CHAPTER NINE
I had a pretty bad night after that, and was not much in the mood forFox on the morrow. The sight of her had dwarfed everything; the thoughtof her disgusted me with everything, made me out of conceit with theworld--with that part of the world that had become my world. I wanted toget up into hers--and I could not see any way. The room in which Fox satseemed to be hopelessly off the road--to be hopelessly off any road toany place; to be the end of a blind alley. One day I might hope tooccupy such a room--in my shirt-sleeves, like Fox. But that was not theend of my career--not the end that I desired. She had upset me.
"You've just missed Polehampton," Fox said; "wanted to get hold of your'Atmospheres.'"
"Oh, damn Polehampton," I said, "and particularly damn the'Atmospheres.'"
"Willingly," Fox said, "but I told Mr. P. that you were willing if...."
"I don't want to know," I repeated. "I tell you I'm sick of thethings."
"What a change," he asserted, sympathetically, "I _thought_ you would."
It struck me as disgusting that a person like Fox should think about meat all. "Oh, I'll see it through," I said. "Who's the next?"
"We've got to have the Duc de Mersch now," he answered, "De Mersch asState Founder--written as large as you can--all across the page. Themoment's come and we've got to rope it in, that's all. I've beenmiddling good to you.... You understand...."
He began to explain in his dark sentences. The time had come for anenergetically engineered boom in de Mersch--a boom all along the line.And I was to commence the campaign. Fox had been good to me and I was torepay him. I listened in a sort of apathetic indifference.
"Oh, very well," I said. I was subconsciously aware that, as far as Iwas concerned, the determining factor of the situation was theannouncement that de Mersch was to be in Paris. If he had been in hisown particular grand duchy I wouldn't have gone after him. For a momentI thought of the interview as taking place in London. ButFox--ostensibly, at least--wasn't even aware of de Mersch's visit; spokeof him as being in Paris--in a flat in which he was accustomed tointerview the continental financiers who took up so much of his time.
I realised that I wanted to go to Paris because she was there. She hadsaid that she was going to Paris on the morrow of yesterday. The namewas pleasant to me, and it turned the scale.
Fox's eyes remained upon my face.
"Do you good, eh?" he dimly interpreted my thoughts. "A run over. Ithought you'd like it and, look here, Polehampton's taken over the_Bi-Monthly_; wants to get new blood into it, see? He'd take something.I've been talking to him--a short series.... 'Aspects.' That sort ofthing." I tried to work myself into some sort of enthusiasm ofgratitude. I knew that Fox had spoken well of me to Polehampton--as asort of set off.
"You go and see Mr. P.," he confirmed; "it's really all arranged. Andthen get off to Paris as fast as you can and have a good time."
"Have I been unusually cranky lately?" I asked.
"Oh, you've been a little off the hooks, I thought, for the last week orso."
He took up a large bottle of white mucilage, and I accepted it as a signof dismissal. I was touched by his solicitude for my health. It alwaysdid touch me, and I found myself unusually broad-minded in thought as Iwent down the terra-cotta front steps into the streets. For all hisfrank vulgarity, for all his shirt-sleeves--I somehow regarded thathabit of his as the final mark of the Beast--and the Louis Quinzeaccessories, I felt a warm good-feeling for the little man.
I made haste to see Polehampton, to beard him in a sort of den thatcontained a number of shelves of books selected for their glitteringback decoration. They gave the impression that Mr. Polehampton wished tosuggest to his visitors the fitness and propriety of clothing theirwalls with the same gilt cloth. They gave that idea, but I think that,actually, Mr. Polehampton took an aesthetic delight in the gilding. Hewas not a publisher by nature. He had drifted into the trade andsuccess, but beneath a polish of acquaintance retained a fine awe for abook as such. In early life he had had such shining things on a shinytable in a parlour. He had a similar awe for his daughter, who had beenborn after his entry into the trade, and who had the literary flavour--aflavour so pronounced that he dragged her by the heels into anyconversation with us who hewed his raw material, expecting, I suppose,to cow us. For the greater good of this young lady he had bought the_Bi-Monthly_--one of the portentous political organs. He had, they said,ideas of forcing a seat out of the party as a recompense.
It didn't matter much what was the nature of my series of articles. Iwas to get the atmosphere of cities as I had got those of the variousindividuals. I seemed to pay on those lines, and Miss Polehamptoncommended me.
"My daughter likes ... eh ... your touch, you know, and...." His termswere decent--for the man, and were offered with a flourish thatindicated special benevolence and a reference to the hundred pounds. Iwas at a loss to account for his manner until he began to stammer out anindication. Its lines were that I knew Fox, and I knew Churchill andthe Duc de Mersch, and the _Hour_. "And those financial articles ... inthe _Hour_ ... were they now?... _Were_ they ... was the Trans-Greenland railway actually ... did I think it would be worth one'swhile ... in fact...." and so on.
I never was any good in a situation of that sort, never any good at all.I ought to have assumed blank ignorance, but the man's eyes pleaded; itseemed a tremendous matter to him. I tried to be non-committal, andsaid: "Of course I haven't any right." But I had a vague, stupid sensethat loyalty to Churchill demanded that I should back up a man he wasbacking. As a matter of fact, nothing so direct was a-gate, it couldn'thave been. It was something about shares in one of de Mersch's otherenterprises. Polehampton was going to pick them up for nothing, and theywere going to rise when the boom in de Mersch's began--something of thesort. And the boom would begin as soon as the news of the agreementabout the railway got abroad.
I let him get it out of me in a way that makes the thought of that bareplace with its gilt book-backs and its three uncomfortableoffice-chairs and the ground-glass windows through which one read theinversion of the legend "Polehampton," all its gloom and its rigid linesand its pallid light, a memory of confusion. And Polehampton wasproperly grateful, and invited me to dine with him and his phantasmaldaughter--who wanted to make my acquaintance. It was like a command to astate banquet given by a palace official, and Lea would be invited tomeet me. Miss Polehampton did not like Lea, but he had to be asked oncea year--to encourage good feeling, I suppose. The interview dribbled outon those lines. I asked if it was one of Lea's days at the office. Itwas not. I tried to put in a good word for Lea, but it was not veryeffective. Polehampton was too subject to his assistant's thorns to beresponsive to praise of him.
So I hurried out of the place. I wanted to be out of this medium inwhich my ineffectiveness threatened to proclaim itself to me. It was nota very difficult matter. I had, in those days, rooms in one of thepolitical journalists' clubs--a vast mausoleum of white tiles. But a manused to pack my portmanteau very efficiently and at short notice. Atthe station one of those coincidences that are not coincidences made merun against the great Callan. He was rather unhappy--found it impossibleto make an already distracted porter listen to the end of one of hissentences with two-second waits between each word. For that reason hebrightened to see me--was delighted to find a through-journey companionwho would take him on terms of greatness. In the railway carriage,divested of troublesome bags that imparted anxiety to his small face anda stagger to his walk, he swelled to his normal dimensions.
"So you're--going to--Paris," he meditated, "for the _Hour_."
"I'm going to Paris for the _Hour_," I agreed.
"Ah!" he went on, "you're going to interview the Elective GrandDuke...."
"We call him the Duc de Mersch," I interrupted, flippantly. It was amatter of nuances. The Elective Grand Duke was a philanthropist and aState Founder, the Duc de Mersch was the hero as financier.
"Of Holstein-Launewitz," Callan ignored. The titles slipped over histongue li
ke the last drops of some inestimable oily vintage.
"I might have saved you the trouble. I'm going to see him myself."
"_You_," I italicised. It struck me as phenomenal and rather absurd thateverybody that I came across should, in some way or other, be mixed upwith this portentous philanthropist. It was as if a fisherman weredrawing in a ground line baited with hundreds of hooks. He had a littleoffended air.
"He, or, I should say, a number of people interested in a philanthropicsociety, have asked me to go to Greenland."
"Do they want to get rid of you?" I asked, flippantly. I was made toknow my place.
"My dear fellow," Callan said, in his most deliberate, most Olympiantone. "I believe you're entirely mistaken, I believe ... I've beeninformed that the Systeme Groenlandais is one of the healthiest placesin the Polar regions. There are interested persons who...."
"So I've heard," I interrupted, "but I can assure you I've heard nothingbut good of the Systeme and the ... and its philanthropists. I meantnothing against them. I was only astonished that you should go to such aplace."
"I have been asked to go upon a mission," he explained, seriously, "toascertain what the truth about the Systeme really is. It is a newcountry with, I am assured, a great future in store. A great deal ofEnglish money has been invested in its securities, and naturally greatinterest is taken in its affairs."
"So it seems," I said, "I seem to run upon it at every hour of the dayand night."
"Ah, yes," Callan rhapsodised, "it has a great future in store, a greatfuture. The Duke is a true philanthropist. He has taken infinitepains--infinite pains. He wished to build up a model state, _the_ modelprotectorate of the world, a place where perfect equality shall obtainfor all races, all creeds, and all colours. You would scarcely believehow he has worked to ensure the happiness of the native races. Hefounded the great society to protect the Esquimaux, the Society for theRegeneration of the Arctic Regions--the S.R.A.R.--as you called it, andnow he is only waiting to accomplish his greatest project--theTrans-Greenland railway. When that is done, he will hand over theSysteme to his own people. That is the act of a great man."
"Ah, yes," I said.
"Well," Callan began again, but suddenly paused. "By-the-bye, this mustgo no farther," he said, anxiously, "I will let you have fullparticulars when the time is ripe."
"My dear Callan," I said, touchily, "I can hold my tongue."
He went off at tangent.
"I don't want you to take my word--I haven't seen it yet. But I feelassured about it myself. The most distinguished people have spoken to mein its favour. The celebrated traveller, Aston, spoke of it with tearsin his eyes. He was the first governor-general, you know. Of course Ishould not take any interest in it, if I were not satisfied as to that.It is percisely because I feel that the thing is one of the finestmonuments of a grand century that I am going to lend it the weight of mypen."
"I quite understand," I assured him; then, solicitously, "I hope theydon't expect you to do it for nothing."
"Oh, dear, no," Callan answered.
"Ah, well, I wish you luck," I said. "They couldn't have got a betterman to win over the National conscience. I suppose it comes to that."
Callan nodded.
"I fancy I have the ear of the public," he said. He seemed to getsatisfaction from the thought.
The train entered Folkestone Harbour. The smell of the sea and the easysend of the boat put a little heart into me, but my spirits were on thedown grade. Callan was a trying companion. The sight of him stirreduneasy emotions, the sound of his voice jarred.
"Are you coming to the Grand?" he said, as we passed St. Denis.
"My God, no," I answered, hotly, "I'm going across the river."
"Ah," he murmured, "the Quartier Latin. I wish I could come with you.But I've my reputation to think of. You'd be surprised how people get tohear of my movements. Besides, I'm a family man."
I was agitatedly silent. The train steamed into the glare of theelectric lights, and, getting into a fiacre, I breathed again. I seemedto be at the entrance of a new life, a better sort of paradise, duringthat drive across the night city. In London one is always a passenger,in Paris one has reached a goal. The crowds on the pavements, under theplane-trees, in the black shadows, in the white glare of the openspaces, are at leisure--they go nowhere, seek nothing beyond.
We crossed the river, the unwinking towers of Notre Dame toweringpallidly against the dark sky behind us; rattled into the new light ofthe resuming boulevard; turned up a dark street, and came to a haltbefore a half-familiar shut door. You know how one wakes the sleepyconcierge, how one takes one's candle, climbs up hundreds and hundredsof smooth stairs, following the slipshod footfalls of a half-awakenedguide upward through Rembrandt's own shadows, and how one's final sleepis sweetened by the little inconveniences of a strange bare room and ofa strange hard bed.