But a few minutes before he had been struggling helplessly in the coils of an evil nightmare. These terrors seemed infinitely far behind him now. He gave an indifferent parting glance backward at them, as one might over his after-breakfast cigar at the confused alarms of an early awakening hours before. There was nothing worth remembering—only the shapeless and foolish burden of a bad dream.
The assurance rose within him that he was not to have any more such trouble. With a singular clearness of mental vision he perceived that the part of him which brought bad dreams had been sloughed off, like a serpent's skin. There had been two Thorpes, and one of them—the Thorpe who had always been willing to profit by knavery, and at last in a splendid coup as a master thief had stolen nearly a million, and would have shrunk not at all from adding murder to the rest, to protect that plunder—this vicious Thorpe had gone away altogether. There was no longer a place for him in life; he would never be seen again by mortal eye....There remained only the good Thorpe, the pleasant, well-intentioned opulent gentleman; the excellent citizen; the beneficent master, to whom, even Gafferson like the others, touched a respectful forelock.
It passed in the procession of his reverie as a kind of triumph of virtue that the good Thorpe retained the fortune which the bad Thorpe had stolen. It was in all senses a fortunate fact, because now it would be put to worthy uses. Considering that he had but dimly drifted about heretofore on the outskirts of the altruistic impulse, it was surprisingly plain to him now that he intended to be a philanthropist. Even as he mentioned the word to himself, the possibilities suggested by it expanded in his thoughts. His old dormant, formless lust for power stirred again in his pulses. What other phase of power carried with it such rewards, such gratitudes, such humble subservience on all sides as far as the eye could reach—as that exercised by the intelligently munificent philanthropist?
Intelligence! that was the note of it all. Many rich people dabbled at the giving of money, but they did it so stupidly, in such a slip-shod fashion, that they got no credit for it. Even millionaires more or less in public life, great newspaper-owners, great brewer-peers, and the like, men who should know how to do things well, gave huge sums in bulk for public charities, such as the housing of the poor, and yet contrived somehow to let the kudos that should have been theirs evaporate. He would make no such mistake as that.
It was easy enough to see wherein they erred. They gave superciliously, handing down their alms from a top lofty altitude of Tory superiority, and the Radicals down below sniffed or growled even while they grudgingly took these gifts—that was all nonsense. These aristocratic or tuft-hunting philanthropists were the veriest duffers. They laid out millions of pounds in the vain attempt to secure what might easily be had for mere thousands, if they went sensibly to work. Their vast benefactions yielded them at the most bare thanks, or more often no thanks at all, because they lacked the wit to lay aside certain little trivial but annoying pretensions, and waive a few empty prejudices. They went on, year after year, tossing their fortunes into a sink of contemptuous ingratitude, wondering feebly why they were not beloved in return. It was because they were fools. They could not, or they would not, understand the people they sought to manipulate.
What could not a man of real brain, of real breadth and energy and force of character, do in London with two hundred thousand pounds? Why, he could make himself master of the town! He could break into fragments the political ascendency of the snob, “semi-detached” villa classes, in half the Parliamentary divisions they now controlled. He could reverse the partisan complexion of the Metropolitan delegation, and lead to Westminster a party of his own, a solid phalanx of disciplined men, standing for the implacable Democracy of reawakened London. With such a backing, he could coerce ministries at will, and remake the politics of England. The role of Great Oliver himself was not too hopelessly beyond the scope of such a vision.
Thorpe threw his cigar-end aside, and then noted that it was almost dark. He strode up to the terrace two steps at a time, and swung along its length with a vigour and exhilaration of movement he had not known, it seemed to him, for years. He felt the excitement of a new incentive bubbling in his veins.
“Her Ladyship is in her sitting-room, sir,” a domestic replied to his enquiry in the hall. The title arrested his attention from some fresh point of view, and he pondered it, as he made his way along the corridor, and knocked at a door. At the sound of a voice he pushed open the door, and went in.
Lady Cressage, looking up, noted, with aroused interest, a marked change in his carriage. He stood aggressively erect, his big shoulders squared, and his head held high. On his massive face there was the smile, at once buoyant and contained, of a strong man satisfied with himself.
Something impelled her to rise, and to put a certain wistfulness of enquiry into her answering smile.