Part 51 (1/2)

”But is it worth it all?” I suggested. ”Surely you have enough?”

”It means power, Paul.” He slapped his trousers pocket, making the handful of gold and silver he always carried there jingle musically. ”It is this that rules the world. My children shall be big pots, hobn.o.b with kings and princes, slap them on the back and call them by their Christian names, be kings themselves--why not? It's happened before.

My children, the children of old Noel Hasluck, son of a Whitechapel butcher! Here's my pedigree!” Again be slapped his tuneful pocket.

”It's an older one than theirs! It's coming into its own at last! It's money--we men of money--that are the true kings now. It's our family that rules the world--the great money family; I mean to be its head.”

The blaze died out, leaving the room almost in darkness, and for awhile we sat in silence.

”Quiet, isn't it?” said old Hasluck, raising his head.

The settling of the falling embers was the only sound about us.

”Guess we'll always be like this, now,” continued old Hasluck. ”Old woman goes to bed, you see, immediately after dinner. It used to be different when _she_ was about. Somehow, the house and the lackeys and all the rest of it seemed to be a more natural sort of thing when _she_ was the centre of it. It frightens the old woman now she's gone. She likes to get away from it. Poor old Susan! A little country inn with herself as landlady and me fussing about behind the bar; that was always her ambition, poor old girl!”

”You will be visiting them,” I suggested, ”and they will be coming to stop with you.”

He shook his head. ”They won't want me, and it isn't my game to hamper them. I never mix out of my cla.s.s. I've always had sense enough for that.”

I laughed, wis.h.i.+ng to cheer him, though I knew he was right. ”Surely your daughter belongs to your own cla.s.s,” I replied.

”Do you think so?” he asked, with a grin. ”That's not a pretty compliment to her. She was my child when she used to cling round my neck, while I made the sausages, calling me her dear old pig. It didn't trouble her then that I dropped my aitches and had a greasy skin. I was a Whitechapel butcher, and she was a Whitechapel brat. I could have kept her if I'd liked, but I was set upon making a lady of her, and I did it.

But I lost my child. Every time she came back from school I could see she despised me a little more. I'm not blaming her; how could she help it? I was making a lady of her, teaching her to do it; though there were moments when I almost hated her, felt tempted to s.n.a.t.c.h her back to me, drag her down again to my level, make her my child again, before it was too late. Oh, it wasn't all unselfishness; I could have done it. She would have remained my cla.s.s then, would have married my cla.s.s, and her children would have been my cla.s.s. I didn't want that. Everything's got to be paid for. I got what I asked for; I'm not grumbling at the price.

But it ain't cheap.”

He rose and knocked the ashes from his pipe. ”Ring the bell, Paul, will you?” he said. ”Let's have some light and something to drink. Don't take any notice of me. I've got the hump to-night.”

It was a minute or two before the lamp came. He put his arm upon my shoulder, leaning upon me somewhat heavily.

”I used to fancy sometimes, Paul,” he said, ”that you and she might have made a match of it. I should have been disappointed for some things. But you'd have been a bit nearer to me, you two. It never occurred to you, that, I suppose?”

CHAPTER VII.

HOW PAUL SET FORTH UPON A QUEST.

Of old Deleglise's Sunday suppers, which, costumed from head to foot in spotless linen, he cooked himself in his great kitchen, moving with flushed, earnest face about the gleaming stove, while behind him his guests waited, ranged round the ma.s.sive oaken table glittering with cut gla.s.s and silver, among which fluttered the deft hands of Madeline, his ancient whitecapped Bonne, much has been already recorded, and by those possessed of greater knowledge. They who sat there talking in whispers until such time as old Deleglise turned towards them again, radiant with consciousness of success, the savoury triumph steaming between his hands, when, like the sudden swell of the Moonlight Sonata, the talk would rush once more into a roar, were men whose names were then--and some are still--more or less household words throughout the English-speaking world. Artists, musicians, actors, writers, scholars, droles, their wit and wisdom, their sayings and their doings must be tolerably familiar to readers of memoir and biography; and if to such their epigrams appear less brilliant, their jests less laughable than to us who heard them spoken, that is merely because fas.h.i.+on in humour and in understanding changes as in all else.

You, gentle reader of my book, I shall not trouble with second-hand record of that which you can read elsewhere. For me it will be but to write briefly of my own brief glimpse into that charmed circle.

Concerning this story more are the afternoon At Homes held by Dan and myself upon the second floor of the old Georgian house in pleasant, quiet Queen Square. For cook and house-maid on these days it would be a busy morning. Failing other supervision, Dan and I agreed that to secure success on these important occasions each of us should criticise the work of the other. I pa.s.sed judgment on Dan's cooking, he upon my house-work.

”Too much soda,” I would declare, sampling the cake.

”You silly Juggins! It's meant to taste of soda--it's a soda cake.”

”I know that. It isn't meant to taste of nothing but soda. There wants to be some cake about it also. This thing, so far as flavour is concerned, is nothing but a Seidlitz powder. You can't give people solidified Seidlitz powders for tea!”

Dan would fume, but I would remain firm. The soda cake would be laid aside, and something else attempted. His cookery was the one thing Dan was obstinate about. He would never admit that anything could possibly be wrong with it. His most ghastly failures he would devour himself later on with pretended enjoyment. I have known him finish a sponge cake, the centre of which had to be eaten with a teaspoon, declaring it was delicious; that eating a dry sponge cake was like eating dust; that a sponge cake ought to be a trifle syrupy towards the centre. Afterwards he would be strangely silent and drink brandy out of a wine-gla.s.s.

”Call these knives clean?” It would be Dan's turn.

”Yes, I do.”