“I am not fit to accompany you, prince,” I said—“I look more like a tramp than a millionaire.”

He glanced at me and smiled.

“Upon my life, so you do!” he averred.—“But be satisfied!—you are in this respect very like many another Crœsus. It is only the poor and proud who take the trouble to dress well,—they and the dear ‘naughty’ ladies, generally monopolize tasteful and becoming attire. An ill-fitting coat often adorns the back of a Prime Minister,—and if you see a woman clad in clothes vilely cut and coloured, you may be sure she is eminently virtuous, renowned for good works, and probably a duchess!” He rose, drawing his sables about him.

“What matter the coat if the purse be full!” he continued gaily.—“Let it once be properly paragraphed in the papers that you are a millionaire, and doubtless some enterprising tailor will invent a ‘Tempest’ ulster coloured softly like your present garb, an artistic mildewy green! And now come along,—your solicitor’s communication should have given you a good appetite, or it is not so valuable as it seems,—and I want you to do justice to my supper. I have my own chef with me, and he is not without skill. I hope, by the way, you will at least do me this much service,—that pending legal discussion and settlement of your affairs, you will let me be your banker?”

This offer was made with such an air of courteous delicacy and friendship, that I could do no more than accept it gratefully, as it relieved me from all temporary embarrassment. I hastily wrote a few lines to my landlady, telling her she would receive the money owing to her by post next day,—then, thrusting my rejected manuscript, my only worldly possession, [p 27] into my coat-pocket, I extinguished the lamp, and with the new friend I had so suddenly gained, I left my dismal lodgings and all its miserable associations for ever. I little thought the time would come when I should look back to the time spent in that small mean room as the best period of my life,—when I should regard the bitter poverty I then endured, as the stern but holy angel meant to guide me to the highest and noblest attainment,—when I should pray desperately with wild tears to be as I was then, rather than as I am now! Is it well or ill for us I wonder, that the future is hidden from our knowledge? Should we steer our ways clearer from evil if we knew its result? It is a doubtful question,—at anyrate my ignorance for the moment was indeed bliss. I went joyfully out of the dreary house where I had lived so long among disappointments and difficulties, turning my back upon it with such a sense of relief as could never be expressed in words,—and the last thing I heard as I passed into the street with my companion, was a plaintive long-drawn wail of minor melody, which seemed to be sent after me like a parting cry, by the unknown and invisible player of the violin.

[p 28]
IV

Outside, the prince’s carriage waited, drawn by two spirited black horses caparisoned in silver; magnificent thoroughbreds, which pawed the ground and champed their bits impatient of delay,—at sight of his master the smart footman in attendance threw the door open, touching his hat respectfully. We stepped in, I preceding my companion at his expressed desire; and as I sank back among the easy cushions, I felt the complacent consciousness of luxury and power to such an extent that it seemed as if I had left my days of adversity already a long way behind me. Hunger and happiness disputed my sensations between them, and I was in that vague light-headed condition common to long fasting, in which nothing seems absolutely tangible or real. I knew I should not properly grasp the solid truth of my wonderful good luck till my physical needs were satisfied and I was, so to speak, once more in a naturally balanced bodily condition. At present my brain was in a whirl,—my thoughts were all dim and disconnected,—and I appeared to myself to be in some whimsical dream from which I should wake up directly. The carriage rolled on rubber-tyred wheels and made no noise as it went,—one could only hear the even rapid trot of the horses. By-and-by I saw in the semi-darkness my new friend’s brilliant dark eyes fixed upon me with a curiously intent expression.

“Do you not feel the world already at your feet?” he [p 29] queried half playfully, half ironically—“Like a football, waiting to be kicked? It is such an absurd world, you know—so easily moved. Wise men in all ages have done their best to make it less ridiculous,—with no result, inasmuch as it continues to prefer folly to wisdom. A football, or let us say a shuttlecock among worlds, ready to be tossed up anyhow and anywhere, provided the battledore be of gold!”

“You speak a trifle bitterly, prince”—I said—“But no doubt you have had a wide experience among men?”