When I remembered how I had seen him that same morning, a nerveless, terror-stricken wretch, grovelling, like some craven cur, upon the floor, frightened, to the verge of imbecility, by a shadow, and less than a shadow, I was confronted by two hypotheses. Either I had exaggerated his condition then, or I exaggerated his condition now. So far as appearance went, it was incredible that this man could be that one.
I confess that my feeling rapidly became one of admiration. I love the fighter. I quickly recognised that here we had him in perfection. There was no seeming about him then,—the man was to the manner born. To his finger-tips a fighting man. I had never realised it so clearly before. He was coolness itself. He had all his faculties under complete command. While never, for a moment, really exposing himself, he would be swift in perceiving the slightest weakness in his opponents’ defence, and, so soon as he saw it, like lightning, he would slip in a telling blow. Though defeated, he would hardly be disgraced; and one might easily believe that their very victories would be so expensive to his assailants, that, in the end, they would actually conduce to his own triumph.
‘Hang me!’ I told myself, ‘if, after all, I am surprised if Marjorie does see something in him.’ For I perceived how a clever and imaginative young woman, seeing him at his best, holding his own, like a gallant knight, against overwhelming odds, in the lists in which he was so much at home, might come to think of him as if he were always and only there, ignoring altogether the kind of man he was when the joust was finished.
It did me good to hear him, I do know that,—and I could easily imagine the effect he had on one particular auditor who was in the Ladies’ Cage. It was very far from being an ‘oration’ in the American sense; it had little or nothing of the fire and fury of the French Tribune; it was marked neither by the ponderosity nor the sentiment of the eloquent German; yet it was as satisfying as are the efforts of either of the three, producing, without doubt, precisely the effect which the speaker intended. His voice was clear and calm, not exactly musical, yet distinctly pleasant, and it was so managed that each word he uttered was as audible to every person present as if it had been addressed particularly to him. His sentences were short and crisp; the words which he used were not big ones, but they came from him with an agreeable ease; and he spoke just fast enough to keep one’s interest alert without invoking a strain on the attention.
He commenced by making, in the quietest and most courteous manner, sarcastic comments on the speeches and methods of Trumperton and his friends which tickled the House amazingly. But he did not make the mistake of pushing his personalities too far. To a speaker of a certain sort nothing is easier than to sting to madness. If he likes, his every word is barbed. Wounds so given fester; they are not easily forgiven;—it is essential to a politician that he should have his firmest friends among the fools; or his climbing days will soon be over. Soon his sarcasms were at an end. He began to exchange them for sweet-sounding phrases. He actually began to say pleasant things to his opponents; apparently to mean them. To put them in a good conceit with themselves. He pointed out how much truth there was in what they said; and then, as if by accident, with what ease and at how little cost, amendments might be made. He found their arguments, and took them for his own, and flattered them, whether they would or would not, by showing how firmly they were founded upon fact; and grafted other arguments upon them, which seemed their natural sequelae; and transformed them, and drove them hither and thither; and brought them—their own arguments!—to a round, irrefragable conclusion, which was diametrically the reverse of that to which they themselves had brought them. And he did it all with an aptness, a readiness, a grace, which was incontestable. So that, when he sat down, he had performed that most difficult of all feats, he had delivered what, in a House of Commons’ sense, was a practical, statesmanlike speech, and yet one which left his hearers in an excellent humour.
It was a great success,—an immense success. A parliamentary triumph of almost the highest order. Paul Lessingham had been coming on by leaps and bounds. When he resumed his seat, amidst applause which, this time, really was applause, there were, probably, few who doubted that he was destined to go still farther. How much farther it is true that time alone could tell; but, so far as appearances went, all the prizes, which are as the crown and climax of a statesman’s career, were well within his reach.
For my part, I was delighted. I had enjoyed an intellectual exercise,—a species of enjoyment not so common as it might be. The Apostle had almost persuaded me that the political game was one worth playing, and that its triumphs were things to be desired. It is something, after all, to be able to appeal successfully to the passions and aspirations of your peers; to gain their plaudits; to prove your skill at the game you yourself have chosen; to be looked up to and admired. And when a woman’s eyes look down on you, and her ears drink in your every word, and her heart beats time with yours,—each man to his own temperament, but when that woman is the woman whom you love, to know that your triumph means her glory, and her gladness, to me that would be the best part of it all.
In that hour,—the Apostle’s hour!—I almost wished that I were a politician too!
The division was over. The business of the night was practically done. I was back again in the lobby! The theme of conversation was the Apostle’s speech,—on every side they talked of it.
Suddenly Marjorie was at my side. Her face was glowing. I never saw her look more beautiful,—or happier. She seemed to be alone.
‘So you have come, after all!—Wasn’t it splendid?—wasn’t it magnificent? Isn’t it grand to have such great gifts, and to use them to such good purpose?—Speak, Sydney! Don’t feign a coolness which is foreign to your nature!’
I saw that she was hungry for me to praise the man whom she delighted to honour. But, somehow, her enthusiasm cooled mine.
‘It was not a bad speech, of a kind.’
‘Of a kind!’ How her eyes flashed fire! With what disdain she treated me! ‘What do you mean by “of a kind?” My dear Sydney, are you not aware that it is an attribute of small minds to attempt to belittle those which are greater? Even if you are conscious of inferiority, it’s unwise to show it. Mr Lessingham’s was a great speech, of any kind; your incapacity to recognise the fact simply reveals your lack of the critical faculty.’
‘It is fortunate for Mr Lessingham that there is at least one person in whom the critical faculty is so bountifully developed. Apparently, in your judgment, he who discriminates is lost.’
I thought she was going to burst into passion. But, instead, laughing, she placed her hand upon my shoulder.
‘Poor Sydney!—I understand!—It is so sad!—Do you know you are like a little boy who, when he is beaten, declares that the victor has cheated him. Never mind! as you grow older, you will learn better.’
She stung me almost beyond bearing,—I cared not what I said.
‘You, unless I am mistaken, will learn better before you are older.’
‘What do you mean?’
Before I could have told her—if I had meant to tell; which I did not—Lessingham came up.
‘I hope I have not kept you waiting; I have been delayed longer than I expected.’
‘Not at all,—though I am quite ready to get away; it’s a little tiresome waiting here.’
This with a mischievous glance towards me,—a glance which compelled Lessingham to notice me.
‘You do not often favour us.’
‘I don’t. I find better employment for my time.’
‘You are wrong. It’s the cant of the day to underrate the House of Commons, and the work which it performs; don’t you suffer yourself to join in the chorus of the simpletons. Your time cannot be better employed than in endeavouring to improve the body politic.’
‘I am obliged to you.—I hope you are feeling better than when I saw you last.’
A gleam came into his eyes, fading as q
uickly as it came. He showed no other sign of comprehension, surprise, or resentment.
‘Thank you.—I am very well.’
Marjorie perceived that I meant more than met the eye, and that what I meant was meant unpleasantly.
‘Come,—let us be off. It is Mr Atherton to-night who is not well.’
She had just slipped her arm through Lessingham’s when her father approached. Old Lindon stared at her on the Apostle’s arm, as if he could hardly believe that it was she.
‘I thought that you were at the Duchess’?’
‘So I have been, papa; and now I’m here.’
‘Here!’ Old Lindon began to stutter and stammer, and to grow red in the face, as is his wont when at all excited. ‘W—what do you mean by here?—wh—where’s the carriage?’
‘Where should it be, except waiting for me outside,—unless the horses have run away.’
‘I—I—I’ll take you down to it. I—I don’t approve of y—your w—w—waiting in a place like this.’
‘Thank you, papa, but Mr Lessingham is going to take me down.—I shall see you afterwards.—Good bye.’
Anything cooler than the way in which she walked off I do not think I ever saw. This is the age of feminine advancement. Young women think nothing of twisting their mothers round their fingers, let alone their fathers; but the fashion in which that young woman walked off, on the Apostle’s arm, and left her father standing there, was, in its way, a study.
Lindon seemed scarcely able to realise that the pair of them had gone. Even after they had disappeared in the crowd he stood staring after them, growing redder and redder, till the veins stood out upon his face, and I thought that an apoplectic seizure threatened. Then, with a gasp, he turned to me.
‘Damned scoundrel!’ I took it for granted that he alluded to the gentleman,—even though his following words hardly suggested it. ‘Only this morning I forbade her to have anything to do with him, and n—now he’s w—walked off with her! C—confounded adventurer! That’s what he is, an adventurer, and before many hours have passed I’ll take the liberty to tell him so!’
Jamming his fists into his pockets, and puffing like a grampus in distress, he took himself away,—and it was time he did, for his words were as audible as they were pointed, and already people were wondering what the matter was. Woodville came up as Lindon was going,—just as sorely distressed as ever.
‘She went away with Lessingham,—did you see her?’
‘Of course I saw her. When a man makes a speech like Lessingham’s any girl would go away with him,—and be proud to. When you are endowed with such great powers as he is, and use them for such lofty purposes, she’ll walk away with you,—but, till then, never.’
He was at his old trick of polishing his eyeglass.
‘It’s bitter hard. When I knew that she was there, I’d half a mind to make a speech myself, upon my word I had, only I didn’t know what to speak about, and I can’t speak anyhow,—how can a fellow speak when he’s shoved into the gallery?’
‘As you say, how can he?—he can’t stand on the railing and shout,—even with a friend holding him behind.’
‘I know I shall speak one day,—bound to; and then she won’t be there.’
‘It’ll be better for you if she isn’t.’
‘Think so?—Perhaps you’re right. I’d be safe to make a mess of it, and then, if she were to see me at it, it’d be the devil! ’Pon my word, I’ve been wishing, lately, I was clever.’
He rubbed his nose with the rim of his eyeglass, looking the most comically disconsolate figure.
‘Put black care behind you, Percy!—buck up, my boy! The division’s over—you are free—now we’ll go “on the fly.”’
And we did ‘go on the fly.’
CHAPTER XVI
ATHERTON’S MAGIC VAPOUR
I BORE HIM OFF TO SUPPER at the Helicon. All the way in the cab he was trying to tell me the story of how he proposed to Marjorie,—and he was very far from being through with it when we reached the club. There was the usual crowd of supperites, but we got a little table to ourselves, in a corner of the room, and before anything was brought for us to eat he was at it again. A good many of the people were pretty near to shouting, and as they seemed to be all speaking at once, and the band was playing, and as the Helicon supper band is not piano, Percy did not have it quite all to himself, but, considering the delicacy of his subject, he talked as loudly as was decent,—getting more so as he went on. But Percy is peculiar.
‘I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to tell her,—over and over again.’
‘Have you now?’
‘Yes, pretty near every time I met her,—but I never seemed to get quite to it, don’t you know.’
‘How was that?’
‘Why, just as I was going to say, “Miss Lindon, may I offer you the gift of my affection—”’
‘Was that how you invariably intended to begin?’
‘Well, not always—one time like that, another time another way. Fact is, I got off a little speech by heart, but I never got a chance to reel it off, so I made up my mind to just say anything.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Well, nothing,—you see, I never got there. Just as I was feeling my way, she’d ask me if I preferred big sleeves to little ones, or top hats to billycocks, or some nonsense of the kind.’
‘Would she now?’
‘Yes,—of course I had to answer, and by the time I’d answered the chance was lost.’ Percy was polishing his eye-glass. ‘I tried to get there so many times, and she choked me off so often, that I can’t help thinking that she suspected what it was that I was after.’
‘You think she did?’
‘She must have done. Once I followed her down Piccadilly, and chivied her into a glove shop in the Burlington Arcade. I meant to propose to her in there,—I hadn’t had a wink of sleep all night through dreaming of her, and I was just about desperate.’
‘And did you propose?’
‘The girl behind the counter made me buy a dozen pairs of gloves instead. They turned out to be three sizes too large for me when they came home. I believe she thought I’d gone to spoon the glove girl,—she went out and left me there. That girl loaded me with all sorts of things when she was gone,—I couldn’t get away. She held me with her blessed eye. I believe it was a glass one.’
‘Miss Linden’s?—or the glove girl’s?’
‘The glove girl’s. She sent me home a whole cartload of green ties, and declared I’d ordered them. I shall never forget that day. I’ve never been up the Arcade since, and never mean to.’
‘You gave Miss Lindon a wrong impression.’
‘I don’t know. I was always giving her wrong impressions. Once she said that she knew I was not a marrying man, that I was the sort of chap who never would marry, because she saw it in my face.’
‘Under the circumstances, that was trying.’
‘Bitter hard.’ Percy sighed again. ‘I shouldn’t mind if I wasn’t so gone. I’m not a fellow who does get gone, but when I do get gone, I get so beastly gone.’
‘I tell you what, Percy,—have a drink!’
‘I’m a teetotaler,—you know I am.’
‘You talk of your heart being broken, and of your being a teetotaler in the same breath,—if your heart were really broken you’d throw teetotalism to the winds.’
‘Do you think so,—why?’
‘Because you would,—men whose hearts are broken always do,—you’d swallow a magnum at the least.’
Percy groaned.
‘When I drink I’m always ill,—but I’ll have a try.’
He had a try,—making a good beginning by emptying at a draught the glass which the waiter had just now filled. Then he relapsed into melancholy.
‘Tell me, Percy,—honest Indian!—do you really love
her?’
‘Love her?’ His eyes grew round as saucers. ‘Don’t I tell you that I love her?’
‘I know you tell me, but that sort of thing is easy telling. What does it make you feel like, this love you talk so much about?’
‘Feel like?—Just anyhow,—and nohow. You should look inside me, and then you’d know.’
‘I see.—It’s like that, is it?—Suppose she loved another man, what sort of feeling would you feel towards him?’
‘Does she love another man?’
‘I say, suppose.’
‘I dare say she does. I expect that’s it.—What an idiot I am not to have thought of that before.’ He sighed,—and refilled his glass. ‘He’s a lucky chap, whoever he is. I’d—I’d like to tell him so.’
‘You’d like to tell him so?’
‘He’s such a jolly lucky chap, you know.’
‘Possibly,—but his jolly good luck is your jolly bad luck. Would you be willing to resign her to him without a word?’
‘If she loves him.’
‘But you say you love her.’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well then?’
‘You don’t suppose that, because I love her, I shouldn’t like to see her happy?—I’m not such a beast!—I’d sooner see her happy than anything else in all the world.’
‘I see,—Even happy with another?—I’m afraid that my philosophy is not like yours. If I loved Miss Lindon, and she loved, say, Jones, I’m afraid I shouldn’t feel like that towards Jones at all.’
‘What would you feel like?’
‘Murder.—Percy, you come home with me,—we’ve begun the night together, let’s end it together,—and I’ll show you one of the finest notions for committing murder on a scale of real magnificence you ever dreamed of. I should like to make use of it to show my feelings towards the supposititious Jones,—he’d know what I felt for him when once he had been introduced to it.’
Percy went with me without a word. He had not had much to drink, but it had been too much for him, and he was in a condition of maundering sentimentality. I got him into a cab. We dashed along Piccadilly.
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