"Really and truly sorry." Perhaps the lovely girl"s voice betrayed her a little, its note was so strangely intimate and tender.
He started violently, and a joyful, wonderful, and yet despairing thought flashed into his mind. He was silent for some seconds before he replied.
"No, I wasn"t hurt a bit," he said at length. "Not in the very least. I have something to tell you, Mary"--he was quite unconscious that he had called her by her Christian name. She saw it instantly, and now it was her turn to feel the sudden, overwhelming stab of joy and wonder--and despair!
"Tell me," she said softly.
"I was not hurt," he answered, "because all my ideas are changed also.
I, too, have seen the light. The mists of selfishness and individualism have vanished from around me. The process has been gradual. It has been terribly hard. But it has been inevitable and sure, and it dates from the day on which I first saw you by my bedside in the house of James Fabian Rose. To-night you and he together have completed my conversion.
With a full knowledge of all that this means to me, I still say to you that from to-night onwards I am a Socialist heart and soul!"
She looked at him, and the colour faded out of her flower-like face, and her great eyes grew wide with wonder. Then the colour came stealing back, pink, like the delicate inside of a sh.e.l.l, crimson with realisation and gladness.
"Then----" she began.
"You will hear to-night," he answered, and even as he did so Aubrey Flood, flushed with excitement, and his voice trembling with emotion, rose, and in a few broken, heart-felt words proposed the health of Mary Marriott and James Fabian Rose.
The toast was drunk with indescribable enthusiasm and _verve_. The high grid of the stage above echoed with the cheers. The very waiters, forgetting their duties, were caught up in the swing and excitement of it and shouted with the rest.
It was some minutes before the pale man with the yellow beard could obtain a hearing. He stood there smiling and bowing and patting Mary upon the shoulder.
Then he began. He acknowledged the honour they had done Mary and himself in a few brief words of deep feeling. Then, taking a wider course, he told them what he believed this would mean for Socialism, how that the theatre, a huge educational machine with far more power and appeal than a thousand books, a hundred lectures, was now their own.
A new era was opening for them, and it dated from this night. Everything had been leading up to it for years, now the hour of fulfilment had come.
He took a letter from his pocket.
It was from Arthur Burnside, and had arrived from Oxford, during the course of the play. He had found it waiting for him when he returned to the theatre as the curtain fell on the last act.
He told them the great news in short, sharp sentences of triumph, how that on this very night of huge success a great fortune was placed in their hands for the furtherance of the great work of humanity.
When the second prolonged burst of applause and cheering was over Rose concluded his speech with a sympathetic reference to the duke"s presence among them.
As he concluded the duke leaned behind Mary"s chair and whispered a word to him.
Immediately afterwards the leader rose and said that the Duke of Paddington asked permission to speak to them for a moment.
There was a second"s silence of surprise, a burst of generous cheers, and the duke was speaking in grave, quiet tones the few sentences which were to agitate all England on the morrow and alter the whole course of his life for ever and a day.
Mr. Goodrick had a notebook before him and a pencil poised in his right hand.
"Ladies and gentlemen," said the duke, "what I have to say shall be said in the very fewest words possible. My friend Mr. Rose has said in his kind remarks about my presence here that to-night I must have felt like a Daniel in a den of lions, or a lion in a den of Daniels--he was not sure which. I felt like neither one nor the other. Miss Marriott said to me just now that she hoped I was not hurt by the attack upon that cla.s.s of the community which I may be thought to represent. Miss Marriott was wrong also. I have gone through experiences and learnt lessons which I need not trouble you with now. There stands my master in chief"--he pointed to Mr. Rose--"and there have been many others. I came to the theatre to-night as nearly a Socialist in heart and mental conviction as any man could be without an actual declaration. At this moment I announce and avow myself a true and convinced Socialist. I am with you all heart and soul! Allow me a personal reference. I am extremely wealthy. I have great estates in London and other parts of England. Some of these are entailed upon my heirs, and I only enjoy the emoluments during my own lifetime. The rest--and owing to past circ.u.mstances and my long minority the more considerable part--are mine to do with as I will.
They are mine no longer. I give them freely to the Cause and to England.
I join with my friend, Arthur Burnside, in renouncing a vast property in favour of the people. I shall retain only a sufficient sum to provide for me in reasonable comfort. All the details will be settled by the Central Committee of our party--it will take many months to arrange them, but that is by the way. And I offer myself and my work, for what they are worth, to the Cause also. I have no more to say, ladies and gentlemen."
He sat down in his chair, swayed a little, and as Mary bent over him and every one present rose to their feet, he swooned away.
Mr. Goodrick stole out from his seat, rushed down the pa.s.sage to the stage door, clasping his note-book, and leaped into a waiting cab.
"A sovereign if you get me to the offices of the _Daily Wire_, in Fleet Street, in half an hour!" said Mr. Goodrick.
CHAPTER XXIII
POINTS OF VIEW FROM A DUKE, A BISHOP, A VISCOUNT, AND THE DAUGHTER OF AN EARL
The rain was pouring down and it was a horribly gloomy, depressing morning.
The rain fell through the drab, smoke-laden air of London like leaden spears, thrown upon the metropolis in anger by the G.o.ds who control the weather.
The duke woke up and through the window opposite the foot of his bed saw the rain falling. He was in the same guest-room in the house of James Fabian Rose to which he had been carried when the exploring party had found him in the hands of the criminals of the West End slum. How long ago that seemed now, he thought, as he lay there in the grey, dreary light of the London morning.
When he had fainted on the night before he had been carried into Aubrey Flood"s dressing-room, and speedily recovered consciousness.
His swoon was nothing more than a natural protest of the nerves against an overwhelming strain. It could hardly have been otherwise. One does not undergo weeks of mental strain and dismay without overtaxing the strength. One does not go through a night in which conviction of truth comes to one, the knowledge of love, the certainty that, in honour, that love could never be declared, the solemn and public renunciation of almost everything is realised and declared, without collapse.
He had found Mrs. Rose and Mary Marriott--ministering angels--by his side when he came back to the world.
Rose had entered, and would not hear of the duke"s return to the _Ritz_.
A messenger had been sent home for his things, and now he woke in the old familiar room upon this grey, depressing morning.
He was feeling the inevitable reaction. He could not help but feel it.
It was eight o"clock he saw from his watch, the same watch which had been taken from him by force on the night of the railway accident.
The morning papers were out. One of these papers he knew would be even now having a record sale. The _Daily Wire_ was having a huge boom. The general public were already learning of his renunciation. Before mid-day all society would know of it also. His hundreds of relations and connections would be reading the story. It would be known at Buckingham Palace and at Marlborough House. Lord Camborne would know of it, the news would reach Lord Hayle on his sick-bed at Oxford. Lady Constance would know it.
Before lunch he had to go to Grosvenor Street He must keep his appointment with his future father-in-law.
And he was fearing this interview as he had never feared anything in this world before. What was going to happen he didn"t know. But he was certain that the meeting would be terrible. He felt frightfully alone, and there was only one little gleam of satisfaction in the outlook.
Constance would stand by him. The beautiful girl who was to be his wife had often expressed her sympathy with the down-trodden and the poor. He could rely on her at least.
He did not love her. He could never love her. He loved some one else with all his heart and soul, and believed--dared to believe--that she loved him also.
That was a secret for her and for him for ever and ever. The thing might not be. He had to keep his word inviolable, his honour unstained. They both had duties to do--he and Mary! They must live for the Cause, apart, lonely, but strong.
He was pledged to Constance Camborne, and hand in hand, good comrades, they would work together for the common weal.
The joy of life must be found in just that--in the "stern lawgiver"
Duty. The other and divinest joy was not for him, and he must face the fact like a man of a great race.
"So be it," he muttered to himself with a bitter smile. "Amen!" Then he rose and plunged into the cold bath prepared for him in an alcove of the bedroom.
He breakfasted alone with James Fabian Rose. Mary Marriott was staying in the house but both she and Mrs. Rose were utterly exhausted and would not be visible for many hours.
The duke was quite frank with his host. He unburdened himself of the "perilous stuff" of weeks to him; he laid everything bare, all the mental processes which had led to his absolute change of view. He spoke of the future and reiterated his determination to become a leader in the new Israel. He even told Rose of his fear and terror at the approaching interview with Lord Camborne, but of the most real and deep pain and distress he said never a word.