And at this point it occurred to the Prince, who being really a great man, had naturally a sense of humour, that a conference conducted on these lines between the leading statesman of an Empire and an impertinent hussy of, say, twelve years old at the outside, might end by becoming ridiculous. So the Prince took up his chair and put it down again beside Tommy's, and employing skilfully his undoubted diplomatic gifts, drew from her bit by bit the whole story.
"I'm inclined, Miss Jane," said the Great Man, the story ended, "to agree with our friend Mr. Hope. I should say your metier was journalism."
"And you'll let me interview you?" asked Tommy, showing her white teeth.
The Great Man, laying a hand heavier than he guessed on Tommy's shoulder, rose. "I think you are entitled to it."
"What's your views?" demanded Tommy, reading, "of the future political and social relationships--"
"Perhaps," suggested the Great Man, "it will be ******r if I write it myself."
"Well," concurred Tommy; "my spelling is a bit rocky."
The Great Man drew a chair to the table.
"You won't miss out anything--will you?" insisted Tommy.
"I shall endeavour, Miss Jane, to give you no cause for complaint," gravely he assured her, and sat down to write.
Not till the train began to slacken speed had the Prince finished.
Then, blotting and refolding the paper, he stood up.
"I have added some instructions on the back of the last page," explained the Prince, "to which you will draw Mr. Hope's particular attention. I would wish you to promise me, Miss Jane, never again to have recourse to dangerous acrobatic tricks, not even in the sacred cause of journalism."
"Of course, if you hadn't been so jolly difficult to get at--"
"My fault, I know," agreed the Prince. "There is not the least doubt as to which *** you belong to. Nevertheless, I want you to promise me. Come," urged the Prince, "I have done a good deal for you--more than you know."
"All right," consented Tommy a little sulkily. Tommy hated ****** promises, because she always kept them. "I promise."
"There is your Interview." The first Southampton platform lamp shone in upon the Prince and Tommy as they stood facing one another. The Prince, who had acquired the reputation, not altogether unjustly, of an ill-tempered and savage old gentleman, did a strange thing: taking the little, blood-smeared face between his paws, he kissed it. Tommy always remembered the smoky flavour of the bristly grey moustache.
"One thing more," said the Prince sternly--"not a word of all this.
Don't open your mouth to speak of it till you are back in Gough Square."
"Do you take me for a mug?" answered Tommy.
They behaved very oddly to Tommy after the Prince had disappeared.
Everybody took a deal of trouble for her, but none of them seemed to know why they were doing it. They looked at her and went away, and came again and looked at her. And the more they thought about it, the more puzzled they became. Some of them asked her questions, but what Tommy really didn't know, added to what she didn't mean to tell, was so prodigious that Curiosity itself paled at contemplation of it.
They washed and brushed her up and gave her an excellent supper; and putting her into a first-class compartment labelled "Reserved," sent her back to Waterloo, and thence in a cab to Gough Square, where she arrived about midnight, suffering from a sense of self-importance, traces of which to this day are still discernible.
Such and thus was the beginning of all things. Tommy, having talked for half an hour at the rate of two hundred words a minute, had suddenly dropped her head upon the table, had been aroused with difficulty and persuaded to go to bed. Peter, in the deep easy-chair before the fire, sat long into the night. Elizabeth, liking quiet company, purred softly. Out of the shadows crept to Peter Hope an old forgotten dream--the dream of a wonderful new Journal, price one penny weekly, of which the Editor should come to be one Thomas Hope, son of Peter Hope, its honoured Founder and Originator: a powerful Journal that should supply a long-felt want, popular, but at the same time elevating--a pleasure to the public, a profit to its owners. "Do you not remember me?" whispered the Dream. "We had long talks together. The morning and the noonday pass. The evening still is ours. The twilight also brings its promise."
Elizabeth stopped purring and looked up surprised. Peter was laughing to himself.