“This young man,” said Henry Watkins in stumbling accents, “has delivered us all—I say, has delivered us all, from a great, a very great misfortune. If greater, yes, if much greater misfortune should threaten us, it is to him, it is to him, under Providence, and our wise ruler, that we shall look for help. And I say, my friends, I say and repeat,” he droned on, “that we must not regard ourselves as safe from all misfortunes——”
The Speaker, one place removed from Jeremy, moved sharply, knocked over a glass and scraped his foot on the floor. He interrupted the flow of the speech; and the orator paused and looked round at him, half grieved, half questioning. The Speaker took the glance; and it seemed to Jeremy that it was in answer that he frowned so savagely. The melancholy expression on Henry Watkins’s face deepened by a shade and became dogged. He continued with something of defiance in his voice.
“I say we ought not to think that we have seen the worst that can happen to us. This—all this unexpected danger which we have survived ought to teach us never again for a single moment to think ourselves in safety.” He concluded abruptly and sat down. He had apparently spoiled the Speaker’s joviality; and he had propounded to Jeremy a riddle very hard of solution. Jeremy felt certain that some purpose had lain behind his words, other than his usual pessimism, and that the Speaker’s interruption had betokened something more than his usual boredom.
“Do you know what he meant?” he asked of the Lady Eva; but she shook her head. He glanced along the table to see if Thomas Wells’s expression would throw any light on the matter. But he had left his place and had moved away to talk to a friend at some distance. Jeremy could not make out what it was all about, and gave it up. And now the formal part of the banquet was over; and the guests began to leave their places and to move about in the hall.
This was the signal for all who had ever spoken to Jeremy to come to him and congratulate him. He observed in their various manners a curious mixture of genuine homage and of assumed adulation of the man who might soon be their ruler. In the midst of it he saw on the outskirts of the crowd around him Roger Vaile, lounging with an air of detachment and indifference. He broke off the conversation in which he was engaged and forced a way to his friend.
“Roger!” he cried, taking him by the hand.
“Good luck to you, Jeremy,” Roger replied gently. “I’ve reason to be pleased with myself now, haven’t I?—even though it was an accident.”
“Be sure I shall never forget you, Roger,” Jeremy murmured; and then, feeling in his reply something of the manner of a great man towards a dependent, he blushed and was confused. Roger’s answering smile was friendly; and before Jeremy could recover his tongue he had slipped away. Soon half the guests had gone; for it was an early race. When the hall was beginning to look empty he felt a plucking at his sleeve from behind him; and turning he saw the Lady Eva. He followed her into the little ante-room behind the hall and found that they were alone there.
She shut the door behind them and opened her arms.
“Only a minute,” she whispered. “Oh, my dear, my dear, goodnight. I am so happy.” He embraced her silently, and his eyes pricked. Hardly had he released her before she had gone. He went back into the hall and found the last guest departing, and the servants putting out the candles. He wondered for a moment why all great days must end with this flat moment; but the thought did not depress him. He walked away, slow and unaccompanied, to his own room.