'If only he had been as well advised in other matters,' said Mr. Selwyn.

Then Hiram Borringer, who had hitherto kept silent, after his wont, spoke.

'I knew him,' he said, 'some years ago, when I was in Gloria.'

Everybody looked at once and with interest at the speaker. Hiram seemed slightly embarrassed at the attention he aroused; but he was not allowed to escape from explanation.

'Did you really?' said Sir Rupert. 'How very interesting! What sort of man did you find him?'

Helena said nothing, but she fixed her dark eyes eagerly on Hiram's face and listened, with slightly parted lips, all expectation.

'I found him a big man,' Hiram answered. 'I don't mean big in bulk, for he's not that; but big in nature, the man to make an empire and boss it.'

'A splendid type of man,' said Mrs. Selwyn, clasping her hands enthusiastically. 'A man to stand at Caesar's side and give directions.'

'Quite so,' Hiram responded gravely; 'quite so, madam. I met him first just before he was elected President, and that's five years ago.'

'Rather a curious thing making an Englishman President, wasn't it?' Mr. Selwyn inquired. At Sir Rupert's Mr. Selwyn always displayed a profound interest in all political questions.

'Oh, he is a naturalised citizen of Gloria, of course,' said Soame Rivers, deftly insinuating his knowledge before Hiram could reply.

'But I thought,' said the Duke, 'that in those South American Republics, as in the United States, a man has to be born in the country to attain to its highest office.'

'That is so,' said Hiram. 'Though I fancy his friends in Gloria wouldn't have stuck at a trifle like that just then. But as a matter of fact he was actually born in Gloria.'

'Was he really?' said Sir Rupert. 'How curious!' To which Mr. Selwyn added, 'And how convenient;' while Mrs. Selwyn inquired how it happened.

'Why, you see,' said Hiram, 'his father was English Consul at Valdorado long ago, and he married a Spanish woman there, and the woman died, and the father seems to have taken it to heart, for he came home, bringing his baby boy with him. I believe the father died soon after he got home.'

Sir Rupert's face had grown slightly graver. Soame Rivers guessed that he was thinking of his own old loss. Helena felt a new thrill of interest in the man whose personality already so much attracted her. Like her, he had hardly known a mother.

'Then was that considered enough?' the Duke asked. 'Was the fact of his having been born there, although the son of an English father, enough, with subsequent naturalisation, to qualify him for the office of President?'

'It was a peculiar case,' said Hiram. 'The point had not been raised before. But, as he happened to have the army at his back, it was concluded then that it would be most convenient for all parties to yield the point. But a good deal has been made of it since by his enemies.'

'I should imagine so,' said Sir Rupert. 'But it really is a very curious position, and I should not like to say myself off-hand how it ought to be decided.'

'The big battalions decided it in his case,' said Mrs. Selwyn.

'Are they big battalions in Gloria?' inquired the Duke.

'Relatively, yes,' Hiram answered. 'It wasn't very much of an army at that time, even for Gloria; but it went solid for him. Now, of course, it's different.'

'How is it different?' This question came from Mr. Selwyn, who put it with an air of profound curiosity.

Hiram explained. 'Why, you see, he introduced the conscription system. He told me he was going to do so, on the plan of some Prussian statesman.'

'Stein,' suggested Soame Rivers.

'Very likely. Every man to take service for a certain time. Well, that made pretty well all Gloria soldiers; it also made him a heap of enemies, and showed them how to make themselves unpleasant. I thought it wasn't a good plan for him or them at the time.'

'Did you tell him so?' asked Sir Rupert.

'Well, I did drop him a hint or two of my ideas, but he wasn't the sort of man to take ideas from anybody. Not that I mean at all that my ideas were of any importance, but he wasn't that sort of man.'

'What sort of man was he, Mr. Borringer?' said Helena impetuously. 'What was he like, mentally, physically, every way? That's what we want to know.'

Hiram knitted his eyebrows, as he always did when he was slightly puzzled. He did not greatly enjoy haranguing the whole company in this way, and he partly regretted having confessed to any knowledge of the Dictator. But he was very fond of Helena, and he saw that she was sincerely interested in the subject, so he went on:

'Well, I seem to be spinning quite a yarn, and I'm not much of a hand at painting a portrait, but I'll do my best.'

'Shall we make it a game of twenty questions?' Mrs. Selwyn suggested. 'We all ask you leading questions, and you answer them categorically.'

Everyone laughed, and Soame Rivers suggested that they should begin by ascertaining his age, height, and fighting weight.

'Well,' said Hiram, 'I guess I can get out my facts without cross-examination.' He had lived a great deal in America, and his speech was full of American colloquialisms. For which reason the beautiful Duchess liked him much.

'He's not very tall, but you couldn't call him short; rather more than middling high; perhaps looks a bit taller than he is, he carries himself so straight. He would have made a good soldier.'

'He did make a good soldier,' the Duke suggested.

'That's true,' said Hiram thoughtfully. 'I was thinking of a man to whom soldiering was his trade, his only trade.'

'But you haven't half satisfied our curiosity,' said Mrs. Selwyn. 'You have only told us that he is a little over the medium height, and that he bears him stiffly up. What of his eyes, what of his hair—his beard? Does he discharge in either your straw-colour beard, your orange tawny beard, your purple-in-grain beard, or your French crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow?'

Hiram looked a little bewildered. 'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' he said. The Duke came to the rescue.

'Mrs. Selwyn's Shakespearean quotation expresses all our sentiments, Mr. Borringer. Give us a faithful picture of the hero of the hour.'

'As for his hair and beard,' Hiram resumed, 'why, they are pretty much like most people's hair and beard—a fairish brown—and his eyes match them. He has very much the sort of favour you might expect from the son of a very fair-haired man and a dark woman. His father was as fair as a Scandinavian, he told me once. He was descended from some old Danish Viking, he said.'

'That helps to explain his belligerent Berserker disposition,' said Sir Rupert.

'A fine type,' said the Duke pensively, and Mr. Selwyn caught him up with 'The finest type in the world. The sort of men who have made our empire what it is;' and he added somewhat confusedly, for his wife's eyes were fixed upon him, and he felt afraid that he was overdoing his part, 'Hawkins, Frobisher, Drake, Rodney, you know.'

'But,' said Helena, who had been very silent, for her, during the interrogation of Hiram, 'I do not feel as if I quite know all I want to know yet.'

'The noble thirst for knowledge does you credit, Miss Langley,' said Soame Rivers pertly.

Miss Langley laughed at him.

'Yes, I want to know all about him. He interests me. He has done something; he casts a shadow, as somebody has said somewhere. I like men who do something, who cast shadows instead of sitting in other people's shadows.'

Soame Rivers smiled a little sourly, and there was a suggestion of acerbity in his voice as he said in a low tone, as if more to himself than as a contribution to the general conversation, 'He has cast a decided shadow over Gloria.' He did not quite like Helena's interest in the dethroned Dictator.

'He made Gloria worth talking about!' Helena retorted. 'Tell me, Mr. Borringer, how did he happen to get to Gloria at all? How did it come in his way to be President and Dictator and all that?'

'Rebellion lay in his way and he found it,' Mrs. Selwyn suggested, whereupon Soame Rivers tapped her playfully upon the wrist, carrying on the quotation with the words of Prince Hal, 'Peace, chewit, peace.' Mr. Soame Rivers was a very free-and-easy young gentleman, occasionally, and as he was a son of Lord Riverstown, much might be forgiven to him.

Hiram, always slightly bewildered by the quotations of Mrs. Selwyn and the badinage of Soame Rivers, decided to ignore them both, and to address himself entirely to Miss Langley.

'Sorry to say I can't help you much, Miss Langley. When I was in Gloria five years ago I found him there, as I said, running for President. He had been a naturalised citizen there for some time, I reckon, but how he got so much to the front I don't know.'

'Doesn't a strong man always get to the front?' the Duchess asked.

'Yes,' said Hiram, 'I guess that's so. Well, I happened to get to know him, and we became a bit friendly, and we had many a pleasant chat together. He was as frank as frank, told me all his plans. "I mean to make this little old place move," he said to me.'

'Well, he has made it move,' said Helena. She was immensely interested, and her eyes dilated with excitement.

'A little too fast, perhaps,' said Hiram meditatively. 'I don't know. Anyhow, he had things all his own way for a goodish spell.'

'What did he do when he had things his own way?' Helena asked impatiently.

'Well, he tried to introduce reforms——'

'Yes, I knew he would do that,' the girl said, with the proud air of a sort of ownership.

'You seem to have known all about him,' Mrs. Selwyn said, smiling loftily, sweetly, as at the romantic enthusiasm of youth.

'Well, so I do somehow,' Helena answered almost sharply; certainly with impatience. She was not thinking of Mrs. Selwyn.

'Now, Mr. Borringer, go on—about his reforms.'

'He seemed to have gotten a kind of notion about making things English or American. He abolished flogging of criminals and all sorts of old-fashioned ways; and he tried to reduce taxation; and he put down a sort of remnant of slavery that was still hanging round; and he wanted to give free land to all the emancipated folks; and he wanted to have an equal suffrage to all men, and to do away with corruption in the public offices and the civil service; and to compel the judges not to take bribes; and all sorts of things. I am afraid he wanted to do a good deal too much reform for what you folks would call the governing classes out there. I thought so at the time. He was right, you know,' Hiram said meditatively, 'but, then, I am mightily afraid he was right in a wrong sort of way.'

'He was right, anyhow,' Helena said, triumphantly.

'S'pose he was,' said Hiram; 'but things have to go slow, don't you see?'

'Well, what happened?'

'I don't rightly know how it all came about exactly; but I guess all the privileged classes, as you call them here, got their backs up, and all the officials went dead against him——'

'My great deed was too great,' Helena said.

'What is that, Helena?' her father asked.

'It's from a poem by Mrs. Browning, about another dictator; but more true of my Dictator than of hers,' Helena answered.

'Well,' Hiram went on, 'the opposition soon began to grumble——'

'Some people are always grumbling,' said Soame Rivers. 'What should we do without them? Where should we get our independent opposition?'

'Where, indeed,' said Sir Rupert, with a sigh of humorous pathos.

'Well,' said Helena, 'what did the opposition do?'

'Made themselves nasty,' answered Hiram. 'Stirred up discontent against the foreigner, as they called him. He found his congress hard to handle. There were votes of censure and talks of impeachment, and I don't know what else. He went right ahead, his own way, without paying them the least attention. Then they took to refusing to vote his necessary supplies for the army and navy. He managed to get the money in spite of them; but whether he lost his temper, or not, I can't say, but he took it into his head to declare that the constitution was endangered by the machinations of unscrupulous enemies, and to declare himself Dictator.'

'That was brave,' said Helena, enthusiastically.

'Rather rash, wasn't it?' sneered Soame Rivers.

'It may have been rash, and it may not,' Hiram answered meditatively. 'I believe he was within the strict letter of the constitution, which does empower a President to take such a step under certain conditions. But the opposition meant fighting. So they rebelled against the Dictator, and that's how the bother began. How it ended you all know.'

'Where were the people all this time?' Helena asked eagerly.

'I guess the people didn't understand much about it then,' Hiram answered.

'My great deed was too great,' Helena murmured once again.

'The usual thing,' said Soame Rivers. 'Victory to begin with, and the confidence born of victory; then defeat and disaster.'

'The story of those three days' fighting in Valdorado is one of the most rattling things in recent times,' said the Duke.

'Was it not?' said Helena. 'I read every word of it every day, and I did want him to win so much.'

'Nobody could be more sorry that you were disappointed than he, I should imagine,' said Mrs. Selwyn.

'What puzzles me,' said Mr. Selwyn, 'is why when they had got him in their power they didn't shoot him.'

'Ah, you see he was an Englishman by family,' Sir Rupert explained; 'and though, of course, he had changed his nationality, I think the Congressionalists were a little afraid of arousing any kind of feeling in England.'

'As a matter of fact, of course,' said Soame Rivers, 'we shouldn't have dreamed of making any row if they had shot him or hanged him, for the matter of that.'

'You can never tell,' said the Duke. 'Somebody might have raised the Civis Romanus cry——'

'Yes, but he wasn't any longer Civis Romanus,' Soame Rivers objected.

'Do you think that would matter much if a cry was wanted against the Government?' the Duke asked, with a smile.

'Not much, I'm afraid,' said Sir Rupert. 'But whatever their reasons, I think the victors did the wisest thing possible in putting their man on board their big ironclad, the "Almirante Cochrane," and setting him ashore at Cherbourg.

'With a polite intimation, I presume, that if he again returned to the territory of Gloria he would be shot without form of trial,' added Soame Rivers.

'But he will return,' Helena said. 'He will, I am sure of it, and perhaps they may not find it so easy to shoot him then as they think now. A man like that is not so easily got rid of.'

Helena spoke with great animation, and her earnestness made Sir Rupert smile.

'If that is so,' said Soame Rivers, 'they would have done better if they had shot him out of hand.'

Helena looked slightly annoyed as she replied quickly, 'He is a strong man. I wish there were more men like him in the world.'

'Well,' said Sir Rupert, 'I suppose we shall all see him soon and judge for ourselves. Helena seems to have made up her mind already. Shall we go upstairs?'

'My great deed was too great' held possession that day of the mind and heart of Helena Langley.



CHAPTER VI

'HERE IS MY THRONE—BID KINGS COME BOW TO IT'

London, eager for a lion, lionised Ericson. That royal sport of lion-hunting, practised in old times by kings in Babylon and Nineveh, as those strange monuments in the British Museum bear witness, is the favourite sport of fashionable London to-day. And just at that moment London lacked its regal quarry. The latest traveller from Darkest Africa, the latest fugitive pretender to authority in France, had slipped out of the popular note and the favours of the Press. Ericson came in good time. There was a gap, and he filled it.

He found himself, to his amazement and his amusement, the hero of the hour. Invitations of all kinds showered upon him; the gates of great houses yawned wide to welcome him; had he been gifted like Kehama with the power of multiplying his personality, he could scarcely have been able to accept every invitation that was thrust upon him. But he did accept a great many; indeed, it might be said that he had to accept a great many. Had he had his own way, he might, perhaps, have buried himself in Hampstead, and enjoyed the company of his aunt and the mild society of Mr. Gilbert Sarrasin. But the impetuous, indomitable Hamilton would hear of no inaction. He insisted copying a famous phrase of Lord Beaconsfield's, that the key of Gloria was in London. 'We must make friends,' he said; 'we must keep ourselves in evidence; we must never for a moment allow our claim to be forgotten, or our interests to be ignored. If we are ever to get back to Gloria we must make the most of our inevitable exile.'

The Dictator smiled at the enthusiasm of his young henchman. Hamilton was tremendously enthusiastic. A young Englishman of high family, of education, of some means, he had attached himself to Ericson years before at a time when Hamilton, fresh from the University, was taking that complement to a University career—a trip round the world, at a time when Ericson was just beginning that course of reform which had ended for the present in London and Paulo's Hotel. Hamilton's enthusiasm often proved to be practical. Like Ericson, he was full of great ideas for the advancement of mankind; he had swallowed all Socialisms, and had almost believed, before he fell in with Ericson, that he had elaborated the secret of social government. But his wide knowledge was of service; and his devotion to the Dictator showed itself of sterling stuff on that day in the Plaza Nacional when he saved his life from the insurgents. If the Dictator sometimes smiled at Hamilton's enthusiasm, he often allowed himself to yield to it. Just for the moment he was a little sick of the whole business; the inevitable bitterness that tinges a man's heart who has striven to be of service, and who has been misunderstood, had laid hold of him; there were times when he felt that he would let the whole thing go and make no further effort. Then it was that Hamilton's enthusiasm proved so useful; that Hamilton's restless energy in keeping in touch with the friends of the fallen man roused him and stimulated him.

He had made many friends now in London. Both the great political parties were civil to him, especially, perhaps, the Conservatives. Being in power, they could not make an overt declaration of their interest in him, but just then the Tory Party was experiencing one of those emotional waves which at times sweep over its consciousness, when it feels called upon to exalt the banner of progress; to play the old Roman part of lifting up the humble and casting down the proud; of showing a paternal interest in all manner of schemes for the redress of wrong and suffering everywhere. Somehow or other it had got it into its head that Ericson was a man after its own heart; that he was a kind of new Gordon; that his gallant determination to make the people of Gloria happy in spite of themselves was a proof of the application of Tory methods. Sir Rupert encouraged this idea. As a rule, his party were a little afraid of his advanced ideas; but on this occasion they were willing to accept them, and they manifested the friendliest interest in the Dictator's defeated schemes. Indeed, so friendly were they that many of the Radicals began to take alarm, and think that something must be wrong with a man who met with so cordial a reception from the ruling party.

Ericson himself met these overtures contentedly enough. If it was for the good of Gloria that he should return some day to carry out his dreams, then anything that helped him to return was for the good of Gloria too, and undoubtedly the friendliness of the Ministerialists was a very important factor in the problem he was engaged upon. He did not know at first how much Tory feeling was influenced by Sir Rupert; he did not know until later how much Sir Rupert was influenced by his daughter.

Helena had aroused in her father something of her own enthusiasm for the exiled Dictator. Sir Rupert had looked into the whole business more carefully, had recognised that it certainly would be very much better for the interests of British subjects under the green and yellow banner that Gloria should be ruled by an Englishman like Ericson than by the wild and reckless Junta, who at present upheld uncertain authority by martial law. England had recognised the Junta, of course; it was the de facto Government, and there was nothing else to be done. But it was not managing its affairs well; the credit of the country was shaken; its trade was gravely impaired; the very considerable English colony was loud in its protests against the defects of the new regime. Under these conditions Sir Rupert saw no reason for not extending the hand of friendship to the Dictator.

He did extend the hand of friendship. He met the Dictator at a dinner-party given in his honour by Mr. Wynter, M. P.: Mr. Wynter, who had always made it a point to know everybody, and who was as friendly with Sir Rupert as with the chieftains of his own party. Sir Rupert had expressed to Wynter a wish to meet Ericson; so when the dinner came off he found himself placed at the right-hand side of Ericson, who was at his host's right-hand side. The two men got on well from the first. Sir Rupert was attracted by the fresh unselfishness of Ericson, by something still youthful, still simple, in a man who had done and endured so much, and he made himself agreeable, as he only knew how, to his neighbour. Ericson, for his part, was frankly pleased with Sir Rupert. He was a little surprised, perhaps, at first to find that Sir Rupert's opinions coincided so largely with his own; that their views of government agreed on so many important particulars. He did not at first discover that it was Ericson's unconstitutional act in enforcing his reforms, rather than the actual reforms themselves, that aroused Sir Rupert's admiration. Sir Rupert was a good talker, a master of the manipulation of words, knowing exactly how much to say in order to convey to the mind of his listener a very decided impression without actually committing himself to any pledged opinion. Ericson was a shrewd man, but in such delicate dialectic he was not a match for a man like Sir Rupert.

Sir Rupert asked the Dictator to dinner, and the Dictator went to the great house in Queen's Gate and was presented to Helena, and was placed next to her at dinner, and thought her very pretty and original and attractive, and enjoyed himself very much. He found himself, to his half-unconscious surprise, still young enough and human enough to be pleased with the attention people were paying him—above all, that he was still young enough and human enough to be pleased with the very obvious homage of a charming young woman. For Helena's homage was very obvious indeed. Accustomed always to do what she pleased, and say what she pleased, Helena, at three-and-twenty, had a frankness of manner, a straightforwardness of speech, which her friends called original and her detractors called audacious. She would argue, unabashed, with the great leader of the party on some high point of foreign policy; she would talk to the great chieftain of Opposition as if he were her elder brother. People who did not understand her said that she was forward, that she had no reserve; even people who understood her, or thought they did, were sometimes a little startled by her careless directness. Soame Rivers once, when he was irritated by her, which occasionally happened, though he generally kept his irritation to himself, said that she had a 'slap on the back' way of treating her friends. The remark was not kind, but it happened to be fairly accurate, as unkind remarks sometimes are.

But from the first Helena did not treat the Dictator with the same brusque spirit of camaraderie which she showed to most of her friends. Her admiration for the public man, if it had been very enthusiastic, was very sincere. She had, from the first time that Ericson's name began to appear in the daily papers, felt a keen interest in the adventurous Englishman who was trying to introduce free institutions and advanced civilisation into one of the worm-eaten republics of the New World. As time went on, and Ericson's doings became more and more conspicuous, the girl's admiration for the lonely pioneer waxed higher and higher, till at last she conjured up for herself an image of heroic chivalry as romantic in its way as anything that could be evolved from the dreams of a sentimental schoolgirl. To reform the world—was not that always England's mission, if not especially the mission of her own party?—and here was an Englishman fighting for reform in that feverish place, and endeavouring to make his people happy and prosperous and civilised, by methods which certainly seemed to have more in common with the benevolent despotism of the Tory Party than with the theories of the Opposition. Bit by bit it came to pass that Helena Langley grew to look upon Ericson over there in that queer, ebullient corner of new Spain, as her ideal hero; and so it happened that when at last she met her hero in the flesh for the first time her frank audacity seemed to desert her.

Not that she showed in the slightest degree embarrassment when Sir Rupert first presented to her the grave man with the earnest eyes, whose pointed beard and brown hair were both slightly touched with grey. Only those who knew Helena well could possibly have told that she was not absolutely at her ease in the presence of the Dictator. Ericson himself thought her the most self-possessed young lady he had ever met, and to him, familiar as he was with the exquisite effrontery belonging to the New Castilian dames of Gloria, self-possession in young women was a recognised fact. Even Sir Rupert himself scarcely noticed anything that he would have called shyness in his daughter's demeanour as she stood talking to the Dictator, with her large fine eyes fixed in composed gaze upon his face. But Soame Rivers noticed a difference in her bearing; he was not her father, and he was accustomed to watch every tone of her speech and every movement of her eyes, and he saw that she was not entirely herself in the company of the 'new man,' as he called Ericson; and seeing it he felt a pang, or at least a prick, at the heart, and sneered at himself immediately in consequence. But he edged up to Helena just before the pairing took place for dinner, and said softly to her, so that no one else could hear, 'You are shy to-night. Why?'—and moved away smiling at the angry flash of her eyes and the compression of her mouth.

Possibly the words of Rivers may have affected her more than she was willing to admit; but she certainly was not as self-composed as usual during that first dinner. Her wit flashed vivaciously; the Dictator thought her brilliant, and even rather bewildering. If anyone had said to him that Helena Langley was not absolutely at her ease with him, he would have stared in amazement. For himself, he was not at all dismayed by the brilliant, beautiful girl who sat next to him. The long habit of intercourse with all kinds of people, under all kinds of conditions, had given him the experience which enabled him to be at his ease under any circumstances, even the most unfamiliar, and certainly talking to Helena Langley was an experience that had no precedent in the Dictator's life. But he talked to her readily, with great pleasure; he felt a little surprise at her obvious willingness to talk to him and accept his judgment upon many things; but he set this down as one of the few agreeable conditions attendant upon being lionised, and accepted it gratefully. 'I am the newest thing,' he thought to himself, 'and so this child is interested in me and consequently civil to me. Probably she will have forgotten all about me the next time we meet; in the meanwhile she is very charming.' The Dictator had even been about to suggest to himself that he might possibly forget all about her; but somehow this did not seem very likely, and he dismissed it.

He did not see very much of Helena that night after the dinner. Many people came in, and Helena was surrounded by a little court of adorers, men of all ages and occupations, statesmen, soldiers, men of letters, all eagerly talking a kind of talk which was almost unintelligible to the Dictator. In that bright Babel of voices, in that conversation which was full of allusions to things of which he knew nothing, and for which, if he had known, he would have cared less, the Dictator felt his sense of exile suddenly come strongly upon him like a great chill wave. It was not that he could feel neglected. A great statesman was talking to him, talking at much length confidentially, paying him the compliment of repeatedly inviting his opinion, and of deferring to his judgment. There was not a man or woman in the room who was not anxious to be introduced to Ericson, who was not delighted when the introduction was accorded, and when he or she had taken his hand and exchanged a few words with him. But somehow it was Helena's voice that seemed to thrill in the Dictator's ears; it was Helena's face that his eyes wandered to through all that brilliant crowd, and it was with something like a sense of serious regret that he found himself at last taking her hand and wishing her good-night. Her bright eyes grew brighter as she expressed the hope that they should meet soon again. The Dictator bowed and withdrew. He felt in his heart that he shared the hope very strongly.

The hope was certainly realised. So notable a lion as the Dictator was asked everywhere, and everywhere that he went he met the Langleys. In the high political and social life in which the Dictator, to his entertainment, found himself, the hostilities of warring parties had little or no effect. In that rarefied air it was hard to draw the breath of party passion, and the Dictator came across the Langleys as often in the houses of the Opposition as in Ministerial mansions. So it came to pass that something almost approaching to an intimacy sprang up between John Ericson on the one part and Sir Rupert and Helena Langley on the other. Sir Rupert felt a real interest in the adventurous man with the eccentric ideas; perhaps his presence recalled something of Sir Rupert's own hot youth when he had had eccentric ideas and was looked upon with alarm by the steady-going. Helena made no concealment of her interest in the exile. She was always so frank in her friendships, so off-hand and boyish in her air of comradeship with many people, that her attitude towards the Dictator did not strike any one, except Soame Rivers, as being in the least marked—for her. Indeed, most of her admirers would have held that she was more reserved with the Dictator than with others of her friends. Soame Rivers saw that there was a difference in her bearing towards the Dictator and towards the courtiers of her little court, and he smiled cynically and pretended to be amused.

Ericson's acquaintance with the Langleys ripened into that rapid intimacy which is sometimes possible in London. At the end of a week he had met them many times and had been twice to their house. Helena had always insisted that a friendship which was worth anything should declare itself at once, should blossom quickly into being, and not grow by slow stages. She offered the Dictator her friendship very frankly and very graciously, and Ericson accepted very frankly the gracious gift. For it delighted him, tired as he was of all the strife and struggle of the last few years, to find rest and sympathy in the friendship of so charming a girl; the cordial sympathy she showed him came like a balm to the humiliation of his overthrow. He liked Helena, he liked her father; though he had known them but for a handful of days, it always delighted him to meet them; he always felt in their society that he was in the society of friends.

One evening, when Ericson had been little more than a month in London, he found himself at an evening party given by Lady Seagraves. Lady Seagraves was a wonderful woman—'the fine flower of our modern civilisation,' Soame Rivers called her. Everybody came to her house; she delighted in contrasts; life was to her one prolonged antithesis. Soame Rivers said of her parties that they resembled certain early Italian pictures, which gave you the mythological gods in one place, a battle in another, a scene of pastoral peace in a third. It was an astonishing amalgam.

Ericson arrived at Lady Seagraves' house rather late; the rooms were very full—he found it difficult to get up the great staircase. There had been some great Ministerial function, and the dresses of many of the men in the crowd were as bright as the women's. Court suits, ribands, and orders lent additional colour to a richly coloured scene. But even in a crowd where everybody bore some claim to distinction the arrival of the Dictator aroused general attention. Ericson was not yet sufficiently hardened to the experience to be altogether indifferent to the fact that everyone was looking at him; that people were whispering his name to each other as he slowly made his way from stair to stair; that pretty women paused in their upward or downward progress to look at him, and invariably with a look of admiration for his grave, handsome face.

When he got to the top of the stairs Ericson found his hostess, and shook hands with her. Lady Seagraves was an effusive woman, who was always delighted to see any of her friends; but she felt a special delight at seeing the Dictator, and she greeted him with a special effusiveness. Her party was choking with celebrities of all kinds, social, political, artistic, legal, clerical, dramatic; but it would not have been entirely triumphant if it had not included the Dictator. Lady Seagraves was very glad to see him indeed, and said so in her warm, enthusiastic way.

'I'm so glad to see you,' Lady Seagraves murmured. 'It was so nice of you to come. I was beginning to be desperately afraid that you had forgotten all about me and my poor little party.'

It was one of Lady Seagraves' graceful little affectations to pretend that all her parties were small parties, almost partaking of the nature of impromptu festivities. Ericson glanced around over the great room crammed to overflowing with a crowd of men and women who could hardly move, men and women most of whose faces were famous or beautiful, men and women all of whom, as Soame Rivers said, had their names in the play-bill; there was a smile on his face as he turned his eyes from the brilliant mass to Lady Seagraves' face.

'How could I forget a promise which it gives me so much pleasure to fulfil?' he asked. Lady Seagraves gave a little cry of delight.

'Now that's perfectly sweet of you! How did you ever learn to say such pretty things in that dreadful place? Oh, but of course; I forgot Spaniards pay compliments to perfection, and you have learnt the art from them, you frozen Northerner.'

Ericson laughed. 'I am afraid I should never rival a Spaniard in compliment,' he said. He never knew quite what to talk to Lady Seagraves about, but, indeed, there was no need for him to trouble himself, as Lady Seagraves could at all times talk enough for two more.

So he just listened while Lady Seagraves rattled on, sending his glance hither and thither in that glittering assembly, seeking almost unconsciously for one face. He saw it almost immediately; it was the face of Helena Langley, and her eyes were fixed on him. She was standing in the throng at some little distance from him, talking to Soame Rivers, but she nodded and smiled to the Dictator.

At that moment the arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Deptford set Ericson free from the ripple of Lady Seagraves' conversation. She turned to greet the new arrivals, and the Dictator began to edge his way through the press to where Helena was standing. Though she was only a little distance off, his progress was but slow progress. The rooms were tightly packed, and almost every person he met knew him and spoke to him, or shook hands with him, but he made his way steadily forward.

'Here comes the illustrious exile!' said Soame Rivers, in a low tone. 'I suppose nobody will have a chance of saying a word to you for the rest of the evening?'

Miss Langley glanced at him with a little frown. 'I am afraid I can scarcely hope that Mr. Ericson will consent to be monopolised by me for the whole of the evening,' she said; 'but I wish he would, for he is certainly the most interesting person here.'

Soame Rivers shrugged his shoulders slightly. 'You always know someone who is the most interesting man in the world—for the time being,' he said.

Miss Langley frowned again, but she did not reply, for by this time Ericson had reached her, and was holding out his hand. She took it with a bright smile of welcome. Soame Rivers slipped away in the crowd, after nodding to Ericson.

'I am so glad that you have come,' Helena said. 'I was beginning to fear that you were not coming.'

'It is very kind of you,' the Dictator began, but Miss Langley interrupted him.

'No, no; it isn't kind of me at all; it is just natural selfishness. I want to talk to you about several things; and if you hadn't come I should have been disappointed in my purpose, and I hate being disappointed.'

The Dictator still persisted that any mark of interest from Miss Langley was kindness. 'What do you want to talk to me about particularly?' he asked.

'Oh, many things! But we can't talk in this awful crush. It's like trying to stand up against big billows on a stormy day. Come with me. There is a quieter place at the back, where we shall have a chance of peace.'

She turned and led the way slowly through the crowd, the Dictator following her obediently. Once again the progress was a slow one, for every man had a word for Miss Langley, and he himself was eagerly caught at as they drifted along. But at last they got through the greater crush of the centre rooms and found themselves in a kind of lull in a further saloon where a piano was, and where there were fewer people. Out of this room there was a still smaller one with several palms in it, and out of the palms arising a great bronze reproduction of the Hermes of Praxiteles. Lady Seagraves playfully called this little room her Pagan parlour. Here people who knew the house well found their way when they wanted quiet conversation. There was nobody in it when Miss Langley and the Dictator arrived. Helena sat down on a sofa with a sigh of relief, and Ericson sat down beside her.

'What a delightful change from all that awful noise and glare!' said Helena. 'I am very fond of this little corner, and I think Lady Seagraves regards it as especially sacred to me.'

'I am grateful for being permitted to cross the hallowed threshold,' said the Dictator. 'Is this the tutelary divinity?' And he glanced up at the bronze image.

'Yes,' said Miss Langley; 'that is a copy of the Hermes of Praxiteles which was discovered at Olympia some years ago. It is the right thing to worship.'

'One so seldom worships the right thing—at least, at the right time,' he said.

'I worship the right thing, I know,' she rejoined, 'but I don't quite know about the right time.'

'Your instincts would be sure to guide you right,' he answered, not indeed quite knowing what he was talking about.

'Why?' she asked, point blank.

'Well, I suppose I meant to say that you have nobler instincts than most other people.'

'Come, you are not trying to pay me a compliment? I don't want compliments; I hate and detest them. Leave them to stupid and uninteresting men.'

'And to stupid and uninteresting women?'

'Another try at a compliment!'

'No; I felt that.'

'Well, anyhow, I did not entice you in here to hear anything about myself; I know all about myself.'

'Indeed,' he said straightforwardly, 'I do not care to pay compliments, and I should never think of wearying you with them. I believe I hardly quite knew what I was talking about just now.'

'Very well; it does not matter. I want to hear about you. I want to know all about you. I want you to trust in me and treat me as your friend.'

'But what do you want me to tell you?'

'About yourself and your projects and everything. Will you?'

The Dictator was a little bewildered by the girl's earnestness, her energy, and the perfect simplicity of her evident belief that she was saying nothing unreasonable. She saw reluctance and hesitation in his eyes.

'You are very young,' he began.

'Too young to be trusted?'

'No, I did not say that.'

'But your look said it.'

'My look then mistranslated my feeling.'

'What did you feel?'

'Surprise, and interest, and gratitude.'

She tossed her head impatiently.

'Do you think I can't understand?' she asked, in her impetuous way—her imperial way with most others, but only an impetuous way with him. For most others with whom she was familiar she was able to control and be familiar with, but she could only be impetuous with the Dictator. Indeed, it was the high tide of her emotion which carried her away so far as to fling her in mere impetuousness against him.

The Dictator was silent for a moment, and then he said: 'You don't seem much more than a child to me.'

'Oh! Why? Do you not know?—I am twenty-three!'

'I am twenty-three,' the Dictator murmured, looking at her with a kindly and half-melancholy interest. 'You are twenty-three! Well, there it is—do you not see, Miss Langley?'

'There what is?'

'There is all the difference. To be twenty-three seems to you to make you quite a grown-up person.'

'What else should it make me? I have been of age for two years. What am I but a grown-up person?'

'Not in my sense,' he said placidly. 'You see, I have gone through so much, and lived so many lives, that I begin to feel quite like an old man already. Why, I might have had a daughter as old as you.'

'Oh, stuff!' the audacious young woman interposed.

'Stuff? How do you know?'

'As if I hadn't read lives of you in all the papers and magazines and I don't know what. I can tell you your birthday if you wish, and the year of your birth. You are quite young—in my eyes.'

'You are kind to me,' he said, gravely, 'and I am quite sure that I look at my very best in your eyes.'

'You do indeed,' she said fervently, gratefully.

'Still, that does not prevent me from being twenty years older than you.'

'All right; but would you refuse to talk frankly and sensibly about yourself?—sensibly, I mean, as one talks to a friend and not as one talks to a child. Would you refuse to talk in that way to a young man merely because you were twenty years older than he?'

'I am not much of a talker,' he said, 'and I very much doubt if I should talk to a young man at all about my projects, unless, of course, to my friend Hamilton.'

Helena turned half away disappointed. It was of no use, then—she was not his friend. He did not care to reveal himself to her; and yet she thought she could do so much to help him. She felt that tears were beginning to gather in her eyes, and she would not for all the world that he should see them.

'I thought we were friends,' she said, giving out the words very much as a child might give them out—and, indeed, her heart was much more as that of a little child than she herself knew or than he knew then; for she had not the least idea that she was in love or likely to be in love with the Dictator. Her free, energetic, wild-falcon spirit had never as yet troubled itself with thoughts of such kind. She had made a hero for herself out of the Dictator—she almost adored him; but it was with the most genuine hero-worship—or fetish-worship, if that be the better and harsher way of putting it—and she had never thought of being in love with him. Her highest ambition up to this hour was to be his friend and to be admitted to his confidence, and—oh, happy recognition!—to be consulted by him. When she said 'I thought we were friends,' she jumped up and went towards the window to hide the emotion which she knew was only too likely to make itself felt.

The Dictator got up and followed her. 'We are friends,' he said.

She looked brightly round at him, but perhaps he saw in her eyes that she had been feeling a keen disappointment.

'You think my professed friendship mere girlish inquisitiveness—you know you do,' she said, for she was still angry.

'Indeed I do not,' he said earnestly. 'I have had no friendship since I came back an outcast to England—no friendship like that given to me by you——'

She turned round delightedly towards him.

'And by your father.'

And again, she could not tell why, she turned partly away.

'But the truth is,' he went on to say, 'I have no clearly defined plans as yet.'

'You don't mean to give in?' she asked eagerly.

He smiled at her impetuosity. She blushed slightly as she saw his smile.

'Oh I know,' she exclaimed, 'you think me an impertinent schoolgirl, and you only laugh at me.'

'I do nothing of the kind. It is only too much of a pleasure to me to talk to you on terms of friendship. Look here, I wish we could do as people used to do in the old melodramas, and swear an eternal friendship.'

'I swear an eternal friendship to you,' she exclaimed, 'whether you like it or not,' and, obeying the wild impulse of the hour, she held out both her hands.

He took them both in his, held them for just one instant, and then let them go.

'I accept the friendship,' he said, with a quiet smile, 'and I reciprocate it with all my heart.'

Helena was already growing a little alarmed at her own impulsiveness and effusiveness. But there was something in the Dictator's quiet, grave, and protecting way which always seemed to reassure her. 'He will be sure to understand me,' was the vague thought in her mind.

Assuredly the Dictator now thought he did understand her. He felt satisfied that her enthusiasm was the enthusiasm of a generous girl's friendship, and that she thought about him in no other way. He had learned to like her companionship, and to think much of her fresh, courageous intellect, and even of her practical good sense. He had no doubt that he should find her advice on many things worth having. His battlefield just now and for some time to come must be in London—in the London of finance and diplomacy.

'Come and sit down again,' the Dictator said; 'I will tell you all I know—and I don't know much. I do not mean to give up, Miss Langley. I am not a man who gives up—I am not built that way.'

'Of course I knew,' Helena exclaimed triumphantly; 'I knew you would never give up. You couldn't.'

'I couldn't—and I do not believe I ought to give up. I am sure I know better how to provide for the future of Gloria than—than—well, than Gloria knows herself—just now. I believe Gloria will want me back.'

'Of course she will want you back when she comes to her senses,' Helena said with sparkling eyes.

'I don't blame her for having a little lost her senses under the conditions—it was all too new, and I was too hasty. I was too much inspired by the ungoverned energy of the new broom. I should do better now if I had the chance.'

'You will have the chance—you must have it!'

'Do you promise it to me?' he asked with a kindly smile.

'I do—I can—I know it will come to you!'

'Well, I can wait,' he said quietly. 'When Gloria calls me to go back to her I will go.'

'But what do you mean by Gloria? Do you want a plebiscite of the whole population in your favour?'

'Oh no! I only mean this, that if the large majority of the people whom I strove to serve are of opinion they can do without me—well, then, I shall do without them. But if they call me I shall go to them, although I went to my death and knew it beforehand.'

'One may do worse things,' the girl said proudly, 'than go knowingly to one's death.'

'You are so young,' he said. 'Death seems nothing to you. The young and the generous are brave like that.'

'Oh,' she exclaimed, 'let my youth alone!'

She would have liked to say, 'Oh, confound my youth!' but she did not give way to any such unseemly impulse. She felt very happy again, her high spirits all rallying round her.

'Let your youth alone!' the Dictator said, with a half-melancholy smile. 'So long as time lets it alone—and even time will do that for some years yet.'

Then he stopped and felt a little as if he had been preaching a sermon to the girl.

'Come,' she broke in upon his moralisings, 'if I am so dreadfully young, at least I'll have the benefit of my immaturity. If I am to be treated as a child, I must have a child's freedom from conventionality.' She dragged forward a heavy armchair lined with the soft, mellowed, dull red leather which one sees made into cushions and sofa-pillows in the shops of Nuremberg's more artistic upholsterers, and then at its side on the carpet she planted a footstool of the same material and colour. 'There,' she said, 'you sit in that chair.'

'And you, what are you going to do?'

'Sit first, and I will show you.'

He obeyed her and sat in the great chair. 'Well, now?' he asked.

'I shall sit here at your feet.' She flung herself down and sat on the footstool.

'Here is my throne,' she said composedly; 'bid kings come bow to it.'

'Kings come bowing to a banished Republican?'

'You are my King,' she answered, 'and so I sit at your feet and am proud and happy. Now talk to me and tell me some more.'

But the talk was not destined to go any farther that night. Rivers and one or two others came lounging in. Helena did not stir from her lowly position. The Dictator remained as he was just long enough to show that he did not regard himself as having been disturbed. Helena flung a saucy little glance of defiance at the principal intruder.

'I know you were sent for me,' she said. 'Papa wants me?'

'Yes,' the intruder replied; 'if I had not been sent I should never have ventured to follow you into this room.'

'Of course not—this is my special sanctuary. Lady Seagraves has dedicated it to me, and now I dedicate it to Mr. Ericson. I have just been telling him that, for all he is a Republican, he is my King.'

The Dictator had risen by this time.

'You are sent for?' he said.

'Yes—I am sorry.'

'So am I—but we must not keep Sir Rupert waiting.'

'I shall see you again—when?' she asked eagerly.

'Whenever you wish,' he answered. Then they shook hands, and Soame Rivers took her away.

Several ladies remarked that night that really Helena Langley was going quite beyond all bounds, and was overdoing her unconventionality quite too shockingly. She was actually throwing herself right at Mr. Ericson's head. Of course Mr. Ericson would not think of marrying a chit like that. He was quite old enough to be her father.

One or two stout dowagers shook their heads sagaciously, and remarked that Sir Rupert had a great deal of money, and that a large fortune got with a wife might come in very handy for the projects of a dethroned Dictator. 'And men are all so vain, my dear,' remarked one to another. 'Mr. Ericson doesn't look vain,' the other said meditatively. 'They are all alike, my dear,' rejoined the one. And so the matter was settled—or left unsettled.

Meanwhile the Dictator went home, and began to look over maps and charts of Gloria. He buried himself in some plans of street improvement, including a new and splendid opera house, of which he had actually laid the foundation before the crash came.



CHAPTER VII

THE PRINCE AND CLAUDIO

Why did the Dictator bury himself in his maps and his plans and his improvements in the street architecture of a city which in all probability he was never to see more?

For one reason. Because his mind was on something else to-night, and he did not feel as if he were acting with full fidelity to the cause of Gloria if he allowed any subject to come even for an hour too directly between him and that. Little as he permitted himself to put on the airs of a patriot and philanthropist—much as he would have hated to exhibit himself or be regarded as a professional patriot—yet the devotion to that cause which he had himself created—the cause of a regenerated Gloria—was deep down in his very heart. Gloria and her future were his day-dream—his idol, his hobby, or his craze, if you like; he had long been possessed by the thought of a redeemed and regenerated Gloria. To-night his mind had been thrown for a moment off the track—and it was therefore that he pulled out his maps and was endeavouring to get on to the track again.

But he could not help thinking of Helena Langley. The girl embarrassed him—bewildered him. Her upturned eyes came between him and his maps. Her frank homage was just like that of a child. Yet she was not a child, but a remarkably clever and brilliant young woman, and he did not know whether he ought to accept her homage. He was, for all his strange career, somewhat conservative in his notions about women. He thought that there ought to be a sweet reserve about them always. He rather liked the pedestal theory about woman. The approaches and the devotion, he thought, ought to come from the man always. In the case of Helena Langley, it never occurred to him to think that her devotion was anything different from the devotion of Hamilton; but then a young man who is one's secretary is quite free to show his devotion, while a young woman who is not one's secretary is not free to show her devotion. Ericson kept asking himself whether Sir Rupert would not feel vexed when he heard of the way in which his dear spoiled child had been going on—as he probably would from herself—for she evidently had not the faintest notion of concealment. On the other hand, what could Ericson do? Give Helena Langley an exposition of his theories concerning proper behaviour in unmarried womanhood? Why, how absurd and priggish and offensive such a course of action would be? The girl would either break into laughter at him or feel herself offended by his attempt to lecture her. And who or what had given him any right to lecture her? What, after all, had she done? Sat on a footstool beside the chair of a public man whose cause she sympathised with, and who was quite old enough—or nearly so, at all events—to be her father. Up to this time Ericson was rather inclined to press the 'old enough to be her father,' and to leave out the 'nearly so.' Then, again, he reminded himself that social ways and manners had very much changed in London during his absence, and that girls were allowed, and even encouraged, to do all manner of things now which would have been thought tomboyish, or even improper, in his younger days. Why, he had glanced at scores of leading articles and essays written to prove that the London girl of the close of the century was free to do things which would have brought the deepest and most comprehensive blush to the cheeks of the meek and modest maidens of a former generation.

Yes—but for all this change of manners it was certain that he had himself heard comments made on the impulsive unconventionality of Miss Langley. The comments were sometimes generous, sympathetic, and perhaps a little pitying—and of course they were sometimes ill-natured and spiteful. But, whatever their tone, they were all tuned to the one key—that Miss Langley was impulsively unconventional.

The Dictator was inclined to resent the intrusion of a woman into his thoughts. For years he had been in the habit of regarding women as trees walking. He had had a love disappointment early in life. His true love had proved a false true love, and he had taken it very seriously—taken it quite to heart. He was not enough of a modern London man to recognise the fact that something of the kind happens to a good many people, and that there are still a great many girls left to choose from. He ought to have made nothing of it, and consoled himself easily, but he did not. So he had lost his ideal of womanhood, and went through the world like one deprived of a sense. The man is, on the whole, happiest whose true love dies early, and leaves him with an ideal of womanhood which never can change. He is, if he be at all a true man, thenceforth as one who walks under the guidance of an angel. But Ericson's mind was put out by the failure of his ideal. Happily he was a strong man by nature, with deep impassioned longings and profound convictions; and going on through life in his lonely, overcrowded way, he soon became absorbed in the entrancing egotism of devotion to a great cause. He began to see all things in life first as they bore on the regeneration of Gloria—now as they bore on his restoration to Gloria. So he had been forgetting all about women, except as ornaments of society, and occasionally as useful mechanisms in politics.

The memory of his false true love had long faded. He did not now particularly regret that she had been false. He did not regret it even for her own sake—for he knew that she had got on very well in life—had married a rich man—held a good position in society, and apparently had all her desires gratified. It was probable—it was almost certain—that he should meet her in London this season—and he felt no interest or curiosity about the meeting—did not even trouble himself by wondering whether she had been following his career with eyes in which old memories gleamed. But after her he had done no love-making and felt inclined for no romance. His ideal, as has been said, was gone—and he did not care for women without an ideal to pursue.

Every night, however late, when the Dictator had got back to his rooms, Hamilton came to see him, and they read over letters and talked over the doings of the next day. Hamilton came this night in the usual course of things, and Ericson was delighted to see him. He was sick of trying to study the street improvements of the metropolis of Gloria, and he was vexed at the intrusion of Helena Langley into his mind—for he did not suspect in the least that she had yet made any intrusion into his heart.

'Well, Hamilton, I hope you have been enjoying yourself?'

'Yes, Excellency—fairly enough. Do you know I had a long talk with Sir Rupert Langley about you?'

'Aye, aye. What does Sir Rupert say about me?'

'Well, he says,' Hamilton began distressedly, 'that you had better give up all notions of Gloria and go in for English politics.'

The Dictator laughed; and at the same time felt a little touched. He could not help remembering the declaration of his life's policy he had just been making to Sir Rupert Langley's daughter.

'What on earth do I know about English politics?'

'Oh, well; of course you could get it all up easily enough, so far as that goes.'

'But doesn't Sir Rupert see that, so far as I understand things at all, I should be in the party opposed to him?'

'Yes, he sees that; but he doesn't seem to mind. He thinks you would find a field in English politics; and he says the life of the House of Commons is the life to which the ambition of every true Englishman ought to turn—and, you know—all that sort of thing.'

'And does he think that I have forgotten Gloria?'

'No; but he has a theory about all South American States. He thinks they are all rotten, and that sort of thing. He insists that you are thrown away on Gloria.'

'Fancy a man being thrown away upon a country,' the Dictator said, with a smile. 'I have often heard and read of a country being thrown away upon a man, but never yet of a man being thrown away upon a country. I should not have wondered at such an opinion from an ordinary Englishman, who has no idea of a place the size of Gloria, where we could stow away England, France, and Germany in a little unnoticed corner. But Sir Rupert—who has been there! Give us out the cigars, Hamilton—and ring for some drinks.'

Hamilton brought out the cigars, and rang the bell.

'Well—anyhow—I have told you,' he said hesitatingly.

'So you have, boy, with your usual indomitable honesty. For I know what you think about all this.'

'Of course you do.'

'You don't want to give up Gloria?'

'Give up Gloria? Never—while grass grows and water runs!'

'Well, then, we need not say any more about that. Tell me, though, where was all this? At Lady Seagraves'?'

'No; it was at Sir Rupert's own house.'

'Oh, yes, I forgot; you were dining there?'

'Yes; I was dining there.'

'This was after dinner?'

'Yes; there were very few men there, and he talked all this to me in a confidential sort of way. Tell me, Excellency, what do you think of his daughter?'

The Dictator almost started. If the question had come out of his own inner consciousness it could not have illustrated more clearly the problem which was perplexing his heart.

'Why, Hamilton, I have not seen very much of her, and I don't profess to be much of a judge of young ladies. Why on earth do you want my opinion? What is your own opinion of her?'

'I think she is very beautiful.'

'So do I.'

'And awfully clever.'

'Right again—so do I.'

'And singularly attractive, don't you think?'

'Yes; very attractive indeed. But you know, my boy, that the attractions of young women have now little more than a purely historical interest for me. Still, I am quite prepared to go as far with you as to admit that Miss Langley is a most attractive young woman.'

'She thinks ever so much of you,' Hamilton said dogmatically.

'She has great sympathy with our cause,' the Dictator said.

'She would do anything you asked her to do.'

'My boy, I don't want to ask her to do anything.'

'Excellency, I want you to advise her to do something—for me.'

'For you, Hamilton? Is that the way?' The Dictator asked the question with a tone of infinite sympathy, and he stood up as if he were about to give some important order. Hamilton, on the other hand, collapsed into a chair.

'That is the way, Excellency.'

'You are in love with this child?'

'I am madly in love with this child, if you call her so.'

Ericson made some strides up and down the room with his hands behind him. Then he suddenly stopped.

'Is this quite a serious business?' he asked, in a low, soft voice.

'Terribly serious for me, Excellency, if things don't turn out right. I have been hit very hard.'

The Dictator smiled.

'We get over such things,' he said.

'But I don't want to get over this; I don't mean to get over it.'

'Well,' Ericson said good-humouredly, and with quite recovered composure, 'it may not be necessary for you to get over it. Does the young lady want you to get over it?'

'I haven't ventured to ask her yet.'

'What do you mean to ask her?'

'Well, of course—if she will—have me.'

'Yes, naturally. But I mean when——'

'When do I mean to ask her?'

'No; when do you propose to marry her?'

'Well, of course, when we have settled ourselves again in Gloria, and all is right there. You don't fancy I would do anything before we have made that all right?'

'But all that is a little vague,' the Dictator said; 'the time is somewhat indefinite. One does not quite know what the young lady might say.'

'She is just as enthusiastic about Gloria as I am, or as you are.'

'Yes, but her father. Have you said anything to him about this?'

'Not a word. I waited until I could talk of it to you, and get your promise to help me.'

'Of course I'll help you, if I can. But tell me, how can I? What do you want me to do? Shall I speak to Sir Rupert?'

'If you would speak to him after, I should be awfully glad. But I don't so much mind about him just yet; I want you to speak to her!'

'To Miss Langley? To ask her to marry you?'

'That's about what it comes to,' Hamilton said courageously.

'But, my dear love-sick youth, would you not much rather woo and win the girl for yourself?'

'What I am afraid of,' Hamilton said gravely, 'is that she would pretend not to take me seriously. She would laugh and turn me into ridicule, and try to make fun of the whole thing. But if you tell her that it is positively serious and a business of life and death with me, then she will believe you, and she must take it seriously and give you a serious answer, or at least promise to give me a serious answer.'

'This is the oddest way of love-making, Hamilton.'

'I don't know,' Hamilton said; 'we have Shakespeare's authority for it, haven't we? Didn't Don Pedro arrange for Claudio and Hero?'

'Well, a very good precedent,' Ericson said with a smile. 'Tell me about this to-morrow. Think over it and sleep over it in the meantime, and if you still think that you are willing to make your proposals through the medium of an envoy, then trust me, Hamilton, your envoy will do all he can to win for you your heart's desire.'

'I don't know how to thank you,' Hamilton exclaimed fervently.

'Don't try. I hate thanks. If they are sincere they tell their tale without words. I know you—everything about you is sincere.'

Hamilton's eyes glistened with joy and gratitude. He would have liked to seize his chief's hand and press it to his lips; but he forbore. The Dictator was not an effusive man, and effusiveness did not flourish in his presence. Hamilton confined his gratitude to looks and thoughts and to the dropping of the subject for the present.

'I have been pottering over these maps and plans,' the Dictator said.

'I am so glad,' Hamilton exclaimed, 'to find that your heart is still wholly absorbed in the improvement of Gloria.'

The Dictator remained for a few moments silent and apparently buried in thought. He was not thinking, perhaps, altogether of the projected improvements in the capital of Gloria. Hamilton had often seen him in those sudden and silent, but not sullen, moods, and was always careful not to disturb him by asking any question or making any remark. The Dictator had been sitting in a chair and pulling the ends of his moustache. At once he got up and went to where Hamilton was seated.

'Look here, Hamilton,' he said, in a tone of positive sternness, 'I want to be clear about all this. I want to help you—of course I want to help you—if you can really be helped. But, first of all, I must be certain—as far as human certainty can go—that you really know what you do want. The great curse of life is that men—and I suppose women too—I can't say—do not really know or trouble to know what they do positively want with all their strength and with all their soul. The man who positively knows what he does want and sticks to it has got it already. Tell me, do you really want to marry this young woman?'

'I do—with all my soul and with all my strength!'

'But have you thought about it—have you turned it over in your mind—have you come down from your high horse and looked at yourself, as the old joke puts it?'

'It's no joke for me,' Hamilton said dolefully.

'No, no, boy; I didn't mean that it was. But I mean, have you really looked at yourself and her? Have you thought whether she could make you happy?—have you thought whether you could make her happy? What do you know about her? What do you know about the kind of life which she lives? How do you know whether she could do without that kind of life—whether she could live any other kind of life? She is a London Society girl, she rides in the Row at a certain hour, she goes out to dinner parties and to balls, she dances until all hours in the morning, she goes abroad to the regular place at the regular time, she spends a certain part of the winter visiting at the regulation country houses. Are you prepared to live that sort of life—or are you prepared to bear the responsibility of taking her out of it? Are you prepared to take the butterfly to live in the camp?'

'She isn't a butterfly——'

'No, no; never mind my bad metaphor. But she has been brought up in a kind of life which is second nature to her. Are you prepared to live that life with her? Are you sure—are you quite, quite sure—that she would be willing, after the first romantic outburst, to put up with a totally different life for the sake of you?'

'Excellency,' Hamilton said, smiling somewhat sadly, 'you certainly do your best to take the conceit out of a young man.'

'My boy, I don't think you have any self-conceit, but you may have a good deal of self-forgetfulness. Now I want you to call a halt and remember yourself. In this business of yours—supposing it comes to what you would consider at the moment a success——'

'At the moment?' Hamilton pleaded, in pained remonstrance.

'At the moment—yes. Supposing the thing ends successfully for you, one plan of life or other must necessarily be sacrificed—yours or hers. Which is it going to be? Don't make too much of her present enthusiasm. Which is it going to be?'

'I don't believe there will be any sacrifice needed,' Hamilton said, in an impassioned tone. 'I told you she loves Gloria as well as you or I could do.'

The Dictator shook his head and smiled pityingly.

'But if there is to be any sacrifice of any life,' Hamilton said, driven on perhaps by his chief's pitying smile, 'it shan't be hers. No, if she will have me after we have got back to Gloria, I'll live with her in London every season and ride with her in the Row every morning and afternoon, and take her, by Jove! to all the dinners and balls she cares about, and she shall have her heart's desire, whatever it be.'

The Dictator's face was crossed by some shadows. Pity was there, and sympathy was there—and a certain melancholy pleasure, and, it may be, a certain disappointment. He pulled himself together very quickly, and was cool, genial, and composed, according to his usual way.

'All right, my boy,' he said, 'this is genuine love at all events, however it may turn out. You have answered my question fairly and fully. I see now that you do know what you want. That is one great point, anyhow. I will do my very best to get for you what you want. If it only rested with me, Hamilton!' There was a positive note of tenderness in his voice as he spoke these words; and yet there was a kind of forlorn feeling in his heart, as if the friend of his heart was leaving him. He felt a little as the brother Vult in Richter's exquisite and forgotten novel might have felt when he was sounding on his flute that final morning, and going out on his cold way never to see his brother again. The brother Walt heard the soft, sweet notes, and smiled tranquilly, believing that his brother was merely going on a kindly errand to help him, Walt, to happiness. But the flute-player felt that, come what might, they were, in fact, to be parted for ever.



CHAPTER VIII

'I WONDER WHY?'

The Dictator had had a good deal to do with marrying and giving in marriage in the Republic of Gloria. One of the social and moral reforms he had endeavoured to bring about was that which should secure to young people the right of being consulted as to their own inclinations before they were formally and finally consigned to wedlock. The ordinary practice in Gloria was very much like that which prevails in certain Indian tribes—the family on either side arranged for the young man and the maiden, made it a matter of market bargain, settled it by compromise of price or otherwise, and then brought the pair together and married them. Ericson set his face against such a system, and tried to get a chance for the young people. He carried his influence so far that the parents on both sides among the official classes in the capital consulted him generally before taking any step, and then he frankly undertook the mediator's part, and found out whether the young woman liked the young man or not—whether she liked someone better or not. He had a sweet and kindly way with him which usually made both the youths and the maidens confidential—and he learned many a quiet heart-secret; and where he found that a suggested marriage would really not do, he told the parents as much, and they generally yielded to his influence and his authority. He had made happy many a pair of young lovers who, without his beneficent intervention, would have been doomed to 'spoil two houses,' as the old saying puts it.

Therefore, he did not feel much put out at the mere idea of intervening in another man's love affairs, or even the idea of carrying a proposal of marriage from another man.

Yet the Dictator was in somewhat thoughtful mood as he drove to Sir Rupert Langley's. He had taken much interest in Helena Langley. She had an influence over him which he told himself was only the influence of a clever child—told himself of this again and again. Yet there was a curious feeling of unfitness or dissatisfaction with the part he was going to play. Of course, he would do his very best for Hamilton. There was no man in the world for whom he cared half so much as he did for Hamilton. No—that is not putting it strongly enough—there was now no man in the world for whom he really cared but Hamilton. The Dictator's affections were curiously narrowed. He had almost no friends whom he really loved but Hamilton—and acquaintances were to him just all the same, one as good as another, and no better. He was a philanthropist by temperament, or nature, or nerve, or something; but while he would have risked his life for almost any man, and for any woman or child, he did not care in the least for social intercourse with men, women, and children in general. He could not talk to a child—children were a trouble to him, because he did not know what to say to them. Perhaps this was one reason why he was attracted by Helena Langley; she seemed so like the ideal child to whom one can talk. Then came up the thought in his mind—must he lose Hamilton if Miss Langley should consent to take him as her husband? Of course, Hamilton had declared that he would never marry until the Dictator and he had won back Gloria; but how long would that resolve last if Helena were to answer, Yes—and Now? The Dictator felt lonely as his cab stopped at Sir Rupert Langley's door.

'Is Miss Langley at home?'

Yes, Miss Langley was at home. Of course, the Dictator knew that she would be, and yet in his heart he could almost have wished to hear that she was out. There is a mood of mind in which one likes any postponement. But the duty of friendship had to be done—and the Dictator was sorry for everybody.

The Dictator was met in the hall by the footman, and also by To-to. To-to was Helena's black poodle. The black poodle took to all Helena's friends very readily. Whom she liked, he liked. He had his ways, like his mistress—and he at once allowed Ericson to understand not only that Helena was at home, but that Helena was sitting just then in her own room, where she habitually received her friends. The footman told the Dictator that Miss Langley was at home—To-to told him what the footman could not have ventured to do, that she was waiting for him in her own drawing-room, and ready to receive him.

Now, how did To-to contrive to tell him that? Very easily, in truth. To-to had a keen, healthy curiosity. He was always anxious to know what was going on. The moment he heard the bell ring at the great door he wanted to know who was coming in, and he ran down the stairs and stood in the hall to find out. When the door was opened, and the visitor appeared, To-to instantly made up his mind. If it was an unfamiliar figure, To-to considered it an introduction in which he had no manner of interest, and, without waiting one second, he scampered back to rejoin his mistress, and try to explain to her that there was some very uninteresting man or woman coming to call on her. But if it was somebody he knew, and whom he knew that his mistress knew, then there were two courses open to him. If Helena was not in her sitting room, To-to welcomed the visitor in the most friendly and hospitable way, and then fell into the background, and took no further notice, but ranged the premises carelessly and on his own account. If, however, his mistress were in her drawing room, then To-to invariably preceded the visitor up the stairs, going in front even of the footman, and ushered the new-comer into my lady's chamber. The process of reasoning on To-to's part must have been somewhat after this fashion. 'My business is to announce my lady's friends, the people whom I, with my exquisite intelligence, know to be people whom she wants to see. If I know that she is in her drawing-room ready to see them, then, of course, it is my duty and my pleasure to go before, and announce them. But if I know, having just been there, that she is not yet there, then I have no function to perform. It is the business of some other creature—her maid very likely—to receive the news from the footman that someone is waiting to see her. That is a complex process with which I have nothing to do.' The favoured visitor, therefore—the visitor, that is to say, whom To-to favoured, believing him or her to be favoured by To-to's mistress—had to pass through what may be called two portals, or ordeals. First, he had to ask of the servant whether Miss Langley was at home. Being informed that she was at home, then it depended on To-to to let the visitor know whether Miss Langley was actually in her drawing-room waiting to receive him, or whether he was to be shown into the drawing-room and told that Miss Langley would be duly informed of his presence, and asked if he would be good enough to take a chair and wait for a moment. Never was To-to known to make the slightest mistake about the actual condition of things. Never had he run up in advance of the Dictator when his mistress was not seated in her drawing-room ready to receive her visitor. Never had he remained lingering in the hall and the passages when Miss Langley was in her room, and prepared for the reception. Evidently, To-to regarded himself as Helena's special functionary. The other attendants and followers—footmen, maids, and such like—might be allowed the privilege of saying whether Miss Langley was or was not at home to receive visitors; but the special and quite peculiar function of To-to was to make it clear whether Miss Langley was or was not at that very moment waiting in her own particular drawing-room to welcome them.

So the Dictator, who had not much time to spare, being pressed with various affairs to attend to, was much pleased to find that To-to not merely welcomed him when the door was opened—a welcome which the Dictator would have expected from To-to's undisguised regard and even patronage—but that To-to briskly ran up the stairs in advance of the footman, and ran before him in through the drawing-room door when the footman had opened it. The Dictator loved the dog because of the creature's friendship for him and love for its mistress. The Dictator did not know how much he loved the dog because the dog was devoted to Helena Langley. On the stairs, as he went up, a sudden pang passed through the Dictator's heart. It might, perhaps, have brought him even clearer warning than it did. 'If I succeed in my mission'—it might have told him—'what is to become of me?' But, although the shot of pain did pass through him, he did not give it time to explain itself.

Helena was seated on a sofa. The moment she heard his name announced she jumped up and ran to meet him.

'I ought to have gone beyond the threshold,' she said, blushing, 'to meet my king.'

'So kind of you,' he said, rather stiffly, 'to stay in for me. You have so many engagements.'

'As if I would not give up any engagement to please you! And the very first time you expressed any wish to see me!'

'Well, I have come talk to you about something very serious.'

She looked up amazed, her bright eyes broadening with wonder.

'Something that concerns the happiness of yourself, perhaps—of another person certainly.'

She drooped her eyes now, and her colour deepened and her breath came quickly.

The Dictator went to the point at once.

'I am bad at prefaces,' he said, 'I come to speak to you on behalf of my dear young friend and comrade, Ernest Hamilton.'

'Oh!' She drew herself up and looked almost defiantly at him.

'Yes; he asked me to come and see you.'

'What have I to do with Mr. Hamilton?'

'That you must teach me,' said Ericson, smiling rather sadly, and quoting from 'Hamlet.'

'I can teach you that very quickly—Nothing.'

'But you have not heard what I was going to say.'

'No. Well, you were quoting from Shakespeare—let me quote too. "Had I three ears I'd hear thee."' She drew herself back into her sofa. They were seated on the sofa side by side. He was leaning forward—she had drawn back. She was waiting in a sort of dogged silence.

'Hamilton is one of the noblest creatures I ever knew. He is my very dearest friend.'

A shade came over her face, and she shrugged her shoulders.

'I mean amongst men. I was not thinking of you.'

'No,' she answered, 'I am quite sure you were not thinking of me.'

She perversely pretended to misunderstand his meaning. He hardly noticed her words. 'Please go on,' she said, 'and tell me about Mr. Hamilton.'

'He is in love with you,' the Dictator said in a soft low-voice, and as if he envied the man about whom that tale could be told.

'Oh!' she exclaimed impatiently, turning on the sofa as if in pain, 'I am sick of all this love making! Why can't a young man like one without making an idiot of himself and falling in love with one? Why can't we let each other be happy all in our own way? It is all so horribly mechanical! You meet a man two or three times, and you dance with him, and you talk with him, and perhaps you like him—perhaps you like him ever so much—and then in a moment he spoils the whole thing by throwing his ridiculous offer of marriage right in your face! Why on earth should I marry Mr. Hamilton?'

'Don't take it too lightly, dear young lady—I know Hamilton to the very depth of his nature. This is a serious thing with him—he is not like the commonplace young masher of London society; when he feels, he feels deeply—I know what has been his personal devotion to myself.'

'Then why does he not keep to that devotion? Why does he desert his post? What does he want of me? What do I want of him? I liked him chiefly because he was devoted to you—and now he turns right round and wants to be devoted to me! Tell him from me that he was much better employed with his former devotion—tell him my advice was that he should stick to it.'

'You must give a more serious answer,' the Dictator said gravely.

'Why didn't he come himself?' she asked somewhat inconsequently, and going off on another tack at once. 'I can't understand how a man of any spirit can make love by deputy.'

'Kings do sometimes,' the Dictator said.

Helena blushed again. Some thought was passing through her mind which was not in his. She had called him her king.

'Mr. Hamilton is not a king,' she said almost angrily. She was on the point of blurting out, 'Mr. Hamilton is not my king,' but she recovered herself in good time. 'Even if he were,' she went on, 'I should rather be proposed to in person as Katherine was by Henry the Fifth.'

'You take this all too lightly,' Ericson pleaded. 'Remember that this young man's heart and his future life are wrapped up in your answer, and in you.'

'Tell him to come himself and get his answer,' she said with a scornful toss of her head. Something had risen up in her heart which made her unkind.

'Miss Langley,' Ericson said gravely, 'I think it would have been much better if Hamilton had come himself and made his proposal, and argued it out with you for himself. I told him so, but he would not be advised. He is too modest and fearful, although, I tell you, I have seen more than once what pluck he has in danger. Yes, I have seen how cool, how elate he can be with the bullets and the bayonets of the enemy all at work about him. But he is timid with you—because he loves you.'

'"He either fears his fate too much——"' she began.

'You can't settle this thing by a quotation. I see that you are in a mood for quotations, and that shows that you are not very serious. I shall tell you why he asked me, and prevailed upon me, to come to you and speak for him. There is no reason why I should not tell you.'

'Tell me,' she said.

'I am old enough to have no hesitation in telling a girl of your age anything.'

'Again!' Helena said. 'I do wish you would let my age alone? I thought we had come to an honourable understanding to leave my age out of the question.'

'I fear it can't well be left out of this question. You see, what I was going to tell you was that Hamilton asked me to break this to you because he believes that I have great influence with you.'

'Of course, you know you have.'

'Yes—but there was more.'

'What more?' She turned her head away.

'He is under the impression that you would do anything I asked you to do.'

'So I would, and so I will!' she exclaimed impetuously. 'If you ask me to marry Mr. Hamilton I will marry him! Yes—I will. If you, knowing what you do know, can wish your friend to marry me, and me to become his wife, I will accept his condescending offer! You know I do not love him—you know I never felt one moment's feeling of that kind for him—you know that I like him as I like twenty other young men—and not a bit more. You know this—at all events, you know it now when I tell you—and will you ask me to marry Mr. Hamilton now?'

'But is this all true? Is this really how you feel to him?'

'Zwischen uns sei Wahrheit,' Helena said scornfully. 'Why should I deceive you? If I loved Mr. Hamilton I could marry him, couldn't I?—seeing that he has sent you to ask me? I do not love him—I never could love him in that way. Now what do you ask me to do?'

'I am sorry for my poor young friend and comrade,' the Dictator answered sadly. 'I thought, perhaps, he might have had some reason to believe——'

'Did he tell you anything of the kind?'

'Oh, no, no; he is the last man in the world to say such a thing, or even to think it. One reason why he wished me to open the matter to you was that he feared, if he spoke to you about it himself, you would only laugh at him and refuse to give him a serious answer. He thought you would give me a serious answer.'