There was a great bustle of departure, but when he had posted his letters and had taken Ivy’s ticket and stood alone outside the railway carriage with nothing more to do, a sense of loneliness began to steal over him. For the first time it occurred to any one to ask what plans he had made for himself.
“Where are you going, Mr. Denmead?” said Myra Kay.
“I’m going to take a walking tour,” said Ralph, lightly; “probably I shall work my way down to Glasgow, and try for an engagement there. By-the-bye, where is Macneillie’s Company now?”
“Just dispersed,” said Myra, cheerfully, as she reflected that her lover would be in London to meet her. “Macneillie generally winds up soon after Whitsuntide and starts again at the beginning of August. He has promised to take me on again then.”
“If he has an opening you might say a word for me,” said Ralph, “and Ivy, let me have a line to say how you get on. I shall have to call for letters at the Stirling post-office, for I hope to hear of an engagement by that time.”
Just at that moment he was hailed by a familiar voice from a smoking carriage, and looking round he saw Dudley leaning out of the window.
“So you are off to the south, too!” he said. “Lucky fellow, how did you manage it?”
The train had already begun to move, but the comedian with a beaming face still leant out of the window describing to the last moment the extraordinary run of luck he had had at billiards.
“Go and play the same game,” he counselled; “it’s the only way to raise the wind. Good-bye, my boy! Meet again in better times.”
He waved his hand cheerfully and was borne away, but the thing which lingered longest in Ralph’s sight was Ivy’s wistful, little face, as to the very last she gazed back at him.