“That’s nonsense.  Stay as long as ever you like.”

“If I did that,” said Paul, “I would stay on forever.”

The Colonel smiled and shook hands with him.  In the ordinary way of social life this was quite an unnecessary thing to do.  But he acted according to the impulses common to a thousand of his type—­and a fine type—­in England.  Setting aside the mere romantic exterior of a Macedonian brigand, here was a young man of the period with astonishingly courteous manners, of—­and this was of secondary consideration—­of frank and winning charm, with a free-and-easy intimacy with Balzac, of fearless truthfulness regarding his deficiencies, and with a golf handicap of one.  The Colonel’s hand and heart went out in instinctive coordination.  The Colonel Winwoods of this country are not gods; they are very humanly fallible; but of such is the Kingdom of England.

“At any rate,” said he, “you mustn’t dream of leaving us yet.”

He went downstairs and met his sister in the hall.

“Well?” she asked, with just a gleam of quizzicality in her eyes, for she knew whence he had come.

“One of these days I’ll take him out and teach him to shoot,” said the Colonel.

CHAPTER X

The shooting party came, and Paul, able to leave his room and sit in the sunshine and crawl about the lawn and come down to dinner, though early retirement was prescribed, went among the strange men and women of the aristocratic caste like one in a dream of bliss.  Much of their talk, sport and personalities, was unintelligible; every man seemed to have killed everything everywhere and every woman seemed to know everybody and everybody’s intimate secrets.  So when conversation was general, Paul, who had killed nothing and knew nobody, listened in silent perplexity.  But even the perplexity was a happiness.  It was all so new, so fascinating.  For was not this world of aristocrats—­there were lords and ladies and great personages whose names he had read in the newspapers—­his rightful inheritance, the sphere to which he had been born?  And they did not always talk of things which he did not understand.  They received him among them with kind welcome and courtesy.  No one asked him whence he came and whither he was going.  They took him for granted, as a guest of the Winwoods.  Of course if Paul had seen himself on the way to rival the famous actor whose photograph in the window of the London Stereoscopic Company had inspired him with histrionic ambitions, he would have been at no pains to hide his profession.  But between the darling of the London stage and a seedy member of a fit-up company lies a great gulf.  He shrank from being associated with Mr. Vincent Crummles.  One thing, however, of invaluable use he had brought with him from Theatreland—­the dress suit which formed part of his stage wardrobe.  There were other things, too, which he did not appreciate—­ease of manner, victory over the lingering Lancastrian burr, and a knowledge of what to do with his feet and hands.