“I mean you have turned me into a man of action,� he replied. “So long as you were in the past, nothing was better than the past. So long as you were only a dream, nothing was better than dreaming. But now I am going to do something that no man has ever done before.�
He turned towards the valley and flung out his hand with a gesture, almost as if the hand had held a sword.
“I am going to break the Prophecy,� he cried in a loud voice. “I am going to defy the omens of my doom and make fun of my evil star. Those who called me a failure shall own I have succeeded where all humanity has failed. The real hero is not he who is bold enough to fulfil the predictions, but he who is bold enough to falsify them. And you shall see one falsified to-night.�
“What in the world are you going to do?� she asked.
He laughed suddenly. “The first thing to do,� he cried, swinging round with a new air of resolution and even cheerfulness, “the very first thing to do is to Vote For Hunter. Or, at any rate, help to get him into Parliament.�
“But why in the world,� she asked wondering, “should you want so much to get Dr. Hunter into Parliament?�
“Well, one must do something,� he said with an appearance of easy good sense, “to celebrate the occasion. We must do something; and after all he must go somewhere, poor devil. You will say, why not throw him into the river? It would relieve the feelings and make a splash. But I’m going to make something much bigger than a splash. Besides, I don’t want him in my nice river. I’d much rather pick him up and throw him all the way to Westminster. Much more sensible and suitable. Obviously there ought to be a brass band and a torchlight procession somewhere to-night; and why shouldn’t he have a bit of the fun?�
He stopped suddenly as if surprised at his own words: for indeed his own phrase had fallen, for him, with the significance of a falling star.
“Of course!� he muttered. “A torchlight procession! I’ve been feeling that what I wanted was trumpets and what I really want is torches. Yes, I believe it could be done! Yes, the hour is come! By stars and blazes, I will give him a torchlight procession!�
He had been almost dancing with excitement on the top of the ridge; now he suddenly went bounding down the slope beyond, calling to the girl to follow, as carelessly as if they had been two children playing at hide and seek. Strangely enough, perhaps, she did follow; more strangely still when we consider the extravagant scenes through which she allowed herself to be led. They were scenes more insanely incongruous with all her sensitive and even secretive dignity than if she had been changing hats with a costermonger on a Bank Holiday. For there the world would only be loud with vulgarity, and here it was also loud with lies. She could never have described that Saturnalia of a political election; but she did dimly feel the double impression of a harlequinade at the end of a pantomime and of Hood’s phrase about the end of the world. It was as if a Bank Holiday could also be a Day of Judgment. But as the farce could no longer offend her, so the tragedy could no longer terrify. She went through it all with a wan smile, which perhaps nobody in the world would have known her well enough to interpret. It was not in the normal sense excitement; yet it was something much more positive than patience. In a sense perhaps, more than ever before in her lonely life, she was walled up in her ivory tower; but it was all alight within, as if it were lit with candles or lined with gold.