The Angel of the Revolution | Page 6

-- and therefore anywhere," replied Arnold, with a laugh that
had but little merriment in it. "I have reached a point from which all
roads are one to me."
"That being the case I propose that you shall take the one that leads to
my chambers in Savoy Mansions yonder. We shall find a bit of supper
ready, I expect, and then I shall ask you to talk. Come along!"
There was no more mistaking the genuine kindness and sincerity of the
invitation than the delicacy with which it was given. To have refused
would not only have been churlish, but it would have been for a
drowning man to knock aside a kindly hand held out to help him; so
Arnold accepted, and the two new strangely met and strangely assorted
friends walked away together in the direction of the Savoy.
The suite of rooms occupied by Arnold's new acquaintance was the
beau ideal of a wealthy bachelor's abode. Small, compact, cosy, and
richly furnished, yet in the best of taste withal, the rooms looked like an
indoor paradise to him after the bare squalor of the one room that had
been his own home for over two years.
His host took him first into a dainty little bath-room to wash his hands,
and by the time he had performed his scanty toilet supper was already
on the table in the sitting-room. Nothing melts reserve like a good
well-cooked meal washed down by appropriate liquids, and before
supper was half over Arnold and his host were chatting together as
easily as though they stood on perfectly equal terms and had known
each other for years. His new friend seemed purposely to keep the
conversation to general subjects until the meal was over and his pattern
man-servant had removed the cloth and left them together with the
wine and cigars on the table.
As soon as he had closed the door behind him his host motioned
Arnold to an easy-chair on one side of the fireplace, threw himself into
another on the other side, and said--

"Now, my friend, plant yourself, as they say across the water, help
yourself to what there is as the spirit moves you, and talk -- the more
about yourself the better. But stop. I forgot that we do not even know
each other's name yet. Let me introduce myself first.
"My name is Maurice Colston; I am a bachelor, as you see. For the rest,
in practice I am an idler, a dilettante, and a good deal else that is
pleasant and utterly useless. In theory, let me tell you, I am a Socialist,
or something of the sort, with a lively conviction as to the injustice and
absurdity of the social and economic conditions which enable me to
have such a good time on earth without having done anything to
deserve it beyond having managed to be born the son of my father."
He stopped and looked at his guest through the wreaths of his cigar
smoke as much as to say: "And now who are you?"
Arnold took the silent hint, and opened his mouth and his heart at the
same time. Quite apart from the good turn he had done him, there was a
genial frankness about his unconventional host that chimed in so well
with his own nature that he cast all reserve aside, and told plainly and
simply the story of his life and its master passion, his dreams and hopes
and failures, and his final triumph in the hour when triumph itself was
defeat.
His host heard him through without a word, but towards the end of his
story his face betrayed an interest, or rather an expectant anxiety, to
hear what was coming next that no mere friendly concern of the
moment for one less fortunate than himself could adequately account
for. At length, when Arnold had completed his story with a brief but
graphic description of the last successful trial of his model, he leant
forward in his chair, and, fixing his dark, steady eyes on his guest's face,
said in a voice from which every trace of his former good-humoured
levity had vanished--
"A strange story, and truer, I think, than the one I told you. Now tell me
on your honour as a gentleman: Were you really in earnest when I
heard you say on the embankment that you would rather smash up your
model and take the secret with you into the next world, than sell your

discovery to the Tsar for the million that he has offered for such an
air-ship as yours?"
"Absolutely in earnest," was the reply. "I have seen enough of the
seamy side of this much-boasted civilisation of ours to know that it is
the most awful mockery that man