Part 47 (2/2)

Paul sprang forward impulsively and seized her hands. ”Oh, you dear, wonderful woman! Doesn't it matter to you that I'm running fried-fish shops?”

”I know why you're doing it,” she said. ”I wouldn't have you do otherwise. You are you, Paul. I should love to see you at it. Do you wait at table and hand little dishes to coster-mongers, ancien regime, en emigre?”

She laughed deliciously. Suddenly she paused, regarded him wide-eyed, with a smile on her lips.

”Tiens! I have an idea. But a wonderful ideal Why should I not be the fried-fish queen? Issue new shares. I buy them all up. We establish fish palaces all over the world? But why not? I am in trade already.

Only yesterday my homme d'affaires sent me for signature a dirty piece of blue paper all covered with execrable writing and imitation red seals all the way down, and when I signed it I saw I was interested in Messrs. Jarrods Limited, and was engaged in selling hams and petticoats and notepaper and furniture and b.u.t.ter and--remark this--and fish. But raw fish. Now what the difference is between selling raw fish and fried fish, I do not know. Moi, je suis deja marchande de poissons, voila!”

She laughed and Paul laughed too. They postponed, however, to an indefinite date, consideration of the business proposal.

As Paul had foreseen, Society manifested no eagerness to receive him.

Invitations no longer fell upon him in embarra.s.sing showers. Nor did he make any attempt to pa.s.s through the once familiar doors. For one thing, he was proud: for another he was too busy. When the Christmas recess came he took a holiday, went off by himself to Algiers. He returned bronzed and strong, to the joy of his Sophie.

”My dear,” said Miss Winwood one day to the curiously patient lady, ”what is to come of it all? You can't go on like this for ever and ever.”

”We don't intend to,” smiled the Princess. ”Paul is born to great things. He cannot help it. It is his destiny, I believe in Paul.”

”So do I,” replied Ursula. ”But it's obvious that it will take him a good many years to achieve them. You surely aren't going to wait until he's a Cabinet Minister.”

The Princess lay back among her cus.h.i.+ons and laughed. ”Mais non. It will all come in woman's good time. Laissez-moi faire. He will soon begin to believe in himself again.”

At last Paul's opportunity arrived. The Whips had given him his chance to speak. His luck attended him, in so far that when his turn came he found a full House. It was on a matter of no vital importance; but he had prepared his speech carefully. He stood up for the first time in that strangely nerve-shaking a.s.sembly in which he had been received so coldly and in which he was still friendless, and saw the beginning of the familiar exodus into the lobbies. A sudden wave of anger swept through him and he tore the notes of his speech across and across, and again he metaphorically kicked Billy Goodge. He plunged into his speech, forgetful of what he had written, with a pa.s.sion queerly hyperbolic in view of the subject. At the arresting tones of his voice many of the withdrawing members stopped at the bar and listened, then as he proceeded they gradually slipped back into their places.

Curiosity gave place to interest. Paul had found his gift again, and his anger soon lost itself completely in the joy of the artist. The House is always generous to performance. There was something novel in the spectacle of this young man, who had come there under a cloud, standing like a fearless young Hermes before them, in the ring of his beautiful voice, in the instinctive picturesqueness of phrase, in the winning charm of his personality. It was but a little point in a Government Bill that he had to deal with, and he dealt with it shortly.

But he dealt with it in an unexpected, dramatic way, and he sat down amid comforting applause and circ.u.mambient smiles and nods. The old government hand who rose to reply complimented him gracefully and proceeded of course to tear his argument to tatters. Then an ill-conditioned Socialist Member got up, and, blundering and unconscious agent of Destiny in a fast-emptying House, began a personal attack on Paul. Whereupon there were cries of ”Shame!” and ”Sit down!”

and the Speaker, in caustic tones, counselled relevancy, and the sympathy of the House went out to the Fortunate Youth; so that when he went soon afterwards into the outer lobby--it was the dinner hour--he found himself surrounded by encouraging friends. He did not wait long among them, for up in the Ladies' Gallery was his Princess. He tore up the stairs and met her outside. Her face was pale with anger.

”The brute!” she whispered. ”The cowardly brute!”

He snapped his fingers. ”Canaille, canaille! He counts for nothing. But I've got them!” he cried exultingly, holding out clenched fists. ”By G.o.d, darling, I've got them! They'll listen to me now!”

She looked at him and the sudden tears came. ”Thank G.o.d,” she said, ”I can hear you talk like that at last.”

He escorted her down the stone stairs and through the lobby to her car, and they were objects of many admiring eyes. When they reached it she said, with a humorous curl of the lip, ”Veux-tu m'epouser maintenant?”

”Wait, only wait,” said he. ”These are only fireworks. Very soon we'll get to the real thing.”

”We shall, I promise you,” she replied enigmatically; and she drove off.

One morning, a fortnight later, she rang him up. ”You're coming to dine with me on Friday, as usual, aren't you?”

”Of course,” said he. ”Why do you ask?”

”Just to make sure. And yes--also--to tell you not to come till half-past eight.”

She rang off. Paul thought no more of the matter. Ever since he had taken his seat in the House he had dined with her alone every Friday evening. It was their undisturbed hour of intimacy and gladness in the busy week. Otherwise they rarely met, for Paul was a pariah in her social world.

On the Friday in question his taxi drew up before an unusual-looking house in Berkeley Square. An awning projected from the front door and a strip of carpet ran across the pavement. At the sound of the taxi, the door opened and revealed the familiar figures of the Princess's footmen in their state livery. He entered, somewhat dazed.

<script>