The Fortunate Youth Part 10

He spoke loftily of his independence.

"But how are you going to earn your living?" asked Jane, the practical.

"I shall follow one of the arts," Paul replied. "I think I am a poet, but I might be a painter or a musician."

"You do sing and play lovely," said Jane.

He had recently purchased from a p.a.w.nshop a second-hand mandoline, which he had mastered by the aid of a sixpenny handbook, and he would play on it accompaniments to sentimental ballads which he sang in a high baritone.

"I'll not choose yet awhile," said Paul, disregarding the tribute.

"Something will happen. The 'moving finger' will point--"

"What moving finger?"

"The finger of Destiny," said Paul.

And, as the superb youth predicted, something did happen a day or two afterwards.

They were walking in Regent Street, and stopped, as was their wont, before a photographer's window where portraits of celebrities were exposed to view. Paul loved this window, had loved it from the moment of discovery, a couple of years before. It was a Temple of Fame. The fact of your portrait being exhibited, with your style and t.i.tle printed below, marked you as one of the great ones of the earth. Often he had said to Jane: "When I am there you'll be proud, won't you?"

And she had looked up to him adoringly and wondered why he was not there already.

It was Paul's habit to scrutinize the faces of those who had achieved greatness, Archbishops, Field-Marshals, Cabinet Ministers, and to speculate on the quality of mind that had raised them to their high estate; and often he would s.h.i.+ft his position, so as to obtain a glimpse of his own features in the plate-gla.s.s window, and compare them with those of the famous. Thus he would determine that he had the brow of the divine, the nose of the statesman and the firm lips of the soldier. It was a stimulating pastime. He was born to great things; but to what great things he knew not. The sphere in which his glory should be fulfilled was as yet hidden in the mists of time.

But this morning, instead of roving over the ill.u.s.trious gallery, his eye caught and was fascinated by a single portrait. He stood staring at it for a long time, lost in the thrill of thought.

At last Jane touched his arm. "What are you looking at?"

He pointed. "Do you see that?"

"Yes. It's--" She named an eminent actor, then in the heyday of his fame, of whom legend hath it that his photographs were bought in thousands by love-lorn maidens who slept with them beneath their pillows.

Paul drew her away from the little knot of idlers cl.u.s.tered round the window. "There's nothing that man can do that I can't do," said Paul.

"You're twenty times better looking," said Jane.

"I have more intelligence," said Paul.

"Of course," said Jane.

"I'm going to be an actor," said Paul.

"Oh!" cried Jane in sudden rapture. Then her st.u.r.dy common-sense a.s.serted itself. "But can you act?"

"I'm sure I could, if I tried. You've only got to have the genius to start with and the rest is easy."

As she did not dare question his genius, she remained silent.

"I'm going to be an actor," said he, "and when I'm not acting I shall be a poet."

In spite of her adoration Jane could not forbear a shaft of raillery.

"You'll leave yourself some time to be a musician, won't you?"

He laughed. His alert and retentive mind had seized, long ago, on Rowlatt's recommendation at the Little Bear Inn, and he had developed, perhaps half consciously, a half sense of humour. A whole sense, however, is not congruous with the fervid beliefs and soaring ambitions of eighteen. Your sense of humour, that delicate percipience of proportion, that subrident check on impulse, that touch of the divine fellows.h.i.+p with human frailty, is a thing of mellower growth. It is a solvent and not an excitant. It does not stimulate to sublime effort; but it can cool raging pa.s.sion. It can take the salt from tears, the bitterness from judgment, the keenness from despair; but in its universal manifestation it would effectually stop a naval engagement.

Paul laughed. "You mustn't think I brag too much, Jane," said he. "For anybody else I know what I say would be ridiculous. But for me it's different. I'm going to be a great man. I know it. If I'm not going to be a great actor, I shall be a great something else. G.o.d doesn't put such things into people's heads for nothing. He didn't take me from the factory in Bludston and set me here with you, walking up Regent Street, like a gentleman, just to throw me back into the gutter."

"But who said you were going back to the gutter?" asked Jane.

"n.o.body. I wanted to get right with myself. But--that getting right with oneself--do you think it egotistic?"

"I don't quite know what that is."

He defined the term.

"No," she said seriously. "I don't think it is. Everybody has got a self to consider. I don't look on it as ego-what-d'-you-call-it to strike out for myself instead of going on helping mother to mind the shop. So why should you?"

"Besides, I owe a duty to my parents, don't I?" he asked eagerly.

But here Jane took her own line. "I can't see that you do, considering that they've done nothing for you."

"They've done everything for me," he protested vehemently. "They've made me what I am."

"They didn't take much trouble about it," said Jane.

They squabbled for a while after the manner of boy and girl. At last she cried: "Don't you see I'm proud of you for yourself and not for your silly old parents? What have they got to do with me? And besides, you'll never find them."

"I don't think you know what you're talking about," he said loftily.

"It is time we were getting home."

He walked on for some time stiffly, his head in the air, not condescending to speak. She had uttered blasphemy. He would find his parents, he vowed to himself, if only to spite Jane. Presently his ear caught a little sniff, and looking down, saw her dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. His heart softened at once. "Never mind," said he.

"You didn't mean it."

"It's only because I love you, Paul," she murmured wretchedly.

"That's all right," he said. "Let us go in here"--they were pa.s.sing a confectioner's--"and we'll have some jam-puffs."

Paul went to his friend Rowlatt, who had already heard, through one of his a.s.sistants who had a friend in the Life School, of the dramatic end of the model's career.

"I quite sympathize with you," Rowlatt laughed. "I've wondered how you stuck it so long. What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going on the stage."

"How are you going to get there?"

"I don't know," said Paul, "but if I knew an actor, he would be able to tell me. I thought perhaps you might know an actor."

"I do--one or two," replied Rowlatt; "but they're just ordinary actors--not managers; and I shouldn't think they'd be able to do anything for you."