THE SAUNTER IN TOWN
As Atlee sauntered along towards Downing Street, whence he purposed to
despatch his telegram to Greece, he thought a good deal of his late
interview with Lord Danesbury. There was much in it that pleased him. He
had so far succeeded in _re_ Kostalergi, that the case was not scouted out
of court; the matter, at least, was to be entertained, and even that was
something. The fascination of a scheme to be developed, an intrigue to be
worked out, had for his peculiar nature a charm little short of ecstasy.
The demand upon his resources for craft and skill, concealment and
duplicity, was only second in his estimation to the delight he felt at
measuring his intellect with some other, and seeing whether, in the game of
subtlety, he had his master.
Next to this, but not without a long interval, was the pleasure he felt at
the terms in which Lord Danesbury spoke of him. No orator accustomed to
hold an assembly enthralled by his eloquence--no actor habituated to sway
the passions of a crowded theatre--is more susceptible to the promptings of
personal vanity than your ‘practised talker.’ The man who devotes himself
to be a ‘success’ in conversation glories more in his triumphs, and sets a
greater value on his gifts, than any other I know of.
That men of mark and station desired to meet him--that men whose position
secured to them the advantage of associating with the pleasantest people
and the freshest minds--men who commanded, so to say, the best talking in
society--wished to confer with and to hear _him_, was an intense flattery,
and he actually longed for the occasion of display. He had learned a good
deal since he had left Ireland. He had less of that fluency which Irishmen
cultivate, seldom ventured on an epigram, never on an anecdote, was
guardedly circumspect as to statements of fact, and, on the whole, liked to
understate his case, and affect distrust of his own opinion. Though there
was not one of these which were not more or less restrictions on him,
he could be brilliant and witty when occasion served, and there was an
incisive neatness in his repartee in which he had no equal. Some of those
he was to meet were well known amongst the most agreeable people of
society, and he rejoiced that at least, if he were to be put upon his
trial, he should be judged by his peers.
With all these flattering prospects, was it not strange that his lordship
never dropped a word, nor even a hint, as to his personal career? He had
told him, indeed, that he could not hope for success at Cradford, and
laughingly said, ‘You have left Odger miles behind you in your Radicalism.
Up to this, we have had no Parliament in England sufficiently advanced
for your opinions.’ On the whole, however, if not followed up--which Lord
Danesbury strongly objected to its being--he said there was no great harm
in a young man making his first advances in political life by something
startling. They are only fireworks, it is true; the great requisite is,
that they be brilliant, and do not go out with a smoke and a bad smell!
Beyond this, he had told him nothing. Was he minded to take him out to
Turkey, and as what? He had already explained to him that the old days
in which a clever fellow could be drafted at once into a secretaryship
of embassy were gone by; that though a parliamentary title was held to
supersede all others, whether in the case of a man or a landed estate, it
was all-essential to be in the House for _that_, and that a diplomatist,
like a sweep, must begin when he is little.
‘As his private secretary,’ thought he, ‘the position is at once fatal to
all my hopes with regard to Lady Maude.’ There was not a woman living more
certain to measure a man’s pretensions by his station. ‘Hitherto I have not
been “classed.” I might be anybody, or go anywhere. My wide capabilities
seemed to say that if I descended to do small things, it would be quite as
easy for me to do great ones; and though I copied despatches, they would
have been rather better if I had drafted them also.’
Lady Maude knew this. She knew the esteem in which her uncle held him. She
knew how that uncle, shrewd man of the world as he was, valued the sort of
qualities he saw in him, and could, better than most men, decide how far
such gifts were marketable, and what price they brought to their possessor.
‘And yet,’ cried he, ‘they don’t know one-half of me! What would they say
if they knew that it was I wrote the great paper on Turkish Finance in the
_Mémorial Diplomatique_, and the review of it in the _Quarterly_; that
it was I who exposed the miserable compromise of Thiers with Gambetta in
the _Débuts_, and defended him in the _Daily News_; that the hysterical
scream of the _Kreuz Zeitung_, and the severe article on Bismarck in the
_Fortnightly_, were both mine; and that at this moment I am urging in the
_Pike_ how the Fenian prisoners must be amnestied, and showing in a London
review that if they are liberated, Mr. Gladstone should be attainted for
high treason? I should like well to let them know all this; and I’m not
sure I would not risk all the consequences to do it.’
And then he as suddenly bethought him how little account men of letters
were held in by the Lady Maudes of this world; what a humble place they
assigned them socially; and how small they estimated their chances of
worldly success!
‘It is the unrealism of literature as a career strikes them; and they
cannot see how men are to assure themselves of the _quoi vivre_ by
providing what so few want, and even they could exist without.’
It was in a reverie of this fashion he walked the streets, as little
cognisant of the crowd around him as if he were sauntering along some
rippling stream in a mountain gorge.