The Fortunate Youth by William J. Locke (page 5)

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 I 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.

CHAPTER XVII

PAUL leaned back in his leather writing chair, smoking a cigarette and focussing the electioneering situation. Beside a sheet of foolscap on which he had been jotting down notes lay in neat piles the typewritten Report of the Forlorn Widows’ Fund, the account book and the banker’s pass book. He had sat up till three o’clock in the morning preparing for his Princess. Nothing now remained but the formal “examined and found correct” report of the auditors. For the moment the Forlorn Widows stood leagues away from Paul’s thoughts. He had passed a strenuous day at Hickney Heath, lunching in the committee room on sandwiches and whisky and soda obtained from the nearest tavern, talking, inventing, dictating, writing, playing upon dull minds the flashes of his organizing genius. His committee was held up for the while by a dark rift in the Radical camp. They had not yet chosen their man. Nothing was known, save that a certain John Questerhayes, K. C., an eminent Chancery barrister, who had of late made himself conspicuous in the constituency, had been turned down on the ground that he was not sufficiently progressive. Now for comfort to the Radical the term “Progressive” licks the blessed word Mesopotamia into a cocked hat. Under the Progressive’s sad-coloured cloak he need not wear the red tie of the socialist. Apparently Mr. Questerhayes objected to the sad-coloured cloak, the mantle of Elijah, M. P., the late member for Hickney Heath. “Wanted: an Elisha,” seemed to be the cry of the Radical Committee.

Paul leaned back, his elbows on the arms of his chair, his finger tips together, a cigarette between his lips, lost in thought. The early November twilight deepened in the room. He was to address a meeting that night. In order to get ready for his speech he had not allowed himself to be detained, and had come home early. His speech had been prepared; but the Radical delay was a new factor of which he might take triumphant advantage. Hence the pencil notes on the sheet of foolscap, before him.

A man-servant came in, turned on the electric light, pulled the curtains together and saw to the fire.

“Tea’s in the drawing-room, sir.”

“Bring me some here in a breakfast cup–nothing to eat,” said Paul.

Even his dearest lady could not help him in his meditated attack on the enemy whom the Lord was delivering into his hands.

The man-servant went away. Presently Paul heard him reenter the room; the door was at his back. He threw out an impatient hand behind him. “Put it down anywhere, Wilton, I’ll have it when I want it.”

“I beg pardon, sir,” said the man, coming forward, “but it’s not the tea. There’s a gentleman and a lady and another person would like to see you. I said that you were busy, sir, but–”

He put the silver salver, with its card, in front of Paul. Printed on the card was, “Mr. Silas Finn.” In pencil was written: “Miss Seddon, Mr. William Simmons.”

Paul looked at the card in some bewilderment. What in the name of politics or friendship were they doing in Portland Place? Not to receive them, however, was unthinkable.

“Show them in,” said he.

Silas Finn, Jane and Barney Bill! It was odd. He laughed and took out his watch. Yes, he could easily give them half an hour or so. But why had they come? He had found time to call once at the house in Hickney Heath since his return to town, and then he had seen Jane and Silas Finn together and they had talked, as far as he could remember, of the Disestablishment of the Anglican Church and the elevating influence of landscape painting on the human soul. Why had they come? It could not be to offer their services during the election, for Silas Finn in politics was a fanatical enemy. The visit stirred a lively curiosity.

They entered: Mr. Finn in his usual black with many-coloured tie and diamond ring, looking more mournfully grave than ever; Jane wearing an expression half of anxiety and half of defiance; Barney Bill, very uncomfortable in his well-preserved best suit, very restless and nervous. They gave the impression of a deputation coming to announce the death of a near relative. Paul received them cordially. But why in the world, thought he, were they all so solemn? He pushed forward chairs.

“I got your postcard, Bill. Thanks so much for it.”

Bill grunted and embraced his hard felt hat.

“I ought to have written to you,” said Jane–“but—”

“She felt restrained by her duty towards me,” said Mr. Finn. “I hope you did not think it was discourteous on her part.”

“My dear sir,” Paul laughed, seating himself in his writing chair, which he twisted away from the table, “Jane and I are too old friends for that. In her heart I know she wishes me luck. And I hope you do too, Mr. Finn,” he added pleasantly–“although I know you’re on the other side.”

“I’m afraid my principles will not allow me to wish you luck in this election, Mr. Savelli.”

“Well, well,” said Paul. “It doesn’t matter. If you vote against me I’ll not bear malice.”

“I am not going to vote against you, Mr. Savelli,” said Mr. Finn, looking at him with melancholy eyes. “I am going to stand against you.”

Paul sprang forward in his chair. Here was fantastic news indeed! “Stand against me? You? You’re the Radical candidate?”

“Yes.”

Paul laughed boyishly. “Why, it’s capital! I’m awfully glad.”

“I was asked this morning,” said Mr. Finn gravely. “I prayed God for guidance. He answered, and I felt it my duty to come to you at once, with our two friends.”

Barney Bill cocked his head on one side. “I did my best to persuade him not to, sonny.”

“But why shouldn’t he?” cried Paul courteously–though why he should puzzled him exceedingly. “It’s very good of you, Mr. Finn. I’m sure your side,” he went on, “could not have chosen a better man. You’re well known in the constituency–I am jolly lucky to have a man like you as an opponent.”

“Mr. Savelli,” said Mr. Finn, “it was precisely so that we should not be opponents that I have taken this unusual step.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said Paul.

“Mr. Finn wants you to retire in favour of some other Conservative candidate,” said Jane calmly.

“Retire? I retire?”

Paul looked at her, then at Barney Bill, who nodded his white head, then at Mr. Finn, whose deep eyes met his with a curious tragical mournfulness. The proposal took his breath away. It was crazily preposterous. But for their long faces he would have burst into laughter. “Why on earth do you want me to retire?” he asked good-humouredly.

“I will tell you,” said Mr. Finn. “Because you will have God against you.”

Paul saw a gleam of light in the dark mystery of the visit. “You may believe it, Mr. Finn, but I don’t. I believe that my war cry, ‘God for England, Savelli and Saint George,’ is quite as acceptable to, the Almighty as yours.”

Mr. Finn stretched out two hands in earnest deprecation. “Forgive me if I say it; but you don’t know what you’re talking about. God has not revealed Himself to you. He has to me. When my fellow-citizens asked me to stand as the Liberal candidate, I thought it was because they knew me to be an upright man, who had worked hard on their council, an active apostle in the cause of religion, temperance and the suppression of vice. I thought I had merely deserved well in their opinion. When I fell on my knees and prayed the glory of the Lord spread about me and I knew that they had been divinely inspired. It was revealed to me that this was a Divine Call to represent the Truth in the Parliament of the nation.”

“I remember your saying, when I first had the pleasure of meeting you,” Paul remarked, with unwonted dryness, “that the Kingdom of Heaven was not adequately represented in the House of Commons.”

“I have not changed my opinion, Mr Savelli. The hand of God has guided my business. The hand of God is placing me in the House of Commons to work His will. You cannot oppose God’s purpose, Paul Savelli–and that is why I beg you not to stand against me.”

“You see, he likes yer,” interjected Barney Bill, with anxiety in his glittering eyes. “That’s why he’s a-doing of it. He says to hisself, says he, ‘ere’s a young chap what I likes with his first great chance in front of him, with the eyes of the country sot on him–now if I comes in and smashes him, as I can’t help myself from doing, it’ll be all u-p with that young chap’s glorious career. But if I warns him in time, then he can retire–find an honourable retreat–that’s what he wants yer to have–an honourable retreat. Isn’t that it, Silas?”

“Those are the feelings by which I am actuated,” said Mr. Finn.

Paul stretched himself out in his chair, his ankles crossed, and surveyed his guests. “What do you think of it, Jane?” said he, not without a touch of irony.

She had been looking into the fire, her face in profile. Addressed, she turned. “Mr. Finn has your interests very deep at heart,” she answered tonelessly.

Paul jumped to his feet and laughed his fresh laugh. It was all so comic, so incredible, so mad. Yet none of them appeared to see any humour in the situation. There sat Jane and Barney Bill cowering under the influence of their crazy fishmongering apostle; and there, regarding him with a world of appeal in his sorrowful eyes, sat the apostle himself, bolt upright in his chair, an odd figure with his streaked black and white hair, ascetic face and Methodistico-Tattersall raiment. And they all seemed to expect him to obey this quaint person’s fanatical whimsy.

“It’s very kind indeed of you, Mr. Finn, to consult my interests in this manner,” said he. “And I’m most indebted to you for your consideration. But, as I said before, I’ve as much reason for believing God to be on my side as you have. And I honestly believe I’m going to win this election. So I certainly won’t withdraw.”

“I implore you to do so. I will go on my knees and beseech you,” said Mr. Finn, with hands clasped in front of him.

Paul looked round. “I’m afraid, Bill,” said he, “that this is getting rather painful.”

“It is painful. It’s more than painful. It’s horrible! It’s ghastly!” cried Mr. Finn, in sudden shrill crescendo, leaping to his feet. In an instant the man’s demeanour had changed. The mournful apostle had become a wild, vibrating creature with flashing eyes and fingers.

“Easy, now, Silas. Whoa! Steady!” said Barney Bill.

Silas Finn advanced on Paul and clapped his hands on his shoulders and shouted hoarsely: “For the love of God–don’t thwart me in this. You can’t thwart me. You daren’t thwart me. You daren’t thwart God.”

Paul disengaged himself impatiently. The humour had passed from the situation. The man was a lunatic, a religious maniac. Again he addressed Barney Bill. “As I can’t convince Mr. Finn of the absurdity of his request, I must ask you to do so for me.”

“Young man,” cried Silas, quivering with passion, “do not speak to God’s appointed in your vanity and your arrogance. You–you–of all human beings–”

Both Jane and Barney Bill closed round him. Jane clutched his arm. “Come away. Do come away.”

“Steady now, Silas,” implored Barney Bill. “You see it’s no use. I told you so. Come along.”

“Leave me alone,” shouted Finn, casting them off. “What have I to do with you? It is that young man there who defies God and me.”

“Mr. Finn,” said Paul, very erect, “if I have hurt your feelings I am sorry. But I fight this election. That’s final. The choice no longer rests with me. I’m the instrument of my party. I desire to be courteous in every way, but you must see that it would be useless to prolong this discussion.” And he moved to the door.

“Come away now, for Heaven’s sake. Can’t you realize it’s no good?” said Jane, white to the lips.

Silas Finn again cast her off and railed and raved at her. “I will not go away,” he cried in wild passion. “I will not allow my own son to raise an impious hand against the Almighty.”

“Lor’ lumme!” gasped Barney Bill, dropping his hat. “He’s done it.”

There was a silence. Silas Finn stood shaking in the middle of the room, the sweat streaming down his forehead.

Paul turned at the door and walked slowly up to him. “Your son? What do you mean?”

Jane, with wringing hands and tense, uplifted face, said in a queer cracked voice: “He promised us not to speak. He has broken his promise.”

“You broke your sacred word,” said Barney Bill.

The man’s face grew haggard. His passion left him as suddenly as it had seized him. He collapsed, a piteous wreck, looked wide of the three, and threw out his hands helplessly. “I broke my promise. May God forgive me!”

“That’s neither here nor there,” said Paul, standing over him. “You must answer my question. What do you mean?”

Barney Bill limped a step or two toward him and cleared his throat. “He’s quite correct, sonny. Silas Kegworthy’s your father right enough.”

“Kegworthy?”

“Yes. Changed his name for business–and other reasons.”

“He?” said Paul, half dazed for the moment and pointing at Silas Finn. “His name is Kegworthy and he is my father?”

“Yes, sonny. ‘Tain’t my fault, or Jane’s. He took his Bible oath he wouldn’t tell yer. We was afraid, so we come with him.”

“Then?” queried Paul, jerking a thumb toward Lancashire.

“Polly Kegworthy? Yes. She was yer mother.”

Paul set his teeth and drew a deep breath–not of air, but of a million sword points, Jane watched him out of frightened eyes. She alone, with her all but life-long knowledge of him, and with her woman’s intuition, realized the death-blow that he had received. And when she saw him take it unflinching and stand proud and stern, her heart leaped toward him, though she knew that the woman in the great chased silver photograph frame on the mantelpiece, the great and radiant lady, the high and mighty and beautiful and unapproachable Princess, was the woman he loved. Paul touched his father on the wrist, and motioned to a chair.

“Please sit down. You too, please,”–he waved a hand, and himself resumed his seat in his writing chair. He turned it so that he could rest his elbow on his table and his forehead in his palm. “You claim to be my father,” said he. “Barney Bill, in whom I have implicit confidence, confirms it. He says that Mrs. Button is my mother–”

“She has been dead these six years,” said Barney Bill.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Paul.

“I didn’t think it would interest yer, sonny,” replied Barney Bill, in great distress. “Yer see, we conspirated together for yer never to know nothing at all about all this. Anyway, she’s dead and won’t worry yer any more.”

“She was a bad mother to me. She is a memory of terror. I don’t pretend to be grieved,” said Paul; “any more than I pretend to be overcome by filial emotion at the present moment. But, if you are my father, I should be glad to know–in fact, I think I’m entitled to know–why you’ve taken thirty years to reveal yourself, and why”–a sudden fury swept him–“why you’ve come now to play hell with my life.”

“It is the will of God,” said Silas Finn, in deep dejection.

Paul snapped three or four fingers. “Bah!” he cried. “Talk sense. Talk facts. Leave God out of the question for a while. It’s blasphemy to connect Him with a sordid business like this. Tell me about myself–my parentage–let me know where I am.”

“You’re with three people as loves yer, sonny,” said Barney Bill. “What passes in this room will never be known to another soul on earth.”

“That I swear,” said Silas Finn.

“You can publish it broadcast in every newspaper in England,” said Paul. “I’m making no bargains. Good God! I’m asking for nothing but the truth. What use I make of it is my affair. You can do–the three of you–what you like. Let the world know. It doesn’t matter. It’s I that matter–my life and my conscience and my soul that matter.”

“Don’t be too hard upon me,” Silas besought him very humbly.

“Tell me about myself,” said Paul.

Silas Finn wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and covered his eyes with his hand. “That can only mean telling you about myself,” he said. “It’s raking up a past which I had hoped, with God’s help, to bury. But I have sinned to-night, and it is my punishment to tell you. And you have a right to know. My father was a porter in Covent Garden Market. My mother–I’ve already mentioned–”

“Yes–the Sicilian and the barrel organ–I remember,” said Paul, with a shiver.

“I had a hard boyhood. But I rose a little above my class. I educated myself more or less. At last I became assistant in a fishmonger’s shop. Our friend Simmons here and I were boys together. We fell in love with the same girl. I married her. Not long afterward she gave way to drink. I found that in all kinds of ways I had mistaken her character. I can’t describe your own mother to you. She had a violent temper. So had I. My life was a hell upon earth. One day she goaded me beyond my endurance and I struck at her with a knife. I meant at the bloodred instant to kill her. But I didn’t. I nearly killed her. I went to prison for three years. When I came out she had vanished, taking you with her. In prison I found the Grace of God and I vowed it should be my guide through life. As soon as I was free from police supervision I changed my name–I believe it’s a good old Devonshire name; my father came from there–the prison taint hung about it. Then, when I found I could extend a miserable little business I had got together, I changed it again to suit my trade. That’s about all.”

There was a spell of dead silence. The shrunken man, stricken with a sense of his sin of oath-breaking, had Spoken without change of attitude, his hand over his eyes. Paul, too, sat motionless, and neither Jane nor Barney Bill spoke. Presently Silas Finn continued:

“For many years I tried to find my wife and son–but it was not God’s will. I have lived with the stain of murder on my soul”–his voice sank–“and it has never been washed away. Perhaps it will be in God’s good time. . . . And I had condemned my son to a horrible existence–for I knew my wife was not capable of bringing you up in the way of clean living. I was right. Simmons has since told me–and I was crushed beneath the burden of my sins.”

After a pause he raised a drawn face and went on to tell of his meeting, the year before, with Barney Bill, of whom he had lost track when the prison doors had closed behind him. It had been in one of his Fish Palaces where Bill was eating. They recognized each other. Barney Bill told his tale: how he had run across Polly Kegworthy after a dozen years’ wandering; how, for love of his old friend, he had taken Paul, child of astonishing promise, away from Bludston–

“Do you remember, sonny, when I left you alone that night and went to the other side of the brickfield? It was to think it out,” said Bill. “To think out my duty as a man.”

Paul nodded. He was listening, with death in his heart. The whole fantastic substructure of his life had been suddenly kicked away, and his life was an inchoate ruin. Gone was the glamour of romance in which since the day of the cornelian heart he had had his essential being. Up to an hour ago he had never doubted his mysterious birth. No real mother could have pursued an innocent child with Polly Kegworthy’s implacable hatred. His passionate repudiation of her had been a cardinal article of his faith. On the other hand, the prince and princess theory he had long ago consigned to the limbo of childish things; but the romance of his birth, the romance of his high destiny, remained a vital part of his spiritual equipment. His looks, his talents, his temperament, his instincts, his dreams had been irrefutable confirmations. His mere honesty, his mere integrity, had been based on this fervent and unshakable creed. And now it had gone. No more romance. No more glamour. No more Vision Splendid now faded into the light of common and sordid day. Outwardly listening, his gay, mobile face turned to iron, he lived in a molten intensity of thought, his acute brain swiftly coordinating the ironical scraps of history. He was the son of Polly Kegworthy. So far he was unclean; but hitherto her blood had not manifested itself in him. He was the son of this violent and pathetic fanatic, this ex-convict; he had his eyes, his refined face; perhaps he inherited from him the artistic temperament–he recalled grimly the daubs on the man’s walls, and his purblind gropings toward artistic self-expression; and all this–the Southern handsomeness, and Southern love of colour, had come from his Sicilian grandmother, the nameless drab, with bright yellow handkerchief over swarthy brows, turning the handle of a barrel organ in the London streets. Instinct had been right in its promptings to assume an Italian name; but the irony of it was of the quality that makes for humour in hell. And his very Christian name–Paul–the exotic name which Polly Kegworthy would not have given to a brat of hers–was but a natural one for a Silas to give his son, a Silas born of generations of evangelical peasants. His eyes rested on the photograph of his Princess. She, first of all, was gone with the Vision. An adventurer he had possibly been; but an adventurer of romance, carried high by his splendid faith, and regarding his marriage with the Princess but as a crowning of his romantic destiny. But now he beheld himself only as a base-born impostor. His Princess was gone from his life. Death was in his heart.

He saw his familiar, luxurious room as in a dream, and Jane, anxious-eyed, looking into the fire, and Barney Bill a little way off, clutching his hard felt hat against his body; but his eyes were fixed on the strange, many-passioned, unbalanced man who claimed to be–nay, who was–his father.

“When I first met you that night my heart went out to you,” he was saying. “It overflowed in thankfulness to God that He had delivered you out of the power of the Dog, and in His inscrutable mercy had condoned that part of my sin as a father and had set you in high places.”

With the fringe of his brain Paul recognized, for the first time, how he brought into ordinary talk the habits of speech acquired in addressing a Free Zionist congregation.

“It was only the self-restraint,” Silas continued, “taught me by bitter years of agony and a message from God that it was part of my punishment not to acknowledge you as my son–”

“And what I told you, and what Jane told you about him,” said Barney Bill. “Remember that, Silas.”

“I remember it–it was these influences that kept me silent. But we were drawn together, Paul.” He bent forward in his chair. “You liked me. In spite of all our differences of caste and creed–you liked me.”

“Yes, I was drawn to you,” said Paul, and a strange, unknown note in his voice caused Jane to glance at him swiftly. “You seemed to be a man of many sorrows and deep enthusiasms–and I admit I was in close sympathy with you.” He paused, not moving from his rigid attitude, and then went on: “What you have told me of your sufferings–and I know, with awful knowledge, the woman who was my mother–has made me sympathize with you all the more. But to express that sympathy in any way you must give me time. I said you had played hell with my life. It’s true. One of these days I may be able to explain. Not now. There’s no time. We’re caught up in the wheels of an inexorable political machine. I address my party in the constituency to-night.” It was a cold intelligence that spoke, and once more Jane flashed a half-frightened glance at him. “What I shall say to them, in view of all this, I don’t quite know. I must have half an hour to think.”

“I know I oughtn’t to interfere, Paul,” said Jane, “but you mustn’t blame Mr. Finn too much. Although he differs from you in politics and so on, he loves you and is proud of you–as we all are–and looks forward to your great career–I know it only too well. And now he has this deep conviction that he has a call from on High to ruin your career at the very beginning. Do understand, Paul, that he feels himself in a very terrible position.”

“I do,” said Mr. Finn. “God knows that if it weren’t for His command, I should myself withdraw.”

“I appreciate your position, perfectly,” replied Paul, “but that doesn’t relieve me of my responsibilities.”

Silas Finn rose and locked the fingers of both hands together and stood before Paul, with appealing eyes. “My son, after what I have said, you are not going to stand against me?”

Paul rose too. A sudden craze of passion swept him. “My country has been my country for thirty years. You have been my father for five minutes. I stand by my country.”

Silas Finn turned away and waved a haphazard hand. “And I must stand by my God.”

“Very well. That bring; us to our original argument. ‘Political foes. Private friends.'”

Silas turned again and looked into the young man’s eyes. “But father and son, Paul.”

“All the more honourable. There’ll be no mud-throwing. The cleanest election of the century.”

The elder man again covered his face with both hands, and his black and white streaked hair fell over his fingers and the great diamond in his ring flashed oddly, and he rocked his head for a while to and fro.

“I had a call,” he wailed. “I had a call. I had a call from God. It was clear. It was absolute. But you don’t understand these things. His will must prevail. It was terrible to think of crushing your career–my only son’s career. I brought these two friends to help me persuade you not to oppose me. I did my best, Paul. I promised them not to resort to the last argument. But flesh is weak. For the first time since–you know–the knife–your mother–I lost self-control. I shall have to answer for it to my God–” He stretched out his arms and looked haggardly at Paul. “But it is God’s will. It is God’s will that I should voice His message to the Empire. Paul, Paul, my beloved son–you cannot flout Almighty God.”

“Your God doesn’t happen to be my God,” said Paul, once more suspicious–and now hideously so–of religious mania. “And possibly the real God is somebody else’s God altogether. Anyway, England’s the only God I’ve got left, and I’m going to fight for her.”

The door opened and Wilton, the man-servant, appeared. He looked round. “I beg your pardon, sir.”

Paul crossed the room. “What is it?”

“Her Highness, sir,” he said in his well-trained, low voice, “and the Colonel and Miss Winwood. I told them you were engaged. But they’ve been waiting for over half-an-hour, sir.”

Paul drew himself up. “Why did you not tell me before? Her Highness is not to be kept waiting. Present my respectful compliments to Her Highness, and ask her and Colonel and Miss Winwood to have the kindness to come upstairs.”

“We had better go,” cried Jane in sudden fear.

“No,” said lie. “I want you all to stay.”

CHAPTER XVIII

IN the tense silence of the few moments of waiting Paul passed from the boy to whom the earth had been a fairyland to the man grappling with great realities. In those few moments he lived through his past life and faced an adumbration of the future.

The door was thrown open and the Princess appeared, smiling, happy, a black ostrich feather in her hat and a sable stole hanging loose from her shoulders; a great and radiant lady. Behind her came the Colonel and Ursula Winwood. Paul bent over the Princess’s, outstretched hand.

“A thousand pardons for keeping you waiting. I did not know you had come. I was engaged with my friends. May I have the honour of presenting them? Princess, this is Mr. Silas Finn, the managing director of Fish Palaces Limited. These are two very dear friends, Miss Seddon–Mr. Simmons. Miss Winwood–Colonel Winwood, may I?”

He waved an introductory hand. The Princess: bowed; then, struck by their unsmiling faces and by Paul’s strange manner, turned to him quickly.

“‘Qu’est ce qu’il y a?”

“Je vais vous le dire.”

He pushed a chair. She sat down. Ursula Winwood sat in Paul’s writing chair. The others remained standing.

“Mr. Finn called to inform me that he has been adopted as the Liberal candidate for Hickney Heath.”‘ “My felicitations,” said the Princess.

Silas bowed to her gravely and addressed Colonel Winwood.

“We have been, sir–Mr. Savelli and I–for some time on terms of personal friendship in the constituency.”

“I see, I see,” replied the Colonel, though he was somewhat puzzled. “Very polite and friendly, I’m sure.”

“Mr. Finn also urges me to withdraw my candidature,” said Paul.

The Princess gave a little incredulous laugh. Ursula Winwood rose and, with a quick protective step, drew nearer Paul. Colonel Winwood frowned.

“Withdraw? In Heaven’s name why?”

Silas Finn tugged at his black-and-white-streaked beard and looked at his son.

“Need we go into it again? There are religious reasons, which perhaps, Madam”–Silas addressed the Princess–“you might misunderstand. Mr. Savelli possibly thinks I am a fanatic. I can’t help it. I have warned him. That is enough. Good-bye, Mr. Savelli.”

He held out his hand; but Paul did not take it. “You forget, Mr. Finn, that I asked you to stay.” He clutched the sides of his jacket till his knuckles grew white, and he set his teeth. “Mr. Finn has another reason for wishing me not to oppose him–”

“That reason you need never give,” cried Silas in a loud voice, and starting forward. “You know that I make no claims whatsoever.”

“I know that,” said Paul, coldly; “but I am going to give it all the same.” He paused, held up his hand and looked at the Princess. “Mr. Silas Finn happens to be my father.”

“Good God!” gasped the Colonel, after a flash of silence.

The Princess caught a quick breath and sat erect in her chair.

“Votre Pere, Paul?”

“Yes, Princess. Until half an hour ago I did not know it. Never in my life did I know that I had a father living. My friends there can bear witness that what I say is true.”

“But, Paul dear,” said Miss Winwood, laying her kind fingers on his arm and searching his face, “you told us that your parents were dead and that they were Italians.”

“I lied,” replied Paul calmly. “But I honestly believed the woman who was my mother not to be my mother, and I had never heard of my father. I had to account for myself to you. Your delicacy, Miss Winwood, enabled me to invent as little as possible.”

“But your name–Savelli?”

“I took it when I went on the stage–I had a few years’ obscure and unsuccessful struggle. You will remember I came to you starving and penniless.”

The Princess grew white and her delicate nostrils quivered.

“Et monsieur votre pere–” she checked herself. “And your father, what do you say he is?”

Paul motioned to Silas to speak.

“I, Madam,” said the latter, “am a self-made man, and by the establishment of fried-fish shops all over London and the great provincial towns, have, by the grace of God, amassed a considerable fortune.”

“Fried fish?” said the Princess in a queer voice.

Silas looked at her out of his melancholy and unhumorous eyes.

“Yes, Madam.”

“I have also learned,” said Paul, “that my grandmother was a Sicilian who played a street-organ. Hence my Italian blood.”

Jane, standing by the door with Barney Bill, most agonized of old men, wholly nervous, twisting with gnarled fingers the broken rim of his hard felt hat, turned aside so that no one but Bill should see a sudden gush of tears. For she had realized how drab and unimportant she was in the presence of the great and radiant lady; also how the great and radiant lady was the God-sent mate for Paul, never so great a man as now when he was cutting out his heart for truth’s sake.

“I should like to tell you what my life has been,” continued Paul, “in the presence of those who know it already. That’s why I asked them to stay. Until an hour ago I lived in dreams. In my own fashion I was an honest man. But now I’ve got this knowledge of my origin, the dreams are swept away and I stand naked to myself. If I left you, Miss Winwood, and Colonel Winwood, who have been so good to me–and Her Highness, who has deigned to honour me with her friendship–in a moment’s doubt as to my antecedents I should be an impostor.”

“No, no, my boy,” said Colonel Winwood, who was standing with hands deep in trouser pockets and his head bent, staring at the carpet. “No words like that in this house. Besides, why should we want to go into all this?”

He had the Englishman’s detestation of unpleasant explanations. Ursula Winwood supported him.

“Yes, why?” she asked.

“But it would be very interesting,” said the Princess slowly, cutting her words.

Paul met her eyes, which she had hardened, and saw beneath them pain and anger and wounded pride and repulsion. For a second he allowed an agonized appeal to flash through his. He knew that he was deliberately killing the love in her heart. He felt the monstrous cruelty of it. A momentary doubt shook him. Was he justified? A short while ago she had entered the room her face alight with love; now her face was as stern and cold as his own. . Had he the right to use the knife like this? Then certainty came. It had to be. The swifter the better. She of all human beings must no longer be deceived. Before her, at supreme cost, he must stand clean.

“It’s not very interesting,” said he. “And it’s soon told. I was a ragged boy in a slum in a Lancashire town. I slept on sacking in a scullery, and very seldom had enough to eat. The woman whom I didn’t think was my mother ill-treated me. I gather now that she hated me because she hated my father. She deserted him when I was a year old and disappeared; she never spoke of him. I don’t know exactly how old I am. I chose a birthday at random. As a child I worked in a factory. You know what child-labour in factories was some years ago. I might have been there still, if my dear old friend there hadn’t helped me when I was thirteen to run away. He used to go through the country in a van selling mats and chairs. He brought me to London, and found me a lodging with Miss Seddon’s mother. So, Miss Seddon and I were children together. I became an artist’s model. When I grew too old for that to be a dignified ocupation, I went on the stage. Then one day, starving and delirious, I stumbled through the gates of Drane’s Court and fell at Miss Winwood’s feet. That’s all.”

“Since we’ve begun, we may as well finish and get it over,” said Colonel Winwood, still with bent head, but looking at Paul from beneath his eyebrows. “When and how did you come across this gentleman who you say is your father?”

Paul told the story in a few words.

“And now that you have heard everything,” said he, would you think me justified in withdrawing my candidature?”

“Certainly not,” said the Colonel. “You’ve got your duty to the Party.”

“And you, Miss Winwood?”

“Can you ask? You have your duty to the country.”

“And you, Princess?”

She met his challenging eyes and rose in a stately fashion.

“I am not equal to these complications of English politics, Mr. Savelli,” she said. She held herself very erect, but her lips trembled and tears were very near her eyes. She turned to Miss Winwood and held out her hand. “I am afraid we must postpone our discussion of the Forlorn Widows. It is getting late. Au revoir, Colonel Winwood–”

“I will see you to your carriage.”

On the threshold she turned, included Paul in a vague bow to the company, and passed through the door which Colonel Winwood held open. Paul watched her until she disappeared–disappeared haughtily out of his life, taking his living heart with her, leaving him with a stone very heavy, very cold, dead. And he was smitten as with a great darkness. He remained quite still for a few moments after the door had closed, then with a sudden jerk he drew himself up.

“Mr. Finn,” said he, “as I’ve told you, I address my first meeting to-night. I am going to make public the fact that I’m your son.”

Silas put his hand to his head and looked at him wildly.

“No, no,” he muttered hoarsely–“no.”

“I see no reason,” said Miss Winwood gently.

“I see every reason,” said Paul. “I must live in the light now. The truth or nothing.”

“Then obey your conscience, Paul,” she answered.

But Silas came forward with his outstretched hands.

“You can’t do it. You can’t do it, I tell you. It’s impossible.”

“Why?”

He replied in an odd voice, and with a glance at Miss Winwood. “I must tell you afterwards.”

“I will leave you,” she said.

“Mr. Finn”–she shook hands with him–“I hope you’re proud of your son.” And then she shook hands with Jane and Barney Bill. “I’m glad to meet such old friends of Paul.” And to Paul, as he held the door open, she said, her clear kind eyes full on him, “Remember, we want men in England.”

“Thank God, we’ve got women,” said he’ with lips from which he could not keep a sudden quiver.

He closed the door and came up to his father standing on the hearthrug.

“And now’ why shouldn’t I speak? Why shouldn’t I be an honest man instead of an impostor?”

“Out of pity for me, my son.”

“Pity? Why, what harm would it do you? There’s nothing dishonourable in father and son fighting an election.” He laughed without much mirth. “It’s what some people would call sporting. As for me, personally, I don’t see why you should be ashamed of owning me. My record is clean enough.”

“But mine isn’t, Paul,” said Silas mournfully.

For the first time Paul bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” said he. “I forgot.” Then he raised it again. “But that’s all over and buried in the past.”

“It may be unburied.”

“How?”

“Don’t you see?” cried Jane. “Even I can. If you spring your relationship upon the public, it will create an enormous sensation–it will set the place on fire with curiosity. They’ll dig up everything they can about you–everything they can about him. Oh, Paul, don’t you see.

“It’s up agin a man, sonny,” said Barney Bill, limping towards them, “it’s up agin a candidate, you understand, him not being a Fenian or a Irish patriot, that he’s been in gaol. Penal servitude ain’t a nice state of life to be reminded of, sonny. Whereas if you leaves things as they is, nobody’s going to ask no questions.”

“That’s my point,” said Silas Finn.

Paul looked from one to the other, darkly. In a kind of dull fierce passion he had made up his mind to clear himself before the world, to rend to tatters his garments of romance, to snap his fingers at the stars and destiny and such-like deluding toys, to stand a young Ajax defying the thunderbolts. Here came the first check.

“If they found out as how he’d done time, they’d find out for why,” said Bill, cocking his head earnestly.

As Paul, engaged in sombre thought, made no reply, Silas turned away, his hands uplifted in supplication, and prayed aloud. He had sinned in giving way to his anger. He prostrated himself before the divine vengeance. If this was his apportioned punishment, might God give him meekness and strength to bear it. The tremulous, crying voice, the rapt, fanatical face, and the beseeching attitude struck a bizarre note in the comfortable and worldly room. Supported on either side by Jane, helpless and anxious, and Barney Bill, crooked, wrinkled, with his close-cropped white hair and little liquid diamond eyes, still nervously tearing his hat-brim, he looked almost grotesque. To Paul he seemed less a man than a creation of another planet, with unknown and incalculable instincts and impulses, who had come to earth and with foolish hand had wiped out the meaning of existence. Yet he felt no resentment, but rather a weary pity for the stranger blundering through an unsympathetic world. As soon as there came a pause in the prayer, he said not ungently:

“The Almighty is not going to use me as an instrument to punish you, if I can help it. I quite appreciate your point. I’ll say nothing.”

Barney Bill jerked his thumb towards the chair where the Princess had been sitting:

“She won’t give it away?”

Paul smiled sadly. “No, old man. She’ll keep it to herself.”

That marked the end of the interview. Paul accompanied the three downstairs.

“I meant to act for the best, Paul,” said Silas piteously, on parting. “Tell me that I haven’t made you my enemy.”

“God forbid,” said Paul.

He went slowly up to his room again and threw himself in his writing chair. His eye fell upon the notes on the sheet of foolscap. The Radical candidate having been chosen, they were no longer relevant to his speech. He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the waste-paper basket. His speech! He held his head in both hands. A couple of hours hence he would be addressing a vast audience, the centre of the hopes of thousands of his fellow countrymen. The thought beat upon his brain. He had had the common nightmare of standing with conductor’s baton in front of a mighty orchestra and being paralyzed by sense of impotence. No less a nightmare was his present position. A couple of hours ago he was athrill with confidence and joy of battle. But then he was a different man. The morning stars, the stars of his destiny, sang together in the ever-deepening glamour of the Vision Splendid. He was entering into the lists of Camelot to fight for his Princess. He was the Mysterious Knight, parented in fairy-far Avilion, the Fortunate Youth, the Awakener of England. Now he was but a base-born young man who had attained a high position by false pretences; an ordinary adventurer with a glib tongue; a self-educated, self-seeking, commonplace fellow. At least, so he saw himself in his Princess’s eyes. And he had meant that she should thus behold him. No longer was he entering lists to fight for her. For what hopeless purpose was he entering them? To awaken England? The awakener must have his heart full of dreams and visions and glamour and joy and throbbing life; and in his heart there was death.

He drew out the little cornelian talisman at the end of his watch-chain and looked at it bitterly. It was but a mocking symbol of illusion. He unhooked it and laid it on the table. He would carry it about with him no longer. He would throw it away.

Ursula Winwood quietly entered the room.

“You must come down and have something to cat before the meeting.”

Paul rose. “I don’t want anything, thank you, Miss Winwood.”

“But James and I do. So come and join us.”

“Are you coming to the meeting?” he asked in surprise.

“Of course.” She lifted her eyebrows. “Why not?”

“After what you have heard?”

“All the more reason for us to go.” She smiled as she had smiled on that memorable evening six years ago when she had stood with the horrible pawn-ticket in her hand. “James has to support the Party. I have to support you. James will do the same as I in a day or two. Just give him time. His mind doesn’t work very quickly, not as quickly as a woman’s. Come,” she said. “When we have a breathing space you can tell me all about it. But in the meantime I’m pretty sure I understand.”

“How can you?” he asked wearily. “You have other traditions.”

“I don’t know about traditions; but I don’t give my love and take it away again. I set rather too much value on it. I understand because I love you.”

“Others with the same traditions can’t understand.”

“I’m not proposing to marry you,” she said bluntly. “That makes a difference.”

“It does,” said he, meeting her eyes unflinchingly.

“If you weren’t a brave man, I shouldn’t say such a thing to you. Anyhow I understand you’re the last man in the world who should take me for a fool.”

“My God!” said Paul in a choky voice. “What can I do to thank you?”

“Win the election.”

“You are still my dearest lady–my very very dearest lady,” said he.

Her shrewd eyes fell upon the cornelian heart. She picked it tip and held it out to him on her plump palm.

“Why have you taken this off your watch-chain?”

“It’s a little false god,” said he.

“It’s the first thing yon asked for when you recovered from your illness. You said you had kept it since you were a tiny boy. See? I remember. You set great value on it then?”

“I believed in it,” said Paul.

“And now you don’t? But a woman gave it to you.”

“Yes,” said Paul, wondering, in his masculine way, how the deuce she knew that. “I was a brat of eleven.”

“Then keep it. Put it on your chain again. I’m sure it’s a true little god. Take it back to please me.”

As there was nothing, from lapping up Eisel to killing a crocodile, that Paul would not have done, in the fulness of his wondering gratitude, for his dearest lady, he meekly attached the heart to his chain and put it in his pocket.

“I must tell you,” said he, “that the lady–she seemed a goddess to me then–chose me as her champion in a race, a race of urchins at a Sunday school treat, and I didn’t win. But she gave me the cornelian heart as a prize.”

“But as my champion you will win,” said Miss Winwood. “My dear boy,” she said, and her eyes grew very tender as she laid her hand on the young man’s arm, “believe what an old woman is telling you is true. Don’t throw away any little shred of beauty you’ve ever had in your life. The beautiful things are really the true ones, though they may seem to be illusions. Without the trinket or what it stood for, would you be here now?”

“I don’t know,” replied Paul. “I might have taken a more honest road to get here.”

“We took you to ourselves as a bright human being, Paul–not for what you might or might not have been. By the way, what have you decided as regards making public the fact of your relationship?”

“My father, for his own reasons, has urged me not to do so.”

Miss Winwood drew a long breath.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said.

So Paul, comforted by one woman’s amazing loyalty, went out that evening and addressed his great meeting. But the roar of applause that welcomed him echoed through void spaces of his being. He felt neither thrill nor fear. The speech prepared by the Fortunate Youth was delivered by a stranger to it, glowing and dancing eloquence. The words came trippingly enough, but the informing Spirit was gone.

Those in the audience familiar with the magic of his smile were disappointed. The soundness of his policy satisfied the hard- headed, but he made no appeal to the imaginative. If his speech did not fall flat, it was not the clarion voice that his supporters had anticipated. They whispered together with depressed headshakings. Their man was not in form. He was nervous. What he said was right enough, but his utterance lacked fire. It carried conviction to those already convinced; but it could make no proselytes. Had they been mistaken in their choice? Too young a man, hadn’t lie bitten off a hunk greater than he could chew? So the inner ring of local politicians. An election audience, however, brings its own enthusiasms, and it must be a very dull dog indeed who damps their ardour. They cheered prodigiously when Paul sat down, and a crowd of zealots waiting outside the building cheered him again as he drove off. But Paul knew that he had been a failure. He had delivered another man’s speech. To-morrow and the day after and the day after that, and ever afterwards, if he held to the political game, he would have to speak in his own new person. What kind of a person would the new Paul be?

He drove back almost in silence with the Colonel and Miss Winwood, vainly seeking to solve the problem. The foundations of his life had been swept away. His foot rested on nothing solid save his own manhood. That no shock should break down. He would fight. He would win the election. He set his lips in grim determination. If life held no higher meaning, it at least offered this immediate object for existence. Besides he owed the most strenuous effort of his soul to the devoted and loyal woman whose face he saw dimly opposite. Afterwards come what might. The Truth at any rate. Magna est veritas et praevalebit.

These were “prave ‘orts” and valorous protestations.

But when their light supper was over and Colonel Winwood had retired, Ursula Winwood lingered in the dining room, her heart aching for the boy who looked so stern and haggard. She came behind him and touched his hair.

“Poor boy,” she murmured.

Then Paul–he was very young, barely thirty–broke down, as perhaps she meant that he should, and, elbows sprawling amid the disarray of the meal, poured out all the desolation of his soul, and for the first time cried out in anguish for the woman he had lost. So, as love lay a-bleeding mortally pierced, Ursula Win wood wept unaccustomed tears and with tender fingers strove to staunch the wound.

CHAPTER XIX

DAYS of strain followed: days of a thousand engagements, a thousand interviews, a thousand journeyings, a thousand speeches; days in which he was reduced to an unresisting automaton, mechanically uttering the same formulas; days in which the irresistible force of the campaign swept him along without volition. And day followed day and not a sign came from the Princess Zobraska either of condonation or resentment. It was as though she had gathered her skirts around her and gone disdainfully out of his life for ever. If speaking were to be done, it was for her to speak. Paul could not plead. It was he who, in a way, had cast her off. In effect he had issued the challenge: “I am a child of the gutter, an adventurer masquerading under an historical name, and you are a royal princess. Will you marry me now?” She had given her answer, by walking out of the room, her proud head in the air. It was final, as far as he was concerned. He could do nothing–not even beg his dearest lady to plead for him. Besides, rumour had it that the Princess had cancelled her town engagements and gone to Morebury. So he walked in cold and darkness, uninspired, and though he worked with feverish energy, the heart and purpose of his life were gone.

As in his first speech, so in his campaign, he failed. He had been chosen for his youth, his joyousness, his magnetism, his radiant promise of great things to come. He went about the constituency an, anxious, haggard man, working himself to death without being able to awaken a spark of emotion in the heart of anybody. He lost ground daily. On the other hand, Silas Finn, with his enthusiasms, and his aspect of an inspired prophet, made alarming progress. He swept the multitude. Paul Savelli, the young man of the social moment, had an army of helpers, members of Parliament making speeches, friends on the Unionist press writing flamboyant leaders, fair ladies in automobiles hunting for voters through the slums of Hickney Heath. Silas Finn had scarcely a personal friend. But hope reigned among his official supporters, whereas depression began to descend over Paul’s brilliant host.

“They want stirring up a bit,” said the Conservative agent despondently. “I hear old Finn’s meetings go with a bang. They nearly raised the roof off last night. We want some roof-raising on this side.”

“I do my best,” said Paul coldly, but the reproach cut deep. He was a failure. No nervous or intellectual effort could save him now, though he spent himself to the last heartbeat. He was the sport of a mocking Will o’ the Wisp which he had taken for Destiny.

Once on coming out of his headquarters he met Silas, who was walking up the street with two or three of his committee-men. In accordance with the ordinary amenities of English political life, the two candidates shook hands, and withdrew a pace or two aside to chat for a while. This was the first time they had come together since the afternoon of revelation, and there was a moment of constraint during which Silas tugged at his streaked beard and looked with mournful wistfulness at his son.

“I wish I were not your opponent, Paul,” said he in a low voice, so as not to be overheard.

“That doesn’t matter a bit,” Paul replied courteously. “I see you’re putting up an excellent fight.”

“It’s the Lord’s battle. If it weren’t, do you think I would not let you win?”

The same old cry. Through sheer repetition, Paul began almost to believe in it. He felt very weary. In his father’s eyes he recognized, with a pang, the glow of a faith which he had lost. Their likeness struck him, and he saw himself, his old self, beneath the unquestioning though sorrowful eyes.

“That’s the advantage of a belief in the Almighty’s personal interest,” he answered, with a touch of irony: “whatever happens, one is not easily disillusioned.”

“That is true, my son,” said Silas.

“Jane is well?” Paul asked, after an instant’s pause, breaking off the profitless discussion.

“Very well.”

“And Barney Bill?”

“He upbraids me bitterly for what I have said.”

Paul smiled at the curiously stilted phrase.

“Tell him from me not to do it. My love to them both.”

They shook hands again, and Paul drove off in the motor car that had been placed at his disposal during the election, and Silas continued his sober walk with his committee-men up the muddy street. Whereupon Paul conceived a sudden hatred for the car. It was but the final artistic touch to this comedy of mockery of which he had been the victim. . . . Perhaps God was on his father’s side, after all–on the side of them who humbly walked and not of them who rode in proud chariots. But his political creed, his sociological convictions rose in protest. How could the Almighty be in league with all that was subversive of social order, all that was destructive to Imperial cohesion, all that which inevitably tended to England’s downfall?

He turned suddenly to his companion, the Conservative agent.

“Do you think God has got common sense?”

The agent, not being versed in speculations regarding the attributes of the Deity, stared; then, disinclined to commit himself, took refuge in platitude.

“God moves in a mysterious way, Mr. Savelli.”

“That’s rot,” said Paul. “If there’s an Almighty, He must move in a common-sense way; otherwise the whole of this planet would have busted up long ago. Do you think it’s common sense to support the present Government?”

“Certainly not,” said the agent, fervently.

“Then if God supported it, it wouldn’t be common sense on His part. It would be merely mysterious?”

“I see what you’re driving at,” said the agent. “Our opponent undoubtedly has been making free with the name of the Almighty in his speeches. As a matter of fact he’s rather crazy on the subject. I don’t think it would be a bad move to make a special reference to it. It’s all damned hypocrisy. There’s a chap in the old French play–what’s his name?”

“Tartuffe.”

“That’s it. Well, there you are. That speech of his yesterday–now why don’t you take it and wring religiosity and hypocrisy and Tartuffism out of it? You know how to do that sort of thing. You can score tremendously. I never thought of it before. By George! you can get him in the neck if you like.”

“But I don’t like,” said Paul. “I happen to know that Mr. Finn is sincere in his convictions.”

“But, my dear sir, what does his supposed sincerity matter in political contest?”

“It’s the difference between dirt and cleanliness,” said Paul. “Besides, as I told you at the outset, Mr. Finn and I are close personal friends, and I have the highest regard for his character. He has seen that his side has scrupulously refrained from personalities with regard to me, and I insist on the same observance with regard to him.”

“With all due deference to you, Mr. Savelli, you were called only the day before yesterday ‘the spoiled darling of Duchesses’ boudoirs.'”

“It wasn’t with Mr. Finn’s cognizance. I’ve found that out.”

“Well,” said the agent, leaning back-in the luxurious limousine, “I don’t see why somebody, without your cognizance, shouldn’t call Mr. Finn the spoiled minion of the Almighty’s ante-chamber. That’s a devilish good catch-phrase,” he added, starting forward in the joy of his newborn epigram: “Devilish good. ‘The spoiled minion of the Almighty’s ante-chamber.’ It’ll become historical.”

“If it does,” said Paul, “it will be associated with the immediate retirement of the Conservative candidate.”

“Do you really mean that?”

It was Paul’s turn to start forward. “My dear Wilson,” said he, “if you or anybody else thinks I’m a man to talk through his hat, I’ll retire at once. I don’t care a damn about myself. Not a little tuppenny damn. What the devil does it matter to me whether I get into Parliament or not? Nothing. Not a tuppenny damn. You can’t understand. It’s the party and the country. For myself, personally, the whole thing can go to blazes. I’m in earnest, dead earnest,” he continued, with a vehemence incomprehensible to Wilson. “If anybody doesn’t think so, I’ll clear out at once”–he snapped his fingers. “But while I’m candidate everything I say I mean. I mean it intensely–with all my soul. And I say that if there’s a single insulting reference to Mr. Finn during this election, you’ll be up against the wreck of your own political career.”

The agent watched the workings of his candidate’s dark clear-cut face. He was very proud of his candidate, and found it difficult to realize that there were presumably sane people who would not vote for him on sight. A lingering memory of grammar school days flashed on him when he told his wife later of the conversation, and he likened Paul to a wrathful Apollo. Anxious to appease the god, he said humbly:

“It was the merest of suggestions, Mr. Savelli. Heaven knows we don’t want to descend to personalities, and your retirement would be an unqualifiable disaster. But–you’ll pardon my mentioning it– you began this discussion by asking me whether the Almighty had common sense.”

“Well, has He or not?”

“Of course,” said Wilson.

“Then we’re going to win this election,” said Paul.

If he could have met enthusiasm with enthusiasm, all would have been well. The awakener of England could have captivated hearts by glowing pictures of a great and glorious future. It would have been a counter-blaze to that lit by his opponent, which flamed in all the effulgence of a reckless reformer’s promise, revealing a Utopia in which there would be no drunkenness, no crime, no poverty, and in which the rich, apparently, would have to work very hard in order to support the poor in comfortable idleness. But beyond proving fallacies, Paul could do nothing–and even then, has there ever been a mob since the world began susceptible to logical argument? So, all through the wintry days of the campaign, Silas Finn carried his fiery cross through the constituency, winning frenzied adherents, while Paul found it hard to rally the faithful round the drooping standard of St. George.

The days went on. Paul addressed his last meeting on the eve of the poll. By a supreme effort he regained some of his former fire and eloquence. He drove home exhausted, and going straight to bed slept like a dog till morning.

The servant who woke him brought a newspaper to the bedside.

“Something to interest you, sir.”

Paul looked at the headline indicated by the man.

“Hickney Heath Election. Liberal Candidate’s Confession. Extraordinary Scene.”

He glanced hurriedly down the column and read with amazement and stabbing pain the matter that was of interest. The worst had happened–the thing which during all his later life Silas Finn had feared. The spectre of the prison had risen up against him.

Towards the end of Silas Finn’s speech, at his last great meeting, a man, sitting in the body of the hall near the platform, got up and interrupted him. “What about your own past life? What about your three years’ penal servitude?” All eyes were turned from the man– a common looking, evil man–to the candidate, who staggered as if he had been shot, caught at the table behind him for support and stared in greyfaced terror. There was an angry tumult, and the interrupter would have fared badly, but for Silas Finn holding up his hand and imploring silence.

“I challenge the candidate to deny,” said the man, as soon as he could be heard, “that his real name is Silas Kegworthy, and that he underwent three years’ penal servitude for murderously assaulting his wife.”

Then the candidate braced himself and said: “The bare facts are true. But I have lived stainlessly in the fear of God and in the service of humanity for thirty years. I have sought absolution for a moment of mad anger under awful provocation in unremitting prayer and in trying to save the souls and raise the fortunes of my fellow-men. Is that all you have against me?”

“That’s all,” said the man.

“It is for you, electors of Hickney Heath, to judge me.”

He sat down amid tumultuous cheers, and the man who had interrupted him, after some rough handling, managed to make his escape. The chairman then put a vote of confidence in the candidate, which was carried by acclamation, and the meeting broke up.

Such were the essential facts in the somewhat highly coloured newspaper story which Paul read in stupefied horror. He dressed quickly and went to his sitting-room, where he rang tip his father’s house on the telephone. Jane’s voice met his ear.

“It’s Paul speaking,” he replied. “I’ve just this moment read of last night. I’m shaken to my soul. How is my father?”

“He’s greatly upset,” came the voice. “He didn’t sleep all night, and he’s not at all well this morning. Oh, it was a cruel, cowardly blow.”

“Dastardly. Do you know who it was?”

“No. Don’t you?”

“I? Does either of you think that I–?”

“No, no,” came the voice, now curiously tearful. “I didn’t mean that. I forgot you’ve not had time to find out.”

“Who does he think it was?”

“Some old fellow prisoner who had a grudge against him.”

“Were you at the meeting?”

“Yes. Oh, Paul, it was splendid to see him face the audience. He spoke so simply and with such sorrowful dignity. He had their sympathy at once. But it has broken him. I’m afraid he’ll never be the same man again. After all these years it’s dreadful.”

“It’s all that’s damnable. It’s tragic. Give him my love and tell him that words can’t express my sorrow and indignation.”

He rang off. Almost immediately Wilson was announced. He carne into the room radiant.

“You were right about the divine common-sensicality,” said he. “The Lord has delivered our adversary into our hands with a vengeance.”

He was a chubby little man of forty, with coarse black hair and scrubby moustache, not of the type that readily appreciates the delicacies of a situation. Paul conceived a sudden loathing for him.

“I would give anything for it not to have happened,” he said.

Wilson opened his eyes. “Why? It’s our salvation. An ex-convict– it’s enough to damn any candidate. But we want to make sure. Now I’ve got an idea.”

Paul turned on him angrily. “I’ll have no capital made out of it whatsoever. It’s a foul thing to bring such an accusation up against a man who has lived a spotless life for thirty years. Everything in me goes out in sympathy with him, and I’ll let it be known all through the constituency.”

“If you take it that way,” said Wilson, “there’s no more to be done.”

“There’s nothing to be done, except to find out who put up the man to make the announcement.”

“He did it on his own,” Wilson replied warmly. “None of our people would resort to a dirty trick like that.”

“And yet you want me to take advantage of it now it’s done.”

“That’s quite a different matter.”

“I can’t see much difference,” said Paul.

So Wilson, seeing that his candidate was more unmanageable than ever, presently departed, and Paul sat down to breakfast. But he could not eat. He was both stricken with shame and moved to the depths by immense pity. Far removed from him as Silas Finn was in mode of life and ideals, he found much in common with his father. Each had made his way from the slum, each had been guided by an inner light–was Silas Finn’s fantastic belief less of an ignis fatuus than his own?–each had sought to get away from a past, each was a child of Ishmael, each, in his own way, had lived romantically. Whatever resentment against his father lingered in his heart now melted away. He was very near him. The shame of the prison struck him as it had struck the old man. He saw him bowed down under the blow, and he clenched his hands in a torture of anger and indignation. And to crown all, came the intolerable conviction, in the formation of which Wilson’s triumphant words had not been necessary, that if he won the election it would be due to this public dishonouring of his own father. He walked about the room in despair, and at last halted before the mantelpiece on which still stood the photograph of the Princess in its silver frame. Suddenly he remembered that he had not told her of this incident in his family history. She too would be reading her newspaper this morning. He saw her proud lips curl. The son of a gaol-bird! He tore the photograph from its frame and threw it into the fire and watched it burn. As the paper writhed under the heat, the lips seemed to twist into sad reproach. He turned away impatiently. That romantic madness was over and done with. He had far sterner things to do than shriek his heart out over a woman in an alien star. He had his life to reconstruct in the darkness threatening and mocking; but at last he had truth for a foundation; on that he would build in defiance of the world.

In the midst of these fine thoughts it occurred to him that he had hidden the prison episode in his father’s career from the Winwoods as well as from the Princess. His checks flushed; it was one more strain on the loyalty of these dear devoted friends. He went downstairs, and found the Colonel and Miss Winwood in the dining-room. Their faces were grave. He came to them with outstretched arms–a familiar gesture, one doubtless inherited from his Sicilian ancestry.

“You see what has happened. I knew all the time. I didn’t tell you. You must forgive me.”

“I don’t blame you, my boy,” said Colonel Winwood. “It was your father’s secret. You had no right to tell us.”

“We’re very grieved, dear, for both your sakes,” Ursula added. “James has taken the liberty of sending round a message of sympathy.”

As ever, these two had gone a point beyond his anticipation of their loyalty. He thanked them simply.

“It’s hateful,” said he, “to think I may win the election on account of this. It’s loathsome.” He shuddered.

“I quite agree with you,” said the Colonel. “But in politics one has often to put up with hateful things in order to serve one’s country. That’s the sacrifice a high-minded man is called upon to make.”

“Besides,” said Miss Winwood, “let us hope it won’t affect votes. All the papers say that the vote of confidence was passed amid scenes of enthusiasm.”

Paul smiled. They understood. A little while later they drove off with him to his committee room in the motor car gay with his colours. There was still much to be done that day.

CHAPTER XX

HICKNEY HEATH blazed with excitement. It is not every day that a thrill runs through a dull London borough, not even every election day. For a London borough, unlike a country town, has very little corporate life of its own. You cannot get up as much enthusiasm for Kilburn, say, as a social or historical entity, as you can for Winchester or Canterbury. You may perform civic duties, if you are public-spirited enough, with business-like zeal, and if you are borough councillor you may be proud of the nice new public baths which you have been instrumental in presenting to the community. But the ordinary man in the street no more cares for Kilburn than he does for Highgate. He would move from one to the other without a pang. For neither’s glory would he shed a drop of his blood. Only at election times does it occur to him that he is one of a special brotherhood, isolated from the rest of London; and even then he regards the constituency as a convention defining. geographical limits for the momentary range of his political passions. So that the day when an electric thrill ran through the whole of Hickney Heath was a rare one in its uninspiring annals.

The dramatic had happened, touching the most sluggish imaginations. The Liberal candidate for Parliament, a respected Borough Councillor, a notorious Evangelical preacher, had publicly confessed himself an ex-convict. Every newspaper in London–and for the matter of that, every newspaper in Great Britain–rang with the story, and every man, woman and child in Hickney Heath read feverishly every newspaper, morning and evening, they could lay their hands on. Also, every man, woman and child in Hickney Heath asked his neighbour for further details. All who could leave desk and shop or factory poured into the streets to learn the latest, tidings. Around the various polling stations the crowd was thickest. Those electors who had been present at Silas Finn’s meeting, the night before, told the story at first-hand to eager groups. Rumours of every sort spread through the mob. The man who had put the famous question was an agent of the Tories. It was a smart party move. Silas Finn had all the time been leading a double life. Depravities without number were laid to his charge. Even now the police were inquiring into his connection with certain burglaries that had taken place in the neighbourhood. And where was he that day? Who had seen him? He was at home drunk. He had committed suicide. Even if he hadn’t, and was elected, he would not be allowed to take his seat in Parliament.

On the other hand, those in whose Radical bosoms burned fierce hatred for the Tories, spoke loud in condemnation of their cowardly tactics. There was considerable free-fighting in the ordinarily dismal and decorous streets of Hickney Heath. Noisy acclamations hailed the automobiles, carriages and waggonettes bringing voters of both parties to the polls. Paul, driving in his gaily-decked car about the constituency, shared all these demonstrations and heard these rumours. The latter he denied and caused to be denied, as far as lay in his power. In the broad High Street, thronged with folk, and dissonant with tram cars and motor ‘buses, he came upon a quarrelsome crowd looking up at a window above a poulterer’s shop, from which hung something white, like a strip of wall paper.

Approaching, he perceived that it bore a crude drawing of a convict and “Good old Dartmoor” for legend. White with anger, he stopped the car, leaped out on to the curb, and pushing his way through the crowd, entered the shop. He seized one of the white-coated assistants by the arm. “Show me the way to that first-floor room,” he cried fiercely.

The assistant, half-dragged, half-leading, and wholly astonished, took him through the shop and pointed to the staircase. Paul sprang up and dashed through the door into the room, which appeared to be some business office. Three or four young men, who turned grinning from the window, be thrust aside, and plucking the offending strip from the drawing-pins which secured it to the sill, he tore it across and across.

“You cads! You brutes!” he shouted, trampling on the fragments. “Can’t you fight like Englishmen?”

The young men, realizing the identity of the wrathful apparition, stared open-mouthed, turned red, and said nothing. Paul strode out, looking very fierce, and drove off in his car amid the cheers of the crowd, to which he paid no notice.

“It makes me sick!” he cried passionately to Wilson, who was with him. “I hope to God he wins in spite, of it!”

“What about the party?” asked Wilson.

Paul damned the party. He was in the overwrought mood in which a man damns everything. Quagmire and bramble and the derision of Olympus-that was the end of his vanity of an existence. Suppose he was elected–what then? He would be a failure-the high gods in their mirth would see to that–a puppet in Frank Ayres’ hands until the next general election, when be would have ignominiously to retire. Awakener of England indeed! He could not even awaken Hickney Heath. As he dashed through the streets in his triumphal car, he hated Hickney Heath, hated the wild “hoorays” of waggon-loads of his supporters on their way to the polls, hated the smug smiles of his committee-men at polling stations. He forgot that he did not hate England. A little black disk an inch or two in diameter if cunningly focussed can obscure the sun in heaven from human eye. There was England still behind the little black disk, though Paul for the moment saw it not.

Wilson pulled his scrubby moustache and made no retort to Paul’s anathema. To him Paul was one of the fine flower of the Upper Classes to which lower middle-class England still, with considerable justification, believes to be imbued with incomprehensible and unalterable principles of conduct. The grand old name of gentleman still has its magic in this country–and is, by the way, not without its influence in one or two mighty republics wherein the equality of man is very loudly proclaimed. Wilson, therefore, gladly suffered Paul’s lunatic Quixotry. For himself he approved hugely of the cartoon. If he could have had his way, Hickney Heath would have flamed with poster reproductions of it. But he had a dim appreciation of, and a sneaking admiration for, the aristocrat’s point of view, and, being a practical man, evaded a discussion on the ethics of the situation.

The situation was rendered more extraordinary because the Liberal candidate made no appearance in the constituency. Paul inquired anxiously. No one had seen him. After lunch he drove alone to his father’s house. The parlour-maid showed him into the hideously furnished and daub-hung dining-room. The Viennese horrors of plaster stags, gnomes and rabbits stared fatuously on the hearth. No fire was in the grate. Very soon Jane entered, tidy, almost matronly in buxom primness, her hair as faultless as if it had come out of a convoluted mould, her grave eyes full of light. She gave him her capable hand.

“It’s like you to come, Paul.”

“It’s only decent. My father hasn’t shown up. What’s the matter with him?”

“It’s a bit of a nervous breakdown,” she said, looking at him steadily. “Nothing serious. But the doctor–I sent for him–says he had better rest–and his committee people thought it wiser for him not to show himself.”

“Can I see him?”

“Certainly not.” A look of alarm came into her face. “You’re both too excited. What would you say to him?”

“I’d tell him what I feel about the whole matter.”

“Yes. You would fling your arms about, and he would talk about God, and a precious lot of good it would do to anybody. No, thank you. I’m in charge of Mr. Finn’s health.”

It was the old Jane, so familiar. “I wish,” said he, with a smile– “I wish I had had your common sense to guide me all these years.”

“If you had, you would now be a clerk in the City earning thirty shillings a week.”

“And perhaps a happier man.”

“Bosh, my dear Paul!” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Rot! Rubbish! I know you too well. You adding up figures at thirty shillings a week, with a common sense wife for I suppose you mean that–mending your socks and rocking the cradle in a second-floor back in Hickney Heath! No, my dear”–she paused for a second or two and her lips twitched oddly–“common sense would have been the death of you.”

He laughed in spite of himself. It was so true.

Common sense might have screwed him to a thirty shillings-a-week desk: the fantastic had brought him to that very house, a candidate for Parliament, in a thousand-guinea motor car. On the other hand– and his laughter faded from his eyes–the fantastic in his life was dead. Henceforward common sense would hold him in her cold and unstimulating clasp. He said something of the sort to Jane. Once more she ejaculated “Rot, rubbish and bosh!” and they quarrelled as they had done in their childhood.

“You talk as if I didn’t know you inside out, my dear Paul,” she said in her clear, unsmiling way. “Listen. All men are donkeys, aren’t they?”

“For the sake of argument, I agree.”

“Well–there are two kinds of donkeys. One kind is meek and mild and will go wherever it is driven. The other, in order to get along, must always have a bunch of carrots dangling before its eyes. That’s you.”

“But confound it all!” he cried, “I’ve lost my carrots–can’t you see? I’ll never have any carrots again. That’s the whole damned tragedy.”

For the first time she smiled–the smile of the woman wiser in certain subtle things than the man. “my dear,” she said, “carrots are cheap.” She paused for an instant and added, “Thank God!”

Paul squeezed her arms affectionately and they moved apart. He sighed. “They’re the most precious things in the world,” said he.

“The most precious things in the world are those which you can get for nothing,” said Jane.

“You’re a dear,” said he, “and a comfort.”

Presently he left her and returned to his weary round of the constituency, feeling of stouter heart, with a greater faith in the decent ordering of mundane things. .A world containing such women as Jane and Ursula Winwood possessed elements of sanity. Outside one of the polling stations he found Barney Bill holding forth excitedly to a knot of working-men. He ceased as the car drove up, and cast back a broad proud smile at the candidate’s warm greeting.

“I got up the old ‘bus so nice and proper, with all your colours and posters, and it would have been a spectacular Diorama for these ‘ere poor people; but you know for why I didn’t bring it out to-day, don’t you, sonny?”

“I know, dear old friend,” said Paul.

“I ‘adn’t the ‘cart to.”

“What were you speechifying about when I turned up?”

Barney Bill jerked a backward thumb. “I was telling this pack of cowardly Radicals that though I’ve been a Tory born and bred for sixty odd years, and though I’ve voted for you, Silas Finn, for all he was in prison while most of them were sucking wickedness and Radicalism out of Nature’s founts, is just as good a man as what you are. They was saying, yer see, they was Radicals, but on account of Silas being blown upon, they was going to vote for you. So I tells ’em, I says, ‘Mr. Savelli would scorn your dirty votes. If yer feel low and Radical, vote Radical. Mr. Savelli wants to play fair. I know both of ’em,’ I says, ‘both of ’em intimately.’ And they begins to laugh, as if I was talking through my hat. Anyway, they see now I know you, sonny.”

Paul laughed and clapped the loyal old man on the shoulder. Then he turned to the silent but interested group. “Gentlemen,” said he, “I don’t want to inquire on which side you are; but you can take it from me that whatever my old friend Mr. Simmons says about Mr. Finn and myself is the absolute truth. If you’re on Mr. Finn’s side in politics, in God’s name vote for him. He’s a noble, high-souled man and I’m proud of his private friendship.”

He drew Barney Bill apart. “You’re the only Tory in the place who can try to persuade people not to vote for me. I wish you would keep on doing it.”

“I’ve been a-doing of it ever since the polls opened this morning,” said Barney Bill. Then he cocked his head on one side and his little eyes twinkled: “It’s an upside-down way of fighting an election to persuade people not to vote for you, isn’t it?”

“Everything is topsy-turvy with me, these days,” Paul replied: “so we’ve just got to stand on our heads and make the best of it.”

And he drove off in the gathering dusk.

Night found him in the great chamber of the Town Hall, with his agent and members of his committee. Present too were the Liberal Agent and the members of the Liberal Committee. At one end of the room sat the Mayor of the Borough in robe and chain of office, presiding over the proceedings. The Returning Officer and his staff sat behind long tables, on which were deposited the sealed ballot boxes brought in from the various polling stations; and these were emptied and the votes were counted, the voting papers for each candidate being done up in bundles of fifty. Knots of committee-men of both parties stood chatting in low voices. In an ordinary election both candidates would have chatted together, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred about golf, and would have made an engagement to meet again in milder conflict that day week. But here Paul was the only candidate to appear, and he sat in a cane-bottomed chair apart from the lounging politicians, feeling curiously an interloper in this vast, solemn and scantily-filled hall. He was very tired, too tired in body, mind and soul to join in the small-talk of Wilson and his bodyguard. Besides, they all wore the air of anticipated victory, and for that he held them in detestation. He had detested them the whole day long. The faces that yesterday had been long and anxious to-day had been wreathed in smirks. Wherever he had gone he had found promise of victory in his father’s disgrace. Passionately the young man, fronting vital issues, longed for his own defeat.

But for the ironical interposition of the high gods, it might have been so different. Any other candidate against him, he himself buoyed up with his own old glorious faith, his Princess, dazzling meteor illuminating the murky streets–dear God! what would not have been the joy of battle during the past week, what would not have been the intense thrill, the living of a thousand lives in these few hours of suspense now so dull with dreariness and pain! He sat apart, his legs crossed, a hand over his eyes. Wilson and his men, puzzled by his apparent apathy, left him alone. It is not much use addressing a mute and wooden idol, no matter how physically prepossessing.

The counting went on slowly, relentlessly, and the bundles of fifty on each side grew in bulk, and Paul’s side bulked larger than Silas Finn’s.

At last Wilson could stand it no longer. He left the group with which he was talking, and came to Paul. “We’re far ahead already,” he cried excitedly. “I told you last night would do the trick.”

“Last night,” said Paul, rising and stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets, “my opponent’s supporters passed a vote of confidence in him in a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm.”

“Quite so,” replied Wilson. “A crowd is generous and easily swayed. A theatrical audience of scalliwags and thieves will howl applause at the triumph of virtue and the downfall of the villain; and each separate member will go out into the street and begin to practise villainy and say ‘to hell with virtue.’ If last night’s meeting could have polled on the spot, they would have been as one man. To-day they’re scattered and each individual revises his excited opinion. Your hard-bitten Radical would sooner have a self-made man than an aristocrat to represent him in Parliament; but, damn it all, he’d sooner have an aristocrat than an ex-convict.”

“But who the devil told you I’m an aristocrat?” cried Paul.

Wilson laughed. “Who wants to be told such an obvious thing? Anyhow, you’ve only got to look and you’ll see how the votes are piling tip.”