“The revolution needs now only a supreme leader. Your lordship is known and loved by the Greek people as is no other. The petty chieftains, whose inveterate ambitions now embroil a national cause, for such a rallying-point would lay aside their quarrels. With your great name foreign loans would be certain. Such is the unanimous opinion of the committee in London, my lord.”
Dallas’ snuff-box dropped to the floor. Gamba made a sudden movement, but Mavrocordato’s hand, laid on his knee, stilled him.
A flush, vivid on its paleness, had come to Gordon’s cheek—an odd sensation of confusion that overspread the instant’s elation. If the Greek people loved him, it was for what he had written years ago, not for what he was now, a discredited wanderer among the nations! With what real motive did the committee in London place this great cause in his hand? Did they offer it in sincere belief, as to one whom England had misjudged and to whom she owed restitution—a lover of liberty, one capable of a true deed, of judgment, discernment and high results? A tingling pang went through him. No. But to one whose name was famed—how famed!—whose attachment to the revolution would draw to the struggle the eyes of the world,—to assure foreign loans!
He rose and walked to the window, his throat tightening. No one spoke, though young Gamba stirred restlessly. Dallas was peering into his recovered snuff-box, and Blaquiere sat movelessly watching.
As Gordon looked out into the dimming dusk and the sky’s blue garden blossoming with pale stars, the new self that had been developing in conscience gained its ascendancy. What should it matter to him, why or how the opportunity came? To Hobhouse, at least, it had been an act of faith and friendship. As a body, the committee had considered only its object, political advantage to England—the success of the Greek revolutionary arms. Why should he ache so fiercely for that juster valuation which would never be given? Was it not enough that the cause was one which had been the brightest dream of his youth; that sober opinion deemed his effort able to advance it?
His mind overran the past years. He saw himself putting away the old savage indifference and insolent disdain, and struggling for a fresh foothold on life. The malice that had pursued him in Trevanion he had accepted unresistingly, as part of an ordained necessity. But with the unfolding of the new conception and character he had come to realize that, as the most intimate elements of his own destruction had lain within himself, so only to himself could he look for self-retrieval.
And was that retrieval to be found in the fatuous passiveness behind which he had intrenched himself? If there were an appointed destiny, it could not lie that way, but rather in the meeting of the issues fate offered, the doing of a worthy deed for the deed’s own sake, the making real of an heroic dream—putting aside the paltry pride that cavilled how or why that issue was presented—without reckoning save of the final outcome.
He thought of an oaken box now on its way to a cemetery in Rome. What would the man whose ashes it held have replied? He needed no answer to that!
As he pondered, from the shadowy garden, under the orange-trees woven with the warm scents of summer, rose a soft strain. It was Teresa, singing to her harp, her voice burdened to-night with the grief of Mary Shelley—the song Gordon had long ago written to a plaintive Hindoo refrain.
Low as the words were, they came clearly into the silence: