assert theirs to such an extent that she is running the
risk of becoming a mere geographical expression. She has merged herself
in the Imperial Ideal. That's magnificent; but the Empire ought to
realize her as the great Motherheart. If England could only wake up as
England again, what a wonderful thing it would be!"

"It would," said Lady Chudley. "And you would like to be the awakener?"

"Ay!" said Paul--"what a dream!"

"There was never a dream worth calling a dream that did not come true."

"Do you believe that, too?" he asked delightedly. "I've held to it all
my life."

Colonel Winwood, who had been moving hostwise from group to group in
the great drawing-room, where already a couple of bridge tables had
been arranged, approached slowly. Lady Chudley gave him a laughing
glance of dismissal. Paul's spacious Elizabethan patriotism, rare--at
least in expression--among the young men of the day, interested and
amused her.

"Have you dreamed all your life of being the Awakener of England?"

"I have dreamed of being so many things," he said, anxious not to
commit himself. For, truth to say, this new ambition was but a couple
of minutes old.

It had sprung into life, however, like Pallas Athene, all armed and
equipped.

"And they have all come true?"

His great eyes laughed and his curly head bent ever so slightly. "Those
worth calling dreams," said he.

A little later in the evening, when on retiring to an early bed he was
wishing Miss Winwood good night, she said, "You're a lucky young man."

"I know--but--" He looked smiling inquiry.

"Lady Chudley's the most valuable woman in England for a young man to
get on the right side of."

Paul went to bed dazed. The great lady who had recognized the divine
fire in the factory boy had again recognized it in the grown man. She
had all but said that, if he chose, he could be the Awakener of
England. The Awakener of England! The watchword of his new-born
ambition rang in his brain until he fell asleep.

The time soon came when the prospective Awakener of England awoke to
the fact that he must fare forth into the sleeping land with but a
guinea in his pocket. The future did not dismay him, for he knew now
that his dreams came true. But he was terribly anxious, more anxious
than ever, to leave Drane's Court with all the prestige of the
prospective Awakener. Now, this final scene of the production could not
be worked for a guinea. There were golden tips to servants,