“So you’re—going to—Paris,” he meditated, “for the Hour.”
“I’m going to Paris for the Hour,” I agreed.
“Ah!” he went on, “you’re going to interview the Elective Grand Duke. …”
“We call him the Duc de Mersch,” I interrupted, flippantly. It was a matter of nuances. The Elective Grand Duke was a philanthropist and a State Founder, the Duc de Mersch was the hero as financier.
“Of Holstein-Launewitz,” Callan ignored. The titles slipped over his tongue like the last drops of some inestimable oily vintage.
“I might have saved you the trouble. I’m going to see him myself.”
“You,” I italicised. It struck me as phenomenal and rather absurd that everybody that I came across should, in some way or other, be mixed up with this portentous philanthropist. It was as if a fisherman were drawing in a ground line baited with hundreds of hooks. He had a little offended air.
“He, or, I should say, a number of people interested in a philanthropic society, have asked me to go to Greenland.”
“Do they want to get rid of you?” I asked, flippantly. I was made to know my place.
“My dear fellow,” Callan said, in his most deliberate, most Olympian tone. “I believe you’re entirely mistaken, I believe … I’ve been informed that the Système Groënlandais is one of the healthiest places in the Polar regions. There are interested persons who. …”
“So I’ve heard,” I interrupted, “but I can assure you I’ve heard nothing but good of the Système and the … and its philanthropists. I meant nothing against them. I was only astonished that you should go to such a place.”
“I have been asked to go upon a mission,” he explained, seriously, “to ascertain what the truth about the Système really is. It is a new country with, I am assured, a great future in store. A great deal of English money has been invested in its securities, and naturally great interest is taken in its affairs.”
“So it seems,” I said, “I seem to run upon it at every hour of the day and night.”
“Ah, yes,” Callan rhapsodised, “it has a great future in store, a great future. The Duke is a true philanthropist. He has taken infinite pains—infinite pains. He wished to build up a model state, the model protectorate of the world, a place where perfect equality shall obtain for all races, all creeds, and all colours. You would scarcely believe how he has worked to ensure the happiness of the native races. He founded the great society to protect the Eskimo, the Society for the Regeneration of the Arctic Regions—the S.R.A.R.—as you called it, and now he is only waiting to accomplish his greatest project—the Trans-Greenland railway. When that is done, he will hand over the Système to his own people. That is the act of a great man.”
“Ah, yes,” I said.
“Well,” Callan began again, but suddenly paused. “By the by, this must go no farther,” he said, anxiously, “I will let you have full particulars when the time is ripe.”
“My dear Callan,” I said, touchily, “I can hold my tongue.”
He went off at tangent.
“I don’t want you to take my word—I haven’t seen it yet. But I feel assured about it myself. The most distinguished people have spoken to me in its favour. The celebrated traveller, Aston, spoke of it with tears in his eyes. He was the first governor-general, you know. Of course I should not take any interest in it, if I were not satisfied as to that. It is percisely because I feel that the thing is one of the finest monuments of a grand century that I am going to lend it the weight of my pen.”
“I quite understand,” I assured him; then, solicitously, “I hope they don’t expect you to do it for nothing.”
“Oh, dear, no,” Callan answered.
“Ah, well, I wish you luck,” I said. “They couldn’t have got a better man to win over the National conscience. I suppose it comes to that.”
Callan nodded.
“I fancy I have the ear of the public,” he said. He seemed to get satisfaction from the thought.
The train entered Folkestone Harbour. The smell of the sea and the easy send of the boat put a little heart into me, but my spirits were on the down grade. Callan was a trying companion. The sight of him stirred uneasy emotions, the sound of his voice jarred.
“Are you coming to the Grand?” he said, as we passed St. Denis.
“My God, no,” I answered, hotly, “I’m going across the river.”
“Ah,” he murmured, “the Quartier Latin. I wish I could come with you. But I’ve my reputation to think of. You’d be surprised how people get to hear of my movements. Besides, I’m a family man.”
I was agitatedly silent. The train steamed into the glare of the electric lights, and, getting into a fiacre, I breathed again. I seemed to be at the entrance of a new life, a better sort of paradise, during that drive across the night city. In London one is always a passenger, in Paris one has reached a goal. The crowds on the pavements, under the plane-trees, in the black shadows, in the white glare of the open spaces, are at leisure—they go nowhere, seek nothing beyond.
We crossed the river, the unwinking towers of Notre Dame towering pallidly against the dark sky behind us; rattled into the new light of the resuming boulevard; turned up a dark street, and came to a halt before a half-familiar shut door. You know how one wakes the sleepy concierge, how one takes one’s candle, climbs up hundreds and hundreds of smooth stairs, following the slipshod footfalls of a half-awakened guide upward through Rembrandt’s own shadows, and how one’s final sleep is sweetened by the
