"John," said the Earl of Camborne and Bishop of Carlton, "I have known that you were here for the last hour. Constance has gone back to Grosvenor Street, but I want to speak to you very seriously indeed."

The duke looked up quickly, his voice was decisive.

"I didn't know that either you or Connie were in London," he said. "I understood from Gerald that you were both down at the palace. I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid we shall have to postpone our talk until to-morrow morning. I'll turn up at Grosvenor Street at whatever time you wish.

To-night, however, now, as a matter of fact, I am very particularly engaged indeed."

CHAPTER XXII

THE SUPPER ON THE STAGE

The success of the play was beyond all question. It was stupendous, overwhelming and complete.

For ten minutes the house shouted itself hoa.r.s.e and Mary Marriott was recalled over and over again. Great baskets of flowers had made their appearance as she stood bowing for the tenth time, and were handed up to her till she stood surrounded by a ma.s.s of blossom.

Hundreds of opera gla.s.ses were levelled at her, eager, critical and admiring faces watched this lovely and graceful girl who stood before them, quietly and modestly, and with a great joy shining in her eyes.

For she had stirred them, stirred them by the depths of her art and the pa.s.sion of her playing. They knew that in one night a great artist had suddenly appeared. However much they might disagree and dislike the doctrines preached in _The Socialist_ they knew that the play was a work of genius, and had been interpreted with supreme talent. Aubrey Flood they were fond of. He was a popular favourite, he had acquitted himself well upon this eventful night. He had received his meed of praise.

But for Mary Marriott there was a reception so whole-hearted and magnificent that the tears might well come into the young girl's eyes and the slim, flower-laden hands tremble with emotion as she bowed her grat.i.tude.

James Fabian Rose had to make a little speech.

He did it with extraordinary a.s.surance and aplomb, and he was received with shouts of applause and good-natured laughter. He had amused and pleased society, and that was enough. The few mocking and brilliant epigrams he flung at them were taken in good part. The deep undercurrent of seriousness seemed but to harmonise with the electric, emotional influences of the moment.

For a minute or two--until they should be seated at supper in the smart restaurants, clubs, and houses--they were all Socialists!

And the fact that their convictions of the truth would vanish with the first plover's egg and gla.s.s at Pol Roger, by no means affected their b.u.t.terfly enthusiasm as the famous author talked to and at them.

The Duke of Paddington watched it all with a strange sense of exhilaration and joy. Lord Camborne had given him an appointment in Grosvenor Street for the morrow, and had hurried away in the most marked perplexity and annoyance.

Lord Hayle had been writing to his father, the duke saw that at once, but he was not perturbed. He had made his resolve. He was master of his own fate, captain of his own soul--what did anything else matter? What was to be done was to be done, come what might. One must be true to oneself!

As the weary, excited audience began at last to press out of the stalls and boxes, there was a tap upon the door of the duke's, and Mr.

Goodrick, the editor of the _Daily Wire_, entered. The little man's face was flushed with excitement, and he was smiling with pleasure.

Yet even under these conditions of animation he still seemed a quiet, insignificant little person, and did not in any way suggest the keen, sword-like intellect, the controller of a vast ma.s.s of public opinion that he was.

"Rose has sent me to say that supper will be ready in ten minutes," he began, "and Mary Marriott especially charged me to tell you how grateful she is that you have come here to-night. What a success! There has never been anything like it! All London will go mad about the thing to-morrow!

I had three members of the staff here to-night--Masterman, who does the dramatic criticism, purely from the standpoint of dramatic art, don't you know; William Conrad, the parson's younger brother, who is one of our political people; and old Miss Saurin, who does the society and dress. They're all three gone down to the office in cabs in a state of lambent enthusiasm and excitement. We shall have a fine paper to-morrow morning!"

"I'm sure you will, Mr. Goodrick," the duke answered. "Perhaps finer than you know."

The little man laughed as he lit a cigarette and offered the case to his companion. "Yes," he said, "but this time it won't be a 'scoop' as it was when I first had the pleasure of meeting you. Good heavens! what a boom that was for the _Wire_. I shall never forget it as long as I live!

We were absolutely the only paper in the kingdom to publish the full details of your disappearance and recovery. You don't know how much we owe you, your Grace, from the journalistic point of view. Such things don't come twice, more's the pity!"

"I'm not so sure of that, Mr. Goodrick," the duke replied slowly.

"Perhaps to-night, within an hour or so, I am going to provide you with a 'scoop' as you call it, to which the first was a mere nothing!"

The editor stiffened as a setter stiffens in the stubble when the birds are near. "Your voice has no joking in it," he said. "There is meaning in your Grace's words--what is it?"

As he spoke a waiter came into the box. "Supper is prepared upon the stage, your Grace," he said. "Miss Marriott, Mr. Rose, and Mr. Aubrey Flood request the honour of your Grace's presence."

"Come along, Mr. Goodrick," the duke said, laughing a little. "You see you will have to wait an event like any one else in this world! But I promise you the 'scoop' all the same!"

They went out of the box, the waiter leading the way to the sliding iron "pa.s.s door," which led directly on to the stage. For the first few steps they were in semi-darkness, for a boxed-in screen had been hurriedly set by the carpenters to make a supper-room. Then, pushing open a canvas door, they came out into the improvised supper-room.

Some forty people were standing upon the stage in groups, talking animatedly to each other. In the background were flower-covered tables gleaming with gla.s.s and silver and covered with flowers, among which many tiny electric lights were hidden.

Mary Marriott stood in the centre of a laughing happy group of men and women. She wore a long tea-gown of dark red, made of some Indian fabric, and edged with a narrow band of green embroidery upon a biscuit-coloured ground. She wore dark-red roses in the coiled ma.s.ses of her marvellous black hair, the paint of the theatre had been washed from her face, and her eyes were brighter, her cheeks more lovely, than any art could make them. She was a queen come into her own on that night! An empress of her art, throned, acknowledged, and wonderful.

To her came the duke.

It was a strange and almost symbolic meeting to some of the quick-wits and artists' brains there. Here was a real prince of this world, a prince who had suffered the hours of a keen and bitter attack with fine dignity and chivalry--James Fabian Rose had not spared words--and there was a princess of art, who from nothing had made a more enduring kingdom, a more splendid realm, than even the long line of peers, statesmen, and warriors had bestowed upon the young man before her.

Yet they were both royal, they looked royal, there was an emanation of royalty as the duke bowed over the hand of the actress and touched it with his lips.

"_Hommage au vrai Art_," he murmured, quoting the words which a king had once used as he kissed the hand of the greatest French actress of his time.

"It was so good of you to come," she said, and he thought that her voice sounded like a flute. "It is kinder still of you to be here now. But they are sitting down to supper. I believe we are placed together; shall we go?"

She took his arm, and his whole being thrilled as the little white hand touched his sleeve and her gracious presence was so near.

They sat down together in the centre of one of the long tables. The duke sat on one side of Mary, James Fabian Rose upon the other.

The waiters began to serve the clear amber consomme in little porcelain bowls; the champagne, cream and amber, flowed into the gla.s.ses.

Every one was in the highest spirits--actors, authors, journalists, socialistic leaders--every one.

It was an odd gathering enough to the casual eye. The ladies of the stage were radiant in their evening gowns and flowers, some of the ladies in the ranks--or rather upon the staff--of the Socialist army were in evening frocks also, others, hard-featured, earnest-eyed women, with short hair and serviceable coats and skirts, were scattered among them, grubs among the b.u.t.terflies, scorning gay attire.

The men were the same, though the majority of them were in conventional evening clothes. Yet, sitting by Mrs. Rose, charming in pale blue, and with sapphires upon her neck, sat a man in a brown suit with a turn-down collar of blue linen, a grey flannel shirt, and a red tie. It was Mr.

William b.u.t.terworth, the great Socialist M.P. for one of the Lancashire manufacturing towns, who had never worn a dress suit in his life, and never meant to, on principle. Such contrasts were everywhere apparent, but to-night they were mere superficial accidents.

Every one was rejoicing at the immense success of _The Socialist_, every one realised that to-night a new and hitherto undreamed of weapon had been forged.

An artery was beating in the duke's head--or was it his heart?--beating with the sound of distant drums. He was speaking to Mary in a low voice, and she was bending a little towards him. "Oh, it was far more wonderful and moving than you yourself can ever know!" he said. "I have seen all the great players of our day. But you are queen of them all!

There has never been any one like you. There never will be any one like you."

He stopped, unable to say more. The drumming within gathered power and sound, became imminent, near, a mighty crescendo, a tide! a flood!

"It is sweet of you to say such things," she answered in her low, flute-like voice, "but of course they are not true. I am only a very humble artist indeed. And no one could have helped playing fairly well in such a play as this, especially when the cause it advocates has become very dear to me. I am a Socialist heart and soul now, you know."

She sighed, hesitated for a moment, and then went on: "I hope you were not hurt to-night by anything upon the stage. I could not help thinking of you. I knew you were in the box, and it was, by the very nature of it, aimed so directly at you, or rather the cla.s.s to which you belong and lead. Since I have been converted to Socialism I have tried to put myself into the place of other people--to imagine how they see things.

And I know how subversive and outrageous all our ideas must seem to you."

"Then you were really sorry for me?"