"I LOVE you too much, my Sophie, to be called the Princess Zobraska's
husband."
"And I love you too much, dear, to wish to be called anything else than
Paul Savelli's wife."
That was their position, perfectly defined, perfectly understood. They
had arrived at it after many arguments and kisses and lovers'
protestations.
"Such as I am I am," cried Paul. "A waif and stray, an unknown figure
coming out of the darkness. I have nothing to give you but my love."
"Are there titles or riches on earth of equal value?"
"But I must give you more. The name Paul Savelli itself must be a title
of honour."
"It is becoming that," said the Princess. "And we can wait a little,
Paul, can't we? We are so happy like this. Ah!" she sighed. "I have
never been so happy in my life."
"Nor I," said Paul.
"And am I really the first?"
"The first. Believe it or not as you like. But it's a fact. I've told
you my life's dream. I never sank below it; and that is why perhaps it
has come true."
For once the assertion was not the eternal lie. Paul came fresh-hearted
to his Princess.
"I wish I were a young girl, Paul."
"You are a star turned woman. The Star of my Destiny in which I always
believed. The great things will soon come."
They descended to more commonplace themes. Until the great things came,
what should be their mutual attitude before Society?
"Until I can claim you, let it be our dear and beautiful secret," said
Paul. "I would not have it vulgarized by the chattering world for
anything in life."
Then Paul proved himself to be a proud and delicate lover, and when
London with its season and its duties and its pleasures absorbed them,
he had his reward. For it was sweet to see her in great assemblies,
shining like a queen and like a queen surrounded by homage, and to know
that he alone of mortals was enthroned in her heart. It was sweet to
meet her laughing glance, dear fellow-conspirator. It was sweet every
morning and night to have the intimate little talk through the
telephone. And it was sweetest of all to snatch a precious hour with
her alone. Of such vain and foolish things is made all that is most
beautiful in life.
He took his dearest lady--though Miss Winwood, now disclaimed the
title--into his confidence. So did the Princess. It was very comforting
to range Miss Winwood on their side; and to feel themselves in close
touch with her wisdom and sympathy. And her sympathy manifested itself
in practical ways--those of the woman confidante of every love affair
since the world began. Why should the Princess Zobraska not interest
herself in some of the philanthropic schemes of which the house in
Portland Place was the headquarters? There was one, a Forlorn Widows'
Fund, the presidency of which she would be willing to resign in favour
of the Princess. The work was trivial: it consisted chiefly in
consultation with Mr. Savelli and in signing letters. The Princess
threw her arms round her neck, laughing and blushing and calling her
delicieuse. You see it was obvious that Mr. Savelli could not be
consulted in his official capacity or official letters signed elsewhere
than in official precincts.
"I'll do what I can for the pair of you," said Miss Winwood to Paul.
"But it's the most delightfully mad and impossible thing I've ever put
my hand to."
Accepting the fact of their romance, however, she could not but approve
Paul's attitude. It was the proud attitude of the boy who nearly six
years ago was going, without a word, penniless and debonair out of her
house. All the woman in her glowed over him.
"I'm not going to be called an adventurer," he had declared. "I shall
not submit Sophie to the indignity of trailing a despised husband after
her. I'm not going to use her rank and wealth as a stepping-stone to my
ambitions. Let me first attain an unassailable position. I shall have
owed it to you, to myself, to anybody you like--but not to my marriage.
I shall be somebody. The rest won't matter. The marriage will then be a
romantic affair, and romantic affairs are not unpopular dans le monde
ou l'on s'ennuie."
This declaration was all very well; the former part all very noble, the
latter exhibiting a knowledge of the world rather shrewd for one so
young. But when would he be able to attain his unassailable position?
Some years hence. Would Sophie Zobraska, who was only a few months
younger than he, be content to sacrifice these splendid and
irretrievable years of her youth? Ursula Winwood looked into the
immediate future, and did not see it rosy. The first step toward an
unassailable position was flight from the nest. This presupposed an
income. If the party had been in power it would not have been difficult
to find him a post. She worried herself exceedingly, for in her sweet
and unreprehensible way she was more than ever in love with Paul.
Meeting Frank Ayres one night at a large reception, she sought his
advice.
"Do you mind a wrench?" he asked. "No? Well, then--you and Colonel
Winwood send him about his business and get another secretary. Let
Savelli give all his time to his Young England League. Making him mug
up material for Winwood's speeches and write letters to constituents
about football clubs is using a razor to cut butter. His League's the
thing. It can surely afford to pay him a decent salary. If it can't
I'll see to a guarantee."
"The last thing we see, my dear Frank," she said after she had thanked
him, "is that which is right under our noses."
The next day she went to Paul full of the scheme. Had he ever thought
of it? He took her hands and smiled in his gay, irresistible way. "Of
course, dearest lady," he said frankly. "But I would have cut out my
tongue sooner than suggest it."
"I know that, my dear boy."
"And yet," said he, "I can't bear the idea of tearing myself away from
you. It seems like black ingratitude."
"It isn't. You forget that James and I have our little ambitions
too--the ambition of a master for a favourite pupil. If you were a
failure we should both be bitterly disappointed. Don't you see? And as
for leaving us--why need you? We should miss you horribly. You've never
been quite our paid servant. And now you're something like our son."
Tears started in the sweet lady's clear eyes. "Even if you did go to
your own chambers, I shouldn't let our new secretary have this
room"--they were in what the household called "the office"--really
Paul's luxuriously furnished private sitting room, which contained his
own little treasures of books and pictures and bits of china and glass
accumulated during the six years of easeful life--"He will have the
print room, which nobody uses from one year's end to another, and which
is far more convenient for the street door. And the same at Drane's
Court. So when you no longer work for us, my dear boy, our home will be
yours, as long as you're content to stay, just because we love you."
Her hand was on his shoulder and his head was bent. "God grant," said
he, "that I may be worthy of your love."
He looked up and met her eyes. Her hand was still on his shoulder. Then
very simply he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
He told his Princess all about it. She listened with dewy eyes. "Ah,
Paul," she said. "That 'precious seeing' of love--I never had it till
you came. I was blind. I never knew that there were such beautiful
souls as Ursula Winwood in the world."
"Dear, how I love you for saying that!" cried Paul.
"But it's true."
"That is why," said he.
So the happiest young man in London worked and danced through the
season, knowing that the day of emancipation was at hand. His
transference from the Winwoods to the League was fixed for October 1.
He made great plans for an extension of the League's, activities,
dreamed of a palace for headquarters with the banner of St. George
flying proudly over it, an object-lesson for the nation. One day in
July while he was waiting for Colonel Winwood in the lobby of the House
of Commons, Frank Ayres stopped in the middle of a busy rush and shook
hands.
"Been down to Hickney Heath again? I would if I were you. Rouse 'em up."
As the words of a Chief Whip are apt to be significant, Paul closeted
himself with the President of the Hickney Heath Lodge, who called the
Secretary of the local Conservative Association to the interview. The
result was that Paul was invited to speak at an anti-Budget meeting
convened by the Association. He spoke, and repeated his success. The
Conservative newspapers the next morning gave a resume of his speech.
His Sophie, coming to sign letters in her presidential capacity,
brought him the cuttings, a proceeding which he thought adorable. The
season ended triumphantly.
For a while he lost his Princess. She went to Cowes, then to stay with
French relations in a chateau in the Dordogne. Paul went off yachting
with the Chudleys and returned for the shooting to Drane's Court. In
the middle of September the Winwoods' new secretary arrived and
received instruction in his duties. Then came the Princess to Morebury
Park. "Dearest," she said, in his arms, "I never want to leave you
again. France is no longer France for me since I have England in my
heart."
"You remember that? My wonderful Princess!"
He found her more woman, more expansive, more bewitchingly caressing.
Absence had but brought her nearer. When she laid her head on his
shoulder and murmured in the deep and subtle tones of her own language:
"My Paul, it seems such a waste of time to be apart," it took all his
pride and will to withstand the maddening temptation. He vowed that the
time would soon come when he could claim her, and went away in feverish
search for worlds to conquer.
Then came October and London once more.
* * * * *
Paul was dressing for dinner one evening when a reply-paid telegram was
brought to him.
"If selected by local committee will you stand for Hickney Heath?
Ayres."
He sat on his bed, white and trembling, and stared at the simple
question. The man-servant stood imperturbable, silver tray in hand.
Seeing the reply-paid form, he waited for a few moments.
"Is there an answer, sir?"
Paul nodded, asked for a pencil, and with a shaky hand wrote the reply.
"Yes," was all he said.
Then with reaction came the thrill of mighty exultation, and, throwing
on his clothes, he rushed to the telephone in his sitting room. Who
first to hear the wondrous news but his Princess? That there was a
vacancy in Hickney Heath he knew, as all Great Britain knew; for
Ponting, the Radical Member, had died suddenly the day before. But it
had never entered his head that he could be chosen as a candidate.
"Mais j'y ai bien pense, moi," came the voice through the telephone.
"Why did Lord Francis tell you to go to Hickney Heath last July?"
How a woman leaps at things! With all his ambition, his astuteness,
his political intuition, he had not seen the opportunity. But it had
come. Verily the stars in their courses were fighting for him. Other
names, he was aware, were before the Committee of the Local
Association, perhaps a great name suggested by the Central Unionist
Organization; there was also that of the former Tory member, who,
smarting under defeat at the General Election, had taken but a lukewarm
interest in the constituency and was now wandering in the Far East. But
Paul, confident in his destiny, did not doubt that he would be
selected. And then, within the next fortnight--for bye-elections during
a Parliamentary session are matters of sweeping swiftness--would come
the great battle, the great decisive battle of his life, and he would
win. He must win. His kingdom was at stake--the dream kingdom of his
life into which he would enter with his loved and won Princess on his
arm. He poured splendid foolishness through the telephone into an
enraptured ear.
The lack of a sense of proportion is a charge often brought against
women; but how often do men (as they should) thank God for it? Here was
Sophie Zobraska, reared from childhood in the atmosphere of great
affairs, mixing daily with folk who guided the destiny of nations,
having two years before refused in marriage one of those who held the
peace of Europe in his hands, moved to tense excitement of heart and
brain and soul by the news that an obscure young man might possibly be
chosen to contest a London Borough for election to the British
Parliament, and thrillingly convinced that now was imminent the great
momentous crisis in the history of mankind.
With a lack of the same sense of proportion, equal in kind, though
perhaps not so passionate in degree, did Miss Winwood receive the
world-shaking tidings. She wept, and, thinking Paul a phoenix, called
Frank Ayres an angel. Colonel Winwood tugged his long, drooping
moustache and said very little; but he committed the astounding
indiscretion of allowing his glass to be filled with champagne;
whereupon he lifted it, and said, "Here's luck, my dear boy," and
somewhat recklessly gulped down the gout-compelling liquid. And after
dinner, when Miss Winwood had left them together, he lighted a long
Corona instead of his usual stumpy Bock, and discussed with Paul
electioneering ways and means.
For the next day or two Paul lived in a whirl of telephones, telegrams,
letters, scurryings across London, interviews, brain-racking
questionings and reiterated declarations of political creed. But his
selection was a foregone conclusion. His youth, his absurd beauty, his
fire and eloquence, his unswerving definiteness of aim, his magic that
had inspired so many with a belief in him and had made him the
Fortunate Youth, captivated the imagination of the essentially
unimaginative. Before a committee of wits and poets, Paul perhaps would
not have had a dog's chance. But he appealed to the hard-headed
merchants and professional men who chose him very much as the hero of
melodrama appeals to a pit and gallery audience. He symbolized to them
hope and force and predestined triumph. One or two at first sniffed
suspiciously at his lofty ideals; but as there was no mistaking his
political soundness, they let the ideals pass, as a natural and
evanescent aroma.
So, in his thirtieth year, Paul was nominated as Unionist candidate for
the Borough of Hickney Heath, and he saw himself on the actual
threshold of the great things to which he was born. He wrote a little
note to Jane telling her the news. He also wrote to Barney Bill: "You
dear old Tory--did you ever dream that ragamuffin little Paul was going
to represent you in Parliament? Get out the dear old 'bus and paint it
blue, with 'Paul Savelli forever' in gold letters, and, instead of
chairs and mats, hang it with literature, telling what a wonderful
fellow P. S. is. And go through the streets of Hickney Heath with it,
and say if you like: 'I knew him when' he was a nipper--that high.' And
if you like to be mysterious and romantic you can say: 'I, Barney Bill,
gave him his first chance,' as you did, my dear old friend, and Paul's
not the man to forget it. Oh, Barney, it's too wonderful"--his heart
went out to the old man. "If I get in I will tell you something that
will knock you flat. It will be the realization of all the silly
rubbish I talked in the old brickfield at Bludston. But, dear old
friend, it was you and the open road that first set me on the patriotic
lay, and there's not a voter in Hickney Heath who can vote as you
can--for his own private and particular trained candidate."
Jane, for reasons unconjectured, did not reply. But from Barney Bill,
who, it must be remembered, had leanings toward literature, he received
a postcard with the following inscription: "Paul, Hif I can help you
konker the Beastes of Effesus I will. Bill."
And then began the furious existence of an electioneering campaign. His
side had a clear start of the Radicals, who found some hitch in the
choice of their candidate. The Young England League leaped into
practical enthusiasm over their champion. Seldom has young candidate
had so glad a welcome. And behind him stood his Sophie, an inspiring
goddess.
It so happened that for a date a few days hence had been fixed the
Annual General Meeting of the Forlorn Widows' Fund, when Report and
Balance Sheet were presented to the society. The control of this
organization Paul had not allowed to pass into the alien hands of
Townsend, the Winwoods' new secretary. Had not his Princess, for the
most delicious reasons in the world, been made President? He scorned
Ursula Winwood's suggestion that for this year he would allow Townsend
to manage affairs. "What!" cried he, "leave my Princess in the lurch on
her first appearance? Never!" By telephone he arranged an hour for the
next day, when they could all consult together over this important
matter.
"But, my dear boy," said Miss Winwood, "your time is not your own.
Suppose you're detained at Hickney Heath?"
"The Conqueror," he cried, with a gay laugh, "belongs to the
Detainers--not the Detained."
She looked at him out of her clear eyes, and shook an indulgent head.
"I know," said he, meeting her glance shrewdly. "He has got to use his
detaining faculty with discretion. I've made a study of the little ways
of conquerors. Ali! Dearest lady!" he burst out suddenly, in his
impetuous way, "I'm talking nonsense; but I'm so uncannily happy!"
"It does me good to look at you," she said.