courses had fought for him. Even against recognition his life was
charmed. Once, indeed, he met at the house in Portland Place a
painter to whom he had posed. The painter looked at him keenly.

"Surely we have met before?"

"We have," said Paul with daring frankness. "I remember it
gratefully. But if you would forget it I should be still more
grateful."

The painter shook hands with him and smiled. "You may be sure I
haven't the least idea what you're talking about."

As for Theatreland, the lower walks in the profession to which Paul
had belonged do not cross the paths of high political society. It
lay behind him far and forgotten. His position was secure. Here and
there an anxious mother may have been worried as to his precise
antecedents; but Paul was too astute to give mothers over-much cause
for anxiety. lie lived under the fascination of the Great Game. When
he came into his kingdom he could choose; not before. His destiny
was drawing him nearer and nearer to it, he thought, with slow and
irresistible force. In a few years there would be Parliament,
office, power, the awaking from stupor of an England hypnotized by
malign influences. He saw himself at the table in the now familiar
House of green benches, thundering out an Empire's salvation. If he
thought more of the awakener than the awakening, it was because be
was the same little Paul Kegworthy to whom the cornelian heart had
brought the Vision Splendid in the scullery of the Bludston slum.
The cornelian heart still lay in his waistcoat pocket at the end of
his watch chain. He also held a real princess's letter in his hand.