One Day | Page 9

for, if not to make
history?"
He fought silently for a moment to regain his self-control, forcing the
hideous idea from him and at last speaking with an air of finality
beyond his years.
"No, I won't think of it! May the King of the world endow me with the
strength of the gods and the wisdom of the ancient seers, that I may
make up by my efficiency for all my father's deplorable lack, and
become all that my mother meant me to be when she gave me to the

world!"
He stretched out his arms in a passionate appeal to Heaven, and Paul
Verdayne, looking up at him, realized as he had never before that the
Boy certainly had within him the stuff of which kings should be made.
The Boy was not going to disappoint him. He was going to justify the
high hopes cherished for him so long. He was going to be a man after
his mother's own heart.
"Uncle," went on the Boy, wrought up to a high pitch of emotion, and
throwing himself down again at Verdayne's feet, "I feel with Louis XVI,
'I am too young to reign!' Why haven't I ever had a father to teach and
train me in the way I should go? Every boy needs a good father, princes
most of all, so much more is expected of us poor royal devils than of
more ordinary and more fortunate mortals! I know I shouldn' be
complaining like this--certainly not to you, Uncle Paul, who have been
all most fathers are to most boys! But there are times, you know, when
you persist in keeping me at arm's length as you keep everyone else!
When you put up that sign, 'Thus far and no further!' I feel myself
almost a stranger! Won't you let me come nearer? Won't you take down
that barrier between us and let me have a father--at least, in name? I'm
tired of calling you 'Uncle' who uncle never was and never could be!
You're far more of a father--really you are! Let me call you in name
what you have always been in spirit. Let me say 'Father Paul!' I like the
sound of it, don't you? 'Father Paul!'--'Father Paul!'"
Paul Verdayne felt every drop of blood leave his face. He felt as if the
Boy had inadvertently laid a cold hand upon his naked heart, chilling,
paralyzing its every beat. What did he mean? The Boy was just then
looking thoughtfully at the setting sun and did not see the change that
his words called into his companion's face--thank heaven for that!--but
what could he mean?
"You can call yourself my 'Father Confessor,' you know, if you
entertain any scruples as to the propriety of a staid old bachelor's
fathering a stray young cub like me--that will make it all right, surely!
You will let me, won't you? In all the world there is no one so close to

me as you, and such dreams as I may happily bring to fulfillment will
be, more than you know, because of your guidance, your inspiration.
You are the father of my spirit, whoever may have been the father of
my flesh! Let it be hereafter, then, not 'Uncle,' but 'Father Paul'!"
And the older man, rising and standing by the Boy, threw his arm
around the young shoulders, and gazing far off to the distant west, felt
himself shaken by a strange emotion as he answered, "Yes, Boy,
hereafter let it be 'Father Paul!'"
And as the sun travelled faster and faster toward the line of its crossing
between the worlds of night and day, its rays reflected a new radiance
upon the faces of the two men who sat in the silent shadows of the park,
feeling themselves drawn more closely together than ever before,
thinking, thinking, thinking-in the eyes of the man a great memory, in
the eyes of the Boy a great longing for life!
* * * * *
The two friends ran up to London for the theatre that night, to see a
famous actor in a popular play, but neither was much interested in the
performance. Something had kindled in the heart of the man a
reminiscent fire and the Boy was thinking his own thoughts and
listening, ever listening.
"I'm several kinds of a fool," he thought, "but I'd like to hear that voice
again and get a glimpse of the face that goes with it. I dare say she is
anything but attractive in the flesh--if she is really in the flesh at all,
which I am beginning to doubt--so I should be disenchanted if I were to
see her, I suppose. But I'd like to know!" Yet, after all, he could not
comprehend how such a voice