A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary
crisis, where he had shown consummate skill in avoiding
political complications (and where, by a shrewd speculation in
gold, he had feathered his nest for his declining years), proved
that the continual incertitude of a journalistic career is a
fine basis for diplomatic work. From South America he had gone
to Calcutta, thence to Austria.
He was only twenty-nine, which age in some is youth. He
possessed an old man's wisdom and a boy's exuberance of spirits.
He laughed whenever he could; to him life was a panorama of
vivid pictures, the world a vast theater to which somehow he had
gained admission. His beardless countenance had deceived more
than one finished diplomat, for it was difficult to believe that
behind it lay an earnest purpose and a daring courage. If he
bragged a little, quizzed graybeards, sought strange places,
sported with convention, and eluded women, it was due to his
restlessness. Yet, he had the secretiveness of sand; he absorbed,
but he revealed nothing. He knew his friends; they thought they
knew him. It was his delight to have women think him a butterfly,
men write him down a fool; it covered up his real desires and
left him free.
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