Part 27 (2/2)
”It's nothing to do with edication,” said Barney Bill. ”It's fac's.
Let's have fac's. Jane and I have been tramping the same old high-road, but you've been climbing mountains--yer and yer gold cigarette cases.
Let's hear about it.”
So Paul told his story, and as he told it, it seemed to him, in its improbability, more like a fairy-tale than the sober happenings of real life.
”You've said nothing about the princess,” Jane remarked, when he had ended.
”The princess?”
”Yes. Where does she come in?”
”The Princess Zobraska is a friend of my employers.”
”But you and she are great friends,” Jane persisted quietly. ”That's obvious to anybody. I was standing quite close when you helped her into the motor car.”
”I didn't see you.”
”I took care you didn't. She looks charming.”
”Most princesses are charming--when they've no particular reason to be otherwise,” said Paul. ”It is their metier--their profession.”
There was a little silence. Jane, cheek on hand, looked thoughtfully into the fire. Barney Bill knocked' the ashes out of his pipe and thrust it in his pocket. ”It's getting late, sonny.”
Paul looked at his watch. It was past one o'clock. He jumped up. ”I hope to goodness you haven't to begin work at half-past five,” he said to Jane.
”No. At eight.” She rose as he stretched out his hand. ”You don't know what it is to see you again, Paul. I can't tell you. Some things are upsetting. But I'm glad. Oh, yes, I'm glad, Paul dear. Don't think I'm not.”
Her voice broke a little. They were the first gentle words she had given him all the evening. Paul smiled and kissed her hand as he had kissed that of the princess, and, still holding it, said: ”Don't I know you of old? And if you suppose I haven't thought of you and felt the need of you, you're very much mistaken. Now I've found you, I'm not going to let you go again.”
She turned her head aside and looked down; there was the slightest movement of her plump shoulders. ”What's the good? I can't do anything for you now, and you can't do anything for me. You're on the way to becoming a great man. To me, you're a great man already. Don't you see?”
”My dear, I was an embryonic Sh.e.l.ley, Raphael, Garrick, and Napoleon when you first met me,” he said jestingly.
”But then you didn't belong to their--to their sphere. Now you do. Your friends are lords and ladies and--and princesses--”
”My friends,” cried Paul, ”are people with great true hearts--like the Winwoods--and the princess, if you like--and you, and Barney Bill.”
”That's a sentiment as does you credit,” said the old man. ”Great true hearts! Now if you ain't satisfied, my dear, you're a d.a.m.n criss-cross female. And yer ain't, are yer?' She laughed and Paul laughed. The little spell of intensity was broken. There were pleasant leave-takings.
”I'll set you on your road a bit,” said Barney Bill. ”I live in the neighbourhood. Good-bye, Jane.”
She went with them to the front door, and stood in the gusty air watching them until they melted into the darkness.
CHAPTER XIV
BETWEEN the young man of immaculate vesture, of impeccable manners, of undeniable culture, of instinctive sympathy with the great world where great things are done, of unerring tact, of mythological beauty and charm, of boundless ambition, of resistless energy, of incalculable promise, in outer semblance and in avowed creed the fine flower of aristocratic England, professing the divine right of the House of Lords and the utilitarian sanct.i.ty of the Church of England--between Paul, that is to say, and the Radical, progressive councillor of Hickney Heath, the Free Zionist dissenter (not even Congregationalist or Baptist or Wesleyan, or any powerfully organized Non-conformist whose conscience archbishops consult with astute patronage), the purveyor of fried fish, the man of crude, uncultivated taste, there should have been a gulf fixed as wide as the Pacific Ocean. As a matter of fact, whatever gulf lay between them was narrow enough to be bridged comfortably over by mutual esteem. Paul took to visiting Mr. Finn.
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