'I WONDER WHY?'
The Dictator had had a good deal to do with marrying and giving in
marriage in the Republic of Gloria. One of the social and moral reforms
he had endeavoured to bring about was that which should secure to young
people the right of being consulted as to their own inclinations before
they were formally and finally consigned to wedlock. The ordinary
practice in Gloria was very much like that which prevails in certain
Indian tribes--the family on either side arranged for the young man and
the maiden, made it a matter of market bargain, settled it by compromise
of price or otherwise, and then brought the pair together and married
them. Ericson set his face against such a system, and tried to get a
chance for the young people. He carried his influence so far that the
parents on both sides among the official classes in the capital
consulted him generally before taking any step, and then he frankly
undertook the mediator's part, and found out whether the young woman
liked the young man or not--whether she liked someone better or not. He
had a sweet and kindly way with him which usually made both the youths
and the maidens confidential--and he learned many a quiet heart-secret;
and where he found that a suggested marriage would really not do, he
told the parents as much, and they generally yielded to his influence
and his authority. He had made happy many a pair of young lovers who,
without his beneficent intervention, would have been doomed to 'spoil
two houses,' as the old saying puts it.
Therefore, he did not feel much put out at the mere idea of intervening
in another man's love affairs, or even the idea of carrying a proposal
of marriage from another man.
Yet the Dictator was in somewhat thoughtful mood as he drove to Sir
Rupert Langley's. He had taken much interest in Helena Langley. She had
an influence over him which he told himself was only the influence of a
clever child--told himself of this again and again. Yet there was a
curious feeling of unfitness or dissatisfaction with the part he was
going to play. Of course, he would do his very best for Hamilton. There
was no man in the world for whom he cared half so much as he did for
Hamilton. No--that is not putting it strongly enough--there was now no
man in the world for whom he really cared but Hamilton. The Dictator's
affections were curiously narrowed. He had almost no friends whom he
really loved but Hamilton--and acquaintances were to him just all the
same, one as good as another, and no better. He was a philanthropist by
temperament, or nature, or nerve, or something; but while he would have
risked his life for almost any man, and for any woman or child, he did
not care in the least for social intercourse with men, women, and
children in general. He could not talk to a child--children were a
trouble to him, because he did not know what to say to them. Perhaps
this was one reason why he was attracted by Helena Langley; she seemed
so like the ideal child to whom one can talk. Then came up the thought
in his mind--must he lose Hamilton if Miss Langley should consent to
take him as her husband? Of course, Hamilton had declared that he would
never marry until the Dictator and he had won back Gloria; but how long
would that resolve last if Helena were to answer, Yes--and Now? The
Dictator felt lonely as his cab stopped at Sir Rupert Langley's door.
'Is Miss Langley at home?'
Yes, Miss Langley was at home. Of course, the Dictator knew that she
would be, and yet in his heart he could almost have wished to hear that
she was out. There is a mood of mind in which one likes any
postponement. But the duty of friendship had to be done--and the
Dictator was sorry for everybody.
The Dictator was met in the hall by the footman, and also by To-to.
To-to was Helena's black poodle. The black poodle took to all Helena's
friends very readily. Whom she liked, he liked. He had his ways, like
his mistress--and he at once allowed Ericson to understand not only that
Helena was at home, but that Helena was sitting just then in her own
room, where she habitually received her friends. The footman told the
Dictator that Miss Langley was at home--To-to told him what the footman
could not have ventured to do, that she was waiting for him in her own
drawing-room, and ready to receive him.
Now, how did To-to contrive to tell him that? Very easily, in truth.
To-to had a keen, healthy curiosity. He was always anxious to know what
was going on. The moment he heard the bell ring at the great door he
wanted to know who was coming in, and he ran down the stairs and stood
in the hall to find out. When the door was opened, and the visitor
appeared, To-to instantly made up his mind. If it was an unfamiliar
figure, To-to considered it an introduction in which he had no manner of
interest, and, without waiting one second, he scampered back to rejoin
his mistress, and try to explain to her that there was some very
uninteresting man or woman coming to call on her. But if it was somebody
he knew, and whom he knew that his mistress knew, then there were two
courses open to him. If Helena was not in her sitting room, To-to
welcomed the visitor in the most friendly and hospitable way, and then
fell into the background, and took no further notice, but ranged the
premises carelessly and on his own account. If, however, his mistress
were in her drawing room, then To-to invariably preceded the visitor up
the stairs, going in front even of the footman, and ushered the
new-comer into my lady's chamber. The process of reasoning on To-to's
part must have been somewhat after this fashion. 'My business is to
announce my lady's friends, the people whom I, with my exquisite
intelligence, know to be people whom she wants to see. If I know that
she is in her drawing-room ready to see them, then, of course, it is my
duty and my pleasure to go before, and announce them. But if I know,
having just been there, that she is not yet there, then I have no
function to perform. It is the business of some other creature--her maid
very likely--to receive the news from the footman that someone is
waiting to see her. That is a complex process with which I have nothing
to do.' The favoured visitor, therefore--the visitor, that is to say,
whom To-to favoured, believing him or her to be favoured by To-to's
mistress--had to pass through what may be called two portals, or
ordeals. First, he had to ask of the servant whether Miss Langley was at
home. Being informed that she was at home, then it depended on To-to to
let the visitor know whether Miss Langley was actually in her
drawing-room waiting to receive him, or whether he was to be shown into
the drawing-room and told that Miss Langley would be duly informed of
his presence, and asked if he would be good enough to take a chair and
wait for a moment. Never was To-to known to make the slightest mistake
about the actual condition of things. Never had he run up in advance of
the Dictator when his mistress was not seated in her drawing-room ready
to receive her visitor. Never had he remained lingering in the hall and
the passages when Miss Langley was in her room, and prepared for the
reception. Evidently, To-to regarded himself as Helena's special
functionary. The other attendants and followers--footmen, maids, and
such like--might be allowed the privilege of saying whether Miss Langley
was or was not at home to receive visitors; but the special and quite
peculiar function of To-to was to make it clear whether Miss Langley was
or was not at that very moment waiting in her own particular
drawing-room to welcome them.
So the Dictator, who had not much time to spare, being pressed with
various affairs to attend to, was much pleased to find that To-to not
merely welcomed him when the door was opened--a welcome which the
Dictator would have expected from To-to's undisguised regard and even
patronage--but that To-to briskly ran up the stairs in advance of the
footman, and ran before him in through the drawing-room door when the
footman had opened it. The Dictator loved the dog because of the
creature's friendship for him and love for its mistress. The Dictator
did not know how much he loved the dog because the dog was devoted to
Helena Langley. On the stairs, as he went up, a sudden pang passed
through the Dictator's heart. It might, perhaps, have brought him even
clearer warning than it did. 'If I succeed in my mission'--it might have
told him--'what is to become of _me_?' But, although the shot of pain
did pass through him, he did not give it time to explain itself.
Helena was seated on a sofa. The moment she heard his name announced she
jumped up and ran to meet him.
'I ought to have gone beyond the threshold,' she said, blushing, 'to
meet my king.'
'So kind of you,' he said, rather stiffly, 'to stay in for me. You have
so many engagements.'
'As if I would not give up any engagement to please you! And the very
first time you expressed any wish to see me!'
'Well, I have come talk to you about something very serious.'
She looked up amazed, her bright eyes broadening with wonder.
'Something that concerns the happiness of yourself, perhaps--of another
person certainly.'
She drooped her eyes now, and her colour deepened and her breath came
quickly.
The Dictator went to the point at once.
'I am bad at prefaces,' he said, 'I come to speak to you on behalf of my
dear young friend and comrade, Ernest Hamilton.'
'Oh!' She drew herself up and looked almost defiantly at him.
'Yes; he asked me to come and see you.'
'What have I to do with Mr. Hamilton?'
'That you must teach me,' said Ericson, smiling rather sadly, and
quoting from 'Hamlet.'
'I can teach you that very quickly--Nothing.'
'But you have not heard what I was going to say.'
'No. Well, you were quoting from Shakespeare--let me quote too. "Had I
three ears I'd hear thee."' She drew herself back into her sofa. They
were seated on the sofa side by side. He was leaning forward--she had
drawn back. She was waiting in a sort of dogged silence.
'Hamilton is one of the noblest creatures I ever knew. He is my very
dearest friend.'
A shade came over her face, and she shrugged her shoulders.
'I mean amongst men. I was not thinking of you.'
'No,' she answered, 'I am quite sure you were not thinking of me.'
She perversely pretended to misunderstand his meaning. He hardly noticed
her words. 'Please go on,' she said, 'and tell me about Mr. Hamilton.'
'He is in love with you,' the Dictator said in a soft low-voice, and as
if he envied the man about whom that tale could be told.
'Oh!' she exclaimed impatiently, turning on the sofa as if in pain, 'I
am sick of all this love making! Why can't a young man like one without
making an idiot of himself and falling in love with one? Why can't we
let each other be happy all in our own way? It is all so horribly
mechanical! You meet a man two or three times, and you dance with him,
and you talk with him, and perhaps you like him--perhaps you like him
ever so much--and then in a moment he spoils the whole thing by throwing
his ridiculous offer of marriage right in your face! Why on earth should
I marry Mr. Hamilton?'
'Don't take it too lightly, dear young lady--I know Hamilton to the very
depth of his nature. This is a serious thing with him--he is not like
the commonplace young masher of London society; when he feels, he feels
deeply--I know what has been his personal devotion to myself.'
'Then why does he not keep to that devotion? Why does he desert his
post? What does he want of me? What do I want of him? I liked him
chiefly because he was devoted to you--and now he turns right round and
wants to be devoted to me! Tell him from me that he was much better
employed with his former devotion--tell him my advice was that he should
stick to it.'
'You must give a more serious answer,' the Dictator said gravely.
'Why didn't he come himself?' she asked somewhat inconsequently, and
going off on another tack at once. 'I can't understand how a man of any
spirit can make love by deputy.'
'Kings do sometimes,' the Dictator said.
Helena blushed again. Some thought was passing through her mind which
was not in his. She had called him her king.
'Mr. Hamilton is not a king,' she said almost angrily. She was on the
point of blurting out, 'Mr. Hamilton is not _my_ king,' but she
recovered herself in good time. 'Even if he were,' she went on, 'I
should rather be proposed to in person as Katherine was by Henry the
Fifth.'
'You take this all too lightly,' Ericson pleaded. 'Remember that this
young man's heart and his future life are wrapped up in your answer, and
in _you_.'
'Tell him to come himself and get his answer,' she said with a scornful
toss of her head. Something had risen up in her heart which made her
unkind.
'Miss Langley,' Ericson said gravely, 'I think it would have been much
better if Hamilton had come himself and made his proposal, and argued it
out with you for himself. I told him so, but he would not be advised. He
is too modest and fearful, although, I tell you, I have seen more than
once what pluck he has in danger. Yes, I have seen how cool, how elate
he can be with the bullets and the bayonets of the enemy all at work
about him. But he is timid with _you_--because he loves you.'
'"He either fears his fate too much----"' she began.
'You can't settle this thing by a quotation. I see that you are in a
mood for quotations, and that shows that you are not very serious. I
shall tell you why he asked me, and prevailed upon me, to come to you
and speak for him. There is no reason why I should not tell you.'
'Tell me,' she said.
'I am old enough to have no hesitation in telling a girl of your age
anything.'
'Again!' Helena said. 'I do wish you would let my age alone? I thought
we had come to an honourable understanding to leave my age out of the
question.'
'I fear it can't well be left out of this question. You see, what I was
going to tell you was that Hamilton asked me to break this to you
because he believes that I have great influence with you.'
'Of course, you know you have.'
'Yes--but there was more.'
'What more?' She turned her head away.
'He is under the impression that you would do anything I asked you to
do.'
'So I would, and so I will!' she exclaimed impetuously. 'If you ask me
to marry Mr. Hamilton I will marry him! Yes--I _will_. If you, knowing
what you do know, can wish your friend to marry me, and me to become his
wife, I will accept his condescending offer! You know I do not love
him--you know I never felt one moment's feeling of that kind for
him--you know that I like him as I like twenty other young men--and not
a bit more. You know this--at all events, you know it now when I tell
you--and will you ask me to marry Mr. Hamilton now?'
'But is this all true? Is this really how you feel to him?'
'Zwischen uns sei Wahrheit,' Helena said scornfully. 'Why should I
deceive you? If I loved Mr. Hamilton I could marry him, couldn't
I?--seeing that he has sent you to ask me? I do not love him--I never
could love him in that way. Now what do you ask me to do?'
'I am sorry for my poor young friend and comrade,' the Dictator answered
sadly. 'I thought, perhaps, he might have had some reason to
believe----'
'Did he tell you anything of the kind?'
'Oh, no, no; he is the last man in the world to say such a thing, or
even to think it. One reason why he wished me to open the matter to you
was that he feared, if he spoke to you about it himself, you would only
laugh at him and refuse to give him a serious answer. He thought you
would give me a serious answer.'
'What a very extraordinary and eccentric young man!'
'Indeed, he is nothing of the kind--although, of course, like myself, he
has lived a good deal outside the currents of English feeling.'
'I should have thought,' she said gravely, 'that that was rather a
question of the currents of common human feeling. Do the young women in
Gloria like to be made love to by delegation?'
'Would it have made any difference if he had come himself?'
'No difference in the world--now or at any other time. But remember, I
am a very loyal subject, and I admit the right of my king to hand me
over in marriage. If you tell me to marry Mr. Hamilton, I will.'
'You are only jesting, Miss Langley, and this is not a jest.'
'I don't feel much in the mood for jesting,' she answered. 'It would
rather seem as if I had been made the subject of a jest----'
'Oh, you must not say that,' he interposed in an almost angry tone. 'You
can't, and don't, think that either of him or of me.'
'No, I don't; I could not think it of _you_--and no, I could not think
it of him either. But you must admit that he has acted rather oddly.'
'And I too, I suppose?'
'Oh, you--well, of course, you were naturally thinking of the interest,
or, at least, the momentary wishes, of your friend.'
'Of my two friends--you are my friend. Did we not swear an eternal
friendship the other night?'
'Now you _are_ jesting.'
'I am not; I am profoundly serious. I thought perhaps this might be for
the happiness of both.'
'Did you ever see anything in me which seemed to make such an idea
likely?'
'You see, I have known you but for so short a time.'
'People who are worth knowing at all are known at once or never known,'
she said promptly and very dogmatically.
'Young ladies do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves.'
'I am afraid I do sometimes--too much,' she said.
'I thought it at least possible.'
'Now you _know_. Well, are you going to ask me to marry your friend Mr.
Hamilton?'
'No, indeed, Miss Langley. That would be a cruel injustice and wrong to
him and to you. He must marry someone who loves him; you must marry
someone whom you love. I am sorry for my poor friend--this will hurt
him. But he cannot blame you, and I cannot blame you. He has some
comfort--he has Gloria to fight for some day.'
'Put it nicely--_very_ nicely to him,' Helena said, softening now that
all was over. 'Tell him--won't you?--that I am ever so fond of him; and
tell him that this must not make the least difference in our friendship.
No one shall ever know from me.'
'I will put it all as well as I can,' said the Dictator; 'but I am
afraid it must make a difference to him. It made a difference to
me--when I was a young man of about his age.'
'You were disappointed?' Helena asked, in rather tremulous tone.
'More than that; I think I was deceived. I was ever so much worse off
than Hamilton, for there was bitterness in my story, and there can be
none in his. But I have survived--as you see.'
'Is--she--still living?'
'Oh, yes; she married for money and rank, and has got both, and I
believe she is perfectly happy.'
'And have you recovered--quite?'
'Quite; I fancy it must have been an unreal sort of thing altogether. My
wound is quite healed--does not give me even a passing moment of pain,
as very old wounds sometimes do. But I am not going to lapse into the
sentimental. It was only the thought of Hamilton that brought all this
up.'
'You are not sentimental?' Helena asked.
'I have not had time to be. Anyhow, no woman ever cared about me--in
that way, I mean--no, not one.'
'Ah, you never can tell,' Helena said gently. He seemed to her somehow,
to have led a very lonely life; it came into her thoughts just then; she
could not tell why. She was relieved when he rose to go, for she felt
her sympathy for him beginning to be a little too strong, and she was
afraid of betraying it. The interview had been a curious and a trying
one for her. The Dictator left the room wondering how he could ever have
been drawn into talking to a girl about the story of his lost love.
'That girl has a strange influence over me,' he thought. 'I wonder why?'