Prince Fortunatus | Page 9

ungrateful; in much content and idly he walked away eastward, looking in from time to time at the beautiful greensward of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. He was in no hurry. He liked the stillness, the gracious coolness and quietude of the morning, after the hot and feverish nights at the theatre. When at length he reached his lodging in Piccadilly, let himself in with his latch-key, and went up-stairs to his rooms, he did not go to bed at once. He drew an easy-chair to the front window, threw himself into it, lit a cigarette, and stared absently across to the branching elms and grassy undulations of the Green Park. Perhaps he was thinking of the pretty, fantastic little comedy that had just been performed up in that garden at Campden Hill--like some dream-picture out of Boccaccio. And if he chanced to recall the fact that the actor who originally played the part of Damon, at Drury Lane, some hundred and forty years ago, married in real life an earl's daughter, that was but a passing fancy. Of Lord Fareborough's three daughters, it was neither Lady Sybil nor Lady Rosamund, it was the married sister, Lady Adela Cunyngham, who had constituted herself his particular friend.
CHAPTER II.
THE GREAT GOD PAN.
Late as he went to bed, sleep did not long detain him, for, in his own happy-go-lucky, troubadour sort of life, he was one of the most occupied of men even in this great, hurrying, bustling capital of the world. As soon as he had donned his dressing-gown and come into the sitting-room, he swallowed a cup of coffee that was waiting for him, and then, to make sure that unholy hours and cigarettes had not hurt his voice, he dabbed a note on the piano, and began to practise, in the open-throated Italian fashion, those vocalises which sound so strangely to the uninstructed ear. He rang for breakfast. He glanced in a despairing way at the pile of letters and parcels awaiting him, the former, no doubt, mostly invitations, the latter, as he could guess, proofs of his latest sittings to the photographers, albums and birth-day books sent for his autograph, music beseeching commendation, even manuscript plays accompanied by pathetic appeals from unknown authors. Then there was a long row of potted scarlet geraniums and large white daisies which the house-porter had ranged by the window; and when he opened the note that had been forwarded with these he found that the wife of a famous statesman had observed as she drove along Piccadilly that the flowers in his balcony wanted renewal and begged his acceptance of this graceful little tribute. He took up a pair of dumb-bells, and had some exercise with them, to keep his arms and chest in good condition. He looked at himself in the mirror: no, he did not seem to have smoked inordinately; nevertheless, he made sundry solemn vows about those insidious cigarettes. Then he began to open the envelopes. Here was an imposing card, "To have the honor of meeting their royal highnesses the king and queen of ----;" here was a more modest bit of pasteboard with "R.S.V.P. to mess president" at the lower corner; here were invitations to breakfasts, to luncheons, to afternoon squawks, to Sunday dinners, to dances and crushes, in short, to every possible kind of diversion and frivolity that the gay world of London could devise. He went steadily on with his letters. More photographers wanted him to sit to them. Would he accept the dedication of "The Squire's Daughter Fantasia"? The composer of "The Starry Night Valses" would like a lithographic portrait of Mr. Lionel Moore to appear on the cover. A humble admirer of Mr. Lionel Moore's great impersonation of Harry Thornhill begged to forward the enclosed acrostic, and might he be allowed to print it in the Mudborough Young Men's Mutual Improvement Magazine? Messrs. Smith & Smith would be extremely obliged if Mr. Lionel Moore would honor them with his opinion of the accompanying pair of their patent silver-mounted automatic self-adjusting braces.
"If I don't get a secretary," he muttered to himself, "I shall soon be in a mad-house."
Nor did he pay much attention to his breakfast when it was put on the table, for there were newspapers to be opened and glanced through--country journals, most of them, with marked paragraphs conveying the most unexpected, and even startling, intelligence regarding himself, his occupations, and forthcoming engagements. Then there were the book packets and the rolls of music to be examined; but by this time he had lit an after-breakfast cigarette, and was proceeding with something of indifference. Occasionally he strolled about the room, or went to the window and looked down into the roaring highway of Piccadilly, or across to the sunny foliage and pale-blue mists