CHAPTER XVIII.
ON THE MATTER OF A RAILWAY.
Willie Ruston was half-dressed when the chamber-maid knocked at his door. He opened it and took from her three or four letters. Laying them on the table he finished his dressing—with him a quick process, devoid of the pleasant lounging by which many men cheat its daily tiresomeness. At last, when his coat was on, he walked two or three times up and down the room, frowning, smiling for an instant, frowning long again. Then he jerked his head impatiently as though he had had too much of his thoughts, and, going to the table, looked at the addresses on his letters. With a sudden access of eagerness he seized on one and tore it open. It bore Carlin's handwriting, and he groaned to see that the four sides were close-filled. Old Carlin was terribly verbose and roundabout in his communications, and a bored look settled on Willie Ruston's face as he read a wilderness of small details, skirmishes with unruly clerks, iniquities of office-boys, lamentations on the apathy of the public, and lastly, a conscientious account of the health of the writer's household. With a sigh he turned the second page.
"By the way," wrote Carlin, "I have had a letter from Detchmore. He draws back about the railway, and says the Government won't sanction it."
Willie Ruston raced through the rest, muttering to himself as he read, "Why the deuce didn't he wire? What an old fool it is!" and so forth. Then he flung down the letter, put his hands deep in his pockets and stood motionless for a few moments.
"I must go at once," he said aloud.
He stood thinking, and a rare expression stole over his face. It showed a doubt, a hesitation, a faltering—the work and the mark of the day and the night that were gone. He walked about again; he went to the window and stared out, jangling the money in his pockets. For nearly five minutes that expression was on his face. For nearly five minutes—and it seemed no short time—he was torn by conflicting forces. For nearly five minutes he wavered in his allegiance, and Omofaga had a rival that could dispute its throne. Then his brow cleared and his lips shut tight again. He had made up his mind; great as the thing was that held him where he was, yet he must go, and the thing must wait. Wheeling round, he took up the letter and, passing quickly through the door, went to young Sir Walter's room, with the face of a man who knows grief and vexation but has set wavering behind him.
It was an hour later when Adela Ferrars and the Seminghams sat down to their coffee. A fourth plate was laid at the table, and Adela was in very good spirits. Tom Loring had arrived; they had greeted him, and he was upstairs making himself fit to be seen after a night-voyage; his boat had lain three hours outside the harbour waiting for the fog to lift. "I daresay," said Tom, "you heard our horn bellowing." But he was here at last, and Adela was merrier than she had been in all her stay at Dieppe. Semingham also was happy; it was a great relief to feel that there was someone to whom responsibility properly, or at least more properly, belonged, and an end, therefore, to all unjustifiable attempts to saddle mere onlookers with it. And Lady Semingham perceived that her companions were in more genial mood than lately had been their wont, and expanded in the warmer air. When Tom came down nothing could exceed the empressement of his welcome.