd of men and women who could hardly
move, men and women most of whose faces were famous or beautiful, men
and women all of whom, as Soame Rivers said, had their names in the
play-bill; there was a smile on his face as he turned his eyes from the
brilliant mass to Lady Seagraves' face.
'How could I forget a promise which it gives me so much pleasure to
fulfil?' he asked. Lady Seagraves gave a little cry of delight.
'Now that's perfectly sweet of you! How did you ever learn to say such
pretty things in that dreadful place? Oh, but of course; I forgot
Spaniards pay compliments to perfection, and you have learnt the art
from them, you frozen Northerner.'
Ericson laughed. 'I am afraid I should never rival a Spaniard in
compliment,' he said. He never knew quite what to talk to Lady Seagraves
about, but, indeed, there was no need for him to trouble himself, as
Lady Seagraves could at all times talk enough for two more.
So he just listened while Lady Seagraves rattled on, sending his glance
hither and thither in that glittering assembly, seeking almost
unconsciously for one face. He saw it almost immediately; it was the
face of Helena Langley, and her eyes were fixed on him. She was standing
in the throng at some little distance from him, talking to Soame Rivers,
but she nodded and smiled to the Dictator.
At that moment the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Deptford set
Ericson free from the ripple of Lady Seagraves' conversation. She turned
to greet the new arrivals, and the Dictator began to edge his way
through the press to where Helena was standing. Though she was only a
little distance off, his progress was but slow progress. The rooms were
tightly packed, and almost every person he met knew him and spoke to
him, or shook hands with him, but he made his way steadily forward.
'Here comes the illustrious exile!' said Soame Rivers, in a low tone. 'I
suppose nobody will have a chance of saying a word to you for the rest
of the evening?'
Miss Langley glanced at him with a little frown. 'I am afraid I can
scarcely hope that Mr. Ericson will consent to be monopolised by me for
the whole of the evening,' she said; 'but I wish he would, for he is
certainly the most interesting person here.'
Soame Rivers shrugged his shoulders slightly. 'You always know someone
who is the most interesting man in the world--for the time being,' he
said.
Miss Langley frowned again, but she did not reply, for by this time
Ericson had reached her, and was holding out his hand. She took it with
a bright smile of welcome. Soame Rivers slipped away in the crowd, after
nodding to Ericson.
'I am so glad that you have come,' Helena said. 'I was beginning to fear
that you were not coming.'
'It is very kind of you,' the Dictator began, but Miss Langley
interrupted him.
'No, no; it isn't kind of me at all; it is just natural selfishness. I
want to talk to you about several things; and if you hadn't come I
should have been disappointed in my purpose, and I hate being
disappointed.'
The Dictator still persisted that any mark of interest from Miss Langley
was kindness. 'What do you want to talk to me about particularly?' he
asked.
'Oh, many things! But we can't talk in this awful crush. It's like
trying to stand up against big billows on a stormy day. Come with me.
There is a quieter place at the back, where we shall have a chance of
peace.'
She turned and led the way slowly through the crowd, the Dictator
following her obediently. Once again the progress was a slow one, for
every man had a word for Miss Langley, and he himself was eagerly caught
at as they drifted along. But at last they got through the greater crush
of the centre rooms and found themselves in a kind of lull in a further
saloon where a piano was, and where there were fewer people. Out of this
room there was a still smaller one with several palms in it, and out of
the palms arising a great bronze reproduction of the Hermes of
Praxiteles. Lady Seagraves playfully called this little room her Pagan
parlour. Here people who knew the house well found their way when they
wanted quiet conversation. There was nobody in it when Miss Langley and
the Dictator arrived. Helena sat down on a sofa with a sigh of relief,
and Ericson sat down beside her.
'What a delightful change from all that awful noise and glare!' said
Helena. 'I am very fond of this little corner, and I think Lady
Seagraves regards it as especially sacred to me.'
'I am grateful for being permitted to cross the hallowed threshold,'
said the Dictator. 'Is this the tutelary divinity?' And he glanced up at
the bronze image.
'Yes,' said Miss Langley; 'that is a copy of the Hermes of Praxiteles
which was discovered at Olympia some years ago. It is the right thing to
worship.'
'One so seldom worships the right thing--at least, at the right time,'
he said.
'I worship the right thing, I know,' she rejoined, 'but I don't quite
know about the right time.'
'Your instincts would be sure to guide you right,' he answered, not
indeed quite knowing what he was talking about.
'Why?' she asked, point blank.
'Well, I suppose I meant to say that you have nobler instincts than most
other people.'
'Come, you are not trying to pay me a compliment? I don't want
compliments; I hate and detest them. Leave them to stupid and
uninteresting men.'
'And to stupid and uninteresting women?'
'Another try at a compliment!'
'No; I felt that.'
'Well, anyhow, I did not entice you in here to hear anything about
myself; I know all about myself.'
'Indeed,' he said straightforwardly, 'I do not care to pay compliments,
and I should never think of wearying you with them. I believe I hardly
quite knew what I was talking about just now.'
'Very well; it does not matter. I want to hear about you. I want to know
all about you. I want you to trust in me and treat me as your friend.'
'But what do you want me to tell you?'
'About yourself and your projects and everything. Will you?'
The Dictator was a little bewildered by the girl's earnestness, her
energy, and the perfect simplicity of her evident belief that she was
saying nothing unreasonable. She saw reluctance and hesitation in his
eyes.
'You are very young,' he began.
'Too young to be trusted?'
'No, I did not say _that_.'
'But your look said it.'
'My look then mistranslated my feeling.'
'What did you feel?'
'Surprise, and interest, and gratitude.'
She tossed her head impatiently.
'Do you think I can't understand?' she asked, in her impetuous way--her
imperial way with most others, but only an impetuous way with him. For
most others with whom she was familiar she was able to control and be
familiar with, but she could only be impetuous with the Dictator.
Indeed, it was the high tide of her emotion which carried her away so
far as to fling her in mere impetuousness against him.
The Dictator was silent for a moment, and then he said: 'You don't seem
much more than a child to me.'
'Oh! Why? Do you not know?--I am twenty-three!'
'I am twenty-three,' the Dictator murmured, looking at her with a kindly
and half-melancholy interest. 'You are twenty-three! Well, there it
is--do you not see, Miss Langley?'
'There what is?'
'There is all the difference. To be twenty-three seems to you to make
you quite a grown-up person.'
'What else should it make me? I have been of age for two years. What am
I but a grown-up person?'
'Not in my sense,' he said placidly. 'You see, I have gone through so
much, and lived so many lives, that I begin to feel quite like an old
man already. Why, I might have had a daughter as old as you.'
'Oh, stuff!' the audacious young woman interposed.
'Stuff? How do you know?'
'As if I hadn't read lives of you in all the papers and magazines and I
don't know what. I can tell you your birthday if you wish, and the year
of your birth. You are quite young--in my eyes.'
'You are kind to me,' he said, gravely, 'and I am quite sure that I look
at my very best in your eyes.'
'You do indeed,' she said fervently, gratefully.
'Still, that does not prevent me from being twenty years older than
you.'
'All right; but would you refuse to talk frankly and sensibly about
yourself?--sensibly, I mean, as one talks to a friend and not as one
talks to a child. Would you refuse to talk in that way to a young man
merely because you were twenty years older than he?'
'I am not much of a talker,' he said, 'and I very much doubt if I should
talk to a young man at all about my projects, unless, of course, to my
friend Hamilton.'
Helena turned half away disappointed. It was of no use, then--she was
not his friend. He did not care to reveal himself to her; and yet she
thought she could do so much to help him. She felt that tears were
beginning to gather in her eyes, and she would not for all the world
that he should see them.
'I thought we were friends,' she said, giving out the words very much as
a child might give them out--and, indeed, her heart was much more as
that of a little child than she herself knew or than he knew then; for
she had not the least idea that she was in love or likely to be in love
with the Dictator. Her free, energetic, wild-falcon spirit had never as
yet troubled itself with thoughts of such kind. She had made a hero for
herself out of the Dictator--she almost adored him; but it was with the
most genuine hero-worship--or fetish-worship, if that be the better and
harsher way of putting it--and she had never thought of being in love
with him. Her highest ambition up to this hour was to be his friend and
to be admitted to his confidence, and--oh, happy recognition!--to be
consulted by him. When she said 'I thought we were friends,' she jumped
up and went towards the window to hide the emotion which she knew was
only too likely to make itself felt.
The Dictator got up and followed her. 'We are friends,' he said.
She looked brightly round at him, but perhaps he saw in her eyes that
she had been feeling a keen disappointment.
'You think my professed friendship mere girlish inquisitiveness--you
know you do,' she said, for she was still angry.
'Indeed I do not,' he said earnestly. 'I have had no friendship since I
came back an outcast to England--no friendship like that given to me by
you----'
She turned round delightedly towards him.
'And by your father.'
And again, she could not tell why, she turned partly away.
'But the truth is,' he went on to say, 'I have no clearly defined plans
as yet.'
'You don't mean to give in?' she asked eagerly.
He smiled at her impetuosity. She blushed slightly as she saw his smile.
'Oh I know,' she exclaimed, 'you think me an impertinent schoolgirl, and
you only laugh at me.'
'I do nothing of the kind. It is only too much of a pleasure to me to
talk to you on terms of friendship. Look here, I wish we could do as
people used to do in the old melodramas, and swear an eternal
friendship.'
'I swear an eternal friendship to you,' she exclaimed, 'whether you like
it or not,' and, obeying the wild impulse of the hour, she held out both
her hands.
He took them both in his, held them for just one instant, and then let
them go.
'I accept the friendship,' he said, with a quiet smile, 'and I
reciprocate it with all my heart.'
Helena was already growing a little alarmed at her own impulsiveness and
effusiveness. But there was something in the Dictator's quiet, grave,
and protecting way which always seemed to reassure her. 'He will be sure
to understand me,' was the vague thought in her mind.
Assuredly the Dictator now thought he did understand her. He felt
satisfied that her enthusiasm was the enthusiasm of a generous girl's
friendship, and that she thought about him in no other way. He had
learned to like her companionship, and to think much of her fresh,
courageous intellect, and even of her practical good sense. He had no
doubt that he should find her advice on many things worth having. His
battlefield just now and for some time to come must be in London--in the
London of finance and diplomacy.
'Come and sit down again,' the Dictator said; 'I will tell you all I
know--and I don't know much. I do not mean to give up, Miss Langley. I
am not a man who gives up--I am not built that way.'
'Of course I knew,' Helena exclaimed triumphantly; 'I knew you would
never give up. You couldn't.'
'I couldn't--and I do not believe I ought to give up. I am sure I know
better how to provide for the future of Gloria than--than--well, than
Gloria knows herself--just now. I believe Gloria will want me back.'
'Of course she will want you back when she comes to her senses,' Helena
said with sparkling eyes.
'I don't blame her for having a little lost her senses under the
conditions--it was all too new, and I was too hasty. I was too much
inspired by the ungoverned energy of the new broom. I should do better
now if I had the chance.'
'You will have the chance--you must have it!'
'Do you promise it to me?' he asked with a kindly smile.
'I do--I can--I know it will come to you!'
'Well, I can wait,' he said quietly. 'When Gloria calls me to go back to
her I will go.'
'But what do you mean by Gloria? Do you want a _plébiscite_ of the whole
population in your favour?'
'Oh no! I only mean this, that if the large majority of the people whom
I strove to serve are of opinion they can do without me--well, then, I
shall do without them. But if they call me I shall go to them, although
I went to my death and knew it beforehand.'
'One may do worse things,' the girl said proudly, 'than go knowingly to
one's death.'
'You are so young,' he said. 'Death seems nothing to you. The young and
the generous are brave like that.'
'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'let my youth alone!'
She would have liked to say, 'Oh, confound my youth!' but she did not
give way to any such unseemly impulse. She felt very happy again, her
high spirits all rallying round her.
'Let your youth alone!' the Dictator said, with a half-melancholy smile.
'So long as time lets it alone--and even time will do that for some
years yet.'
Then he stopped and felt a little as if he had been preaching a sermon
to the girl.
'Come,' she broke in upon his moralisings, 'if I am so dreadfully young,
at least I'll have the benefit of my immaturity. If I am to be treated
as a child, I must have a child's freedom from conventionality.' She
dragged forward a heavy armchair lined with the soft, mellowed, dull red
leather which one sees made into cushions and sofa-pillows in the shops
of Nuremberg's more artistic upholsterers, and then at its side on the
carpet she planted a footstool of the same material and colour. 'There,'
she said, 'you sit in that chair.'
'And you, what are you going to do?'
'Sit first, and I will show you.'
He obeyed her and sat in the great chair. 'Well, now?' he asked.
'I shall sit here at your feet.' She flung herself down and sat on the
footstool.
'Here is my throne,' she said composedly; 'bid kings come bow to it.'
'Kings come bowing to a banished Republican?'
'You are my King,' she answered, 'and so I sit at your feet and am proud
and happy. Now talk to me and tell me some more.'
But the talk was not destined to go any farther that night. Rivers and
one or two others came lounging in. Helena did not stir from her lowly
position. The Dictator remained as he was just long enough to show that
he did not regard himself as having been disturbed. Helena flung a saucy
little glance of defiance at the principal intruder.
'I know you were sent for me,' she said. 'Papa wants me?'
'Yes,' the intruder replied; 'if I had not been sent I should never have
ventured to follow you into this room.'
'Of course not--this is my special sanctuary. Lady Seagraves has
dedicated it to me, and now I dedicate it to Mr. Ericson. I have just
been telling him that, for all he is a Republican, he is _my_ King.'
The Dictator had risen by this time.
'You are sent for?' he said.
'Yes--I am sorry.'
'So am I--but we must not keep Sir Rupert waiting.'
'I shall see you again--when?' she asked eagerly.
'Whenever you wish,' he answered. Then they shook hands, and Soame
Rivers took her away.
Several ladies remarked that night that really Helena Langley was going
quite beyond all bounds, and was overdoing her unconventionality quite
too shockingly. She was actually throwing herself right at Mr. Ericson's
head. Of course Mr. Ericson would not think of marrying a chit like
that. He was quite old enough to be her father.
One or two stout dowagers shook their heads sagaciously, and remarked
that Sir Rupert had a great deal of money, and that a large fortune got
with a wife might come in very handy for the projects of a dethroned
Dictator. 'And men are all so vain, my dear,' remarked one to another.
'Mr. Ericson doesn't look vain,' the other said meditatively. 'They are
all alike, my dear,' rejoined the one. And so the matter was settled--or
left unsettled.
Meanwhile the Dictator went home, and began to look over maps and charts
of Gloria. He buried himself in some plans of street improvement,
including a new and splendid opera house, of which he had actually laid
the foundation before the crash came.