Barney Bill jerked his thumb towards the chair where the Princess had been sitting:
"She won't give it away?"
Paul smiled sadly. "No, old man. She'll keep it to herself."
That marked the end of the interview. Paul accompanied the three downstairs.
"I meant to act for the best, Paul," said Silas piteously, on parting. "Tell me that I haven't made you my enemy."
"God forbid," said Paul.
He went slowly up to his room again and threw himself in his writing chair. His eye fell upon the notes on the sheet of foolscap. The Radical candidate having been chosen, they were no longer relevant to his speech. He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the waste-paper basket. His speech! He held his head in both hands. A couple of hours hence he would be addressing a vast audience, the centre of the hopes of thousands of his fellow countrymen. The thought beat upon his brain. He had had the common nightmare of standing with conductor's baton in front of a mighty orchestra and being paralyzed by sense of impotence. No less a nightmare was his present position. A couple of hours ago he was athrill with confidence and joy of battle. But then he was a different man. The morning stars, the stars of his destiny, sang together in the ever-deepening glamour of the Vision Splendid. He was entering into the lists of Camelot to fight for his Princess. He was the Mysterious Knight, parented in fairy-far Avilion, the Fortunate Youth, the Awakener of England. Now he was but a base-born young man who had attained a high position by false pretences; an ordinary adventurer with a glib tongue; a self-educated, self-seeking, commonplace fellow. At least, so he saw himself in his Princess's eyes. And he had meant that she should thus behold him. No longer was he entering lists to fight for her. For what hopeless purpose was he entering them? To awaken England? The awakener must have his heart full of dreams and visions and glamour and joy and throbbing life; and in his heart there was death.
He drew out the little cornelian talisman at the end of his watch-chain and looked at it bitterly. It was but a mocking symbol of illusion. He unhooked it and laid it on the table. He would carry it about with him no longer. He would throw it away.
Ursula Winwood quietly entered the room.
"You must come down and have something to eat before the meeting."