"You can't think how I 've staggered myself," said he.
"When did you decide to..."
"When I was standing at the gangway and you looked at me," he answered.
"But..."
"It's no use butting," he said. "I 'm like that.... That's me, that is!"
It was the bare truth that he had staggered himself. But he had staggered himself into a miraculous, ecstatic happiness. She had no money, no clothes, no style, no experience, no particular gifts. But she was she. And when he looked at her, calmed, he knew that he had done well for himself. He knew that if he had not yielded to that terrific impulse he would have done badly for himself.
Mrs. Machin had what she called a ticklish night of it.
VI
The next day he received a note from Ruth, dated Southport, inquiring how he came to lose her on the landing-stage, and expressing concern. It took him three days to reply, and even then the reply was a bad one. He had behaved infamously to Ruth: so much could not be denied. Within three hours of practically proposing to her he had run off with a simple girl who was not fit to hold a candle to her. And he did not care. That was the worst of it: he did not care.
Of course the facts reached her. The facts reached everybody; for the singular reappearance of Nellie in the streets of Bursley immediately after her departure for Canada had to be explained. Moreover, the infamous Denry was rather proud of the facts. And the town inevitably said: "Machin all over, that! Snatching the girl off the blooming lugger! Machin all over!" And Denry agreed privately that it was Machin all over.