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CHAPTER III

HOW ANTHONY BEGAN TO BE SOMEBODY

NTHONY LE DANE had no memory of father or mother. He nursed a kind of faint personal pride in the dull but honourable military and Parliamentary record of Colonel Charles Algernon Sidney Le Dane, who had died before Anthony's birth. There was a cavalry sabre and a photograph which he had cherished from earliest boyhood, with that loyalty which is often forced into the shoes of affection.

Of Lady Blanche Le Dane there was, in addition to several chalk and water-colour sketches, a picture in oils-the work of her sister, Lady Mary Frozier. And Anthony could not have told how often in the past he had tried to awaken in his own heart some touch of filial sentiment in gazing at this picture of the mother he could not remember. But all the breadth of conception, delicacy of treatment, and sisterly insight which Lady Mary had used in producing that excellent portrait had been wholly without power of appeal to Anthony. "It doesn't look," he had once murmured, half aloud, "like anybody's mother."

Lady Mary was by, and had asked him what he said; but the boy, in fear of giving pain to his aunt, had refused to repeat his criticism upon the blonde, stern and handsome face that stared down at him from the wall of the sunny boudoir; and among the few things in her idol's character and habits which to Lady Mary remained for years unaccounted for, was Anthony's obstinate distaste for her little private sitting

room.

Now, in his twenty-fourth year, Anthony had put aside any regrets which such thoughts may have caused him in the past. The excitement of the present and the charm of the future filled him. For Anthony Le Dane had taken hold of his life with both hands.

At seventeen he had matriculated at Trinity; in his Tripos three years later had come out second Wrangler; had thereupon decided that Cambridge had given him all he asked of her; renounced the tepid Paradise of the Common Room, and

came to London and Cheyne Walk overflowing with schemes for his future life and the disposal of his modest fortune.

Now Lady Mary Frozier, if she knew little of business, was not without knowledge of the world; and she was more pleased than she was surprised in discovering the sound common sense that tempered the sanguine cast of Anthony's hopes and plans. In the three years which elapsed between his leaving the University and the day upon which he interrupted Mrs Corder's sitting, Lady Mary was to discover that Anthony's optimism was founded, not upon temperamental belief in his own luck, but upon characteristic confidence in his own ability, and reliance even stronger upon his own judgment.

Once, in a time of perplexity, she told him that something would surely turn up.

"Great Shade of Micawber!" he answered, laughing. Things, my pretty aunt, are like potatoes. You've got to get a spade and turn them up yourself."

But at first Lady Mary had tried to dissuade him from the life of industrial activity he was designing for himself.

"But why all this haste, Anthony?" she had asked, not a little alarmed by his energy. "There's plenty of time, and you have plenty of money to live comfortably.'

"There's never plenty of time, dear," he had answered, "not for the individual, at least. The world seems to me a jolly fine place, and I mean to squeeze out of it, and to get into my little lease of it all I can As for money-oh! yes, I have plenty-but not nearly enough."

So Lady Mary began to tell him of five hundred a year that she could so easily let him have in addition to his own income; he knew, did he not? how much better her pictures were selling, and

But Anthony interrupted.

"Of course you would, bless you," he cried. You'd take the rings off those beautiful long fingers and the dress off your back to coddle me a little deeper in luxury. But you don't understand. It isn't luxury I'm after. I'm going to be somebody, so I must do things. I'm giving myself twentyfive years to do 'em in. At the end of that time I ought to be known and I ought to be rolling in money. The rest of the time I'm going to fill in by using the name and the plunder in a way of my own."

"Tell me how, Tony," she implored, glowing already with

ANTHONY BEGINS TO BE SOMEBODY 15

pride of his cloudy exploits. "I'm sure it's philanthropy in some shape or other."

Anthony grinned uncomfortably.

"That's a beastly word, Aunt Mary," he grunted. "No. I shall keep that part to myself for the present. You see," he added, "it might never come off."

"From you, that is a great admission," said Lady Mary. It is," replied the boy, gravely. But the detail isn't worked out yet, and of course there are points in which twentyfive years may modify my views. So I'll keep my own counsel and my liberty. But there's plenty to talk about, dear, in the first part of the plan."

Lady Mary found that there was. For a while she thought that her advice was being asked as to choice of a career; and she had suggested everything she could think of from bookpublishing to diplomacy before she became aware that this business-like enthusiast had had his mind already made up before he had opened his lips to her.

At the end of five years, he told her, he would know all that could be known by one man about practical engineering in all its branches.

When Lady Mary objected that five years would hardly give him knowledge that must cost most years of many men's lives to acquire, he explained very carefully that he had not said all that many knew about each, but all that one could know about many.

"And this, of course, is my own country, isn't it, Aunt Mary?" he added, blowing the smoke of his cigarette possessively to the four corners of her studio. And she answered him with a smile. "Well," he continued, "if I can't be a prophet, there's no reason why you shouldn't understand that I'm a little tin genius at mathematics. I can't tell the others, you know, but I can tell you why it was that I didn't beat Braybrook in the Tripos."

Surely you know you can tell me anything?" she said, not without a shade of reproach in her voice.

"I'd had all this in my head for two years, and for two years at least I have been working for another and much harder school than the Tripos," explained Anthony. My tutor knew it, and wasn't he wild? The glory of being Senior Wrangler was all he could think of."

"I wish you had been a good boy and done what he told you," moaned Lady Mary.

"I did," said Anthony. "Also I did all the book-work of the new engineering Tripos. And he found it out. Well, all that's over.

And he went on to tell her that, during the five years in which he was to learn so much, he intended living upon five hundred a year and saving fifteen hundred. And when he had gathered his knowledge, he would put all his savings, plus his capital, into a business; either an old-established firm, or, which he would much prefer, into a new concern which should open its career without handicap of obsolescent plant and obsolete methods. But this, he said, would depend on his finding, during those years, the man he was looking for; and finding him, moreover, in possession of capital.

All these things had Anthony said while bump-races and lectures were still fresh in his habit of thought. And now, though but little advanced into his twenty-fourth year, he was known already in the shops and designing-rooms of more firms all over England than he could readily have counted. A little influence had got him into the first, and in each he left no less favour behind him than he carried to the next.

The mathematical ability which had at Cambridge shown itself as academic talent, had since shone out as practical genius. In the three years he had refused five several offers of partnership; but in three cases at least the offer had been due even more to the promise of commercial ability which the proposer had divined in Anthony's character than to the inventive and executive skill which was patent in his mechanical performance.

CHAPTER IV

INGESTOW

So already Anthony Le Dane began to be somebody. Of

this, however, he had himself little, if any, knowledge. But his hands were full of work, and his head of projects; and he thought well of the world, and by no means ill of Anthony Le Dane.

This evening, as he swung along in his cab, he was expecting to enjoy himself. After the hard work in unpleasant surroundings which had filled his time during his latest absence from London, an evening in town, to be spent with a man who was certainly a pleasant companion, and might turn out to be something much harder to find, was not without attraction.

Axel Forsberg, already dressed for dinner, was waiting in the little parlour of Anthony's flat. To an ordinary visitor this flat would have seemed of a smallness almost ridiculous, until he had discovered that its best room was kept locked against all the world but Anthony. His workshop, as he called it, apart, the accommodation consisted of a small bedroom, a smaller parlour, and a kitchen that was smallest of all. The flat was high up in a huge block, and was reached from a narrow street running out of Shaftesbury Avenue.

While he dressed for dinner, Anthony left open the door between the two rooms. His friend lay back in a big chair and smoked, waiting for conversation. When the splash of the hasty cold bath was over, he began it.

Queer little den you have up here, Le Dane," he said, as if asking explanation.

"It suits me," said Anthony, in a voice broken by the energy with which he was using his towel. with it?"

Forsberg laughed.

"What's wrong

"You're such such a swell, Le Dane," he explained, "that I expected something more swagger."

"Two years ago I had rooms in St James's.

I'm sorry for your sake that I moved," replied Anthony, in a voice muffled by the shirt he was pulling over his head. But I'm jolly glad for my own, seeing I save a hundred and fifty a year