The Dictator | Page 8

restful thing, and I had time to get over the fatigue of
the----' he seemed to pause an instant for a word; then he went on, 'the
trouble, while I was on board the "Almirante Cochrane." Do you know
they were quite kind to me on board the "Almirante Cochrane"?'
The old lady's delicate face flushed angrily. 'The wretches, the wicked
wretches!' she said quite fiercely, and the thin fingers closed tightly
upon his and shook, agitating the lace ruffles at her wrists.

The Dictator laughed again. It seemed too strange to have all those wild
adventures quietly discussed in a Hampstead garden with a
silver-haired elderly lady in a cap.
'Oh, come,' he said, 'they weren't so bad; they weren't half bad, really.
Why, you know, they might have shot me out of hand. I think if I had
been in their place I should have shot out of hand, do you know, aunt?'
'Oh, surely they would never have dared--you an Englishman?'
'I am a citizen of Gloria, aunt.'
'You who were so good to them.'
'Well, as to my being good to them, there are two to tell that tale. The
gentlemen of the Congress don't put a high price upon my goodness, I
fancy.' He laughed a little bitterly. 'I certainly meant to do them some
good, and I even thought I had succeeded. My dear aunt, people don't
always like being done good to. I remember that myself when I was a
small boy. I used to fret and fume at the things which were done for my
good; that was because I was a child. The crowd is always a child.'
They had come to the porch by this time, and had stopped short at the
threshold. The little porch was draped in flowers and foliage, and
looked very pretty.
'You were always a good child,' said the old lady affectionately.
Ericson looked down at her rather wistfully.
'Do you think I was?' he asked, and there was a tender irony in his
voice which made the playful question almost pathetic. 'If I had been a
good child I should have been content and had no roving disposition,
and have found my home and my world at Hampstead, instead of
straying off into another hemisphere, only to be sent back at last like a
bad penny.'
'So you would,' said the old lady, very softly, more as if she were

speaking to herself than to him. 'So you would if----'
She did not finish her sentence. But her nephew, who knew and
understood, repeated the last word.
'If,' he said, and he, too, sighed.
The old lady caught the sound, and with a pretty little air of
determination she called up a smile to her face.
'Shall we go into the house, or shall we sit awhile in the garden? It is
almost too fine a day to be indoors.'
'Oh, let us sit out, please,' said Ericson. He had driven the sorrow from
his voice, and its tones were almost joyous. 'Is the old garden-seat still
there?'
'Why, of course it is. I sit there always in fine weather.'
They wandered round to the back by a path that skirted the house, a
path all broidered with rose-bushes. At the back, the garden was very
large, beginning with a spacious stretch of lawn that ran right up to the
wide French windows. There were several noble old trees which stood
sentinel over this part of the garden, and beneath one of these trees, a
very ancient elm, was the sturdy garden-seat which the Dictator
remembered so well.
'How many pleasant fairy tales you have told me under this tree, aunt,'
said the Dictator, as soon as they had sat down. 'I should like to lie on
the grass again and listen to your voice, and dream of Njal, and Grettir,
and Sigurd, as I used to do.'
'It is your turn to tell me stories now,' said the old lady. 'Not fairy
stories, but true ones.'
The Dictator laughed. 'You know all that there is to tell,' he said. 'What
my letters didn't say you must have found from the newspapers.'
'But I want to know more than you wrote, more than the newspapers

gave--everything.'
'In fact, you want a full, true, and particular account of the late
remarkable revolution in Gloria, which ended in the deposition and
exile of the alien tyrant. My dear aunt, it would take a couple of weeks
at the least computation to do the theme justice.'
'I am sure that I shouldn't tire of listening,' said Miss Ericson, and there
were tears in her bright old eyes and a tremor in her brave old voice as
she said so.
The Dictator laughed, but he stooped and kissed the old lady