Герберт Джордж Уэллс
The Wheels of Chance
XXV
Mr. Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that night’s journey with the same confident dignity as before, and it was chiefly by good luck and the fact that most roads about a town converge thereupon, that Chichester was at last attained. It seemed at first as though everyone had gone to bed, but the Red Hotel still glowed yellow and warm. It was the first time Hoopdriver bad dared the mysteries of a ‘first-class’ hotel.’ But that night he was in the mood to dare anything.
“So you found your Young Lady at last,” said the ostler of the Red Hotel; for it chanced he was one of those of whom Hoopdriver had made inquiries in the afternoon.
“Quite a misunderstanding,” said Hoopdriver, with splendid readiness. “My sister had gone to Bognor But I brought her back here. I’ve took a fancy to this place. And the moonlight’s simply dee-vine.”
“We’ve had supper, thenks, and we’re tired,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “I suppose you won’t take anything, – Jessie?”
The glory of having her, even as a sister! and to call her Jessie like that! But he carried it off splendidly, as he felt himself bound to admit. “Good-night, Sis,” he said, “and pleasant dreams. I’ll just ‘ave a look at this paper before I turn in.” But this was living indeed! he told himself.
So gallantly did Mr. Hoopdriver comport himself up to the very edge of the Most Wonderful Day of all. It had begun early, you will remember, with a vigil in a little sweetstuff shop next door to the Angel at Midhurst. But to think of all the things that had happened since then! He caught himself in the middle of a yawn, pulled out his watch, saw the time was halfpast eleven, and marched off, with a fine sense of heroism, bedward.
XXVI. THE SURBITON INTERLUDE
And here, thanks to the glorious institution of sleep, comes a break in the narrative again. These absurd young people are safely tucked away now, their heads full of glowing nonsense, indeed, but the course of events at any rate is safe from any fresh developments through their activities for the next eight hours or more. They are both sleeping healthily you will perhaps be astonished to hear. Here is the girl – what girls are coming to nowadays only Mrs. Lynn Linton can tell! – in company with an absolute stranger, of low extraction and uncertain accent, unchaperoned and unabashed; indeed, now she fancies she is safe, she is, if anything, a little proud of her own share in these transactions. Then this Mr. Hoopdriver of yours, roseate idiot that he is! is in illegal possession of a stolen bicycle, a stolen young lady, and two stolen names, established with them in an hotel that is quite beyond his means, and immensely proud of himself in a somnolent way for these incomparable follies. There are occasions when a moralising novelist can merely wring his hands and leave matters to take their course. For all Hoopdriver knows or cares he may be locked up the very first thing to-morrow morning for the rape of the cycle. Then in Bognor, let alone that melancholy vestige, Bechamel (with whom our dealings are, thank Goodness! over), there is a Coffee Tavern with a steak Mr. Hoopdriver ordered, done to a cinder long ago, his American-cloth parcel in a bedroom, and his own proper bicycle, by way of guarantee, carefully locked up in the hayloft. To-morrow he will be a Mystery, and they will be looking for his body along the sea front. And so far we have never given a glance at the desolate home in Surbiton, familiar to you no doubt through the medium of illustrated interviews, where the unhappy stepmother —
That stepmother, it must be explained, is quite well known to you. That is a little surprise I have prepared for you. She is ‘Thomas Plantagenet,’ the gifted authoress of that witty and daring book, “A Soul Untrammelled,” and quite an excellent woman in her way, – only it is such a crooked way. Her real name is Milton. She is a widow and a charming one, only ten years older than Jessie, and she is always careful to dedicate her more daring works to the ‘sacred memory of my husband’ to show that there’s nothing personal, you know, in the matter. Considering her literary reputation (she was always speaking of herself as one I martyred for truth,’ because the critics advertised her written indecorums in column long ‘slates’), – considering her literary reputation, I say, she was one of the most respectable women it is possible to imagine. She furnished correctly, dressed correctly, had severe notions of whom she might meet, went to church, and even at times took the sacrament in some esoteric spirit. And Jessie she brought up so carefully that she never even let her read “A Soul Untrammelled.” Which, therefore, naturally enough, Jessie did, and went on from that to a feast of advanced literature. Mrs. Milton not only brought up Jessie carefully, but very slowly, so that at seventeen she was still a clever schoolgirl (as you have seen her) and quite in the background of the little literary circle of unimportant celebrities which ‘Thomas Plantagenet’ adorned. Mrs. Milton knew Bechamel’s reputation of being a dangerous man; but then bad men are not bad women, and she let him come to her house to show she was not afraid – she took no account of Jessie. When the elopement came, therefore, it was a double disappointment to her, for she perceived his hand by a kind of instinct. She did the correct thing. The correct thing, as you know, is to take hansom cabs, regardless of expense, and weep and say you do not know WHAT to do, round the circle of your confidential friends. She could not have ridden nor wept more had Jessie been her own daughter – she showed the properest spirit. And she not only showed it, but felt it.
Mrs. Milton, as a successful little authoress and still more successful widow of thirty-two, – “Thomas Plantagenet is a charming woman,” her reviewers used to write invariably, even if they spoke ill of her, – found the steady growth of Jessie into womanhood an unmitigated nuisance and had been willing enough to keep her in the background. And Jessie – who had started this intercourse at fourteen with abstract objections to stepmothers – had been active enough in resenting this. Increasing rivalry and antagonism had sprung up between them, until they could engender quite a vivid hatred from a dropped hairpin or the cutting of a book with a sharpened knife. There is very little deliberate wickedness in the world. The stupidity of our selfishness gives much the same results indeed, but in the ethical laboratory it shows a different nature. And when the disaster came, Mrs. Milton’s remorse for their gradual loss of sympathy and her share in the losing of it, was genuine enough.
You may imagine the comfort she got from her friends, and how West Kensington and Notting Hill and Hampstead, the literary suburbs, those decent penitentiaries of a once Bohemian calling, hummed with the business, Her ‘Men’ – as a charming literary lady she had, of course, an organised corps – were immensely excited, and were sympathetic; helpfully energetic, suggestive, alert, as their ideals of their various dispositions required them to be. “Any news of Jessie?” was the pathetic opening of a dozen melancholy but interesting conversations. To her Men she was not perhaps so damp as she was to her women friends, but in a quiet way she was even more touching. For three days, Wednesday that is, Thursday, and Friday, nothing was heard of the fugitives. It was known that Jessie, wearing a patent costume with buttonup skirts, and mounted on a diamond frame safety with Dunlops, and a loofah covered saddle, had ridden forth early in the morning, taking with her about two pounds seven shillings in money, and a grey touring case packed, and there, save for a brief note to her stepmother, – a declaration of independence, it was said, an assertion of her Ego containing extensive and very annoying quotations from “A Soul Untrammelled,” and giving no definite intimation of her plans – knowledge ceased. That note was shown to few, and then only in the strictest confidence.
But on Friday evening late came a breathless Man Friend, Widgery, a correspondent of hers, who had heard of her trouble among the first. He had been touring in Sussex, – his knapsack was still on his back, – and he testified hurriedly that at a place called Midhurst, in the bar of an hotel called the Angel, he had heard from a barmaid a vivid account of a Young Lady in Grey. Descriptions tallied. But who was the man in brown? “The poor, misguided girl! I must go to her at once,” she said, choking, and rising with her hand to her heart.
“It’s impossible to-night. There are no more trains. I looked on my way.”
“A mother’s love,” she said. “I bear her THAT.”
“I know you do.” He spoke with feeling, for no one admired his photographs of scenery more than Mrs. Milton. “It’s more than she deserves.”
“Oh, don’t speak unkindly of her! She has been misled.”
It was really very friendly of him. He declared he was only sorry his news ended there. Should he follow them, and bring her back? He had come to her because he knew of her anxiety. “It is GOOD of you,” she said, and quite instinctively took and pressed his hand. “And to think of that poor girl – tonight! It’s dreadful.” She looked into the fire that she had lit when he came in, the warm light fell upon her dark purple dress, and left her features in a warm shadow. She looked such a slight, frail thing to be troubled so. “We must follow her.” Her resolution seemed magnificent. “I have no one to go with me.”
“He must marry her,” said the man.
“She has no friends. We have no one. After all – Two women. – So helpless.”
And this fair-haired little figure was the woman that people who knew her only from her books, called bold, prurient even! Simply because she was great-hearted – intellectual. He was overcome by the unspeakable pathos of her position.
“Mrs. Milton,” he said. “Hetty!”
She glanced at him. The overflow was imminent. “Not now,” she said, “not now. I must find her first.”
“Yes,” he said with intense emotion. (He was one of those big, fat men who feel deeply.) “But let me help you. At least let me help you.”
“But can you spare time?” she said. “For ME.”
“For you – ”
“But what can I do? what can WE do?”
“Go to Midhurst. Follow her on. Trace her. She was there on Thursday night, last night. She cycled out of the town. Courage!” he said. “We will save her yet!”
She put out her hand and pressed his again.
“Courage!” he repeated, finding it so well received.
There were alarms and excursions without. She turned her back to the fire, and he sat down suddenly in the big armchair, which suited his dimensions admirably. Then the door opened, and the girl showed in Dangle, who looked curiously from one to the other. There was emotion here, he had heard the armchair creaking, and Mrs. Milton, whose face was flushed, displayed a suspicious alacrity to explain. “You, too,” she said, “are one of my good friends. And we have news of her at last.”
It was decidedly an advantage to Widgery, but Dangle determined to show himself a man of resource. In the end he, too, was accepted for the Midhurst Expedition, to the intense disgust of Widgery; and young Phipps, a callow youth of few words, faultless collars, and fervent devotion, was also enrolled before the evening was out. They would scour the country, all three of them. She appeared to brighten up a little, but it was evident she was profoundly touched. She did not know what she had done to merit such friends. Her voice broke a little, she moved towards the door, and young Phipps, who was a youth of action rather than of words, sprang and opened it – proud to be first.
“She is sorely troubled,” said Dangle to Widgery. “We must do what we can for her.”
“She is a wonderful woman,” said Dangle. “So subtle, so intricate, so many faceted. She feels this deeply.”
Young Phipps said nothing, but he felt the more.
And yet they say the age of chivalry is dead!
But this is only an Interlude, introduced to give our wanderers time to refresh themselves by good, honest sleeping. For the present, therefore, we will not concern ourselves with the starting of the Rescue Party, nor with Mrs. Milton’s simple but becoming grey dress, with the healthy Widgery’s Norfolk jacket and thick boots, with the slender Dangle’s energetic bearing, nor with the wonderful chequerings that set off the legs of the golf-suited Phipps. They are after us. In a little while they will be upon us. You must imagine as you best can the competitive raidings at Midhurst of Widgery, Dangle, and Phipps. How Widgery was great at questions, and Dangle good at inference, and Phipps so conspicuously inferior in everything that he felt it, and sulked with Mrs. Milton most of the day, after the manner of your callow youth the whole world over. Mrs. Milton stopped at the Angel and was very sad and charming and intelligent, and Widgery paid the bill in the afternoon of Saturday, Chichester was attained. But by that time our fugitives – As you shall immediately hear.
XXVII. THE AWAKENING OF MR. HOOPDRIVER
Mr. Hoopdriver stirred on his pillow, opened his eyes, and, staring unmeaningly, yawned. The bedclothes were soft and pleasant. He turned the peaked nose that overrides the insufficient moustache, up to the ceiling, a pinkish projection over the billow of white. You might see it wrinkle as he yawned again, and then became quiet. So matters remained for a space. Very slowly recollection returned to him. Then a shock of indeterminate brown hair appeared, and first one watery grey eye a-wondering, and then two; the bed upheaved, and you had him, his thin neck projecting abruptly from the clothes he held about him, his face staring about the room. He held the clothes about him, I hope I may explain, because his night-shirt was at Bognor in an American-cloth packet, derelict. He yawned a third time, rubbed his eyes, smacked his lips. He was recalling almost everything now. The pursuit, the hotel, the tremulous daring of his entry, the swift adventure of the inn yard, the moonlight – Abruptly he threw the clothes back and rose into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Without was the noise of shutters being unfastened and doors unlocked, and the passing of hoofs and wheels in the street. He looked at his watch. Half-past six. He surveyed the sumptuous room again.
“Lord!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It wasn’t a dream, after all.”
“I wonder what they charge for these Juiced rooms!” said Mr. Hoopdriver, nursing one rosy foot.
He became meditative, tugging at his insufficient moustache. Suddenly he gave vent to a noiseless laugh. “What a rush it was! Rushed in and off with his girl right under his nose. Planned it well too. Talk of highway robbery! Talk of brigands Up and off! How juiced SOLD he must be feeling It was a shave too – in the coach yard!”
Suddenly he became silent. Abruptly his eyebrows rose and his jaw fell. “I sa-a-ay!” said Mr. Hoopdriver.
He had never thought of it before. Perhaps you will understand the whirl he had been in overnight. But one sees things clearer in the daylight. “I’m hanged if I haven’t been and stolen a blessed bicycle.”
“Who cares?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, presently, and his face supplied the answer.
Then he thought of the Young Lady in Grey again, and tried to put a more heroic complexion on the business. But of an early morning, on an empty stomach (as with characteristic coarseness, medical men put it) heroics are of a more difficult growth than by moonlight. Everything had seemed exceptionally fine and brilliant, but quite natural, the evening before.
Mr. Hoopdriver reached out his hand, took his Norfolk jacket, laid it over his knees, and took out the money from the little ticket pocket. “Fourteen and six-half,” he said, holding the coins in his left hand and stroking his chin with his right. He verified, by patting, the presence of a pocketbook in the breast pocket. “Five, fourteen, six-half,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Left.”
With the Norfolk jacket still on his knees, he plunged into another silent meditation. “That wouldn’t matter,” he said. “It’s the bike’s the bother.
“No good going back to Bognor.
“Might send it back by carrier, of course. Thanking him for the loan. Having no further use – ” Mr. Hoopdriver chuckled and lapsed into the silent concoction of a delightfully impudent letter. “Mr. J. Hoopdriver presents his compliments.” But the grave note reasserted itself.
“Might trundle back there in an hour, of course, and exchange them. MY old crock’s so blessed shabby. He’s sure to be spiteful too. Have me run in, perhaps. Then she’d be in just the same old fix, only worse. You see, I’m her Knight-errant. It complicates things so.”
His eye, wandering loosely, rested on the sponge bath. “What the juice do they want with cream pans in a bedroom?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, en passant.
“Best thing we can do is to set out of here as soon as possible, anyhow. I suppose she’ll go home to her friends. That bicycle is a juicy nuisance, anyhow. Juicy nuisance!”
He jumped to his feet with a sudden awakening of energy, to proceed with his toilet. Then with a certain horror he remembered that the simple necessaries of that process were at Bognor! “Lord!” he remarked, and whistled silently for a space. “Rummy go! profit and loss; profit, one sister with bicycle complete, wot offers? – cheap for tooth and ‘air brush, vests, night-shirt, stockings, and sundries.
“Make the best of it,” and presently, when it came to hair-brushing, he had to smooth his troubled locks with his hands. It was a poor result. “Sneak out and get a shave, I suppose, and buy a brush and so on. Chink again! Beard don’t show much.”
He ran his hand over his chin, looked at himself steadfastly for some time, and curled his insufficient moustache up with some care. Then he fell a-meditating on his beauty. He considered himself, three-quarter face, left and right. An expression of distaste crept over his features. “Looking won’t alter it, Hoopdriver,” he remarked. “You’re a weedy customer, my man. Shoulders narrow. Skimpy, anyhow.”
He put his knuckles on the toilet table and regarded himself with his chin lifted in the air. “Good Lord!” he said. “WHAT a neck! Wonder why I got such a thundering lump there.”
He sat down on the bed, his eye still on the glass. “If I’d been exercised properly, if I’d been fed reasonable, if I hadn’t been shoved out of a silly school into a silly shop – But there! the old folks didn’t know no better. The schoolmaster ought to have. But he didn’t, poor old fool! – Still, when it comes to meeting a girl like this – It’s ‘ARD.
“I wonder what Adam’d think of me – as a specimen. Civilisation, eigh? Heir of the ages! I’m nothing. I know nothing. I can’t do anything – sketch a bit. Why wasn’t I made an artist?
“Beastly cheap, after all, this suit does look, in the sunshine.”
“No good, Hoopdriver. Anyhow, you don’t tell yourself any lies about it. Lovers ain’t your game, – anyway. But there’s other things yet. You can help the young lady, and you will – I suppose she’ll be going home – And that business of the bicycle’s to see to, too, my man. FORWARD, Hoopdriver! If you ain’t a beauty, that’s no reason why you should stop and be copped, is it?”
And having got back in this way to a gloomy kind of self-satisfaction, he had another attempt at his hair preparatory to leaving his room and hurrying on breakfast, for an early departure. While breakfast was preparing he wandered out into South Street and refurnished himself with the elements of luggage again. “No expense to be spared,” he murmured, disgorging the half-sovereign.
XXVIII. THE DEPARTURE FROM CHICHESTER
He caused his ‘sister’ to be called repeatedly, and when she came down, explained with a humorous smile his legal relationship to the bicycle in the yard. “Might be disagreeable, y’ know.” His anxiety was obvious enough. “Very well,” she said (quite friendly); “hurry breakfast, and we’ll ride out. I want to talk things over with you.” The girl seemed more beautiful than ever after the night’s sleep; her hair in comely dark waves from her forehead, her ungauntleted finger-tips pink and cool. And how decided she was! Breakfast was a nervous ceremony, conversation fraternal but thin; the waiter overawed him, and he was cowed by a multiplicity of forks. But she called him “Chris.” They discussed their route over his sixpenny county map for the sake of talking, but avoided a decision in the presence of the attendant. The five-pound note was changed for the bill, and through Hoopdriver’s determination to be quite the gentleman, the waiter and chambermaid got half a crown each and the ostler a florin. “‘Olidays,” said the ostler to himself, without gratitude. The public mounting of the bicycles in the street was a moment of trepidation. A policeman actually stopped and watched them from the opposite kerb. Suppose him to come across and ask: “Is that your bicycle, sir?” Fight? Or drop it and run? It was a time of bewildering apprehension, too, going through the streets of the town, so that a milk cart barely escaped destruction under Mr. Hoopdriver’s chancy wheel. That recalled him to a sense of erratic steering, and he pulled himself together. In the lanes he breathed freer, and a less formal conversation presently began.
“You’ve ridden out of Chichester in a great hurry,” said Jessie.
“Well, the fact of it is, I’m worried, just a little bit. About this machine.”
“Of course,” she said. “I had forgotten that. But where are we going?”
“Jest a turning or two more, if you don’t mind,” said Hoopdriver.
“Jest a mile or so. I have to think of you, you know. I should feel more easy. If we was locked up, you know – Not that I should mind on my own account – ”
They rode with a streaky, grey sea coming and going on their left hand. Every mile they put between themselves and Chichester Mr. Hoopdriver felt a little less conscience-stricken, and a little more of the gallant desperado. Here he was riding on a splendid machine with a Slap-up girl beside him. What would they think of it in the Emporium if any of them were to see him? He imagined in detail the astonishment of Miss Isaacs and of Miss Howe. “Why! It’s Mr. Hoopdriver,” Miss Isaacs would say. “Never!” emphatically from Miss Howe. Then he played with Briggs, and then tried the ‘G.V.’ in a shay. “Fancy introducing ‘em to her – My sister pro tem.” He was her brother Chris – Chris what? – Confound it! Harringon, Hartington – something like that. Have to keep off that topic until he could remember. Wish he’d told her the truth now – almost. He glanced at her. She was riding with her eyes straight ahead of her. Thinking. A little perplexed, perhaps, she seemed. He noticed how well she rode and that she rode with her lips closed – a thing he could never manage.
Mr. Hoopdriver’s mind came round to the future. What was she going to do? What were they both going to do? His thoughts took a graver colour. He had rescued her. This was fine, manly rescue work he was engaged upon. She ought to go home, in spite of that stepmother. He must insist gravely but firmly upon that. She was the spirited sort, of course, but still – Wonder if she had any money? Wonder what the second-class fare from Havant to London is? Of course he would have to pay that – it was the regular thing, he being a gentleman. Then should he take her home? He began to rough in a moving sketch of the return. The stepmother, repentant of her indescribable cruelties, would be present, – even these rich people have their troubles, – probably an uncle or two. The footman would announce, Mr. – (bother that name!) and Miss Milton. Then two women weeping together, and a knightly figure in the background dressed in a handsome Norfolk jacket, still conspicuously new. He would conceal his feeling until the very end. Then, leaving, he would pause in the doorway in such an attitude as Mr. George Alexander might assume, and say, slowly and dwindlingly: “Be kind to her – BE kind to her,” and so depart, heartbroken to the meanest intelligence. But that was a matter for the future. He would have to begin discussing the return soon. There was no traffic along the road, and he came up beside her (he had fallen behind in his musing). She began to talk. “Mr. Denison,” she began, and then, doubtfully, “That is your name? I’m very stupid – ”
“It is,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. (Denison, was it? Denison, Denison, Denison. What was she saying?)
“I wonder how far you are willing to help me?” Confoundedly hard to answer a question like that on the spur of the moment, without steering wildly. “You may rely – ” said Mr. Hoopdriver, recovering from a violent wabble. “I can assure you – I want to help you very much. Don’t consider me at all. Leastways, consider me entirely at your service.” (Nuisance not to be able to say this kind of thing right.)
“You see, I am so awkwardly situated.”
“If I can only help you – you will make me very happy – ” There was a pause. Round a bend in the road they came upon a grassy space between hedge and road, set with yarrow and meadowsweet, where a felled tree lay among the green. There she dismounted, and propping her machine against a stone, sat down. “Here, we can talk,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, expectant.
She answered after a little while, sitting, elbow on knee, with her chin in her hand, and looking straight in front of her. “I don’t know – I am resolved to Live my Own Life.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Naturally.”
“I want to Live, and I want to see what life means. I want to learn. Everyone is hurrying me, everything is hurrying me; I want time to think.”
Mr. Hoopdriver was puzzled, but admiring. It was wonderful how clear and ready her words were. But then one might speak well with a throat and lips like that. He knew he was inadequate, but he tried to meet the occasion. “If you let them rush you into anything you might repent of, of course you’d be very silly.”
“Don’t YOU want to learn?” she asked.
“I was wondering only this morning,” he began, and stopped.
She was too intent upon her own thoughts to notice this insufficiency. “I find myself in life, and it terrifies me. I seem to be like a little speck, whirling on a wheel, suddenly caught up. ‘What am I here for?’ I ask. Simply to be here at a time – I asked it a week ago, I asked it yesterday, and I ask it to-day. And little things happen and the days pass. My stepmother takes me shopping, people come to tea, there is a new play to pass the time, or a concert, or a novel. The wheels of the world go on turning, turning. It is horrible. I want to do a miracle like Joshua and stop the whirl until I have fought it out. At home – It’s impossible.”
Mr. Hoopdriver stroked his moustache. “It IS so,” he said in a meditative tone. “Things WILL go on,” he said. The faint breath of summer stirred the trees, and a bunch of dandelion puff lifted among the meadowsweet and struck and broke into a dozen separate threads against his knee. They flew on apart, and sank, as the breeze fell, among the grass: some to germinate, some to perish. His eye followed them until they had vanished.
“I can’t go back to Surbiton,” said the Young Lady in Grey.
“EIGH?” said Mr. Hoopdriver, catching at his moustache. This was an unexpected development.
“I want to write, you see,” said the Young Lady in Grey, “to write Books and alter things. To do Good. I want to lead a Free Life and Own myself. I can’t go back. I want to obtain a position as a journalist. I have been told – But I know no one to help me at once. No one that I could go to. There is one person – She was a mistress at my school. If I could write to her – But then, how could I get her answer?”
“H’mp,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, very grave.
“I can’t trouble you much more. You have come – you have risked things – ”
“That don’t count,” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “It’s double pay to let me do it, so to speak.”
“It is good of you to say that. Surbiton is so Conventional. I am resolved to be Unconventional – at any cost. But we are so hampered. If I could only burgeon out of all that hinders me! I want to struggle, to take my place in the world. I want to be my own mistress, to shape my own career. But my stepmother objects so. She does as she likes herself, and is strict with me to ease her conscience. And if I go back now, go back owning myself beaten – ” She left the rest to his imagination.
“I see that,” agreed Mr. Hoopdriver. He MUST help her. Within his skull he was doing some intricate arithmetic with five pounds six and twopence. In some vague way he inferred from all this that Jessie was trying to escape from an undesirable marriage, but was saying these things out of modesty. His circle of ideas was so limited.
“You know, Mr. – I’ve forgotten your name again.”
Mr. Hoopdriver seemed lost in abstraction. “You can’t go back of course, quite like that,” he said thoughtfully. His ears waxed suddenly red and his cheeks flushed.
“But what IS your name?”
“Name!” said Mr. Hoopdriver. “Why! – Benson, of course.”
“Mr. Benson – yes it’s really very stupid of me. But I can never remember names. I must make a note on my cuff.” She clicked a little silver pencil and wrote the name down. “If I could write to my friend. I believe she would be able to help me to an independent life. I could write to her – or telegraph. Write, I think. I could scarcely explain in a telegram. I know she would help me.”
Clearly there was only one course open to a gentleman under the circumstances. “In that case,” said Mr. Hoopdriver, “if you don’t mind trusting yourself to a stranger, we might continue as we are perhaps. For a day or so. Until you heard.” (Suppose thirty shillings a day, that gives four days, say four thirties is hun’ and twenty, six quid, – well, three days, say; four ten.)
“You are very good to me.”
His expression was eloquent.
“Very well, then, and thank you. It’s wonderful – it’s more than I deserve that you – ” She dropped the theme abruptly. “What was our bill at Chichester?”
