A few days after the entertainment at Willowsmere, and before the
society papers had done talking about the magnificence and luxury
displayed on that occasion, I woke up one morning, like the great poet
Byron, "to find myself famous." Not for any intellectual
achievement,--not for any unexpected deed of heroism,--not for any
resolved or noble attitude in society or politics,--no!--I owed my fame
merely to a quadruped;--'Phosphor' won the Derby. It was about a
neck-and-neck contest between my racer and that of the Prime Minister,
and for a second or so the result seemed doubtful,--but, as the two
jockeys neared the goal, Amiel, whose thin wiry figure clad in the
brightest of bright scarlet silk, stuck to his horse as though he were a
part of it, put 'Phosphor' to a pace he had never yet exhibited,
appearing to skim along the ground at literally flying speed, the upshot
being that he scored a triumphant victory, reaching the winning-post a
couple of yards or more ahead of his rival. Acclamations rent the air at
the vigour displayed in the 'finish'--and I became the hero of the
day,--the darling of the populace. I was somewhat amused at the
Premier's discomfiture,--he took his beating rather badly. He did not
know me, nor I him,--I was not of his politics, and I did not care a jot
for his feelings one way or the other, but I was gratified, in a certain
satirical sense, to find myself suddenly acknowledged as a greater man
than he, because I was the owner of the Derby-winner! Before I well knew
where I was, I found myself being presented to the Prince of Wales, who
shook hands with me and congratulated me;--all the biggest aristocrats
in England were willing and eager to be introduced to me;--and inwardly
I laughed at this exhibition of taste and culture on the part of 'the
gentlemen of England that live at home at ease.' They crowded round
'Phosphor,' whose wild eye warned strangers against taking liberties
with him, but who seemed not a whit the worse for his exertions, and who
apparently was quite ready to run the race over again with equal
pleasure and success. Amiel's dark sly face and cruel ferret eyes were
evidently not attractive to the majority of the gentlemen of the turf,
though his answers to all the queries put to him, were admirably ready,
respectful and not without wit. But to me the whole sum and substance of
the occasion was the fact that I, Geoffrey Tempest, once struggling
author, now millionaire, was simply by virtue of my ownership of the
Derby-winner, 'famous' at last!--or what society considers famous,--that
fame that secures for a man the attention of 'the nobility and gentry,'
to quote from tradesmen's advertisements,--and also obtains the
persistent adulation and shameless pursuit of all the _demi-mondaines_
who want jewels and horses and yachts presented to them in exchange for
a few tainted kisses from their carmined lips. Under the shower of
compliments I received, I stood, apparently delighted,--smiling, affable
and courteous,--entering into the spirit of the occasion, and shaking
hands with my Lord That, and Sir Something Nobody, and His Serene
Highness the Grand Duke So-and-So of Beer-Land, and His other Serene
Lowness of Small-Principality,--but in my secret soul I scorned these
people with their social humbug and hypocrisy,--scorned them with such a
deadly scorn as almost amazed myself. When presently I walked off the
course with Lucio, who as usual seemed to know and to be friends with
everybody, he spoke in accents that were far more grave and gentle than
I had ever heard him use before.
"With all your egotism, Geoffrey, there is something forcible and noble
in your nature,--something which rises up in bold revolt against
falsehood and sham. Why, in Heaven's name do you not give it way?"