“Good-day,” said Jimmie, with a smile. “I am sorry you will not let us be better acquainted.”
He turned to the next group, who were listening to a disproof of God's existence. But the atheist was a commonplace thunderer in a bowler hat, whose utterances fell tame on Jimmie's ears after those of the haggard-eyed prophet. He wandered away from the crowd, striking diagonally across the Park, and when he found comparative shade and solitude, cast himself on the grass beneath a tree. The personality of Daniel Stone interested him. He began to speculate on his daily life, his history. Why should he have vowed undying hatred against his social superiors? He reminded Jimmie of a character in fiction, and after some groping the association was recalled. It was the monk in Dumas, the son of Miladi. He wove an idle romance about the man. Perhaps Stone was the disinherited of noble blood, thirsting for a senseless vengeance. Gradually the drowsiness of deep June fell upon him. He went fast asleep, and when he awoke half an hour afterwards and began to walk homewards, he thought no more of Daniel Stone.
But on following Sunday afternoons he frequently stood for a while to listen to the man. It was always the same tale—sound and fury, signifying nothing. On one occasion he caught Jimmie's eye, and denounced him vehemently as an enemy of society. After that, Jimmie, who was of a peaceful disposition, ceased attending his lectures. He sympathised with Morland.
Chapter VIII—HER SERENE HIGHNESS
A PRETTY quarrel between a princess and a duchess gave rise to circumstances in which the destiny of Jimmie was determined, or in which, to speak with modern metaphor, the germ of his destiny found the necessary conditions for development. Had it not been for this quarrel, Jimmie would not have stayed at the Hardacres' house; and had he not been their guest, the events hereafter to be recorded would not have happened. Such concatenation is there in the scheme of human affairs.
The Duchess of Wiltshire was a mighty personage in the Hardacres' part of the county. She made social laws and abrogated them. She gave and she took away the brevet of county rank. She made and unmade marriages. To fall under the ban of her displeasure was to be disgraced indeed. She held a double sway in that the duke, her husband, had delegated to her his authority in sublunary matters, he being a severe mathematician and a dry astronomer, who looked at the world out of dull eyes, and regarded it with indifference as a mass of indistinguishable atoms forming a nebula, a sort of Milky Way, concerning which philosophic minds had from time to time theorised. He lived icily remote from society; the duchess, on the contrary, was warmly interested in its doings. In the county she reigned absolute; but in London, recognising the fact that there were other duchesses scattered about Mayfair and Belgravia, she was high-minded enough to modify her claims to despotic government. She felt it, however, her duty to decree that her last reception should mark the end of the London season.
To this reception the Hardacres were always invited.
In previous years they had mounted the great staircase of Wiltshire House, their names had been called out, the duchess had given them the tips of her fingers, and the duke, tall, white-haired, ascetic, had let them touch his hand with the air of a man absently watching ants crawl over him; they had passed on, mixed with the crowd, and seen their host and hostess no more. But this year, to Mrs. Hardacre's thrilling delight, the duchess gave her quite a friendly squeeze, smiled her entire approbation of Mrs. Hardacre's existence, and detained her for a moment in conversation.