"I don't think we shall see you often in society, Mr. Alwyn"—she said, rather wistfully, as she gave him her hand,—"You are too much of a Titan among pigmies!"
He flushed and waved aside the remark with a few playful words; unlike his Former Self, if there was anything in the world he shrank from, it was flattery, or what seemed like flattery. Once outside the house he drew a long breath of relief, and glanced gratefully up at the sky, bright with the glistening multitude of stars. Thank God, there were worlds in that glorious expanse of ether peopled with loftier types of being than what is called Humanity! Villiers looked at him questioningly:
"Tired of your own celebrity, Alwyn?" he asked, taking him by the arm,—"Are the pleasures of Fame already exhausted?"
Alwyn smiled,—he thought of the fame of Sah-luma, Laureate bard of
Al-kyris!
"Nay, if the dream that I told you of had any meaning at all"—he replied—"then I enjoyed and exhausted those pleasures long ago! Perhaps that is the reason why my 'celebrity' seems such a poor and tame circumstance now. But I was not thinking of myself,—I was wondering whether, after all, the slight power I have attained can be of much use to others. I am only one against many."
"Nevertheless, there is an old maxim which says that one hero makes a thousand"—said Villiers quietly—"And it is an undeniable fact that the vastest number ever counted, begins at the very beginning with ONE!"
Alwyn met his smiling, earnest eyes with a quick, responsive light in his own, and the two friends walked the rest of the way home in silence.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
HELIOBAS.
Some few days after the Duchess's dinner-party, Alwyn was strolling one morning through the Park, enjoying to the full the keen, fresh odors of the Spring,—odors that even in London cannot altogether lose their sweetness, so long as hyacinths and violets consent to bloom, and almond-trees to flower, beneath the too often unpropitious murkiness of city skies. It had been raining, but now the clouds had rolled off, and the sun shone as brightly as it ever CAN shine on the English capital, sending sparkles of gold among the still wet foliage, and reviving the little crocuses, that had lately tumbled down in heaps on the grass, like a frightened fairy army put to rout by the onslaught of the recent shower. A blackbird, whose cheery note suggested melodious memories drawn from the heart of the quiet country, was whistling a lively improvisation on the bough of a chestnut-tree, whereof the brown shining buds were just bursting into leaf,—and Alwyn, whose every sense was pleasantly attuned to the small, as well as great, harmonies of nature, paused for a moment to listen to the luscious piping of the feathered minstrel, that in its own wild woodland way had as excellent an idea of musical variation as any Mozart or Chopin. Leaning against one of the park benches, with his back turned to the main thoroughfare, he did not observe the approach of a man's tall, stately figure, that, with something of his own light, easy, swinging step, had followed him rapidly along for some little distance, and that now halted abruptly within a pace or two of where he stood,—a man whose fine face and singular distinction of bearing had caused many a passer-by to stare at him in vague admiration, and to wonder who such a regal-looking personage might possibly be. Alwyn, however, absorbed in thought, saw no one, and was about to resume his onward walk, when suddenly, as though moved by some instinctive impulse, he turned sharply around, and in so doing confronted the stranger, who straightway advanced, lifting his hat and smiling. One amazed glance,—and then with an ejaculation of wonder, recognition, and delight, Alwyn sprang forward and grasped his extended hand.