'What a very extraordinary and eccentric young man!'

'Indeed, he is nothing of the kind—although, of course, like myself, he has lived a good deal outside the currents of English feeling.'

'I should have thought,' she said gravely, 'that that was rather a question of the currents of common human feeling. Do the young women in Gloria like to be made love to by delegation?'

'Would it have made any difference if he had come himself?'

'No difference in the world—now or at any other time. But remember, I am a very loyal subject, and I admit the right of my king to hand me over in marriage. If you tell me to marry Mr. Hamilton, I will.'

'You are only jesting, Miss Langley, and this is not a jest.'

'I don't feel much in the mood for jesting,' she answered. 'It would rather seem as if I had been made the subject of a jest——'

'Oh, you must not say that,' he interposed in an almost angry tone. 'You can't, and don't, think that either of him or of me.'

'No, I don't; I could not think it of you—and no, I could not think it of him either. But you must admit that he has acted rather oddly.'

'And I too, I suppose?'

'Oh, you—well, of course, you were naturally thinking of the interest, or, at least, the momentary wishes, of your friend.'

'Of my two friends—you are my friend. Did we not swear an eternal friendship the other night?'

'Now you are jesting.'

'I am not; I am profoundly serious. I thought perhaps this might be for the happiness of both.'

'Did you ever see anything in me which seemed to make such an idea likely?'

'You see, I have known you but for so short a time.'

'People who are worth knowing at all are known at once or never known,' she said promptly and very dogmatically.

'Young ladies do not wear their hearts upon their sleeves.'

'I am afraid I do sometimes—too much,' she said.

'I thought it at least possible.'

'Now you know. Well, are you going to ask me to marry your friend Mr. Hamilton?'

'No, indeed, Miss Langley. That would be a cruel injustice and wrong to him and to you. He must marry someone who loves him; you must marry someone whom you love. I am sorry for my poor friend—this will hurt him. But he cannot blame you, and I cannot blame you. He has some comfort—he has Gloria to fight for some day.'

'Put it nicely—very nicely to him,' Helena said, softening now that all was over. 'Tell him—won't you?—that I am ever so fond of him; and tell him that this must not make the least difference in our friendship. No one shall ever know from me.'

'I will put it all as well as I can,' said the Dictator; 'but I am afraid it must make a difference to him. It made a difference to me—when I was a young man of about his age.'

'You were disappointed?' Helena asked, in rather tremulous tone.

'More than that; I think I was deceived. I was ever so much worse off than Hamilton, for there was bitterness in my story, and there can be none in his. But I have survived—as you see.'

'Is—she—still living?'

'Oh, yes; she married for money and rank, and has got both, and I believe she is perfectly happy.'

'And have you recovered—quite?'

'Quite; I fancy it must have been an unreal sort of thing altogether. My wound is quite healed—does not give me even a passing moment of pain, as very old wounds sometimes do. But I am not going to lapse into the sentimental. It was only the thought of Hamilton that brought all this up.'

'You are not sentimental?' Helena asked.

'I have not had time to be. Anyhow, no woman ever cared about me—in that way, I mean—no, not one.'

'Ah, you never can tell,' Helena said gently. He seemed to her somehow, to have led a very lonely life; it came into her thoughts just then; she could not tell why. She was relieved when he rose to go, for she felt her sympathy for him beginning to be a little too strong, and she was afraid of betraying it. The interview had been a curious and a trying one for her. The Dictator left the room wondering how he could ever have been drawn into talking to a girl about the story of his lost love. 'That girl has a strange influence over me,' he thought. 'I wonder why?'



CHAPTER IX

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

Soame Rivers was in some ways, and not a few, a model private secretary for a busy statesman. He was a gentleman by birth, bringing-up, appearance, and manners; he was very quick, adroit and clever; he had a wonderful memory, a remarkable faculty for keeping documents and ideas in order; he could speak French, German, Italian, and Spanish, and conduct a correspondence in these languages. He knew the political and other gossip of most or all of the European capitals, and of Washington and Cairo just as well. He could be interviewed on behalf of his chief, and could be trusted not to utter one single word of which his chief could not approve. He would see any undesirable visitor, and in five minutes talk him over into the belief that it was a perfect grief to the Minister to have to forego the pleasure of seeing him in person. He was to be trusted with any secret which concerned his position, and no power on earth could surprise him into any look or gesture from which anybody could conjecture that he knew more than he professed to know. He was a younger son of very good family, and although his allowance was not large, it enabled him, as a bachelor, to live an easy and gentlemanly life. He belonged to some good clubs, and he always dined out in the season. He had nice little chambers in the St. James's Street region, and, of course, he spent the greater part of every day in Sir Rupert's house, or in the lobby of the House of Commons. It was understood that he was to be provided with a seat in Parliament at the earliest possible opportunity, not, indeed, so much for the good of the State as for the convenience of his chief, who, naturally, found it unsatisfactory to have to go out into the lobby in order to get hold of his private secretary. Rivers was devoted to his chief in his own sort of way. That way was not like the devotion of Hamilton to the Dictator; for it is very likely that, in his own secret soul, Rivers occasionally made fun of Sir Rupert, with his Quixotic ideas and his sentimentalisms, and his views of life. Rivers had no views on the subject of life or of anything else. But Hamilton himself could not be more careful of his chief's interests than was Rivers. Rivers had no beliefs and no prejudices. He was not an immoral man, but he had no prejudice in favour of morality; he was not cruel, but he had no objection to other people being as cruel as they liked, as cruel as the law would allow them to be, provided that their cruelty was not exercised on himself, or any one he particularly cared about. He never in his life professed or felt one single impulse of what is called philanthropy. It was to him a matter of perfect indifference whether ten thousand people in some remote place did or did not perish by war, or fever, or cyclone, or inundation. Nor did he care in the least, except for occasional political purposes, about the condition of the poor in our rural villages or in the East End of London. He regarded the poor as he regarded the flies—that is, with entire indifference so long as they did not come near enough to annoy him. He did not care how they lived, or whether they lived at all. For a long time he could not bring himself to believe that Helena Langley really felt any strong interest in the poor. He could not believe that her professed zeal for their welfare was anything other than the graceful affectation of a pretty and clever girl.

But we all have our weaknesses, even the strongest of us, and Soame Rivers found, when he began to be much in companionship with Helena Langley, where the weak point was to be hit in his panoply of pride. To him love and affection and all that sort of thing were mere sentimental nonsense, encumbering a rising man, and as likely as not, if indulged in, to spoil his whole career. He had always made up his mind to the fact that, if he ever did marry, he must marry a woman with money. He would not marry at all unless he could have a house and entertain as other people in society were in the habit of doing. As a bachelor he was all right. He could keep nice chambers; he could ride in the Row; he could have a valet; he could wear good clothes—and he was a man whom Nature had meant, and tailor recognised, for one to show off good clothes. But if he should ever marry it was clear to him that he must have a house like other people, and that he must give dinner parties. He did not reason this out in his mind—he never reasoned anything out in his mind—it was all clear and self-evident to him. Therefore, after a while, the question began to arise—why should he not marry Helena Langley? He knew perfectly well that if she wished to be married to him Sir Rupert would not offer the slightest objection. Any man whom his daughter really loved Sir Rupert would certainly accept as a son-in-law. Rivers even fancied, not, perhaps, altogether without reason, that Sir Rupert personally would regard it as a convenient arrangement if his daughter were to fall in love with his secretary and get married to him. But above and beyond all this, Rivers, as a practical philosopher, had broken down, and he found himself in love with Helena Langley. For herself, Helena never suspected it. She had grown to be very fond of Soame Rivers. He seemed to fill for her exactly the part that a good-tempered brother might have done. Indeed, not any brother, however good-natured, would have been as attentive to a sister as Rivers was to her. He had a quiet, unobtrusive way of putting his personal attentions as part of his official duty which absolutely relieved Helena's mind of any idea of lover-like consideration. At many a dinner party or evening party her father had to leave her prematurely, and go down to the House of Commons. It became to her a matter of course that in such a case Rivers was always sure to be there to put her into her carriage and see that she got safely home. There was nothing in it. He was her father's secretary—a gentleman, to be sure; a man of social position, as good as the best; but still, her father's secretary looking after her because of his devotion to her father. She began to like him every day more and more for his devotion to her father. She did not at first like his cynical ways—his trick of making out that every great deed was really but a small one, that every seemingly generous and self-sacrificing action was actually inspired by the very principle of selfishness; that love of the poor, sympathy with the oppressed, were only with the better classes another mode of amusing a weary social life. But she soon made out a generous theory to satisfy herself on that point. Soame Rivers, she felt sure, put on that panoply of cynicism only to guard himself against the weakness of yielding to a futile sensibility. He was very poor, she thought. She had lordly views about money, and she thought a man without a country house of his own must needs be wretchedly poor, and she knew that Soame Rivers passed all his holiday seasons in the country houses of other people. Therefore, she made out that Soame Rivers was very poor; and, of course, if he was very poor, he could not lend much practical aid to those who, in the East End or otherwise, were still poorer than he. So she assumed that he put on the mask of cynicism to hide the flushings of sensibility. She told him as much; she said she knew that his affected indifference to the interests of humanity was only a disguise put on to conceal his real feelings. At first he used to laugh at her odd, pretty conceits. After a while he came to encourage her in the idea, even while formally assuring her that there was nothing in it, and that he did not care a straw whether the poor were miserable or happy.

Chance favoured him. There were some poor people whom Helena and her father were shipping off to New Zealand. Sir Rupert, without Helena's knowledge, asked his secretary to look after them the night of their going aboard, as he could not be there himself. Helena, without consulting her father, drove down to the docks to look after her poor friends, and there she found Rivers installed in the business of protector. He did the work well—as he did every work that came to his hand. The emigrants thought him the nicest gentleman they had ever known. Helena said to him, 'Come now! I have found you out at last.' And he only said, 'Oh, nonsense! this is nothing.' But he did not more directly contradict her theory, and he did not say her father had sent him—for he knew Sir Rupert would never say that of himself.

Rivers found himself every day watching over Helena with a deepening interest and anxiety. Her talk, her companionship, were growing to be indispensable to him. He did not pay her compliments—indeed, sometimes they rather sparred at one another in a pleasant schoolboy and schoolgirl sort of way. But she liked his society, and felt herself thoroughly companionable and comrade-like with him, and she never thought of concealing her liking. The result was that Soame Rivers began to think it quite on the cards that, if nothing should interpose, he might marry Helena Langley—and that, too, before very long. Then he should have in every way his heart's desire.

If nothing should interpose? Yes, but there was where the danger came in! If nothing should interpose? But was it likely that nothing and nobody would interpose? The girl was well known to be a rich heiress; she was the only child of a most distinguished statesman; she would be very likely to have Dukes and Marquises competing for her hand, and where might Soame Rivers be then? The young man sometimes thought that, if through her unconventional and somewhat romantic nature he could entangle her in a love affair, he might be able to induce her to get secretly married to him—before any of the possible Dukes and Marquises had time to put in a claim. But, of course, there would be always the danger of his turning Sir Rupert hopelessly against him by any trick of that kind, and he saw no use in having the daughter on his side if he could not also have the father. Besides, he had a sore conviction that the girl would not do anything to displease her father. So he gave up the idea of the romantic elopement, or the secret marriage, and he reminded himself that, after all, Helena Langley, with all her unconventional ways, was not exactly another Lydia Languish.

Then the Dictator and Hamilton came on the scene, and Rivers had many an unhappy hour of it. At first he was more alarmed about Hamilton than about the Dictator. He could easily understand an impulsive girl's hero-worship for the Dictator, and he did not think much about it. The Dictator, he assured himself, must seem quite an elderly sort of person to a girl of Helena's age; but Hamilton was young and handsome, of good family, and undoubtedly rich. Hamilton and Helena fraternised very freely and openly in their adoration for Ericson, and Rivers thought moodily that that partnership of admiration for a third person might very well end in a partnership of still closer admiration for each other. So, although from the very first he disliked the Dictator, yet he soon began to detest Hamilton a great deal more.

His dislike of Ericson was not exclusively and altogether because of Helena's hero-worship. According to his way of thinking, all foreign adventure had something more or less vulgar in it, but that was especially objectionable in the case of an Englishman. What business had an Englishman—one who claims apparently to be an English gentleman—what business had he with a lot of South American Republicans? What did he want among such people? Why should he care about them? Why should he want to govern them? And if he did want to govern them, why did he not stay there and govern? The thing was in any case mere bravado, and melodramatic enterprise.

It was the morning after the day when the Dictator had proposed to Helena for poor Hamilton. Soame Rivers met Helena on the staircase.

'Of course,' he said, with an emphasis, 'you will be at luncheon to-day?'

'Why, of course?' she asked, carelessly.

'Well—your hero is coming—didn't you know?'

'I didn't know; and who is my hero?'

'Oh, come now!—the Dictator, of course.'

'Is he coming?' she asked, with a sudden gleam of genuine emotion flashing over her face.

'Yes; your father particularly wants him to meet Sir Lionel Rainey.'

'Oh, I didn't know. Well, yes—I shall be there, I suppose, if I feel well enough.'

'Are you not well?' Rivers asked, with a tone of somewhat artificial tenderness in his voice.

'Oh, yes, I am all right; but I might not feel quite up to the level of Sir Lionel Rainey. Only men, of course?'

'Only men.'

'Well, I shall think it over.'

'But you can't want to miss your Dictator?'

'My Dictator will probably not miss me,' the girl said in scornful tones which brought no comfort to the heart of Soame Rivers.

'You would be very sorry if he did not miss you,' Soame Rivers said blunderingly. Your cynical man of the world has his feelings and his angers.

'Very sorry!' Helena defiantly declared.

The Dictator came punctually at two—he was always punctual. To-to was friendly, but did not conduct him. He was shown at once into the dining-room, where luncheon was laid out. The room looked lonely to the Dictator. Helena was not there.

'My daughter is not coming down to luncheon,' Sir Rupert said.

'I am so sorry,' the Dictator said. 'Nothing serious, I hope?'

'Oh, no!—a cold, or something like that—she didn't tell me. She will be quite well, I hope, to-morrow. You see how To-to keeps her place.'

Ericson then saw that To-to was seated resolutely on the chair which Helena usually occupied at luncheon.

'But what is the use if she is not coming?' the Dictator suggested—not to disparage the intelligence of To-to, but only to find out, if he could, the motive of that undoubtedly sagacious animal's taking such a definite attitude.

'Well, To-to does not like the idea of anyone taking Helena's place except himself. Now, you will see; when we all settle down, and no one presumes to try for that chair, To-to will quietly drop out of it and allow the remainder of the performance to go undisturbed. He doesn't want to set up any claim to sit on the chair himself; all he wants is to assert and to protect the right of Helena to have that chair at any moment when she may choose to join us at luncheon.'

The rest of the party soon came in from various rooms and consultations. Soame Rivers was the first.

'Miss Langley not coming?' he said, with a glance at To-to.

'No,' Sir Rupert answered. 'She is a little out of sorts to-day—nothing much—but she won't come down just yet.'

'So To-to keeps her seat reserved, I see.'

The Dictator felt in his heart as if he and To-to were born to be friends.

The other guests were Lord Courtreeve and Sir Lionel Rainey, the famous Englishman, who had settled himself down at the Court of the King of Siam, and taken in hand the railway and general engineering and military and financial arrangements of that monarch; and, having been somewhat hurt in an expedition against the Black Flags, was now at home, partly for rest and recovery, and partly in order to have an opportunity of enlightening his Majesty of Siam, who had a very inquiring mind, on the immediate condition of politics and house-building in England. Sir Lionel said that, above all things, the King of Siam would be interested in learning something about Ericson and the condition of Gloria, for the King of Siam read everything he could get hold of about politics everywhere. Therefore, Sir Rupert had undertaken to invite the Dictator to this luncheon, and the Dictator had willingly undertaken to come. Soame Rivers had been showing Sir Lionel over the house, and explaining all its arrangements to him—for the King of Siam had thoughts of building a palace after the fashion of some first-class and up-to-date house in London. Sir Lionel was a stout man, rather above the middle height, but looking rather below it, because of his stoutness. He had a sharply turned-up dark moustache, and purpling cheeks and eyes that seemed too tightly fitted into the face for their own personal comfort.

Lord Courtreeve was a pale young man, with a very refined and delicate face. He was a member of the London County Council, and was a chairman of a County Council in his own part of the country. He was a strong advocate of Local Option, and wore at his courageous buttonhole the blue ribbon which proclaimed his devotion to the cause of temperance. He was an honoured and a sincere member of the League of Social Purity. He was much interested in the increase of open spaces and recreation grounds for the London poor. He was an unaffectedly good young man, and if people sometimes smiled quietly at him, they respected him all the same. Soame Rivers had said of him that Providence had invented him to be the chief living argument in favour of the principle of hereditary legislation.

Sir Lionel Rainey and Lord Courtreeve did not get on at all. Sir Lionel had too many odd and high-flavoured anecdotes about life in Siam to be a congenial neighbour for the champion of social purity. He had a way, too, of referring everything to the lower instincts of man, and roughly declining to reckon in the least idea of any of man's, or woman's, higher qualities. Therefore, the Dictator did not take to him any more than Lord Courtreeve did; and Sir Rupert began to think that his luncheon party was not well mixed. Soame Rivers saw it too, and was determined to get the company out of Siam.

'Do you find London society much changed since you were here last, Sir Lionel?' he asked.

'Didn't come to London to study society,' Sir Lionel answered, somewhat gruffly, for he thought there was much more to be said about Siam. 'I mean in that sort of way. I want to get some notions to take back to the King of Siam.'

'But might it not interest his Majesty to know of any change, if there were any, in London society during that time?' Rivers blandly asked.

'No, sir. His Majesty never was in England, and he could not be expected to take any interest in the small and superficial changes made in the tone or the talk of society during a few years. You might as well expect him to be interested in the fact that whereas when I was here last the ladies wore eel-skin dresses, now they wear full skirts, and some of them, I am told, wear a divided skirt.'

'But I thought such changes of fashion might interest the King,' Rivers remarked with an elaborate meekness.

'The King, sir, does not care about divided skirts,' Sir Lionel answered, with scorn and resentment in his voice.

'I must confess,' the Dictator said, glad to be free of Siam, 'that I have been much interested in observing the changes that have been made in the life of England—I mean in the life of London—since I was living here.'

'We have all got so Republican,' Sir Rupert said sadly.

'And we all profess to be Socialists,' Soame Rivers added.

'There is much more done for the poor than ever there was before,' Lord Courtreeve pleaded.

'Because so many of the poor have got votes,' Rivers observed.

'Yes,' Sir Lionel struck in with a laugh, 'and you fellows all want to get into the House of Commons or the County Council, or some such place. By Jove! in my time a gentleman would not want to become a County Councillor.'

'I am not troubling myself about English politics,' the Dictator said. 'I do not care to vex myself about them. I should probably only end by forming opinions quite different from some of my friends here, and, as I have no mission for English political life, what would be the good of that? But I am much interested in English social life, and even in what is called Society. Now, what I want to know is how far does society in London represent social London, and still more, social England?'

'Not the least in the world,' Sir Rupert promptly replied.

'I am not quite so sure of that,' Soame Rivers interposed, 'I fancy most of the fellows try to take their tone from us.'

'I hope not,' the Dictator said.

'So do I,' added Sir Rupert emphatically; 'and I am quite certain they do not. What on earth do you know about it, Rivers?' he asked almost sharply.

'Why shouldn't I know all about it, if I took the trouble to find out?' Rivers answered languidly.

'Yes, yes. Of course you could,' Sir Rupert said benignly, correcting his awkward touch of anger as a painter corrects some sudden mistake in drawing. 'I didn't mean in the least to disparage your faculty of acquiring correct information on any subject. Nobody appreciates more than I do what you are capable of in that way—nobody has had so much practical experience of it. But what I mean is this—that I don't think you know a great deal of English social life outside the West End of London.'

'Is there anything of social life worth knowing to be known outside the West End of London?' Soame Rivers asked.

'Well, you see, the mere fact that you put the question shows that you can't do much to enlighten Mr. Ericson on the one point about which he asks for some enlightenment. He has been out of England for a great many years, and he finds some fault with our ways—or, at least, he asks for some explanation about them.'

'Yes, quite so. I am afraid I have forgotten the point on which Mr. Ericson desired to get information.' And Rivers smiled a bland smile without looking at Ericson. 'May I trouble you, Lord Courtreeve, for the cigarettes?'

'It was not merely a point, but a whole cresset of points—a cluster of points,' Ericson said, 'on every one of which I wished to have a tip of light. Is English social life to be judged of by the conversation and the canons of opinion which we find received in London society?'

'Certainly not,' Sir Rupert explained.

'Heaven forbid!' Lord Courtreeve added fervently.

'I don't quite understand,' said Soame Rivers.

'Well,' the Dictator explained, 'what I mean is this. I find little or nothing prevailing in London society but cheap cynicism—the very cheapest cynicism—cynicism at a farthing a yard or thereabouts. We all admire healthy cynicism—cynicism with a great reforming and purifying purpose—the cynicism that is like a corrosive acid to an evil system; but this West End London sham cynicism—what does that mean?'

'I don't quite know what you mean,' Soame Rivers said.

'I mean this, wherever you go in London society—at all events, wherever I go—I notice a peculiarity that I think did not exist, at all events to such an extent, in my younger days. Everything is taken with easy ridicule. A divorce case is a joke. Marriage is a joke. Love is a joke. Patriotism is a joke. Everybody is assumed, as a matter of course, to have a selfish motive in everything. Is this the real feeling of London society, or is it only a fashion, a sham, a grimace?'

'I think it is a very natural feeling,' Soame Rivers replied, with the greatest promptitude.

'And represents the true feeling of what are called the better classes of London?'

'Why, certainly.'

'I think the thing is detestable, anyhow,' Lord Courtreeve interposed, 'and I am quite sure it does not represent the tone of English society.'

'So am I,' Sir Rupert added.

'But you must admit that it is the tone which does prevail,' the Dictator said pressingly, for he wanted very much to study this question down to its roots.

'I am afraid it is the prevailing social tone of London—I mean the West End,' Sir Rupert admitted reluctantly. 'But you know what a fashion there is in these things, as well as in others. The fashion in a woman's gown or a man's hat does not always represent the shape of a woman's body or the size of a man's head.'

'It sometimes represents the shape of the man's mind, and the size of the woman's heart,' said Rivers.

'Well, anyhow,' Sir Rupert persevered, 'we all know that a great deal of this sort of talk is talked for want of anything else to say, and because it amuses most people, and because anybody can talk cheap cynicism; I believe that London society is healthy at the core.'

'But come now—let us understand?' Ericson asked; 'how can the society be healthy at the core for which you yourself make the apology by saying that it parrots the jargon of a false and loathsome creed because it has nothing better to say, or because it hopes to be thought witty by parroting it? Come, Sir Rupert, you won't maintain that?'

'I will maintain,' Sir Rupert said, 'that London society is not as bad as it seems.'

'Oh, well, I have no doubt you are right in that,' the Dictator hastily replied. 'But what I think so melancholy to see is that degeneracy of social life in England—I mean in London—which apes a cynicism it doesn't feel.'

'But I think it does feel it,' Rivers struck in; 'and very naturally and justly.'

'Then you think London society is really demoralised?' the Dictator spoke, turning on him rather suddenly.

'I think London society is just what is has always been,' Rivers promptly answered.

'Corrupt and cynical?'

'Well, no. I should rather say corrupt and candid.'

'If that is London society, that certainly is not English social life,' Lord Courtreeve declared emphatically, patting the table with his hand. 'It isn't even London social life. Come down to the East End, sir——'

'Oh, indeed, by Jove! I shall do nothing of the kind!' Rivers replied, as with a shudder. 'I think, of all the humbugs of London society, slumming is about the worst.'

'I was not speaking of that,' Lord Courtreeve said, with a slight flush on his mild face. 'Perhaps I do not think very differently from you about some of it—some of it—although, Heaven be praised, not about all; but what I mean and was going to say when I was interrupted'—and he looked with a certain modified air of reproach at Rivers—'what I was going to say when I was interrupted,' he repeated, as if to make sure that he was not going to be interrupted this time—'was, that if you would go down to the East End with me, I could show you in one day plenty of proofs that the heart of the English people is as sound and true as ever it was——'

'Very likely,' Rivers interposed saucily. 'I never said it wasn't.'

Lord Courtreevo gaped with astonishment.

'I don't quite grasp your meaning,' he stammered.

'I never said,' Soame Rivers replied deliberately, 'that the heart of the English people was not just as sound and true now as ever it was—I dare say it is just about the same—meme jeu, don't you know?' and he took a languid puff at his cigarette.

'Am I to be glad or sorry of your answer?' Lord Courtreeve asked, with a stare.

'How can I tell? It depends on what you want me to say.'

'Well, if you mean to praise the great heart of the English people now, and at other times——'

'Oh dear, no; I mean nothing of the kind.'

'I say, Rivers, this is all bosh, you know,' Sir Rupert struck in.

'I think we are all shams and frauds in our set—in our class,' Rivers said, composedly; 'and we are well brought up and educated and all that, don't you know? I really can't see why some cads who clean windows, or drive omnibuses, or sell vegetables in a donkey-cart, or carry bricks up a ladder, should be any better than we. Not a bit of it—if we are bad, they are worse, you may put your money on that.'

'Well I think I have had my answer,' the Dictator said, with a smile.

'And what is your interpretation of the Oracle's answer?' Rivers asked.

'I should have to interpret the Oracle itself before I could be clear as to the meaning of its answer,' Ericson said composedly.

Soame Rivers knew pretty well by the words and by the tone that if he did not like the Dictator, neither did the Dictator very much like him.

'You must not mind Rivers and his cynicism,' Sir Rupert said, intervening somewhat hurriedly; 'he doesn't mean half he says.'

'Or say half he means,' Rivers added.

'But, as I was telling you, about the police organisation of Siam,' Sir Lionel broke out anew. And this time the others went back without resistance to a few moments more of Siam.



CHAPTER X

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

Captain Oisin Sarrasin came one morning to see the Dictator by appointment.

Captain Oisin Sarrasin had described himself in his letter to the Dictator as a soldier of fortune. So he was indeed, but there are soldiers and soldiers of fortune. Ho was not the least in the world like the Orlando the Fearless, who is described in Lord Lytton's 'Rienzi,' and who cared only for his steed and his sword and his lady the peerless. Or, rather, he was like him in one respect—he did care for his lady the peerless. But otherwise Captain Oisin Sarrasin resembled in no wise the traditional soldier of fortune, the Dugald Dalgetty, the Condottiere, the 'Heaven's Swiss' even. Captain Sarrasin was terribly in earnest, and would not lend the aid of his bright sword to any cause which he did not believe to be the righteous cause, and, owing to the nervous peculiarities of his organisation, it was generally the way of Captain Sarrasin to regard the weaker cause as the righteous cause. That was his ruling inclination. When he entered as a volunteer the Federal ranks in the great American war, he knew very well that he was entering on the side of the stronger. He was not blinded in the least, as so many Englishmen were, by the fact that in the first instance the Southerners won some battles. He knew the country from end to end, and he knew perfectly well what must be the outcome of such a struggle. But then he went in to fight for the emancipation of the negroes, and he knew that they were the weakest of all the parties engaged in the controversy, and so he struck in for them.

He was a man of about forty-eight years of age, and some six feet in height. He was handsome, strong, and sinewy—all muscles and flesh, and no fat. He had a deep olive complexion and dark-brown hair and eyes—eyes that in certain lights looked almost black.

He was a silent man habitually, but given anything to talk about in which he felt any interest and he could talk on for ever.

Unlike the ordinary soldier of fortune, he was not in the least thrasonical. He hardly ever talked of himself—he hardly ever told people of where he had been and what campaigns he had fought in. He looked soldierly; but the soldier in him did not really very much overbear the demeanour of the quiet, ordinary gentleman. At the moment he is a leader-writer on foreign subjects for a daily newspaper in London, and is also retained on the staff in order that he may give advice as to the meaning of names and places and allusions in late foreign telegrams. There is a revolution, say, in Burmah or Patagonia, and a late telegram comes in and announces in some broken-kneed words the bare fact of the crisis. Then the editor summons Captain Sarrasin, and Sarrasin quietly explains:—'Oh, yes, of course; I knew that was coming this long time. The man at the head of affairs was totally incompetent. I gave him my advice many a time. Yes, it's all right. I'll write a few sentences of explanation, and we shall have fuller news to-morrow.' And he would write his few sentences of explanation, and the paper he wrote for would come out next morning with the only intelligible account of what had happened in the far-off country.

The Dictator did not know it at the time, but it was certain that Captain Sarrasin's description of the rising in Gloria and the expulsion of Gloria's former chief had done much to secure a favourable reception of Ericson in London. The night when the news of the struggle and the defeat came to town no newspaper man knew anything in the world about it but Oisin Sarrasin. The tendency of the English Press is always to go in for foreign revolutions. It saves trouble, for one thing. Therefore, all the London Press except the one paper to which Oisin Sarrasin contributed assumed, as a matter of course, that the revolution in Gloria was a revolution against tyranny, or priestcraft, or corruption, or what not—and Oisin Sarrasin alone explained that it was a revolution against reforms too enlightened and too advanced—a revolution of corruption against healthy civilisation and purity—of stagnation against progress—of the system comfortable to corrupt judges and to wealthy suitors, and against judicial integrity. It was pointed out in Captain Sarrasin's paper that this was the sort of revolution which had succeeded for the moment in turning out the Englishman Ericson—and the other papers, when they came to look into the matter, found that Captain Sarrasin's version of the story was about right—and in a few days all the papers when they came out were glorifying the heroic Englishman who had endeavoured so nobly to reorganise the Republic of Gloria on the exalted principles of the British Constitution, and had for the time lost his place and his power in the generous effort. Then the whole Press of London rallied round the Dictator, and the Dictator became a splendid social success.

Oisin Sarrasin had been called to the English bar and to the American bar. He seemed to have done almost everything that a man could do, and to have been almost everywhere that a man could be. Yet, as we have said, he seldom talked of where he had been or what he had done. He did not parade himself—he was found out. He never paraded his intimate knowledge of Russia, but he happened at Constantinople one day to sit next to Sir Mackenzie Wallace at a dinner party, and to get into talk with him, and Sir Mackenzie went about everywhere the next day telling everybody that Captain Sarrasin knew more about the inner life of Russia than any other Englishman he had ever met. It was the same with Stanley and Africa—the same with Lesseps and Egypt—the same with South America and the late Emperor of Brazil, to whom Captain Sarrasin was presented at Cannes. There was a story to the effect that he had lived for some time among the Indian tribes of the Wild West—and Sarrasin had been questioned on the subject, and only smiled, and said he had lived a great many lives in his time—and people did not believe the story. But it was certain that at the time when the Wild West Show first opened in London, Oisin Sarrasin went to see it, and that Red Shirt, the fighting chief of the Sioux nations, galloping round the barrier, happened to see Sarrasin, suddenly wheeled his horse, and drew up and greeted Sarrasin in the Sioux dialect, and hailed him as his dear old comrade, and talked of past adventures, and that Sarrasin responded, and that they had for a few minutes an eager conversation. It was certain, too, that Colonel Cody (Buffalo Bill), noticing the conversation, brought his horse up to the barrier, and, greeting Sarrasin with the friendly way of an old comrade, said in a tone heard by all who were near, 'Why, Captain, you don't come out our way in the West as often as you used to do.' Sarrasin could talk various languages, and his incredulous friends sometimes laid traps for him. They brought him into contact with Richard Burton, or Professor Palmer, hoping in their merry moods to enjoy some disastrous results. But Burton only said in the end, 'By Jupiter, what a knowledge of Asiatic languages that fellow has!' And Palmer declared that Sarrasin ought to be paid by the State to teach our British officers all the dialects of some of the East Indian provinces. In a chance mood of talkativeness, Sarrasin had mentioned the fact that he spoke modern Greek. A good-natured friend invited him to a dinner party with M. Gennadius, the Greek Minister in London, and presented him as one who was understood to be acquainted with modern Greek. The two had much conversation together after dinner was over, and great curiosity was felt by the sceptical friends as to the result. M. Gennadius being questioned, said, 'Oh, well, of course he speaks Greek perfectly, but I should have known by his accent here and there that he was not a born Greek.'

The truth was that Oisin Sarrasin had seen too much in life—seen too much of life—of places, and peoples, and situations, and so had got his mind's picture painted out. He had started in life too soon, and overclouded himself with impressions. His nature had grown languorous under their too rich variety. His own extraordinary experiences seemed commonplace to him; he seemed to assume that all men had gone through just the like. He had seen too much, read too much, been too much. Life could hardly present him with anything which had not already been a familiar object or thought to him. Yet he was always on the quiet look-out for some new principle, some new cause, to stir him into activity. He had nothing in him of the used-up man—he was curiously the reverse of the type of the used-up man. He was quietly delighted with all he had seen and done, and he still longed to add new sights and doings to his experiences, but he could not easily discover where to find them. He did not crave merely for new sensations. He was on the whole a very self-sufficing man—devoted to his wife as she was devoted to him. He could perfectly well have done without new sensations. But he had a kind of general idea that he ought to be always doing something for some cause or somebody, and for a certain time he had not seen any field on which to develop his Don Quixote instincts. The coming of Ericson to London reminded him of the Republic of Gloria, and of the great reforms that were only too great, and, as we have said, he wrote Ericson up in his newspaper.

Captain Sarrasin had a home in the far southern suburbs, but he had lately taken a bedroom in Paulo's Hotel. The moment Captain Sarrasin entered the room the Dictator remembered that he had seen him before. The Dictator never forgot faces, but he could not always put names to them, and he was a little surprised to find that he and the soldier of fortune had met already.

He advanced to meet his visitor with the smile of singular sweetness which was so attractive to all those on whom it beamed. The Dictator's sweet smile was as much a part of his success in life—and of his failure, too, perhaps—as any other quality about him—as his nerve, or his courage, or his good temper, or his commander-in-chief sort of genius.

'We have met before, Captain Sarrasin,' he said. 'I remember seeing you in Gloria—I am not mistaken, surely?'

'I was in Gloria,' Captain Sarrasin answered, 'but I left long before the outbreak of the revolution. I remained there a little time. I think I saw even then what was coming. I am on your side altogether.'

'Yes, so you were good enough to tell me. Well, have you heard any late news? You know how my heart is bound up with the fortunes of Gloria?'

'I know very well, and I think I do bring you some news. It is all going to pieces in Gloria without you.'

'Going to pieces—how can that be?'

'The Republic is torn asunder by faction, and she is going to be annexed by her big neighbour.'

'The new Republic of Orizaba?'

This was a vast South American state which had started into political existence as an empire and had shaken off its emperor—sent him home to Europe—and had set up as a republic of a somewhat aggressive order.

'Yes, Orizaba, of course.'

'But do you really believe, Captain Sarrasin, that Orizaba has any actual intentions of that kind?'

'I happen to know it for certain,' Captain Sarrasin grimly replied.

'How do you know it, may I ask?'

'Because I have had letters offering me a command in the expedition to cross the frontier of Gloria.'

The Dictator looked straight into the eyes of Captain Sarrasin. They were mild, blue, fearless eyes. Ericson read nothing there that he might not have read in the eyes of Sarrasin's quiet, scholarly, untravelled brother.

'Captain Sarrasin,' he said, 'I am an odd sort of person, and always have been—can't help myself in fact. Do you mind my feeling your pulse?'

'Not in the least,' Sarrasin gravely answered, with as little expression of surprise about him as if Ericson had asked him whether he did not think the weather was very fine. He held out a strong sinewy and white wrist. Ericson laid his finger on the pulse.

'Your pulse as mine,' he said, 'doth temperately keep time, and makes as healthful music.'

Captain Sarrasin's face lighted.

'You are a Shakespearian?' he said eagerly. 'I am so glad. I am an old-fashioned person, and I love Shakespeare; that is only another reason why——'

'Go on, Captain Sarrasin.'

'Why I want to go along with you.'

'But do you want to go along with me, and where?'

'To Gloria, of course. You have not asked me why I refused to give my services to Orizaba.'

'No; I assumed that you did not care to be the mercenary of an invasion.'

'Mercenary? No, it wasn't quite that. I have been a mercenary in many parts of the world, although I never in my life fought on what I did not believe to be the right side. That's how it comes in here—in your case. I told the Orizaba people who wrote to me that I firmly believed you were certain to come back to Gloria, and that if the sword of Oisin Sarrasin could help you that sword was at your disposal.'

'Captain Sarrasin,' the Dictator said, 'give me your hand.'

Captain Sarrasin was a pretty strong man, but the grip of the Dictator almost made him wince.

'When you make up your mind to go back,' Captain Sarrasin said, 'let me know. I'll go with you.'

'If this is really going on,' the Dictator said meditatively—'if Orizaba is actually going to make war on Gloria—well, I must go back. I think Gloria would welcome me under such conditions—at such a crisis. I do not see that there is any other man——'

'There is no other man,' Sarrasin said. 'Of course one doesn't know what the scoundrels who are in office now might do. They might arrest you and shoot you the moment you landed—they are quite capable of it.'

'They are, I dare say,' the Dictator said carelessly. 'But I shouldn't mind that—I should take my chance,' And then the sudden thought went to his heart that he should dislike death now much more than he would have done a few weeks ago. But he hastened to repeat, 'I should take my chance.'

'Of course, of course,' said Sarrasin, quite accepting the Dictator's remark as a commonplace and self-evident matter of fact. 'I'll take my chance too. I'll go along with you, and so will my wife.'

'Your wife?'

'Oh, yes, my wife. She goes everywhere with me.'

The face of the Dictator looked rather blank. He did not quite see the appropriateness of petticoats in actual warfare—unless, perhaps, the short petticoats of a vivandiere; and he hoped that Captain Sarrasin's wife was not a vivandiere.

'You see,' Sarrasin said cheerily, 'my wife and I are very fond of each other, and our one little child is long since dead, and we have nobody else to care much about. And she is a tall woman, nearly as tall as I am, and she dresses up as my aide-de-camp; and she has gone with me into all my fights. And we find it so convenient that if ever I should get killed, then, of course, she would manage to get killed too, and vice versa—vice versa, of course. And that would be so convenient, don't you see? We are so used to each other, one of us couldn't get on alone.'

The Dictator felt his eyes growing a little moist at this curious revelation of conjugal affection.

'May I have the honour soon,' he asked, 'of being presented to Mrs. Sarrasin?'

'Mrs. Sarrasin, sir,' said her husband, 'will come whenever she is asked or sent for. Mrs. Sarrasin will regard it as the highest honour of her life to be allowed to serve upon your staff with me.'

'Has she been with you in all your campaigns?' Ericson asked.

'In all what I may call my irregular warfare, certainly,' Captain Sarrasin answered. 'When first we married I was in the British service, sir; and of course they wouldn't allow anything of the kind there. But after that I gave up the English army—there wasn't much chance of any real fighting going on—and I served in all sorts of odd irregular campaignings, and Mrs. Sarrasin found out that she preferred to be with me—and so from that time we fought, as I may say, side by side. She has been wounded more than once—but she doesn't mind. She is not the woman to care about that sort of thing. She is a very remarkable woman.'

'She must be,' the Dictator said earnestly. 'When shall I have the chance of seeing her? When may I call on her?'

'I hardly venture to ask it,' Captain Sarrasin said; 'but would you honour us by dining with us—any day you have to spare?'

'I shall be delighted,' the Dictator replied. 'Let us find a day. May I send for my secretary?'

Mr. Hamilton was sent for and entered, bland and graceful as usual, but with a deep sore at his heart.

'Hamilton, how soon have I a free day for dining with Captain Sarrasin, who is kind enough to ask me?'

Hamilton referred to his engagement-book.

'Saturday week is free. That is, it is not filled up. You have seven invitations, but none of them has yet been accepted.'

'Refuse them all, please; I shall dine with Captain Sarrasin.'

'If Mr. Hamilton will also do me the pleasure——' the kindly captain began.

'No, I am afraid I cannot allow him,' the Dictator answered. 'He is sure to have been included in some of these invitations, and we must diffuse ourselves as much as we can. He must represent me somewhere. You see, Captain Sarrasin, it is only in obedience to Hamilton's policy that I have consented to go to any of these smart dinner parties at all, and he must really bear his share of the burden which he insists on imposing upon me.'

'All right; I'm game,' Hamilton said.

'He likes it, I dare say,' Ericson said. 'He is young and fresh and energetic, and he is fond of mashing on to young and pretty women—and so the dinner parties give him pleasure. It will give me sincere pleasure to dine with Mrs. Sarrasin and you, and we'll leave Hamilton to his countesses and marchionesses. But don't think too badly of him, Captain Sarrasin, for all that: he is so young. If there is a fight to go on in Gloria he'll be there with you and me—you may depend on that.'

'But is there any chance of a fight going on?' Hamilton asked, looking up from his papers with flushing face and sparkling eyes.

'Captain Sarrasin thinks that there is a good chance of something of the kind, and he offers to be with us. He has certain information that there is a scheme on foot in Orizaba for the invasion and annexation of Gloria.'

Hamilton leaped up in delight.

'By Jove!' he exclaimed, 'that would be the one chance to rally all that is left of the national and the patriotic in Gloria! Hip, hip, hurrah!—one cheer more—hurrah!' And the usually demure Hamilton actually danced then and there, in his exultation, some steps of a music-hall breakdown. His face was aflame with delight. The Dictator and Sarrasin both looked at him with an expression of sympathy and admiration. But there were different feelings in the breasts of the two sympathising men. Sarrasin was admiring the manly courage and spirit of the young man, and in his admiration there was that admixture of melancholy, of something like compassion, with which middle-age regards the enthusiasm of youth.

With the Dictator's admiration was blended the full knowledge that, amid all Hamilton's sincere delight in the prospect of again striking a blow for Gloria, there was a suffused delight in the sense of sudden lightening of pain—the sense that while fighting for Gloria he would be able, in some degree, to shake off the burden of his unsuccessful love. In the wild excitement of the coming struggle he might have a chance of now and then forgetting how much he loved Helena Langley and how she did not love him.



CHAPTER XI

HELENA

Love, according to the Greek proverb quoted by Plutarch, is the offspring of the rainbow and the west wind, that delicious west wind, so full of hope and youth in all its breathings—that rainbow that we may, if we will, pursue for ever, and which we shall never overtake. Helena Langley, although she was a fairly well-read girl, had probably never heard of the proverb, but there was something in her mood of mind at present that might seem to have sprung from the conjunction of the rainbow and the west wind. She was exalted out of herself by her feelings—the west wind breathed lovingly on her—and yet she saw that the rainbow was very far off. She was beginning to admit to herself that she was in love with the Dictator—at all events, that she was growing more and more into love with him; but she could not see that he was at all likely to be in love with her. She was a spoilt child; she had all the virtues and no doubt some of the defects of the spoilt child. She had always been given to understand that she would be a great match—that anybody would be delighted to marry her—that she might marry anyone she pleased provided she did not take a fancy to a royal prince, and that she must be very careful not to let herself be married for her money alone. She knew that she was a handsome girl, and she knew, too, that she had got credit for being clever and a little eccentric—for being a girl who was privileged to be unconventional, and to say what she pleased and whatever came into her head. She enjoyed the knowledge of the fact that she was allowed to speak out her mind, and that people would put up with things from her which they would not put up with from other girls. The knowledge did not make her feel cynical—it only made her feel secure. She was not a reasoning girl; she loved to follow her own impulses, and had the pleased conviction that they generally led her right.

Now, however, it seemed to her that things had not been going right with her, and that she had her own impulses all to blame. She had taken a great liking to Mr. Hamilton, and she had petted him and made much of him, and probably got talked of with him, and all the time she never had the faintest idea that he was likely to misunderstand her feelings towards him. She thought he would know well enough that she admired him and was friendly and free with him because he was the devoted follower of the Dictator. And at first she regarded the Dictator himself only as the chief of a cause which she had persuaded herself to recognise and talked herself into regarding as her cause. Therefore it had not occurred to her to think that Hamilton would not be quite satisfied with the friendliness which she showed to him as the devoted follower of their common leader. She went on the assumption that they were sworn and natural comrades, Hamilton and herself, bound together by the common bond of servitude to the Dictator. All this dream had been suddenly shattered by the visit of Ericson, and the curious mission on which he had come. Helena felt her cheeks flushing up again and again as she thought of it. It had told her everything. It had shown her what a mistake she had made when she lavished so much of her friendly attentions on Hamilton—and what a mistake she had made when she failed to understand her own feelings about the Dictator. The moment he spoke to her of Hamilton's offer she knew at a flash how it was with her. The burst of disappointment and anger with which she found that he had come there to recommend to her the love of another man was a revelation that almost dazzled her by its light. What had she said, what had she done? she now kept asking herself. Had she betrayed her secret to him, just at the very moment when it had first betrayed itself to her? Had she allowed him to guess that she loved him? Her cheeks kept reddening again and again at the terrible suspicion. What must he think of her? Would he pity her? Would he wonder at her—would he feel shocked and sorry, or only gently mirthful? Did he regard her only as a more or less precocious child? What had she said—how had she looked—had her eyes revealed her, or her trembling lips, or her anger, or the tone of her voice? A young man accustomed to ways of abstinence is tempted one sudden night into drinking more champagne than is good for him, and in a place where there are girls, where there is one girl in whose eyes above all others he wishes to seem an admirable and heroic figure. He gets home all right—he is apparently in possession of all his senses; but he has an agonised doubt as to what he may have said or done while the first flush of the too much champagne was still in his spirits and his brain. He remembers talking with her. He tries to remember whether she looked at all amazed or shocked. He does not think she did; he cannot recall any of her words, or his words; but he may have said something to convince her that he had taken too much champagne, and for her even to think anything of the kind about him would have seemed to him eternal and utter degradation in her eyes. Very much like this were the feelings of Helena Langley about the words which she might have spoken, the looks which she might have given, to the Dictator. All she knew was that she was not quite herself at the time: the rest was mere doubt and misery. And Helena Langley passed in society for being a girl who never cared in the least what she said or what she did, so long as she was not conventional.

To add to her concern, the Duchess of Deptford was announced. Now Helena was very fond of the beautiful and bright little Duchess, with her kindly heart, her utter absence of affectation, and her penetrating eyes. She gathered herself up and went to meet her friend.

'My! but you are looking bad, child!' the genial Duchess said. She may have been a year and a half or so older than Helena. 'What's the matter with you, anyway? Why have you got those blue semicircles round your eyes? Ain't you well?'

'Oh, yes, quite well,' Helena hastened to explain. 'Nothing is ever the matter with me, Duchess. My father says Nature meant to make me a boy and made a mistake at the last moment. I am the only girl he knows—so he tells me—that never is out of sorts.'

'Well, then, my dear, that only proves the more certainly that Nature distinctly meant you for a girl when she made you a girl.'

'Dear Duchess, how do you explain that?'

'Because you have got the art of concealing your feelings, which men have not got, anyhow,' the Duchess said, composedly. 'If you ain't out of sorts about something—and with these blue semicircles under your lovely eyes—well, then, a semicircle is not a semicircle, nor a girl a girl. That's so.'

'Dear Duchess, never mind me. I am really in the rudest health——'

'And no troubles—brain, or heart, or anything?'

'Oh, no; none but those common to all human creatures.'

'Well, well, have it your own way,' the Duchess said, good-humouredly. 'You have got a kind father to look after you, anyway. How is dear Sir Rupert?'

Helena explained that her father was very well, thank you, and the conversation drifted away from those present to some of those absent.

'Seen Mr. Ericson lately?' the Duchess asked.

'Oh, yes, quite lately.' Helena did not explain how very lately it was that she had seen him.

'I like him very much,' said the Duchess. 'He is real sweet, I think.'

'He is very charming,' Helena said.

'And his secretary, young—what is his name?'

'Mr. Hamilton?'

'Yes, yes, Mr. Hamilton. Don't you think he is just a lovely young man?'

'I like him immensely.'

'But so handsome, don't you think? Handsomer than Mr. Ericson, I think.'

'One doesn't think much about Mr. Ericson's personal appearance,' Helena said, in a tone which distinctly implied that, according to her view of things, Mr. Ericson was quite above personal appearance.

'Well, of course, he is a great man, and he did wonderful things; and he was a Dictator——'

'And will be again,' said Helena.

'What troubles me is this,' said the Duchess, 'I don't see much of the Dictator in him. Do you?'

'How do you mean, Duchess?' Helena asked evasively.

'Well, he don't seem to me to have much of a ruler of men about him. He is a charming man, and a brainy man, I dare say; but the sort of man that takes hold at once and manages things and puts things straight all of his own strength—well, he don't seem to be quite that sort of man—now, does he?'

'We haven't seen him tried,' Helena said.

'No, of course; we haven't had a chance that way, but it seems to me as if you could get some kind of notion about a man's being a great commander-in-chief without actually seeing him directing a field of battle. Now I don't appear to get that impression from Mr. Ericson.'

'Mr. Ericson wouldn't care to show off probably. He likes to keep himself in the background,' Helena said warmly.

'Dear child, I am not finding any fault with your hero, or saying that he isn't a hero; I am only saying that, so far, I have not discovered any of the magnetic force of the hero—isn't magnetic force the word? He is ever so nice and quiet and intellectual, and I dare say, as an all-round man, he's first-class, but I have not yet struck the Dictatorship quality in him.'

The Duchess rose to go away.

'You see, there's nothing in particular for him to do in this country,' Helena said, still lingering on the subject which the Duchess seemed quite willing to put away.

'Is he going back to his own country?' the Duchess asked, languidly.

'His own country, Duchess? Why, this is his own country.' Wrapped as she was in the fortunes of Gloria, Helena, like a genuine English girl, could not help resenting the idea of any Englishman acknowledging any country but England. Especially she would not admit that her particular hero could be any sort of foreigner.

'Well—his adopted country I mean—the country where he was Dictator. Is he going back there?'

'When the people call him, he will go,' Helena answered proudly.

'Oh, my dear, if he wants to get back he had better go before the people call him. People forget so soon nowadays. We have all sorts of exiles over in the States, and it don't seem to me as if anybody ever called them back. Some of them have gone without being called, and then I think they mostly got shot. But I hope your hero won't do that. Good-bye, dear; come and see me soon, or I shall think you as mean as ever you can be.' And the beautiful Duchess, bending her graceful head, departed, and left Helena to her own reflections.

Somehow these were not altogether pleasant reflections. Helena did not like the manner in which the Dictator had been discussed by the Duchess. The Duchess talked of him as if he were just some ordinary adventurer, who would be forgotten in his old domain if he did not keep knocking at the door and demanding readmittance even at the risk of being shot for his pains. This grated harshly on her ears. In truth, it is very hard to talk of the loved one to loving ears without producing a sound that grates on them. Too much praise may grate—criticism of any kind grates—cool indifferent comment, even though perfectly free from ill-nature, is sure to grate. The loved one, in fact, is not to be spoken of as other beings of earth may lawfully and properly be spoken of. On the whole, the loving one is probably happiest when the name of the loved one is not mentioned at all by profane or commonplace lips. But there was something more than this in Helena's case. The very thought which the Duchess had given out so freely and so carelessly had long been a lurking thought in Helena's own mind. Whenever it made its appearance too boldly she tried to shut it down and clap the hatches over it, and keep it there, suppressed and shut below. But it would come up again and again. The thought was, Where is the Dictator? She could recognise the bright talker, the intellectual thinker, the clever man of the world, the polished, grave, and graceful gentleman, but where were the elements of Dictatorship? It was quite true, as she herself had said, had pleaded even, that some men never carry their great public qualities into civil life; and Helena raked together in her mind all manner of famous historical examples of men who had led great armies to victory, or had discovered new worlds for civilisation to conquer, and who appeared to be nothing in a drawing- or a dining-room but ordinary, well-behaved, undemonstrative gentlemen. Why should not the Dictator be one of these? Why, indeed? She was sure he must be one of these, but was it not to be her lot to see him in his true light—in his true self? Then the meeting of that other day gave her a keen pang. She did not like the idea of the Dictator coming to her to make love by deputy for another man. It was not like him, she thought, to undertake a task such as that. It was done, of course, out of kindness and affection for Mr. Hamilton—and that was, in its way, a noble and a generous act—but still, it jarred upon her feelings. The truth was that it jarred upon her feelings because it showed her, as she thought, how little serious consideration of her was in the Dictator's mind, and how sincere and genuine had been his words when he told her again and again that to him she seemed little more than a child. It was not that feeling which had brought up the wish that she could see the Dictator prove himself a man born to dictate. But that wish, or that doubt, or that questioning—whatever it might be—which was already in her mind was stirred to painful activity now by the consciousness which she strove to exclude, and could not help admitting, that she, after all, was nothing to the Dictator.

That night, like most nights when she did not herself entertain, Helena went with her father to a dinner party. She showed herself to be in radiant spirits the moment she entered the room. She was dressed bewitchingly, and everyone said she was looking more charming than ever. The fashion of lighting drawing-rooms and dining-rooms gives ample opportunity for a harmless deception in these days, and the blue half-circles were not seen round Helena's eyes, nor would any of the company in the drawing-room have guessed that the heart under that silken bodice was bleeding.



CHAPTER XII

DOLORES

Mr. Paulo was perplexed. And as Mr. Paulo was a cool-headed, clear-sighted man, perplexity was an unusual thing with him, and it annoyed him. The cause of his perplexity was connected almost entirely with the ex-Dictator of Gloria. Ericson had still kept his rooms in the hotel; he had said, and Hamilton agreed with him, that in remaining there they seemed more like birds of passage, more determined to regard return to Gloria as not merely a possible but a probable event, and an event in the near future. To take a house in London, the Dictator thought, and, of course, Hamilton thought with him, would be to admit the possibility of a lengthy sojourn in London, and that was a possibility which neither of the two men wished to entertain. 'It wouldn't look well in the papers,' Hamilton said, shaking his head solemnly. So they remained on at Paulo's, and Paulo kept the green and yellow flag of Gloria flying as if the guest beneath his roof were still a ruling potentate.

But it was not the stay of the Dictator that in any way perplexed Mr. Paulo. Paulo was honestly proud of the presence of Ericson in his house. Paulo's father was a Spaniard who had gone out to Gloria as a waiter in a cafe, and who had entered the service of a young Englishman in the Legation, and had followed him to England and married an English wife. Mr. Paulo—George Paulo—was the son of this international union. His father had been a 'gentleman's gentleman,' and Paulo followed his father's business and became a gentleman's gentleman too. George Paulo was almost entirely English in his nature, thanks to a strong-minded mother, who ruled the late Manuel Paulo with a kindly severity. The only thing Spanish about him was his face—smooth-shaven with small, black side whiskers—a face which might have seemed more appropriately placed in the bull rings of Madrid or Seville. George Paulo, in his turn, married an Englishwoman, a lady's-maid, with some economies and more ideas. They had determined, soon after their marriage, to make a start in life for themselves. They had kept a lodging-house in Sloane Street, which soon became popular with well-to-do young gentlemen, smart soldiers, and budding diplomatists, for both Paulo and his wife understood perfectly the art of making these young gentlemen comfortable.

Things went well with Paulo and his wife; their small economies were made into small investments; the investments, being judicious, prospered. A daring purchase of house property proved one stroke of success, and led to another. When he was fifty years of age Paulo was a rich man, and then he built Paulo's Hotel, and his fortune swelled yearly. He was a very happy man, for he adored his wife and he idolised his daughter, the handsome, stately, dark-eyed girl whom, for some sentimental reason, her mother had insisted upon calling Dolores. Dolores was, or at least seemed to be, that rarest creature among women—an unconscious beauty. She could pass a mirror without even a glance at it.

Dolores Paulo had everything she wanted. She was well taught; she knew several languages, including, first of all, that Spanish of which her father, for all his bull-fighter face, knew not a single syllable; she could play, and sing, and dance; and, above all things, she could ride. No one in the Park rode better than Miss Paulo; no one in the Park had better animals to ride. George Paulo was a judge of horseflesh, and he bought the best horses in London for Dolores; and when Dolores rode in the Row, as she did every morning, with a smart groom behind her, everyone looked in admiration at the handsome girl who was so perfectly mounted. The Paulos were a curious family. They had not the least desire to be above what George Paulo called their station in life. He and his wife were people of humble origin, who had honestly become rich; but they had not the least desire to force themselves upon a society which might have accepted them for their money, and laughed at them for their ambition. They lived in a suite of rooms in their own hotel, and they managed the hotel themselves. They gave all their time to it, and it took all their time, and they were proud of it. It was their business and their pleasure, and they worked for it with an artistic conscientiousness which was highly admirable. Dolores had inherited the sense and the business-like qualities of her parents, and she insisted on taking her part in the great work of keeping the hotel going. Paulo, proud of his hotel, was still prouder of the interest taken in it by his daughter.

Dolores came in from her ride one afternoon, and was hurrying to her room to change her dress, when she was met by her father in the public corridor.

'Dolores, my little girl'—he always called the splendidly? proportioned young woman 'my little girl'—'I'm puzzled. I don't mind telling you, in confidence, that I am extremely puzzled.'

'Have you told mother?'

'Oh, yes, of course I've told mother, but she don't seem to think there is anything in it.'

'Then you may be sure there is nothing in it.' Mrs., or Madame, Paulo was the recognised sense-carrier of the household.

'Yes, I know. Nobody knows better than I what a woman your mother is.' He laid a kindly emphasis on the word 'your' as if to carry to the credit of Dolores some considerable part of the compliment that he was paying to her parent. 'But still, I thought I should like to talk to you, too, little girl. If two heads are better than one, three heads, I take it, are better than two.'

'All right, dear; go ahead.'

'Well, its about this Captain Sarrasin—in number forty-seven—you know.'

'Of course I know, dear; but what can puzzle you about him? He seems to me the most simple and charming old gentleman I have seen in this house for a long time.'

'Old gentleman,' Paulo said, with a smile. 'I fancy how much he would like to be described in that sort of way, and by a handsome girl, too! He don't think he is an old gentleman, you may be sure.'

'Why, father, he is almost as old as you; he must be fifty years old at least—more than that.'

'So you consider me quite an old party?' Paulo said, with a smile.

'I consider you an old darling,' his daughter answered, giving him a fervent embrace—they were alone in the corridor—and Paulo seemed quite contented.

'But now,' he said, releasing himself from the prolonged osculation, 'about this Captain Sarrasin?'

'Yes, dear, about him. Only what about him?'

'Well, that's exactly what I want to know. I don't quite see what he's up to. What does he have a room in this hotel for?'

'I suppose because he thinks it is a very nice hotel—and so it is, dear, thanks to you.'

'Yes, that's all right enough,' Paulo said, a little dissatisfied; the personal compliment did not charm away his discomfort in this instance, as the embrace had done in the other.

'I don't see where your trouble comes in, dear.'

'Well, you see, I have ascertained that this Captain Sarrasin is a married man, and that he has a house where he and his wife live down Clapham way,' and Paulo made a jerk with his hand as if to designate to his daughter the precise geographical situation of Captain Sarrasin's abode. 'But he sleeps here many nights, and he is here most of the day, and he gets his letters here, and all sorts of people come to see him here.'

'I suppose, dear, he has business to do, and it wouldn't be quite convenient for people to go out and see him in Clapham.'

'Why, my little girl, if it comes to that, it would be almost as convenient for people—City people for instance—to go to Clapham as to come here.'

'Dear, that depends on what part of Clapham he lives in. You see we are just next to a station here, and in parts of Clapham they are two miles off anything of the kind. Besides, all people don't come from the City, do they?'

'Business people do,' Mr. Paulo replied sententiously.

'But the people I see coming after Captain Sarrasin are not one little bit like City people.'

'Precisely,' her father caught her up; 'there you have got it, little girl. That's what has set me thinking. What are your ideas about the people who come to see him? You know the looks of people pretty well by this time. You have a good eye for them. How do you figure them up?'

The girl reflected.

'Well, I should say foreign refugees generally, and explorers, and all that kind; Mr. Hiram Borringer comes with his South Pole expeditions, and I see men who were in Africa with Stanley—and all that kind of thing.'

'Yes, but some of that may be a blind, don't you know. Have you ever, tell me, in all your recollection, seen a downright, unmistakable, solid City man go into Captain Sarrasin's room?'

'No, no,' said the girl, after a moment's thought; 'I can't quite say that I have. But I don't see what that matters to us. There are good people, I suppose, who don't come from the City?'

'I don't like it, somehow,' Paulo said. 'I have been thinking it over—and I tell you I don't like it!'

'What I can't make out,' the girl said, not impatiently but very gently, 'is what you don't like in the matter. Is there anything wrong with this Captain Sarrasin? He seems an old dear.'

'This is how it strikes me. He never came to this house until after his Excellency the Dictator made up his mind to settle here.'

'Oh!' Dolores started and turned pale. 'Tell me what you mean, dear—you frighten one.'

Paulo smiled.

'You are not over-easily frightened,' he said, 'and so I'll tell you all my suspicions.'

'Suspicions?' she said, with a drawing in of the breath that seemed as emphatic as a shudder. 'What is there to suspect?'

'Well, there is nothing more than suspicion at present. But here it is. I have it on the best authority that this Captain Sarrasin was out in Gloria. Now, he never told me that.'

'No? Well, go on.'

'He came back here to England long before his Excellency came, but he never took a room in this house until his Excellency had made up his mind to settle down here for all his time with Mr. Hamilton. Now, what do you think his settling down here, and not taking a house, like General Boulanger—what do you think his staying on here means?'

'I suppose,' the girl said, slowly, 'it means that he has not given up the idea of recovering his position in Gloria.' She spoke in a low tone, and with eyes that sparkled.

'Right you are, girl. Of course, that's what it does mean. Mr. Hamilton as good as told me himself; but I didn't want him to tell me. Now, again, if this Captain Sarrasin has been out in Gloria, and if he is on the right side, why didn't he call on his Excellency and prove himself a friend?'

'Dear, he has called on him.'

'Yesterday, yes; but not before.'

'Yes, but don't you see, dear,' Dolores said eagerly, 'that would cut both ways. You think that he is not a friend, but an enemy?'

'I begin to fear so, Dolores.'

'But, don't you see, an enemy might be for that very reason all the more anxious to pass himself off as a friend?'

'Yes, there's something in that, little girl; there's something in that, to be sure. But now you just hear me out before you let your mind come to any conclusion one way or the other.'

'I'll hear you out,' said Dolores; 'you need not be afraid about that.'

Dolores knew her father to be a cool-headed and sensible man; but still, even that fact would hardly in itself account for the interest she took in suspicions which appeared to have only the slightest possible foundation. She was evidently listening with breathless anxiety.

'Now, of course, I never allow revolutionary plotting in this house,' Paulo went on to say. 'I may have my sympathies and you may have your sympathies, and so on; but business is business, and we can't have any plans of campaign carried on in Paulo's Hotel. Kings are as good customers to me when they're on a throne as when they're off it—better maybe.'

'Yes, dear, I know all about that.'

'Still, one must assume that a man like his Excellency will see his friends in private, in his own rooms, and talk over things. I don't suppose he and Mr. Hamilton are talking about nothing but the play and the opera and Hurlingham, and all that.'

'No, no, of course not. Well?'

'It would get out that they were planning a return to Gloria. Now I know—and I dare say you know—that a return to Gloria by his Excellency would mean the stopping of the supplies to hundreds of rascals there, who are living on public plunder, and who are always living on it as long as he is not there, and who never will be allowed to live upon it as long as he is there—don't you see?'

'Oh yes, dear; I see very plainly.'

'It's all true what I say, isn't it?'

'Quite true—quite—quite true.'

'Well, now, I dare say you begin to take my idea. You know how little that gang of scoundrels care about the life of any man.'

'Oh, father, please don't!' She had her riding-whip in her hand, and she made a quick movement with it, expressively suggesting how she should like to deal with such scoundrels.

'My child, my child, it has to be talked about. You don't seem quite in your usual form to-day——'

'Oh, yes; I'm all right. But it sounds so dreadful. You don't really think people are plotting to kill—him?'

'I don't say that they are; but from what I know of the scoundrels out there who are opposed to him, it wouldn't one bit surprise me.'

'Oh!' The girl shuddered, and again the riding-whip flashed.

'But it may not be quite that, you know, little girl; there are shabby tricks to be done short of that—there's spying and eavesdropping, to find out, in advance, all he is going to do, and to thwart it——'

'Yes, yes, there might be that,' Dolores said, in a tone of relief—the tone of one who, still fearing for the worst, is glad to be reminded that there may, after all, be something not so bad as the very worst.

'I don't want his Excellency spied on in Paulo's Hotel,' Mr. Paulo proudly said. 'It has not been the way of this hotel, and I do not mean that it ever should be the way.'

'Not likely,' Dolores said, with a scornful toss of her head. 'The idea, indeed, of Paulo's Hotel being a resort of mouchards and spies, to find out the secrets of illustrious exiles who were sheltered as guests!'

'Well, that's what I say. Now I have my suspicions of this Captain Sarrasin. I don't know what he wants here, and why, if he is on the side of his Excellency, he don't boldly attend him every day.'

'I think you are wrong about him, dear,' Dolores quietly said. 'You may be right enough in your general suspicions and alarms and all that, and I dare say you are quite right; but I am sure you are wrong about him. Anyhow, you keep a sharp look-out everywhere else, and leave me to find out all about him.'

'Little girl, how can you find out all about him?'

'Leave that to me. I'll talk to him, and I'll make him talk to me. I never saw a man yet whose character I couldn't read like a printed book after I have had a little direct and confidential talk with him.' Miss Dolores tossed her head with the air of one who would say, 'Ask me no questions about the secret of my art; enough for you to know that the art is there.'

'Well, some of you women have wonderful gifts, I know,' her father said, half admiringly, half reflectively, proud of his daughter, and wondering how women came to have such gifts.

While they were speaking, Hamilton and Sir Rupert Langley came out of the Dictator's rooms together. Dolores knew that the Dictator had been out of the hotel for some hours. Mr. Paulo disappeared. Dolores knew Sir Rupert perfectly well by sight, and knew who he was, and all about him. She had spoken now and again to Hamilton. He took off his hat in passing, and she, acting on a sudden impulse, asked if he could speak to her for a moment.

Hamilton, of course, cheerfully assented, and asked Sir Rupert to wait a few seconds for him. Sir Rupert passed along the corridor and stood at the head of the stairs.

'Only a word, Mr. Hamilton. Excuse me for having stopped you so unceremoniously.'

'Oh, Miss Paulo, please don't talk of excuses.'

'Well, it's only this. Do you know anything about a Captain Sarrasin, who stays here a good deal of late?'

'Captain Sarrasin? Yes, I know a little about him; not very much, certainly; why do you ask?'

'Do you think he is a man to be trusted?'

She spoke in a low tone; her manner was very grave, and she fixed her deep, dark eyes on Hamilton. Hamilton read earnestness in them. He was almost startled.

'From all I know,' he answered slowly, 'I believe him to be a brave soldier and a man of honour.'

'So do I!' the girl said emphatically, and with relief sparkling in her eyes.

'But why do you ask?'

'I have heard something,' she said; 'I don't believe it; but I'll soon find out about his being here as a spy.'

'A spy on whom?'

'On his Excellency, of course.'

'I don't believe it, but I thank you for telling me.'

'I'll find out and tell you more,' she said hurriedly. 'Thank you very much for speaking to me; don't keep Sir Rupert waiting any longer. Good-morning, Mr. Hamilton,' and with quite a princess-like air she dismissed him.

Hamilton hastily rejoined Sir Rupert, and was thinking whether he ought to mention what Dolores had been saying or not. The subject, however, at once came up without him giving it a start.

'See here, Hamilton,' Sir Rupert said as he was standing on the hotel steps, about to take his leave, 'I don't think that, if I were you, I would have Ericson going about the streets at nights all alone in his careless sort of fashion. It isn't common sense, you know. There are all sorts of rowdies—and spies, I fancy—and very likely hired assassins—here from all manner of South American places; and it can't be safe for a marked man like him to go about alone in that free and easy way.'

'Do you know of any danger?' Hamilton asked eagerly.

'How do you mean?'

'Well, I mean have you had any information of any definite danger—at the Foreign Office?'

'No; we shouldn't be likely to get any information of that kind at the Foreign Office. It would go, if there were any, to the Home Office?'

'Have you had any information from the Home Office?'

'Well, I may have had a hint—I don't know what ground there was for it—but I believe there was a hint given at the Home Office to be on the look-out for some fellows of a suspicious order from Gloria.'

Hamilton started. The words concurred exactly with the kind of warning he had just received from Dolores Paulo.

'I wonder who gave the hint,' he said meditatively. 'It would immensely add to the value of the information if I were to know who gave the hint.'

'Oh! So, then, you have had some information of your own?'

'Yes, I may tell you that I have; and I should be glad to know if both hints came from the same man.'

'Would it make the information more serious if they did?'

'To my mind, much more serious.'

'Well, I may tell you in confidence—I mean, not to get into the confounded papers, that's all—the Home Secretary in fact, made no particular mystery about it. He said the hint was given at the office by an odd sort of person who called himself Captain Oisin Sarrasin.'

'That's the man,' Hamilton exclaimed.

'Well, what do you make of that and of him?'

'I believe he is an honest fellow and a brave soldier,' Hamilton said. 'But I have heard that some others have thought differently, and were inclined to suspect that he himself was over here in the interests of his Excellency's enemies. I don't believe a word of it myself.'

'Well, he will be looked after, of course,' Sir Rupert said decisively. 'But in the meantime I wouldn't let Ericson go about in that sort of way—at night especially. He never ought to be alone. Will you see to it?'

'If I can; but he's very hard to manage.'

'Have you tried to manage him on that point?' 'I have—yes—quite lately.'

'What did he say?'

'Wouldn't listen to anything of the kind. Said he proposed to go about where he liked. Said it was all nonsense. Said if people want to kill a man they can do it, in spite of any precautions he takes. Said that if anyone attacks him in front he can take pretty good care of himself, and that if fellows come behind no man can take care of himself.'