Part 42 (2/2)

”I'll see Parliament d.a.m.ned first!” cried Paul, his nerves on edge.

”You'll have to wait a long time, sonny,” said Barney Bill, wagging a sage head. ”Parliament takes a lot of d.a.m.ning.”

”Anyhow,” said Paul, not eager to continue the argument, but unconsciously caught in the drift of Barney Bill's philosophy, ”my private life isn't politics, and there's not going to be another lie in my private life as long as I live.”

The old man broke a short silence with a dry chuckle. ”How it takes one back!” he said reflectively. ”Lor lumme! I can hear yer speaking now--just in the same tone--the night what yer run away with me. Yer hadn't a seat to yer breeches then, and now you've a seat in Parliament.” He chuckled again at his joke. ”But”--he gripped the young man's knee in his bony clasp--”you're just the same Paul, sonny, G.o.d bless yer--and you'll come out straight all right. Here we are.”

The car drew up before Silas Finn's house. They entered. Jane, summoned, came down at once and met them in the dreadful dining-room, where a simple meal was spread.

”I haven't heard--” she said.

”I'm in.”

”I'm glad.”

”My father--?” he asked curtly.

She looked at him wide-eyed for a second or two as he stood, his fur-lined coat with astrachan collar thrown open, his hand holding a soft felt hat on his hip, his absurdly beautiful head thrown back, to casual glance the Fortunate Youth of a month or two ago. But to Jane's jealous eye he was not even the man she had seen that afternoon. He looked many years older. She confessed afterwards to surprise at not finding his hair grey at the temples, thus manifesting her ordered sense of the harmonious. She confessed, too, that she was frightened--Jane who, for any other reason than the mere saving of her own skin, would have stolidly faced Hyrcanean tigers--at the stern eyes beneath the contracted brows. He was a different Paul altogether. And here we have the divergence between the masculine and the feminine point of view. Jane saw a new avatar; Barney Bill the ragged urchin of the Bludston brick-fields. She s.h.i.+fted her glance to the old man. He, standing crookedly, c.o.c.ked his head and nodded.

”He knows all about it.”

”Yes, yes,” said Paul. ”How is my father?”

Jane threw out her hands in the Englishwoman's insignificant gesture.

”He's unconscious--has been for hours--the nurse is up with him--the end may come any moment. I hid it from you till the last for your own sake. Would you care to go upstairs?”

She moved to the door. Paul threw off his overcoat and, followed by Barney Bill, accompanied her. On the landing they were met by the nurse.

”It is all over,” she said.

”I will go in for a moment,” said Paul. ”I should like to be alone.”

In a room hung like the rest of the house with gaudy pictures he stood for a short while looking at the marble face of the strange-souled, pa.s.sionate being that had been his father. The lids had closed for ever over the burning, sorrowful eyes; the mobile lips were for ever mute.

In his close sympathy with the man Paul knew what had struck him down.

It was not the blow of the nameless enemy, but the stunning realization that he was not, after all, the irresistible nominee of the Almighty.

His great faith had not suffered; for the rigid face was serene, as though he had accepted this final chastis.e.m.e.nt and purification before entrance into the Eternal Kingdom; but his high pride, the mainspring of his fanatical life, had been broken and the workings of the physical organism had been arrested. In those few moments of intense feeling, in the presence of death, it was given to Paul to tread across the threshold of the mystery of his birth. Here lay stiff and cold no base clay such as that of which Polly Kegworthy had been formed. It had been the tenement of a spirit beautiful and swift. No matter to what things he himself had been born--he had put that foolishness behind him--at all events his dream bad come partly true. His father had been one of the great ones, one of the conquerors, one of the high princes of men.

Mult.i.tudes of kings had not been so parented. Outwardly a successful business man and a fanatical Dissenter--there were thousands like Silas Finn. But Paul knew his inner greatness, the terrific struggle of his soul, the warrings between fierce blood and iron will, the fervent purpose, the lofty aspirations and the unwavering conduct of his life of charity and sorrow. He stretched out his hand and with his finger tips lightly touched the dead man's forehead. ”I'm proud to be your son,” he murmured.

Then the nurse came in and Paul went downstairs. Barney Bill waylaid him in the hall, and led him into the dining-room. ”Have a little food and drink, sonny. You look as if yer need it--especially drink. 'Ere.”

He seized a decanter of whisky--since Paul's first visit, Silas had always kept it in the house for his son's comforting--and would have filled the tumbler had not Paul restrained him. He squirted in the soda. ”Drink it down and you'll feel better.”

Paul swallowed a great gulp. ”Yes,” he agreed. ”There are times when it does help a man.”

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