The Fortunate Youth | Page 9

in sixth! He had failed miserably in his championship. How she must despise him--she who had sent him forth to victory! And yet how 'had it been possible? How had it been possible that other boys could beat him? He was he. An indomitable personage. Some hideous injustice guided human affairs. Why shouldn't he have won? He could not tell. But he had not won. She had sent him forth to win. He had lost. He had come in a sickening sixth. The disgrace devastated him.
Maisie Shepherd, interested in her child champion, sought him out and easily found him under the beech tree. "Why, what is the matter?"
As he did not answer, she knelt by his side and put her hand on his lean shoulder. "Tell me what has happened."
Again the celestial fragrance overspread his senses. He checked his sobs and wiped his eyes with the back of his grubby hand. "Aw didn't win," he moaned.
"Poor little chap," she said comfortingly. "Did you want to win so very much?"
He got up and stared at her. "Yo' told me to win."
"So you ran for me?"
"Ay!"
She rose to her feet and looked down upon him, somewhat overwhelmed by her responsibility. So in ancient days might a fair maiden have regarded her knight who underwent entirely unnecessary batterings for her sake. "Then for me you've won," she said. "I wish I could give you a prize."
But what in the nature of a prize for a gutter imp of eleven does a pocketless young woman attired for the serious business of a school treat carry upon her person? She laughed in pretty embarrassment. "If I gave you something quite useless, what would you do with it?"
"I 'u'd hide it safe, so 'ut nobody should see it," said Paul, thinking of his precious cards.
"Wouldn't you show it to anybody?"
"By Gum!--" he checked himself suddenly. Such, he had learned, was not Sunday-school language. "I wouldno' show it to a dog," said he.
Maisie Shepherd, aware of romantic foolishness, slipped a cornelian heart from a thin gold chain round her neck. "It's all I can give you for a prize, if you will have it."
If he would have it? The Koh-i-Noor' in his clutch (and a knowledge of its value) could not have given him more thrilling rapture. He was speechless with amazement; Maisie, thrilled too, realized that a word spoken would have rung false. The boy gloated over his treasure; but she did not know--how could she?--what it meant to him. To Paul the bauble was a bit of the warm wonder that was she.
"How are you going to keep it?" she asked.
He hoicked a bit of his shirt-tail from his breeches and proceeded to knot the cornelian heart secure therein. Maisie fled rapidly on the verge of hysterics, After that the school treat had but one meaning for Paul. He fed, it is true, in Pantagruelian fashion on luscious viands, transcending his imagination of those which lay behind Blinks the confectioner's window in Bludston: there he succumbed to the animal; but the sports, the swing-boats, the merry-go-round, offered no temptation. He hovered around Maisie Shepherd like a little dog-quite content to keep her in sight. And every two or three minutes he fumbled about his breeches to see that the knotted treasure was safe.
The day sank into late afternoon. The children had been fed. The weary elders had their tea. The vicarage party took a few moments' rest in the shade of a clump of firs some distance away from the marquee. Behind the screen lay Paul, his eyes on his goddess, his heels in the air, a buttercup-stalk between his teeth. He felt the comforting knot beneath his thigh. For the first time, perhaps, in his life, he knew utter happiness. He heard the talk, but did not listen. Suddenly, however, the sound of his own name caused him to prick his ears. Paul Kegworthy! They were talking about him. There could be no mistake. He slithered a foot or two nearer.
"No matter whether his people are drunkards or murderers," said the beloved voice, "he is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in ' my life. Have you ever spoken to him, Winifred?"
"No," said the vicar's daughter. "Of course I've noticed him. Every one does-he is remarkable."
"I don't believe he's a child of these people at all," Maisie declared. "He's of a different clay. He's as sensitive as-as a sensitive plant. You ought to keep your eye on him, Mr. Merewether. I believe he's a poor little prince in a fairy tale."
"A freak--a lusus naturae" said the vicar.
Paul did not know what a lusus naturae was, but it sounded mighty grand.
"He's a fairy prince, and one day he'll come into his kingdom."
"My dear, if you saw his mother!"
"But I'm sure no one but a