'Dear child, I am not finding any fault with your hero, or saying that he isn't a hero; I am only saying that, so far, I have not discovered any of the magnetic force of the hero—isn't magnetic force the word? He is ever so nice and quiet and intellectual, and I dare say, as an all-round man, he's first-class, but I have not yet struck the Dictatorship quality in him.'
The Duchess rose to go away.
'You see, there's nothing in particular for him to do in this country,' Helena said, still lingering on the subject which the Duchess seemed quite willing to put away.
'Is he going back to his own country?' the Duchess asked, languidly.
'His own country, Duchess? Why, this is his own country.' Wrapped as she was in the fortunes of Gloria, Helena, like a genuine English girl, could not help resenting the idea of any Englishman acknowledging any country but England. Especially she would not admit that her particular hero could be any sort of foreigner.
'Well—his adopted country I mean—the country where he was Dictator. Is he going back there?'
'When the people call him, he will go,' Helena answered proudly.
'Oh, my dear, if he wants to get back he had better go before the people call him. People forget so soon nowadays. We have all sorts of exiles over in the States, and it don't seem to me as if anybody ever called them back. Some of them have gone without being called, and then I think they mostly got shot. But I hope your hero won't do that. Good-bye, dear; come and see me soon, or I shall think you as mean as ever you can be.' And the beautiful Duchess, bending her graceful head, departed, and left Helena to her own reflections.
Somehow these were not altogether pleasant reflections. Helena did not like the manner in which the Dictator had been discussed by the Duchess. The Duchess talked of him as if he were just some ordinary adventurer, who would be forgotten in his old domain if he did not keep knocking at the door and demanding readmittance even at the risk of being shot for his pains. This grated harshly on her ears. In truth, it is very hard to talk of the loved one to loving ears without producing a sound that grates on them. Too much praise may grate—criticism of any kind grates—cool indifferent comment, even though perfectly free from ill-nature, is sure to grate. The loved one, in fact, is not to be spoken of as other beings of earth may lawfully and properly be spoken of. On the whole, the loving one is probably happiest when the name of the loved one is not mentioned at all by profane or commonplace lips. But there was something more than this in Helena's case. The very thought which the Duchess had given out so freely and so carelessly had long been a lurking thought in Helena's own mind. Whenever it made its appearance too boldly she tried to shut it down and clap the hatches over it, and keep it there, suppressed and shut below. But it would come up again and again. The thought was, Where is the Dictator? She could recognise the bright talker, the intellectual thinker, the clever man of the world, the polished, grave, and graceful gentleman, but where were the elements of Dictatorship? It was quite true, as she herself had said, had pleaded even, that some men never carry their great public qualities into civil life; and Helena raked together in her mind all manner of famous historical examples of men who had led great armies to victory, or had discovered new worlds for civilisation to conquer, and who appeared to be nothing in a drawing- or a dining-room but ordinary, well-behaved, undemonstrative gentlemen. Why should not the Dictator be one of these? Why, indeed? She was sure he must be one of these, but was it not to be her lot to see him in his true light—in his true self? Then the meeting of that other day gave her a keen pang. She did not like the idea of the Dictator coming to her to make love by deputy for another man. It was not like him, she thought, to undertake a task such as that. It was done, of course, out of kindness and affection for Mr. Hamilton—and that was, in its way, a noble and a generous act—but still, it jarred upon her feelings. The truth was that it jarred upon her feelings because it showed her, as she thought, how little serious consideration of her was in the Dictator's mind, and how sincere and genuine had been his words when he told her again and again that to him she seemed little more than a child. It was not that feeling which had brought up the wish that she could see the Dictator prove himself a man born to dictate. But that wish, or that doubt, or that questioning—whatever it might be—which was already in her mind was stirred to painful activity now by the consciousness which she strove to exclude, and could not help admitting, that she, after all, was nothing to the Dictator.
That night, like most nights when she did not herself entertain, Helena went with her father to a dinner party. She showed herself to be in radiant spirits the moment she entered the room. She was dressed bewitchingly, and everyone said she was looking more charming than ever. The fashion of lighting drawing-rooms and dining-rooms gives ample opportunity for a harmless deception in these days, and the blue half-circles were not seen round Helena's eyes, nor would any of the company in the drawing-room have guessed that the heart under that silken bodice was bleeding.