ROOM FOR THE HERO.
AN hour later the blond young man pursued the even tenor of his way, assisted by a cigar and swinging a stout green orange stick in his hand, along the Promenade du Midi, the main lounge of Mentone, toward the Hôtel Continental. Arrived at the grand staircase of that palatial caravanserai, the most fashionable in the town, he leapt lightly up three steps at a time into the entrance-hall, and calling out, “Here you, sir!” in his native tongue — for he was no linguist — to the boy at the lift, mounted hydraulically, whistling as he went, to the second story. There he burst into the neatly furnished sitting room, being a boisterous young man most heedless of the conventions, and, flinging his hat on the table and himself into an easy-chair before the superfluous fire, exclaimed in a loud and jolly voice to his companion, “I say, Gascoyne, here’s games to the fore! I’ve got an invitation for you.”
His friend looked up inquiringly. “Who from?” he asked, laying down his pen and rising from his desk to sun himself in the broad flood of light by the window.
“A pretty American,” Thistleton answered, knocking off his ashes into the basket of olive-wood. “No end of a stunner!”
“But I don’t know her,” Paul Gascoyne gasped out, with a half terrified look.
“So much the better,” his companion retorted imperturbably. “If a lady falls over head and ears in love with you merely from seeing your manly form in the street, without ever having so much as exchanged a single word with you, the compliment’s a higher one, of course, than if she waited to learn all your virtues and accomplishments in the ordinary manner.”
“Dinner?” Gascoyne asked with a dubious glance toward his bedroom door. He was thinking how far his evening apparel would carry him unaided.
“No, not dinner; a picnic, next Saturday as ever was,” Thistleton replied, all unconscious. “The ladies of the Rives d’Or invite us both to lunch with them on the green up yonder at Sant’ Agnese. It’s an awful lark. And the pretty American’s dying to see you. She says she’s heard so much about you—”
“A picnic!” Paul interposed, cutting him short at once, and distinctly relieved by learning of this lesser evil. “Well, I daresay I can let it run to a picnic. That won’t dip into much. But how did the ladies at the Rives d’Or ever come at all to cognize my humble existence?”
Thistleton smiled; an abstruse smile. “Why, Armitage told them, I suppose,” he answered carelessly. “But do you really imagine, at the present time of day, my dear fellow, every girl in the place doesn’t know at once the name, antecedents, position, and prospects of every young man of marriageable age that by any chance comes into it? Do you think they haven’t spotted the fashionable intelligence that two real live Oxford men are stopping at the Continental? I should rather say so! Gascoyne, my boy, keep your eyes open. We’ve our price in the world. Mind you always remember it!”
Paul Gascoyne smiled uneasily. “I wish I could think so,” he murmured half aloud.
“Yes, we’ve our price in the world,” his friend continued slowly, cigar turned downward and lips pursed, musing. “The eligible young man is fast becoming an extinct animal. The supply by no means equals the demand. And the result’s as usual. We’re at a premium in society, and, as economic units, we must govern ourselves accordingly.”
“Ah, that’s all very well for rich men like you,” Paul began hurriedly.
“What do you mean to say,” Thistleton cried, rising and fronting him with a jerk, “that half the women one meets wouldn’t be only too glad to marry the son and heir of a British bar—”
Before he could utter the word that was gurgling in his throat, however, Gascoyne had clapped his hand upon that imprudent mouth, and cried out in a perfect agony of disgust, “No more of that nonsense, for Heaven’s sake, Thistleton! I hope you haven’t breathed a word about it to anybody here in Mentone? If you have, I think I shall die of shame. I’ll take the very next train back to Paris, I swear, and never come near either you or the place as long as I live, again.”
Thistleton sat down, red-faced, but sobered. “Honor bright, not a word!” he answered, gazing hard at his companion. “I’ve never so much as even alluded to it. The golden-haired Pennsylvanian was trying to pump me all she knew, I confess; but I listened not to the voice of the charmer, charmed she never so wisely through her neat little nose. I resisted the siren like bricks, and kept my own counsel. Now, don’t cut up rusty about it, there’s a good sensible fellow. If a man’s father does happen to be born—”
But a darted look from Gascoyne cut him short once more with unspoken remonstrance, and he contented himself with pulling down his collar and flashing his shirt-cuffs to imitate in pantomine a general air of close connection with the British aristocracy.
There was a short pause, during which Thistleton slowly puffed his cigar, while Paul looked out of the window in meditative mood and scanned the blue bay and purple sea, with Bordighera shining white on its promontory in the distance.
It would have been impossible for anybody to deny, as you saw him then, that Paul Gascoyne was essentially a scallywag. He looked the character to perfection. It wasn’t merely that his coat, though carefully brushed and conserved, had seen long service and honorable scars; it wasn’t merely that his tie was narrow and his collar démodé, and his trousers baggy, and his shoes antique; it wasn’t merely that honest poverty peeped out of every fold and crease in his threadbare raiment; the man himself had something of that shy and shrinking air which belongs by nature to those poor souls who slink along timidly through the back alleys of life, and fear to tread with a free and open footstep the main highways of respectable humanity. Not that, on the other hand, there was anything mean or small in Paul Gascoyne’s face or bearing; on the contrary, he looked every inch a man, and to those who can see below the surface, a gentleman also. He was tall and well-built, with handsome features and copious black hair, that showed off his fine eyes and high white forehead to great advantage. But the day of small things had weighed upon him heavily; the iron of poverty and ancestral care had entered into his soul. The sordid shifts and petty subterfuges of a life harder than that of his companions and fellow students had left their mark deep upon his form and, features. He was, in short, what Armitage had called him, in spite of his good looks — an obvious scallywag, nothing more or less: a person rightly or wrongly conscious that, by accident or demerit, he fills a minor place in the world’s esteem and the world’s consideration.
He stood and gazed out of the window abstractedly, reflecting to himself after all that a climb up those glorious gray crags to Sant’ Agnese would be far from unpleasant, even though clogged by a golden-haired Pennsylvanian, no doubt wealthy, if only — when suddenly Thistleton recalled him to himself by adding, in an after-thought, “And we’ve got to order our donkeys early, for donkeys, too, will be at a premium on Saturday. Political economy very much to the front. Supply and demand, again, unequally balanced.”
Paul glanced up at the silent rocks once more — great lonely tors that seemed to pierce the blue with their gigantic aiguilles — and answered quietly, “I think I shall walk, for my own part, Thistleton. It can’t be more than a couple of thousand feet or so up, and half a dozen miles across country as the crow flies. Just about enough to give one an appetite for one’s lunch when one gets there.”
“Ah, but the pretty American’s commands are absolute — every man Jack to ride his own donkey. They say it’s such fun going up in a body like so many fools; and if everybody’s going to make himself a fool for once, I don’t object to bearing my part in it.” And the blond young man leaned back in his easy-chair and stuck his boots on the fender with a tolerant air of perfect contentment with all mankind and the constitution of the universe.
“I shall walk,” Paul murmured again, not dogmatically, but as one who wishes to settle a question offhand.
“Look here, now, Gascoyne, as the Highland meenister said in his prayer, this is clean rideeklous. Do you mean to say you’re too grand to ride a donkey? You think it infra dig for a B. of B. K. — there, will that suit you? — to be seen on a beast which is quite good enough —— —— —”
Paul cut him short once more with a gesture of impatience. “It’s unkind of you, Thistleton,” he said, “to go on harping so often on that threadbare string, when you see how very much pain and annoyance it causes me. You know it’s not that. Heaven knows I’m not proud — not that way, at least — what on earth have I got not to be ashamed of? No, the simple truth is, if you must have it, I don’t want to go to the expense of a donkey.”
“My dear fellow! Why, it’s only five francs for the whole day, they tell me.”
Paul Gascoyne smiled. “But five francs is a consideration to me,” he answered, after a slight mental reckoning. “Fifty pence, you see; that’s four and twopence. Four and twopence is an awful lot of money to fling away for nothing!” And he rearranged the logs on the fire reflectively.
“Well, look here, Gascoyne; sooner than mar the harmony of the meeting, I’ll tell you what I’ll do — I’ll stand you a donkey.”
Paul gave a little start of surprise and uneasiness. His color deepened. “Oh, no,” he said. “Thistleton, I couldn’t allow that. If I go at all I shall go on my own legs, or else take a beast and pay my own expenses.”
“Who’s proud now?” the blond young man exclaimed, with provoking good humor.
Paul looked down at him gravely from the corner of the mantelpiece on which his arm rested.
“Thistleton,” he said, in a serious voice, growing redder still in the face as he spoke, “to tell you the truth, I’m ashamed already of how much I’m letting you do for me. When I first arranged to come aboard with you, and have my expenses paid, I hadn’t the remotest conception, I assure you, of what an awful sum the expenses would come to. I’ve never lived at an hotel like this before, or in anything like such extravagant luxury. I thought the ten pounds I charged for tuition would be the chief item; instead of which, I see now, you’ve already paid almost as much as that for me in railway fares and so forth, and I tremble to think how much more you may have to pay for my board and lodging. I can’t let you stand me my amusements, too, into the bargain.”
The blond young man puffed away at his cigar for a moment or so with vigorous good humor.
“What a devil of a conscience you’ve got,” he observed at last, in the intervals of the puffs; “and what a devil of a touchy sense of honor, as well, Gascoyne! I suppose it’s in the family! Why, it’s the regular rule, if you take a vacation tutor to a place of your own choice abroad, you pay his way for him. I call it only fair. You contract to do it. There’s no obligation on either side. A mere matter of business.”
“But you come to such a grand hotel and live so royally!” Paul objected with fervor.
-”Am I to go to a cabaret and live upon garlic, just to suit your peculiar views of expenditure?” Thistleton retorted with spirit. “Can I drink sour wine and eat black bread because you like to be economical? No, no, my dear fellow. You mistake the position. I want to come to Mentone for the winter. Beastly climate, Yorkshire; dull hole, the governor’s; lovely coast, the Riviera; Monte Carlo always laid on at a convenient distance; lots of amusement; plenty of fun; the very place to spend the Christmas vacation in. If I go and say to the governor:
‘Look here, old boy: I want a pony or two to run down south and amuse myself, just to escape this infernal dull hole of yours, and to have a turn or two at roulette or something,’ why the governor’d no doubt advise me to go and be hanged, in language more remarkable for its force than elegance. Very well, then; what do I do? I go to him and say, pulling a long face, ‘Look here, sir; I want to read up for my next examination. Devilish clever fellow at my own college — studious, steady, economical — excellent testimonials — all that sort of thing. Sure to come out a first in Greats next time. I propose to read with him at some quiet place in the south of France — say Mentone,’ suppressing the little details about Monte Carlo, you understand; ‘he’ll go for a tenner and his own expenses.’ What’s the result? The governor’s delighted. Fishes out his purse — stumps up liberally. Claps me on the back and says, ‘Charlie, my boy, I’m gratified to see you’re turning over a new leaf at last, and mean to read hard, and get through with credit.’ And that’s the real use, you see, of a vacation tutor.”
Paul listened somewhat aghast to this candid explanation of his own true function in the modern commonwealth; then he answered slowly:
“It’s rather hard lines on the governor, I fancy. But I suppose I can’t interfere with that. Your arrangements with your father are your own business, of course. As to myself, though, I always feel a little uneasy. It may be all right, but I’m not accustomed to such a magnificent scale of expenditure, and I don’t want to put either you or him to any unnecessary expense in the matter of my living.” Thistleton threw back his head once more on the easy chair and mused aloud.
“What a conscience! What a conscience! I believe you wouldn’t spend an extra sixpence you could possibly save if your life depended upon it.”
“You forget,” Paul cried, “that I have special claims upon me.”
The peculiar stress he laid upon that emphatic word “claims,” might have struck anybody less easy going than Charlie Thistleton, but the blond young man let it escape his attention.
“Oh, I know what you mean,” he retorted carelessly. “I’ve heard that sort of thing from lots of other fellows before. Slender means — the governor poor — heavy expenses of college life — home demands — a mother and sisters.”
“I wish to Heaven it was only that,” Paul ejaculated fervently. “A mother and sisters I could easily put up with. But the claims upon me are far more serious. It’s a duty I owe to Somebody Else not to spend a single penny I can help, unnecessarily.”
“By Jove!” the blond young man exclaimed, waking up. “Not engaged? Or married?”
“Engaged! Married! No, no. Is it likely?” Paul cried, somewhat bitterly. —
“The golden haired Pennsylvanian’s a jolly good investment, I should say,” Thistleton went on meditatively. “Rolling in coin. A mint of money. She’ll be really annoyed, too, if you don’t come to her picnic, and, what’s more, ride a donkey.”
“Is she rich?” Paul asked, with a sudden and unexpected interest, as if a thought had instantly darted across his brain.
“Rich! Like Croesus, so Armitage tells me. Rich as Pactolus. Rich as wedding cake. Rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.”
Paul moved from his place at the corner of the mantelpiece, fiery red in the face now, and strolled as carelessly as he could across the room to the window. Then he opened his purse, counted the money furtively, and made a short mental calculation, unobserved. At the end of it he gave a very deep sigh, and answered aloud with a wrench:
“Well, I suppose I ought to go. It’s a precious hard pull; for I hate this sort of thing; but then, I have claims — very special claims upon me.”
“Still, you’ll go anyhow?” Thistleton asked once more.
“Yes, I’ll go,” Paul answered, with the air of a man who makes up his mind to have a tooth drawn.
“And you’ll ride a donkey?”
“I suppose I must, if the golden-haired Pennsylvanian absolutely insists upon it. Anything on earth where duty calls one.”
And he sank, wearied, into the chair by the window.