CHAPTER XVI
I LOVE you too much, my Sophie, to be called the Princess Zobraska's
husband."
"And I love you too much, dear, to wish to be called anything else
than Paul Savelli's wife."
That was their position, perfectly defined, perfectly understood.
They had arrived at it after many arguments and kisses and lovers'
protestations.
"Such as I am I am," cried Paul. "A waif and stray, an unknown
figure coming out of the darkness. I have nothing to give you but my
love."
"Are there titles or riches on earth of equal value?"
"But I must give you more. The name Paul Savelli itself must be a
title of honour."
"It is becoming that," said the Princess. "And we can wait a little,
Paul, can't we? We are so happy like this. Ah!" she sighed. "I have
never been so happy in my life."
"Nor I," said Paul.
"And am I really the first?"
"The first. Believe it or not as you like. But it's a fact. I've
told you my life's dream. I never sank below it; and that is why
perhaps it has come true."
For once the assertion was not the eternal lie. Paul came
fresh-hearted to his Princess.
"I wish I were a young girl, Paul."
"You are a star turned woman. The Star of my Destiny in which I
always believed. The great things will soon come."
They descended to more commonplace themes. Until the great things
came, what should be their mutual attitude before Society?
"Until I can claim you, let it be our dear and beautiful secret,"
said Paul. "I would not have it vulgarized by the chattering world
for anything in life."
Then Paul proved himself to be a proud and delicate lover, and when
London with its season and its duties and its pleasures absorbed
them, he had his reward. For it was sweet to see her in great
assemblies, shining like a queen and like a queen surrounded by
homage, and to know that he alone of mortals was enthroned in her
heart. It was sweet to meet her laughing glance, dear
fellow-conspirator. It was sweet every morning and night to have the
intimate little talk through the telephone. And it was sweetest of
all to snatch a precious hour with her alone. Of such vain and
foolish things is made all that is most beautiful in life.
He took his dearest lady--though Miss Winwood, now disclaimed the
title--into his confidence. So did the Princess. It was very
comforting to range Miss Winwood on their side; and to feel
themselves in close touch with her wisdom and sympathy. And her
sympathy manifested itself in practical ways--those of the woman
confidante of every love affair since the world began. Why should
the Princess Zobraska not interest herself in some of the
philanthropic schemes of which the house in Portland Place was the
headquarters? There was one, a Forlorn Widows' Fund, the presidency
of which she would be willing to resign in favour of the Princess.
The work was trivial: it consisted chiefly in consultation with Mr.
Savelli and in signing letters. The Princess threw her arms round
her neck, laughing and blushing and calling her delicieuse. You see
it was obvious that Mr. Savelli could not be consulted in his
official capacity or official letters signed elsewhere than in
official precincts.
"I'll do what I can for the pair of you," said Miss Winwood to Paul.
"But it's the most delightfully mad and impossible thing I've ever
put my hand to."
Accepting the fact of their romance, however, she could not but
approve Paul's attitude. It was the proud attitude of the boy who
nearly six years ago was going, without a word, penniless and
debonair out of her house. All the woman in her glowed over him.
"I'm not going to be called an adventurer," he had declared. "I
shall not submit Sophie to the indignity of trailing a despised
husband after her. I'm not going to use her rank and wealth as a
stepping-stone to my ambitions. Let me first attain an unassailable
position. I shall have owed it to you, to myself, to anybody you
like--but not to my marriage. I shall be somebody. The rest won't
matter. The marriage will then be a romantic affair, and romantic
affairs are not unpopular dans le monde ou l'on s'ennuie."
This declaration was all very well; the former part all very noble,
the latter exhibiting a knowledge of the world rather shrewd for one
so young. But when would he be able to attain his unassailable
position? Some years hence. Would Sophie Zobraska, who was only a
few months younger than he, be content to sacrifice these splendid
and irretrievable years of her youth? Ursula Winwood looked into the
immediate future, and did not see it rosy. The first step toward an
unassailable position was flight from the nest. This presupposed an
income. If the party had been in power it would not have been
difficult to find him a post. She worried herself exceedingly, for
in her sweet and unreprehensible way she was more than ever in love
with Paul. Meeting Frank Ayres one night at a large reception, she
sought his advice.
"Do you mind a wrench?" he asked. "No? Well, then--you and Colonel
Winwood send him about his business and get another secretary. Let
Savelli give all his time to his Young England League. Making him
mug up material for Winwood's speeches and write letters to
constituents about football clubs is using a razor to cut butter.
His League's the thing. It can surely afford to pay him a decent
salary. If it can't I'll see to a guarantee."
"The last thing we see, my dear Frank," she said after she had
thanked him, "is that which is right under our noses."
The next day she went to Paul full of the scheme. Had he ever
thought of it? He took her hands and smiled in his gay, irresistible
way. "Of course, dearest lady," he said frankly. "But I would have
cut out my tongue sooner than suggest it."
"I know that, my dear boy."
"And yet," said he, "I can't bear the idea of tearing myself away
from you. It seems like black ingratitude."
"It isn't. You forget that James and I have our little ambitions
too--the ambition of a master for a favourite pupil. If you were a
failure we should both be bitterly disappointed. Don't you see? And
as for leaving us--why need you? We should miss you horribly.
You've never been quite our paid servant. And now you're something
like our son." Tears started in the sweet lady's clear eyes. "Even
if you did go to your own chambers, I shouldn't let our new
secretary have this room"--they were in what the household called
"the office"--really Paul's luxuriously furnished private sitting
room, which contained his own little treasures of books and pictures
and bits of china and glass accumulated during the six years of
easeful life--"He will have the print room, which nobody uses from
one year's end to another, and which is far more convenient for the
street door. And the same at Drane's Court. So when you no longer
work for us, my dear boy, our home will be yours, as long as you're
content to stay, just because we love you."
Her hand was on his shoulder and his head was bent. "God grant,"
said he, "that I may be worthy of your love."
He looked up and met her eyes. Her hand was still on his shoulder.
Then very simply he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
He told his Princess all about it. She listened with dewy eyes. "Ah,
Paul," she said. "That 'precious seeing' of love--I never had it
till you came. I was blind. I never knew that there were such
beautiful souls as Ursula Winwood in the world."
"Dear, how I love you for saying that!" cried Paul.
"But it's true."
"That is why," said he.
So the happiest young man in London worked and danced through the
season, knowing that the day of emancipation was at hand. His
transference from the Winwoods to the League was fixed for October
i. He made great plans for an extension of the League's, activities,
dreamed of a palace for headquarters with the banner of St. George
flying proudly over it, an object-lesson for the nation. One day in
July while. he was waiting for Colonel Winwood in the lobby of the
House of Commons, Frank Ayres stopped in the middle of a busy rush
and shook hands.
"Been down to Hickney Heath again? I would if I were you. Rouse 'em
up."
As the words of a Chief Whip are apt to be significant, Paul
closeted himself with the President of the Hickney Heath Lodge, who
called the Secretary of the local Conservative Association to the
interview. The result was that Paul was invited to speak at an
anti-Budget meeting convened by the Association. He spoke, and
repeated his success. The Conservative newspapers the next morning
gave a resume of his speech. His Sophie, coming to sign letters in
her presidential capacity, brought him the cuttings, a proceeding
which he thought adorable. The season ended triumphantly.
For a while he lost his Princess. She went to Cowes, then to stay
with French relations in a chateau in the Dordogne. Paul went off
yachting with the Chudleys and returned for the shooting to Drane's
Court. In the middle of September the Winwoods' new secretary
arrived and received instruction in his duties. Then came the
Princess to Morebury Park. "Dearest," she said, in his arms, "I
never want to leave you again. France is no longer France for me
since I have England in my heart."
"You remember that? My wonderful Princess!"
He found her more woman, more expansive, more bewitchingly
caressing. Absence had but brought her nearer. When she laid her
head on his shoulder and murmured in the deep and subtle tones of
her own language: "My Paul, it seems such a waste of time to be
apart," it took all his pride and will to withstand the maddening
temptation. He vowed that the time would soon come when he could
claim her, and went away in feverish search for worlds to conquer.
Then came October and London once more.
* * * * * *
Paul was dressing for dinner one evening when a reply-paid telegram
was brought to him.
"If selected by local committee will you stand for Hickney Heath?
Ayres."
He sat on his bed, white and trembling, and stared at the simple
question. The man-servant stood imperturbable, silver tray in hand.
Seeing the reply-paid form, he waited for a few moments.
"Is there an answer, sir?"
Paul nodded, asked for a pencil, and with a shaky hand wrote the
reply. "Yes," was all he said.
Then with reaction came the thrill of mighty exultation, and,
throwing on his clothes, he rushed to the telephone in his sitting
room. Who first to hear the wondrous news but his Princess? That
there was a vacancy in Hickney Heath he knew, as all Great Britain
knew; for Ponting, the Radical Member, had died suddenly the day
before. But it had never entered his head that he could be chosen as
a candidate.
"Mais j'y ai bien pense, moi," came the voice through the telephone.
"Why did Lord Francis tell you to go to Hickney Heath last July?"
How a woman leaps at things 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.
