“Yes,” Mr. Tottel was saying, “it’s very interesting to see interesting things, no matter if it’s man, woman, or a object. The most interesting man as I ever met in my life I met on my honeymoon. Years ago. He made a lifelong study of railways, that man, knew ’em from Alpha to ... to ... what is it?”
“Abednego,” said someone.
“Yes, the trunk lines, the fares, the routs, the junctions of anywheres in England or Scotland or Ireland or Wales. London, too, the Underground. I tested him, every station in correct order from South Kensington to King’s Cross. A strange thing! Nothing to do with railways in ’imself, it was just his ’obby. Was a Baptist minister, really, but still a most interesting man.”
Loughlin could stand it no longer, he hurried away into the garden. He could not find her. Into the kitchen—she was not there. He sat down excited and impatient, but he must wait for her, he wanted to know, to know at once. How divinely she could swim! What was it he wanted to know? He tried to read a book there, a ragged dusty volume about the polar regions. He learned that when a baby whale is born it weighs at least a ton. How horrible!
He rushed out into the fields full of extravagant melancholy and stupid distraction. That! All that was to be her life here! This was your rustic beauty, idiots and railways, boors who could choke an ox and chop off its horns—maddening doubts, maddening doubts—foul-smelling rooms, darkness, indecency. She held him at arm’s length still, but she was dovelike, and he was grappled to her soul with hoops of steel, yes, indeed.
But soon this extravagance was allayed. Dim loneliness came imperceivably into the fields and he turned back. The birds piped oddly; some wind was caressing the higher foliage, turning it all one way, the way home. Telegraph poles ahead looked like half-used pencils; the small cross on the steeple glittered with a sharp and shapely permanence.
When he came to the inn Orianda was gone to bed.
IV
The next morning an air of uneasy bustle crept into the house after breakfast, much going in and out and up and down in restrained perturbation.
Orianda asked him if he could drive the horse and trap to the station. Yes, he thought he could drive it.