Prince Fortunatus | Page 9

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Holland Lane to Notting Hill; while Lord Rockminster and his two
sisters, making for Palace Gardens Terrace, walked with Lionel Moore
only as far as Campden Hill Road; thereafter he pursued his journey to
Piccadilly alone.
And even now London was not fully awake, though the sun was

touching the topmost branches of the trees, and here and there a high
window, struck by the level rays, flashed back a gleam of gold. In this
neighborhood the thoroughfares were quite deserted; silence reigned
over those sleeping houses; the air was sweet and cool; now and again a
stirring of wind brought a scent of summer--blossom from within the
garden-enclosures. It is true that when he got down into Kensington
Road he found a long procession of wagons slowly making their way
into the great city; but this dull, drowsy noise was not 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