They were in a small, dingy room, lighted with one feeble candle--still
within hearing of the tumult close by. Paul had twisted his foot in the
stumble, which was the only thing that had saved him from a scuffle and
possible fight. He was paler than before with the pain. He had put his
foot up upon a chair at Fairfax’s entreaty, who feared a sprain; but
himself, in his excitement, did not seem to feel it.
“My title and my lands!” he said, with a laugh which was more bitter
than that of Spears. “You heard him, Fairfax. I’ve come into my
property; that is what has caused this change in my opinions.”
“Never mind, the man’s a fool,” said Fairfax angrily.
“He is not a fool,” said Paul, “but it shows how well you can judge a
man when you do not know his circumstances.”
Fairfax, however, it must be owned, was as much puzzled as Spears. What
was it, that had caused the change? It was not much more than a month
since Paul’s devotion to Spears and his scheme had kept him from his
father’s death-bed. He had been intent then on giving up his whole life
to the creed which this evening he had publicly contradicted in the face
of its excited supporters. Fairfax could not make out what it meant any
more than the deserted demagogue could. If Paul, indeed, had reached the
high top-gallant of his fortunes--if he had held the control of a large
property in his hands--a position like that of a prince--there might
have been reason in such a change of faith. Though it gave a certain
foundation for Spears’s bitter sneer, yet there was reason in it. A
young man might very well be justified in abandoning the society of
revolutionaries, when he himself entered the ranks of those who are
responsible for the safety of the country and have a great deal to lose.
But he did not understand Paul’s position now, and a change so singular
bewildered him. It was not, however, either necessary or expedient to
enter into that question; and he addressed himself with more
satisfaction to rubbing the injured ankle. He had asked the woman who
admitted them, and who was in great terror of “the meeting,” to get a
cab, but had been answered that she dared not leave the house, and that
they must not think of leaving the house till all was over in the
“Hall.” It was not a cheerful prospect. To his surprise, however, Paul
showed less impatience than he did. He was full of the place and the
discussion they had just left.
“He is no fool,” Paul said, “that is the most wonderful of all. A man
may go on telling a pack of lies for years, and yet be as true in
himself as all the rest is false. I understand your looks, Fairfax. You
think I have gone as far as most men.”
“Keep your foot still, my good fellow,” was all Fairfax said.
“That is all very well; you want an explanation of my conduct,” said
Paul. “You want to know what this inconsistency means; for it is
inconsistency. Well, then, there’s just this, that I don’t mean to tell.
I am as free as another man to form my own opinions, I hope.”
“Hark! they’re cheering again,” said Fairfax. “What fellows they are to
cheer! He has got them into a good humour. They looked savage enough
half an hour ago. It’s a little absurd, isn’t it, that you and I, Paul,
who have been considered very advanced in our political opinions, should
be in a kind of hiding here?”
“Hiding! I will go back at once and make my profession of faith,” cried
Paul; but when he sprang up to carry out his intention, the pain of his
foot overpowered him. “Have I sprained it, do you think?--that is an
affair of four or five weeks,” he said, with a look of dismay.
After this very little passed. They sat on each side of the little deal
table with the coarse candle sputtering between them, and listened to
the hoarse sounds of the voices, the tumultuous applause on the other
side of the wall. This was still going on, though in subdued tones, when
the door suddenly opened. It was not easy at first to see who had come
in, till Spears’s face appeared over the flickering light. It was angry
and dark, and overclouded with something like shame.
“I am glad you are here still, you two,” he said in subdued tones.
Neither of the young men spoke. At last Fairfax, who was not the one on
whom his eyes were bent, said--
“We were waiting till the meeting was over. Till then, it appears, we
can’t have a cab sent for. Markham has hurt his foot.”
“Good Lord! How did he do that?” Spears came round and looked at it
where it lay supported on the chair. He looked as if he would have liked
to stroke and pet the injured limb like a child. “I hope it was none of
those fellows with their pushing and stupid folly,” he said.
“It was not done by any refinement of politeness, certainly.”
These were the first words Paul had said, and they were uttered with the
same half mocking smile.
“They’re rough fellows, that’s the truth,” said Spears; “and they have
an idiot for a guide,” he went on in a low voice. “Look here, Paul, you
aggravated me with those grand looks of yours, and that sneer. You know
as well as I do what puts me out. When it’s a fellow I care for, I can’t
stand it. All the asses in Rotten Row might come and haw-haw at me, and
I shouldn’t mind; but you! that are a kind of child of my soul, Paul!”
“I hope your other children will get more mercy from you, then,” said
Paul, without looking at him. “You have not had much for me, Spears.”
“I, lad? What have I ever done but cherish you as if you were my own! I
have been as proud of you--! All your fine ways that I’ve jibed about
have been a pleasure to me all the time. It went to my heart to think
that you, the finest aristocrat of all the lot, were following old
Spears for love of a principle. I said to myself, abuse them as we like,
there’s stuff in these old races--there’s something in that blue blood.
I don’t deny it before you two, that may laugh at me as you please. I
that have just been telling all those lads that it’s the scum that comes
uppermost (and believe it too). I that have sworn an eternal war against
the principle of unequal rank and accumulation of property--”
Spears paused. There was nothing ludicrous to him in the idea of this
eternal war, waged by a nameless stump orator against all the kingdoms
of the world and the power of them. He was too much in earnest to be
conscious of any absurdity. He was as serious in his crusade as if he
had been a conqueror with life and death in his hands, and his voice
trembled with the reality of this confession which he was going to make.
“Well!” he said, “I, of whom you know all this as well as I do myself,
I’ve been proud of your birth and your breeding, Paul, because it was
all the grander of you to forget them for the cause. I’ve dwelt on these
things in my mind. I’ve said, there’s the flower of them all, and he’s
following after me! Look here! you’re not going to take it so dreadfully
amiss if, after not hearing a word from you, after not knowing what you
were going to do, seeing you suddenly opposite to me with your most
aggravating look (and you can put on an aggravating look when you like,
you know you can, and drive me wild,” Spears said with a deprecating,
tender smile, putting his hand, caressingly, on the back of Paul’s
chair)--“if I let out a bitter word, a lash of ill-temper against my
will, you are not going to make that a quarrel between you and me.”
The man’s large mobile features were working, his eyes shining out under
their heavy brows. The generous soul in him was moved to its depth. He
had, being “wild,” as he said, with sudden passion, accused Paul of
having yielded to the seductions of his new rank--but in his heart he
did not believe the accusation he had made. He trusted his young
disciple with all the doting confidence of a woman. Of a woman! his
daughter Janet, though she was a woman, and a young one, had no such
enthusiasm of trust in her being. She would have scorned his weakness
had she been by--very differently would Janet have dealt with a
hesitating lover. But the demagogue had enthroned in his soul an ideal
to which, perhaps, his very tenderest affections, the deepest sentiments
he was capable of, had clung. He had fallen for the moment into that
madness which works in the brain when we are wroth with those we love.
And he did not know now how to make sufficient amends for it, how to
open wide enough that window into his heart which showed the quivering
and longing within. But he had said for the moment all he could say.
And for a time there was silence in the little room. Fairfax, who
understood him, turned away, and began to stare at a rude-coloured print
on the wall in order to leave the others alone. He would himself have
held out his hand before half this self-revelation had been made, and
perhaps Spears would have but lightly appreciated that naïve response.
But Paul was by no means ready to yield. He kept silence for what seemed
to the interested spectator ten minutes at least. Then he said, slowly--
“I think it would be wise to inquire into the facts of the case before
permitting yourself to use such language, Spears--even if you had not
roused your rabble against me.”
He said these strident words in the most forcible way, making the r’s
roll.
“Rabble?” Spears repeated, with a tone of dismay; but his patience was
not exhausted, nor his penitence. “I know,” he said, “it was wrong. I
don’t excuse myself. I behaved like a fool, and it costs a man like me
something to say that. Paul--come! why should we quarrel? Let bygones be
bygones. They should have torn me to pieces before they had laid a
finger on you.”
“A good many of them would have smarted for it if they had laid a finger
on me,” said Paul. “That I promise you.”
Spears laughed; his mind was relieved. He gave his vigorous person a
shake and was himself again.
“Well, that is all over,” he said. “It will be a lesson to me. I am a
confounded fool at bottom after all. Whatever mental advantages you may
have, that’s what the best of us have to come to. My blood gets hot, and
I lose my head. There’s a few extenuating circumstances though. Have you
forgotten, Paul, that we were to sail in October, and it’s the 20th of
September now? Not a word have I heard from you since you left Oxford,
three weeks ago. What was I to think? I know what’s happened in the
meantime; and I don’t say,” said Spears, slowly, “that if you were to
throw us overboard at the last moment, it would be a thing without
justification. I told you at the time you would be more wise to let us
alone. But you never had an old head on young shoulders. A generous
heart never counts the cost in that way; still---- And the time, my dear
fellow, is drawing very near.”
“I may as well tell you,” said Paul, tersely, “I am not going with you,
Spears.”
The man sat firm in his chair as if he had received a blow, leaning back
a little, pressing himself against the woodwork.
“Well!” he said, and kept upon his face a curious smile--the smile, and
the effort alike, showing how deeply the stroke had penetrated. “Well!”
he repeated, “now that I know everything--now you have told me--I don’t
know that I have a word to say.”
Paul said nothing, and for another minute there was again perfect
silence. Then Spears resumed--
“I thought as much,” he said. “I have always thought it since the day
you went away. A man understands that sort of thing by instinct. Well!
it’s a disappointment, I don’t deny; but no doubt,” said Spears, with a
suppressed tone of satire in his voice, “though I’ve no experience of
the duties of a rich baronet, nor the things it lays upon you, no doubt
there’s plenty to do in that avocation; and looking after property
requires work. There’s a thousand things that it must now seem more
necessary to do than to start away across the Atlantic with a set of
visionaries. I told you so at the beginning, Paul--or Sir Paul, I
suppose I ought to say; but titles are not much in my way,” he added,
with a smile, “as you know.”
“You may save yourself the trouble of titles here, for I am not Sir
Paul, nor have I anything in the way of property to look after that
will give me much trouble. It appears--” said Paul, with a smile that
was very like that of Spears, which sat on his lips like a grimace, “it
appears that I have an elder brother who is kind enough to relieve me
from all inconvenience of that sort.”
Spears turned to Fairfax with a look of consternation, as if appealing
to him to guarantee the sanity of his friend.
“What does he mean?” he cried, bewildered.
“We need not go into all the question,” said Paul. “Fairfax, haven’t
they got that cab yet? My foot’s better--I can walk to the door, and
these gentlemen seem to be dispersing. We need not enter into
explanations. I’m not a rich baronet, that is about all. The scum has
not come uppermost this time. You see you made a mistake in your
estimate of my motives.”
This time he laughed that harsh, bitter, metallic laugh which is one of
the signs of nervous passion. He had such a superiority over his
assailant as nothing else could have given him. And as for Spears,
shame, and wonder, and distress, struck him dumb. He gasped for breath.
“My God!” he said; “and I to fall upon you for what had never happened,
and taunt you with wealth when you were poor. Poor! are you actually
poor, Paul?”
“What is the use of searching into it? the facts are as I have told you.
I shan’t starve,” said the young man, holding his head high.
Spears looked at him with a mixture of grief and satisfaction, and held
out a large hand.
“Never mind,” he said, his face melting and working, and a smile of a
very different character gleaming over it, “you would have been out of
place with us if you had been Sir Paul; but come now, my lad, come now!
It’s not money we want, but men. Come with us, you’ll be as welcome as
the sunshine, though you have not a penny. For a rich man, I could see
myself the incongruity; but for a poor man, what could be better than a
new country and a fair field. Come! don’t bear malice for a few hasty
words that were repented of as soon as they were said. I would have
scorned to pay a word had you been kept back by your new grandeur. But
now that you’re disinherited--why, Paul, come--Australia is the place
for such as you. Young and strong with a good heart, and all the world
before you! Why, there’s a new country for you to get hold of, to
govern, if you like. Come! I’ll not oppose any dignity you may gain out
there; and I tell you, you’ll have the ball at your foot, and the whole
world before you! Come with us, I ask this time as a favour, Paul.”
He had held out his hand with some wavering and doubt, though with
enthusiasm. But gradually a curious expression of wonder came to his
face; his hand dropped at his side. Paul made no motion towards taking
it; the demagogue thought it was resentment. A flush of vivid colour
came over him. “Come, this is a little too much for old friends,” he
said, getting up hastily from his chair, with a thrill of wounded
feeling in his voice.
“Don’t wrong him, Spears,” said Fairfax. “He has had a great deal to
bother him, and his foot is bad. You can meet another time and settle
that. At present, let us get him out of this place. If he is angry, he
has a right to be; but never mind that now. Let us get him out of here.”
Spears did not say another word. He stalked away into the house to
which this room belonged, and the “hall” beyond it. It was a little
tavern of the lower class in which he was living. By and by the woman
came to say there was a cab at the door. And Paul limped out, leaning on
Fairfax.
All was quiet outside, the meeting dispersed; only one or two men
sitting in the room down stairs, who cast a curious look upon the two
young men, but took no further notice. As for Spears, he did not appear
at all. He was lurking behind, his heart wrung with various feelings,
but too much wounded, too much disappointed, too sore and sad to show
himself. If Paul had seemed to require help, the rejected prophet was
lingering in the hope of offering it; but nothing of the kind seemed the
case. He limped out holding Fairfax’s arm. He did not even look round
him as the other did, or show any signs of a wish to see his former
friend. Spears had not got through the world up to this time without
mortification; but he had never suffered so acutely as now.
“Poor Spears,” Fairfax contrived to say, as they jolted along, leaving
the mean and monotonous streets behind them. “I think you might have
taken his hand.”
“Pshaw!’ said Paul, “I am tired to death of all that. I don’t mean to
say he is not honest--far more honest than most of them--but what is the
meaning of all that clap-trap? Why, Spears ought to know as well as any
man what folly it is. Bosh!” said the young man with an expression of
disgust. The milder spectator beside him looked at him with unfeigned
surprise.
“I thought you went as far as he did, Markham. I thought you were out
and out in your principles, accepting no compromise: I thought----”
“You thought I was a fool,” said Paul, bitterly, “and you were right
enough, if that is any satisfaction to you; but I had a lesson or two
before my poor father’s death--and more since. Don’t let us speak of it.
When a man has made an ass of himself, it is no pleasure to him to dwell
upon it. And I am not free yet, and I don’t know when I shall be,” he
cried, with an irrepressible desire for sympathy, then closed his mouth
as if he had shut a book, and said no more.
Thus they went jolting and creaking over the wet pavements all gleaming
with muddy reflections. London was grim and dismal under that autumn
rain, no flashing of carriages about, or gleams of toilette, or signs
of the great world which does its work under the guise of pleasure; only
a theatre now and then in the glare of gas with idle people hanging
about, keeping themselves dry under the porch; and afterward the great
vacant rooms at the clubs with a vague figure scattered here and there,
belated “men,” or waiters at their ease; the foot-passengers hurrying
along under umbrellas, the cabs all splashed with mud, weary wayfarers
and muddy streets. There was scarcely a word exchanged between them as
they went along.
“Where are you living?” said Fairfax at last.
“The house is shut up,” said Paul, giving the name of his hotel.
“But my place is not. Will you come with me and have your foot looked
to? I wish you would come, Markham. There are heaps of things I want to
say to you, and to ask you----”
Paul was in so fantastic and unreasonable a condition of mind that these
last words were all that was necessary to alter his decision. He had
thought he would go--why not?--and escape a little from all the
contradictions in his own mind by means of his friend’s company. But
the thought of having to answer questions made an end of that impulse of
confidence. He had himself taken to the hotel instead, where, he said to
himself with forlorn pride, at least there was nobody to insist upon any
account of his thoughts or doings, where he should be unmolested by
reason of being alone.