"Why, Hilda, you aren't eating anything!" protested Alicia.
"I only want tea," said Hilda casually, wondering whether they had noticed anything wrong in her face.
II
Edwin, looking curiously out of the carriage-window as the train from Plymouth entered Tavistock station early on the Monday, was surprised to perceive Harry Hesketh on the platform. While, in the heavenly air of the September morning, the train was curving through Bickleigh Vale and the Valley of the Plym and through the steeper valley of the Meavy up towards the first fastnesses of the Moor, he had felt his body to be almost miraculously well and his soul almost triumphant. But when he saw Harry--the remembered figure, but a little stouter and coarser--he saw a being easily more triumphant than himself.
Harry had great reason for triumph, for he had proved himself to possess a genius for deductive psychological reasoning and for prophecy. Edwin had been characteristically vague about the visit. First he had telegraphed that he could not come, business preventing. Then he had telegraphed that he would come, but only on Sunday, and he had given no particulars of trains. They had all assured one another that this was just like Edwin. "The man's mad!" said Harry with genial benevolence, and had set himself to one of his favourite studies--Bradshaw. He always handled Bradshaw like a master, accomplishing feats of interpretation that amazed his wife. He had announced, after careful connotations, that Edwin was perhaps after all not such a chump, but that he was in fact a chump, in that, having chosen the Bristol-Plymouth route, he had erred about the Sunday night train from Plymouth to Tavistock. How did he know that Edwin would choose the Bristol-Plymouth route? Well, his knowledge was derived from divination, based upon vast experience of human nature. Edwin would "get stuck" at Plymouth. He would sleep at Plymouth--staying at the Royal (he hoped)--and would come on by the 8.1 a.m. on Monday, arriving at 8.59 a.m., where he would be met by Harry in the dog-cart drawn by Joan. The telegraph was of course closed after 10 a.m. on Sunday, but if it had been open and he had been receiving hourly despatches about Edwin's tortuous progress through England, Harry could not have been more sure of his position. And on the Monday Harry had risen up in the very apogee of health, and had driven Joan to the station. "Mark my words!" he had said. "I shall bring him back with me for breakfast." He had offered to take Hilda to the station to witness his triumph; but Hilda had not accepted.
And there Edwin was! Everything had happened according to Harry's prediction, except that, from an unfortunate modesty, Edwin had gone to the wrong hotel at Plymouth.
They shook hands in a glow of mutual pleasure.
"How on earth did you know?" Edwin began.
The careful-casual answer rounded off Harry's triumph. And Edwin thought: "Why, he's just like a grown-up boy!" But he was distinguished; his club-necktie in all its decay was still impressive; and his expansive sincere goodwill was utterly delightful. Also the station, neat, clean, solid--the negation of all gimcrackery--had an aspect of goodwill to man; its advertisements did not flare; and it seemed to be the expression of a sound and self-respecting race. The silvern middle-aged guard greeted Harry with deferential heartiness and saluted Edwin with even more warmth than he had used at Plymouth. On the Sunday Edwin had noticed that in the western country guards were not guards (as in other parts of England), but rather the cordial hosts of their trains. As soon as the doors had banged in a fusillade and the engine whistled, a young porter came and, having exchanged civilities with Harry, picked up Edwin's bag. This porter's face and demeanour showed perfect content. His slight yet eager smile and his quick movements seemed to be saying: "It is natural and proper that I should salute you and carry your bag while you walk free. You are gentlemen by divine right, and by the same right I am a railway porter and happy." To watch the man at his job gave positive pleasure, and it was extraordinarily reassuring--reassuring about everything. Outside the station, the groom stood at Joan's head, and a wonderful fox-terrier sat alert under the dog-cart. Instantly the dog sprang out and began to superintend the preparations for departure, rushing to and fro and insisting all the time that delay would be monstrous, if not fatal. The dog's excellence as a specimen of breeding was so superlative as to accuse its breeder and owner of a lack of perspective in life. It was as if the entire resources of civilization had been employed towards the perfecting of the points of that dog.
"Balanced the cart, I suppose, Jos?" asked Harry, kindly.