"Your time hasn't come," he replied. "When you have found your means you will express yourself all the more greatly."
Which was ingenious on the part of Paul, but ironically consoling to Jane.
One week-end during the session he spent at the Marchioness of Chudley's place in Lancashire. He drove in a luxurious automobile through the stately park, which once he had traversed in the brakeful of urchins, the raggedest of them all, and his heart swelled with pardonable exultation. He had passed through Bludston and he had caught a glimpse of what had once been his brickfield, now the site of more rows of mean little houses, and he had seen the grim factory chimneys still smoking, smoking.... The little Buttons, having grown up into big Buttons, were toiling away their lives in those factories. And Button himself, the unspeakable Button? Was he yet alive? And Mrs. Button, who had been Polly Kegworthy and called herself his mother? It was astonishing how seldom he thought of her.... He had run away a scarecrow boy in a gipsy van. He came back a formative force in the land, the lover of a princess, the honoured guest of the great palace of the countryside. He slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and felt the cornelian heart.
Yes, in the great palace he found himself an honoured guest. His name was known independently of his work for the Winwoods. He was doing good service to his party. The word had gone abroad—perhaps Frank Ayres had kindly spoken it—that he was the coming man. Lady Chudley said: "I wonder if you remember what we talked about when I first met you."
Paul laughed, for she did not refer to the first meeting of all. "I'm afraid I was very young and fatuous," said he. "It was years ago. I hadn't grown up."
"Never mind. We talked about waking the country from its sleep."
"And you gave me a phrase, Lady Chudley—'the Awakener of England.' It stuck. It crystallized all sorts of vague ambitions. I've never forgotten it for five consecutive minutes. But how can you remember a casual act of graciousness to an unimportant boy?"
"No boy who dreams of England's greatness is unimportant," she said. "You've proved me to be right. Your dreams are coming true—see, I don't forget!"
"I owe you far more than you could possibly imagine," said Paul.
"No, no. Don't. Don't exaggerate. A laughing phrase—that's nothing."