A depressing consciousness that practically nobody need
think about him pervaded his soul. Who cared what he said
or did or felt? The City had forgotten his very existence.
In the West End, only here and there some person might
chance to remember his name as that of some rich bounder
who had married Lady Cressage. Nowhere else in England,
save one dull strip of agricultural blankness in a backward
home county, was there a human being who knew anything
whatever about him. And this was his career! It was
for this that he had planned that memorable campaign,
and waged that amazing series of fortnightly battles,
never missing victory, never failing at any point of the
complicated strategy, and crowning it all with a culminating
triumph which had been the wonder and admiration of the
whole financial world! A few score of menials or interested
inferiors bowed to him; he drove some good horses,
and was attentively waited upon, and had a never-failing
abundance of good things to eat and drink aud smoke.
Hardly anything more than that, when you came to think
of it--and the passing usufruct of all these things could
be enjoyed by any fool who had a ten-pound note in his
pocket!
What gross trick had the fates played on him? He had
achieved power--and where was that power? What had he
done with it? What COULD he do with it? He had an excess
of wealth, it was true, but in what way could it command
an excess of enjoyment? The very phrase was a paradox,
as he dimly perceived.
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