'SINCE IT IS SO!'
Helena had often before divined the Dictator. Now at last she realised
him. She had divined him in spite of her own doubts at one time--or
perhaps because of her own doubts, or the doubts put into her mind by
other minds and other tongues. She had always felt assured that the
Dictator was there--had felt certain that he must be there--and now at
last she knew that he was there. She had faith in him as one may have
faith in some sculptor whose masterpiece one has not yet seen. We
believe in the work because we know the man, although we have not yet
seen him in his work. We know that he has won fame, and we know that he
is not a man likely to put up with a fame undeserved. So we wait
composedly for the unveiling of his statue, and when it is unveiled we
find in it simply the justification of our faith. It was so with Helena
Langley. She felt sure that whenever her hero got the chance he would
prove himself a hero--show himself endowed with the qualities of a
commander-in-chief. Now she knew it. She had seen the living proof of
it. She had seen him tried by the test of a thoroughly new situation,
and she had seen that he had not wasted one moment on mere surprise. She
had seen how quickly he had surveyed the whole scene of danger, and how
in the flash of one moment's observation he had known what was to be
done--and what alone was to be done. She had seen how he had taken
command by virtue of his knowledge that at such a moment of confusion,
bewilderment, and danger, the command came to him by right of the
fittest.
The heart of the girl swelled with pride; and she felt a pride even in
herself, because she had so instinctively recognised and appreciated
him. She told herself that she must really be worth something when she
had from the very beginning so thoroughly appreciated him. Of course, a
romantic girl's wild enthusiasm might also have been a romantic girl's
wild mistake. The Dictator had, after all, only shown the qualities of
courage and coolness with which his enemies as well as his friends had
always credited him. The elaborate and craftily got-up attack upon him
would never have been concerted--would never have had occasion to be
concerted--but that his enemies regarded him as a most dangerous and
formidable opponent. Even in her hurried thoughts of the moment Helena
took in all this. But the knowledge made her none the less proud.
'Of course,' she thought, 'they knew what a danger and a terror he was
to them, and now I know it as well as they do; but I knew it all along,
and now they--they themselves--have justified my appreciation of him.'
All the time she had a shrinking, sickening terror in her heart about
further plots and future dangers. Some of Ericson's own words lingered
in her memory--words about the impossibility of finding any real
protection against the attempt of the fanatic assassin who takes his own
life in his hand, and is content to die the moment he has taken the life
of his victim.
This was the all but absorbing thought in Helena's mind just then. _His_
life was in danger; he had escaped this late attempt, and it had been a
serious one, and had deluged a house in blood, and what chance was there
that he might escape another? He would go out to Gloria, and even on the
very voyage he might be assassinated, and she would not be there,
perhaps to protect him--at all events, to be with him--and she did not
know, even know whether he cared about her--whether he would miss
her--whether she counted for anything in his thoughts and his plans and
his life--whether he would remember or whether he would forget her. She
was in a highly strung, and, if the expression may be used, an exalted
frame of mind. She had not slept much. After all the wildness of the
disturbance was over Sir Rupert had insisted on her going to bed and not
getting up until luncheon-time, and she had quietly submitted, and had
been undressed, and had slept a little in a fitful, upstarting sort of
way; and at last noon came, and she soon got up again, and bathed, and
prepared to be very heroic and enduring and self-composed. She was much
in the habit of going into the conservatory before luncheon, and Ericson
had often found her there; and perhaps she had in her own mind a
lingering expectation that if he got back from the village, and the
coroner, and the magistrates, and all the rest of it, in time, he would
come to the conservatory and look for her. She wanted him to go to
Gloria--oh, yes--of course, she wanted him to go--he was going perhaps
that very day; but she did not want him to go before he had spoken to
her--alone--alone. We have said that she did not know whether he cared
about her or not. So she told herself. But did not an instinct the other
way drive her into that conservatory where they had met before about the
same hour of the day--on less fateful days?
The house looked quiet and peaceful enough now under the clear, poetic
melancholy of an autumn sunlight. The musical Oriental bells--a set the
same as those that Helena had established in the London house--rang out
their announcement or warning that luncheon-time was coming as blithely
as though the house were not a mournful hospital for the sick and for
the dead. Helena was moving slowly, sadly, in the conservatory. She did
not care to affront the glare of the open, and outer day. Suddenly
Ericson came dreamily in, and he flushed at seeing her, and her cheek
hung out involuntarily, unwillingly, its red flag in reply. There was a
moment of embarrassment and silence.
'All these terrible things will not alter your plans?' she asked, in a
voice curiously timid for her.
'My plans about Gloria?'
'Yes; I mean your plans about Gloria.'
'Oh, no; I have not much evidence to offer. You see, I can only give the
police a clue--I can't do more than that. I have been to the inquest and
have told that I remember the crimes of these men and their names, but I
cannot identify either of the men personally. As soon as I get out to
Gloria I shall make it all clear. But until then I can only put the
police here on the track.'
'Then you _are_ going?' she asked in pathetic tone. The truth is, that
she was not much thinking about the chances of justice being done to the
murderers--even to the murderers of poor Soame Rivers. She was thinking
of Ericson's going away.
'Yes, I am going,' he said. 'My duty and my destiny--if I may speak in
that grandiose sort of style--call me that way.'
'I know it,' Helena said; 'I would not have it otherwise.'
'And I know _that_,' he replied tenderly, 'because I know you,
Helena--and I know what a mind and what a heart you have. Do you think
it costs me no pang to leave you?' She looked up at him amazed, and then
let her eyes droop. Her courage had all gone. If the women who
constantly kept saying that she was forward with men could only have
seen her now!
'Are you really sorry to leave me?' she asked at last. 'Shall you miss
me when you go?'
'Am I sorry to leave you? Shall I miss you when I go? Do you really not
guess how dear you are to me, how I love your companionship--and
you--you--you!'
'Oh, I did _not_ know it,' she said. 'But I do know----'. She could not
get on.
'You do know--what?' he asked tenderly, and he took one hand of hers in
his, and she did not draw it away. The moment had come. Each knew it.
'I know that I love you,' she said in a passionate whisper. 'I know that
you are my hero and my idol! There!'
He only kissed her hand.
'Then you will wait for me?' he asked.
'Wait for you--wait here--_without_ you?'
'Until I have won my fight, and can claim you.'
'Oh!' she exclaimed in passion of love and grief and fear, 'how could I
live here without you, and know that you were in danger? No, I
couldn't--couldn't--couldn't! That wouldn't be love--not my
love--no--not _my_ love!'
For a moment even the thought of a rescued Gloria was pushed back in the
Dictator's mind.
'Since it is so,' said the Dictator, not without a gasp in his throat as
he said it, 'come with me, Helena.'
'Oh, thank God, and thank _you_!' the girl cried. 'See here--this is
your birthday, and I had no birthday-gift ready to give you. Ah, I have
been thinking so much about you--about _you_, you _yourself_--that I
forgot your birthday. But now I remember; and here is a birthday-gift
for you--the best I can give!' And she seized his hand and kissed it
fervently.
'Helena,' the Dictator said, with an emotion that he tried in vain to
repress, 'let me thank you for your birthday-gift.' And he lifted her
head towards him and kissed her lips.
'I am to go with you?' she asked fervently, gazing up into his eyes with
her own tear-stained, anxious, wistful eyes.
'You are to go with me,' he answered quietly, 'wherever I go, to my
death, or to yours.'
'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'how happy I am! At last at last, I _am_ happy!'
She was clinging around his neck. He gently, tenderly, lifted her arms
from him, and held her a little apart, and looked at her with a proud
affection and a love before which her eyes drooped. She was overborne by
the rush of her own too great happiness. What did she care whether they
succeeded or failed in their enterprise on Gloria? What did she care
about being the Dictatress, if there be any such word, of Gloria? Alas!
what did she care in that proud, selfish moment for the future and the
prosperity of Gloria? She was only thinking that _he_ loved her, and
that she was to be allowed to go with him to the very last, that she was
to be allowed to die with him. For she had not at that moment the
faintest hope or thought of being allowed to live with him. Her horizon
was much more limited. She could only think that they would go out to
Gloria and get killed there, together. But was not that enough? They
would be killed together. What better could she ask or hope? Youth is
curiously generous with its life-blood. It delights to think of throwing
life away, not merely for some beloved being, but even with some beloved
being. As time goes on and the span of life shrinks, the seeming value
of life swells, and the old man is content to outlive his old wife, the
old wife to outlive the husband of her youth.
'You are fit to be an empress!' the Dictator exclaimed, and he pressed
her again to his heart. He did not overrate her courage and her
devotion, but, being a man, he a little--just a little--misunderstood
her. She was not thinking of empire, she was thinking of _him_. She was
not thinking of sharing power with him. Her heart was swollen with joy
at the thought that she was to be allowed to share danger and death with
him. It is not easy for a daring, ambitious man to enter into such
thoughts. They are the property, and the copyright, and the birthright
of woman.
But Helena was pleased and proud indeed that he had called her fit to be
an empress. Fit to be _his_ empress: what praise beyond that could human
voice give to her? Her face flushed crimson with delight and pride, and
she stood on tiptoe up to him and kissed him.
Then she started away, for the door of the conservatory opened. But she
returned to him again.
'See!' Helena exclaimed triumphantly, 'here is my father!' And she
caught the Dictator's hand in hers and drew it to her breast.
This was the sight that showed itself to a father's eyes. Sir Rupert had
not thought of anything like this. He was utterly thrown out of his
mental orbit for the moment. He had never thought of his daughter as
thus demonstrative and thus unashamed.
'Was this well done, Helena?' he asked, more sadly than sternly.
'Bravely done--by Helena,' the Dictator exclaimed; 'well done as all is,
as everything is, that _is_ done by Helena!'
'At least you might have told me of this, Ericson,' Sir Rupert said,
turning on the Dictator, and glad to have a man to dispute with. 'You
might have forewarned me of all this.'
'I could not forewarn you, Sir Rupert, of what I did not know myself.'
'Did not know yourself?'
'Not until a very few minutes ago.'
'Did you not know that you were making love to my daughter?'
'Until just now--just before you came in--I did not make love to your
daughter.'
'Oh, it was the girl who made love to you, I suppose!'
The Dictator's eyes flashed fire for a second and then were calm again.
Even in that moment he could feel for Helena's father.
'I never knew until now,' he said quietly, 'that your daughter cared
about me in any way but the beaten way of friendship. I have been in
love with Helena this long time--these months and months.'
'Oh!'
This interrupting exclamation came from Helena. It was simply an
inarticulate cry of joy and triumph. Ericson looked tenderly down upon
her. She was standing close to him--clinging to him--pressing his hand
against her heart.
'Yes, Sir Rupert, I have been in love with your daughter this long time,
but I never gave her the least reason to suspect that I was in love with
her.'
'No, indeed, he never did,' Helena interrupted again. 'Don't you think
it was very unfair of him, papa? He might have made me happy so much
sooner!'
Sir Rupert looked half-angrily, half-tenderly, at this incorrigible
girl. In his heart he knew that he was conquered already.
'I never told her, Sir Rupert,' the Dictator went on, 'because I did not
believe it possible that she could care about me, and because, even if
she did, I did not think that her bright young life could be made to
share the desperate fortunes of a life like mine. Just now, on the eve
of parting--at the thought of parting--we both broke down, I suppose,
and we knew each other--and then--and then--you came in.'
'And I am very glad you did, papa!' Helena exclaimed enthusiastically;
'it saved such a lot of explanation.'
Helena was quite happy. It had not entered into her thoughts to suppose
that her father would seriously put himself against any course of action
concerning herself which she had set her heart upon. The pain of parting
with her father--of knowing that she was leaving him to a lonely life
without her--had not yet come up and made itself real in her mind. She
could only think that her hero loved her, and that he knew she loved
him. It was the sacred, sanctified selfishness of love.
Helena's raptures fell coldly on her father's ears. Sir Rupert saw life
looking somewhat blankly before him.
'Ericson,' he said, 'I am sorry if I have said anything to hurt you. Of
course, I might have known that you would act in everything like a man
of honour--and a gentleman; but the question now is, What do you propose
to do?'
'Oh, papa, what nonsense!' Helena said.
'What do I propose to do, Sir Rupert?' the Dictator asked, quite
composedly now. 'I propose to accept the sacrifice that Helena is
willing to make. I have never importuned her to make it, I never asked
her or even wished her to make it. She does it of her own accord, and I
take her love and herself as a gift from Heaven. I do not stop any
longer to think of my own unworthiness; I do not stop any longer even to
think of the life of danger into which I may be bringing her; she
desires to cast in her lot with mine, and may God do as much and more to
me if I refuse to accept the life that is given to me!'
'Well, well, well!' Sir Rupert said, perplexed by these exalted people
and sentiments, and at the same time a good deal in sympathy with the
people and the sentiments. 'But in the meantime what do you propose to
do? I presume that you, Ericson, will go out to Gloria at once?'
'At once,' Ericson assented.
'And then, if you can establish yourself there--I mean when you have
established yourself there, and are quite secure and all that--you will
come back here and marry Helena?'
'Oh, no, papa dear,' Helena said, 'that is not the programme at all.'
'Why not? What _is_ the programme?'
'Well, if my intended husband waited for all that before coming to marry
me, he might wait for ever, so far as I am concerned.'
'I don't understand you,' Sir Rupert said almost angrily. His patience
was beginning to be worn out.
'Dear, I shall make it very plain. I am not going to let my husband put
through all the danger and get through all the trouble, and then come
home for me that I may enjoy all the triumph and all the comfort. If
that is his idea of a woman's place, all right, but he must get some
other girl to marry him. "Some girls will,"' Helena went on, breaking
irreverently into a line of a song from a burlesque, '"but this girl
won't!"'
'But you see, Helena,' Sir Rupert said almost peevishly, 'you don't seem
to have thought of things. I don't want to be a wet blanket, or a
prophet of evil omen, or any of that sort of thing; but there may be
accidents, you know, and miscalculations, and failures even, and things
may go wrong with this enterprise, no matter how well planned.'
'Yes, I have thought of all that. That is exactly where it is, dear.'
'Where what is, Helena?'
'Dear, where my purpose comes in. If there is going to be a failure, if
there is going to be a danger to the man I love--well, I mean to be in
it too. If he fails, it will cost his life; if it costs his life, I want
it to cost my life too.'
'You might have thought a little of _me_, Helena,' her father said
reproachfully. 'You might have remembered that I have no one but you.'
Helena burst into tears.
'Oh, my father, I did think of you--I do think of you always; but this
crisis is beyond me and above us both. I have thought it out, and I
cannot do anything else than what I am prepared to do. I have thought it
over night after night, again and again--I have prayed for guidance--and
I see no other way! You know,' and a smile began to show itself through
her tears, 'long before I knew that he loved me I was always thinking
what I ought to do, supposing he _did_ love me! And then, papa dear, if
I were to remain at home, and to marry a marquis, or an alderman, or a
man from Chicago, I might get diphtheria and die, and who would be the
better for _that_--except, perhaps, the marquis, or the alderman, or the
man from Chicago?'
'Look here, Sir Rupert,' the Dictator said, 'let me tell you that at
first I was not inclined to listen to this pleading of your daughter. I
thought she did not understand the sacrifice she was making. But she has
conquered me--she has shown me that she is in earnest--and I have caught
the inspiration of her spirit and her generous self-sacrifice, and I
have not the heart to resist her--I dare not refuse her. She shall come,
in God's name!'
* * * * *
Before many weeks there came to the London morning papers a telegram
from the principal seaport of Gloria.
'His Excellency President Ericson, ex-Dictator of Gloria, has just
landed with his young wife and his secretary, Mr. Hamilton, and has been
received with acclamation by the populace everywhere. The Reactionary
Government by whom he was exiled have been overthrown by a great rising
of the military and the people. Some of the leaders have escaped across
the frontier into Orizaba, the State to which they had been trying to
hand over the Republic. The Dictator will go on at once to the capital,
and will there reorganise his army, and will promptly move on to the
frontier to drive back the invading force.'
There came, too, a private telegram from Helena to her father, concocted
with a reckless disregard of the cost per word of a submarine message
from South America to London.
'My darling Papa,--It is so glorious to be the wife of a patriot and a
hero, and I am so happy, and I only wish you could be here.'
When Captain Sarrasin gets well enough, he and his wife will go out to
Gloria, and it is understood that at the special request of Hamilton,
and of some one else too, they will take Dolores Paulo out with them.
For which other reason, as for many more, we wish success and freedom,
and stability and progress to the Republic of Gloria, and happiness to
the Dictator, and to all whom he has in charge.
* * * * *
_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS_ ON THE DICTATOR.
'In Mr. McCarthy's novels we are always certain of finding humour,
delicate characterisation, and an interesting story; but they are
chiefly attractive, we think, by the evidence they bear upon every page
of being written by a man who knows the world well, who has received a
large and liberal education in the university of life. In "The Dictator"
Mr. McCarthy is in his happiest vein. The life of London--political,
social, artistic--eddies round us. We assist at its most brilliant
pageants, we hear its superficial, witty, and often empty chatter, we
catch whiffs of some of its finer emotions.... The brilliantly sketched
personalities stand out delicately and incisively individualised. Mr.
McCarthy's light handling of his theme, the alertness and freshness of
his touch, are admirably suited to the picture he paints of contemporary
London life.'--Daily News.
'"The Dictator" is bright, sparkling, and entertaining.... Few novelists
are better able to describe the political and social eddies of
contemporary society in the greatest city in the world than Mr.
McCarthy; and this novel abounds in vivid and picturesque sidelights,
drawn with a strong and simple touch.'--Leeds Mercury.
'This is a pleasant and entertaining story.... A book to be read by an
open window on a sunny afternoon between luncheon and tea.'--Daily
Chronicle.
'Mr. McCarthy's story is pleasant reading.'--Scotsman.
'As a work of literary art the book is excellent.'--Glasgow
Herald.
'"The Dictator" is bright, sparkling, and entertaining. The book might
almost be described as a picture of modern London. It abounds in vivid
and picturesque sidelights, drawn with a strong touch.'--Leeds
Mercury.
'In "The Dictator" the genial leader of the Irish party writes as
charmingly as ever. His characters are as full of life, as exquisitely
portrayed, and as true to nature as anything that is to be found in
fiction, and there is the same subtle fascination of plot and incident
that has already procured for the author of "Dear Lady Disdain" his
select circle of admirers.... The nicety of style, the dainty wholesome
wit, and the ever-present freshness of idea that pervade it render the
reading of it a positive feast of pleasure. It is the work of a man of
the world and a gentleman, of a man of letters, and of a keen observer
of character and manners.'--Colonies and India.