"You seem to take it pretty calmly."
"How do you expect us to take it, my dear Frank?" she asked. "We always expected Paul to do the right thing when the time came, and we consider that he has done it."
The Chief Whip smoothed a perplexed brow. "I don"t quite follow. Were you, vulgarly speaking, in the know all the time?"
"Sit down, and I"ll tell you."
So he sat down and Miss Winwood quietly told him all she knew about Paul and what had happened during the past few weeks, while the Colonel sat by his desk and tugged his long moustache and here and there supplemented her narrative.
"That"s all very interesting," Ayres remarked when she had finished, "and you two have acted like bricks. I also see that he must have had a devil of a time of it. But I"ve got to look at things from an official point of view."
"There"s no question of invalidity, is there?" asked Colonel Winwood.
"No. He was known as Paul Savelli, nominated as Paul Savelli, and elected as Paul Savelli by the electors of Hickney Heath. So he"ll sit as Paul Savelli. That"s all right. But how is the House going to receive him when he is introduced? How will it take him afterwards?
What use will he be to the party? We only ran him because he seemed to be the most brilliant of the young outsiders. We hoped great things of him. Hasn"t he smashed up himself socially? Hasn"t he smashed up his career at the very beginning? All that is what I want to know."
"So do I," groaned Colonel Winwood. "I didn"t have a wink of sleep last night."
"I didn"t either," said Ursula, "but I don"t think it will matter a row of pins to Paul in his career."
"It will always be up against him," said Ayres.
"Because he has acted like a man?"
"It"s the touch of Ruy Blas that I"m afraid of."
"You must remember that he wasn"t aware of his relation to the dead man until the eve of the election."
"But he was aware that he wasn"t a descendant of a historical Italian family, which everyone thought him to be. I don"t speak for myself,"
said Ayres. "I"m fond of the chap. One can"t help it. He has the charm of the great gentleman, confound him, and it"s all natural. The cloven hoof has never appeared, because I personally believe there"s no cloven hoof. The beggar was born well bred, and, as to performance--well--he has been a young meteor across the political sky. Until this election.
Then he was a disappointment. I frankly confess it. I didn"t know what he was playing at. Now I do. Poor chap. I personally am sympathetic.
But what about the cold-blooded other people, who don"t know what you"ve told me? To them he"s the son of an ex-convict--a vendor of fried fish--I put it brutally from their point of view--who has been masquerading as a young St. George on horseback. Will he ever be forgiven? Officially, have I any use for him? You see, I"m responsible to the party."
"Any party," said Ursula, "would be a congregation of imbeciles who didn"t do their best to develop the genius of Paul Savelli."
"I"m fond of Paul," said Colonel Winwood, in his tired way, "but I don"t know that I would go as far as that."
"It"s only because you"re a limited male, my dear James. I suppose Caesar was the only man who really crossed the Rubicon. And the fuss he made about it! Women jump across with the utmost certainty. My dear Frank, we"re behind Paul, whatever happens. He has been fighting for his own hand ever since he was a child, it is true. But he has fought gallantly."
"My dear Miss Winwood," said Frank Ayres, "if there"s a man to be envied, it"s the one who has you for his champion!"
"Anyone, my dear Frank, is to be envied," she retorted, "who is championed by common-sense."
"All these fireworks illuminate nothing," said Colonel Winwood. "I think we had better ask Paul to come down and see Frank. Would you like to see him alone?"
"I had rather you stayed," said Frank Ayres.
A message was sent to Paul, and presently he appeared, very pale and haggard.
Frank Ayres met him with outstretched hand, spoke a courteous word of sympathy, apologized for coming in the hour of tragic bereavement.
Paul thanked him with equal courtesy. "I was about to write to you, Lord Francis," he continued, "a sort of statement in explanation of what happened last night--"
"Our friends have told me all, I think, that you may have to say."
"I shall still write it," said Paul, "so that you can have it in black and white. At present, I"ve given the press nothing."
"Quite right," said Frank Ayres. "For G.o.d"s sake, let us work together as far as the press is concerned. That"s one of the reasons why I"ve forced myself upon you. It"s horrible, my dear fellow, to intrude at such a time. I hate it, as you can well imagine. But it"s my duty."
"Of course it is," said Paul. There was a span of awkward silence.
"Well," said he, with a wan smile, "we"re facing, not a political, but a very unimportant party situation. Don"t suppose I haven"t a sense of proportion. I have. What for me is the end of the world is the unruffled continuance of the cosmic scheme for the rest of mankind. But there are relative things to consider. You have to consider the party.
I"m sort of fly-blown. Am I any use? Let us talk straight. Am I or am I not?"
"My dear chap," said Frank Ayres, with perplexed knitting of the brows, "I don"t quite know what to say. You yourself have invited me to talk straight. Well! Forgive me if I do. There may be a suggestion in political quarters that you have won this election under false pretences."
"Do you want me to resign my seat?"
The two men looked deep into each other"s eyes.
"A Unionist in is a Liberal out," said Frank Ayres, "and counts two on division. That"s one way of looking at it. We want all we can get from the enemy. On the other hand, you"d come in for a lot of criticism and hostility. You"d have to start not only from the beginning, but with a handicap. Are you strong enough to face it?"
"I"m not going to run away from anything," said Paul. "But I"ll tell you what I"m prepared to do. I"ll resign and fight the const.i.tuency again, under my real name of Kegworthy, provided, of course, the local people are willing to adopt me--on the understanding, however, that the party support me, or, at least, don"t put forward another candidate.
I"m not going to turn berserk."
"That"s a sporting offer, at any rate. But, pardon me--we"re talking business--where is the money for another election to come from?"
"My poor father"s death makes me a wealthy man," replied Paul.
Miss Winwood started forward in her chair. "My dear, you never told us."
"There were so many other things to talk about this morning," he said gently; "but of course I would have told you later. I only mention it now"--he turned to the Chief Whip--"in answer to your direct and very pertinent question."
Now between a political free-lance adopting a parliamentary career in order to fight for his own hand, as all Paul"s supporters were frankly aware that he was doing, and a wealthy, independent and brilliant young politician lies a wide gulf. The last man on earth, in his private capacity, to find his estimate of his friends influenced by their personal possessions was the fine aristocrat Lord Francis Ayres. But he was a man of the world, the very responsible head of the executive of a great political party. As that executive head he was compelled to regard Paul from a different angle. The millions of South Africa or the Middle West might vainly knock at his own front door till the crack of doom, while Paul the penniless sauntered in an honoured guest. But in his official room in the House of Commons more stern and worldly considerations had to prevail.
"Of course I can"t give you an answer now," said he. "I"ll have to discuss the whole matter with the powers that be. But a seat"s a seat, and though I appreciate your Quixotic offer, I don"t see why we should risk it. It"s up to you to make good. It"s more in your own interest that I"m speaking now. Can you go through with it?"
Paul, with his unconquerable instinct for the dramatic, hauled out the little cornelian heart at the end of his watch-chain. "My dear fellow,"
said he. "Do you see that? It was given to me for failing to win a race at a Sunday-school treat, when I was a very little boy. I didn"t possess coat or stockings, and my toes came out through the ends of my boots, and in order to keep the thing safe I knotted it up in the tail of my shirt, which waggled out of the seat of my breeches. It was given to me by a beautiful lady, who, I remember, smelled like all the perfumes of Araby. She awakened my aesthetic sense by the divine and intoxicating odour that emanated from her. Since then I have never met woman so--so like a scented garden of all the innocences. To me she was a G.o.ddess. I overheard her prophesy things about me. My life began from that moment. I kept the cornelian heart all my life, as a talisman. It has brought me through all kinds of things. Once I was going to throw it away and Miss Winwood would not let me. I kept it, somewhat against my will, for I thought it was a lying talisman. It had told me, in the sweet-scented lady"s words, that I was the son of a prince. Give me half an hour to-morrow or the day after," he said, seeing a puzzled look in Frank Ayres"s face, "and I"ll tell you a true psychological fairy tale--the apologia pro vita mea. I say, anyhow, that lately, until last night, I thought this little cornelian heart was a lying talisman. Then I knew it didn"t lie. I was the son of a prince, a prince of men, although he had been in gaol and spent his days afterwards in running emotional Christianity and fried-fish shops. His name was Silas. Mine is Paul. Something significant about it, isn"t there? Anyhow"--he balanced the heart in the palm of his hand--"this hasn"t lied. It has carried me through all my life. When I thought it failed, I found it at the purest truth of its prophecy. It"s not going to fail me now. If it"s right for me to take my seat I"ll take it--whether I make good politically, or not, is on the knees of the G.o.ds. But you may take it from me that there"s nothing in this wide world that I won"t face or go through with, if I"ve set my mind to it."
So the child who had kicked Billy Goodge and taken the spolia opima of paper c.o.c.ked hat and wooden sword spoke through the man. As then, in a queer way, he found himself commanding a situation; and as then, commanding it rightfully, through sheer personal force. Again, at a sign, he would have broken the sword across his knee. But the sign did not come.
"Speaking quite unofficially," said Frank Ayres, "I think, if you feel like that, you would be a fool to give up your seat."
"Very well," said Paul, "I thank you. And now, perhaps, it would be wise to draw up that statement for the press, if you can spare the time."
So Paul made a draft and Frank Ayres revised it, and it was sent upstairs to be typed. When the typescript came down, Paul signed and dispatched it and gave the Chief Whip a duplicate.
"Well," said the latter, shaking hands, "the best of good luck!"