But this did not suit Paul. If there were to be no princes, where,
would he come in? So, while grateful to the evangelist for talking
to him and treating him as a human being, he totally rejected his
gospel. It struck at the very foundations of his visionary destiny.
He was afraid to argue, for his friend was vehement. Also confession
of aristocratic prejudices might turn friendship into enmity. But
his passionate antagonism to the communistic theory, all the more
intense through suppression, strengthened his fantastic faith.
Still, the transient smile of a marchioness and the political
economy of a sour-avised operative are not enough to keep alive the
romance of underfed, ill-clad, overdriven childhood. And after a
while he was deprived even of the latter consolation, his friend
being shifted to another end of the factory. In despair he turned to
Ada, the eldest of the little Buttons, who now had reached years of
comparative discretion, and strove to interest her in his dreams,
veiling his identity under a fictitious name; but Ada, an
unimaginative and practical child with a growing family to look
after, either listened stupidly or consigned him, in the local
vernacular, to perdition.

"But suppose 'it was me that was the unknown prince? Supposing it
was me I've been talking about all the time? Supposing it was me
that went away and came back in a gold coach and six horses, with a
duke's daughter all over diamonds by my side, what would tha say?"

"I think tha art nowt but a fool," said the elderly child of ten,
"and, if mother heard thee, she'd lamm. the life out of thee."

Paul had the sickening sensation of the man who has confided the