'He likes it, I dare say,' Ericson said. 'He is young and fresh and energetic, and he is fond of mashing on to young and pretty women—and so the dinner parties give him pleasure. It will give me sincere pleasure to dine with Mrs. Sarrasin and you, and we'll leave Hamilton to his countesses and marchionesses. But don't think too badly of him, Captain Sarrasin, for all that: he is so young. If there is a fight to go on in Gloria he'll be there with you and me—you may depend on that.'
'But is there any chance of a fight going on?' Hamilton asked, looking up from his papers with flushing face and sparkling eyes.
'Captain Sarrasin thinks that there is a good chance of something of the kind, and he offers to be with us. He has certain information that there is a scheme on foot in Orizaba for the invasion and annexation of Gloria.'
Hamilton leaped up in delight.
'By Jove!' he exclaimed, 'that would be the one chance to rally all that is left of the national and the patriotic in Gloria! Hip, hip, hurrah!—one cheer more—hurrah!' And the usually demure Hamilton actually danced then and there, in his exultation, some steps of a music-hall breakdown. His face was aflame with delight. The Dictator and Sarrasin both looked at him with an expression of sympathy and admiration. But there were different feelings in the breasts of the two sympathising men. Sarrasin was admiring the manly courage and spirit of the young man, and in his admiration there was that admixture of melancholy, of something like compassion, with which middle-age regards the enthusiasm of youth.
With the Dictator's admiration was blended the full knowledge that, amid all Hamilton's sincere delight in the prospect of again striking a blow for Gloria, there was a suffused delight in the sense of sudden lightening of pain—the sense that while fighting for Gloria he would be able, in some degree, to shake off the burden of his unsuccessful love. In the wild excitement of the coming struggle he might have a chance of now and then forgetting how much he loved Helena Langley and how she did not love him.
CHAPTER XI
HELENA
Love, according to the Greek proverb quoted by Plutarch, is the offspring of the rainbow and the west wind, that delicious west wind, so full of hope and youth in all its breathings—that rainbow that we may, if we will, pursue for ever, and which we shall never overtake. Helena Langley, although she was a fairly well-read girl, had probably never heard of the proverb, but there was something in her mood of mind at present that might seem to have sprung from the conjunction of the rainbow and the west wind. She was exalted out of herself by her feelings—the west wind breathed lovingly on her—and yet she saw that the rainbow was very far off. She was beginning to admit to herself that she was in love with the Dictator—at all events, that she was growing more and more into love with him; but she could not see that he was at all likely to be in love with her. She was a spoilt child; she had all the virtues and no doubt some of the defects of the spoilt child. She had always been given to understand that she would be a great match—that anybody would be delighted to marry her—that she might marry anyone she pleased provided she did not take a fancy to a royal prince, and that she must be very careful not to let herself be married for her money alone. She knew that she was a handsome girl, and she knew, too, that she had got credit for being clever and a little eccentric—for being a girl who was privileged to be unconventional, and to say what she pleased and whatever came into her head. She enjoyed the knowledge of the fact that she was allowed to speak out her mind, and that people would put up with things from her which they would not put up with from other girls. The knowledge did not make her feel cynical—it only made her feel secure. She was not a reasoning girl; she loved to follow her own impulses, and had the pleased conviction that they generally led her right.