"I am going, but tell me the name of the book before I go."
"No, I won't; you would go and write it yourself, and steal my thunder." Uncle Horace's eyes twinkled, and a corruscation of laugh-wrinkles shot like sheet-lightning over his face. He disappeared into a neighbouring room, leaving a trail of white smoke in his wake, like a locomotive. Presently he returned with a Bullinger Guide in his hand.
"You can sail on Wednesday at two o'clock by the Cunarder," he said. "You can go to Newport to-day, and come back by the boat on Tuesday night, and be ready to start in the morning." Mr. Bellingham prided himself greatly on his faculty for making combinations of times and places.
"How about those letters, Mr. Bellingham?" inquired Claudius, who had no idea of going upon his expedition without proper preparations.
"I will write them," said Uncle Horace, "I will write them at once," and he dived into an address-book and set to work. His pen was that of the traditional ready-writer, for he wrote endless letters, and his correspondence was typical of himself—the scholar, the wanderer, and the Priest of Buddha by turns, and sometimes all at once. For Mr. Bellingham was a professed Buddhist and a profound student of Eastern moralities, and he was a thorough scholar in certain branches of the classics. The combination of these qualities, with the tact and versatile fluency of a man of the world, was a rare one, and was a source of unceasing surprise to his intimates. At the present moment he was a diplomatist, since he could not be a diplomat, and to his energetic suggestion and furtherance of the plan he had devised the results which this tale will set forth are mainly due.
Claudius sat upon the sofa watching the old gentleman, and wondering how it was that a stranger should so soon have assumed the position of an adviser, and with an energy and good sense, too, which not only disarmed resistance, but assubjugated the consent of the advised. Life is full of such things. Man lives quietly like a fattening carp in some old pond for years, until some idle disturber comes and pokes up the mud with a stick, and the poor fish is in the dark. Presently comes another destroyer of peace, less idle and more enterprising, and drains away the water, carp and all, and makes a potato-garden of his old haunts. So the carp makes a new study of life under altered circumstances in other waters; and to pass the time he wonders about it all. It happens even to men of masterful character, accustomed to directing events. An illness takes such a man out of his sphere for a few months. He comes back and finds his pond turned into a vegetable-garden and his ploughed field into a swamp; and then for a time he is fain to ask advice and take it, like any other mortal. So Claudius, who felt himself in an atmosphere new to him, and had tumbled into a very burning bush of complications, had fallen in with Mr. Horace Bellingham, a kind of professional bone-setter, whose province was the reduction of society fractures, speaking medically. And Mr. Bellingham, scenting a patient, and moreover being strongly attracted to him on his own merits, had immediately broached the subject of the Nihilist Nicholas, drawing the conclusion that the man of the emergency was Claudius, and Claudius only. And the bold Doctor weighed the old gentleman's words, and by the light of what he felt he knew that Uncle Horace was right. That if he loved Margaret his first duty was to her, and that first duty was her welfare. No messenger could or would be so active in her interests as himself; and in his anxiety to serve her he had not thought it strange that Mr. Bellingham should take it for granted he was ready to embark on the expedition. He thought of that later, and wondered at the boldness of the stranger's assumption, no less than at the keenness of his wit. Poor Claudius! anybody might see he was in love.
"There; I think that will draw sparks," said Mr. Bellingham, as he folded the last of his letters and put them all in a great square envelope. "Put those in your pocket and keep your powder dry."
"I am really very grateful to you," said Claudius. Uncle Horace began to tramp round the room again, emitting smoky ejaculations of satisfaction. Presently he stopped in front of his guest and turned his eyes up to Claudius's face without raising his head. It gave him a peculiar expression.
"It is a very strange thing," he said, "but I knew at once that you had a destiny, the first time I saw you. I am very superstitious; I believe in destiny."
"So would I if I thought one could know anything about it. I mean in a general way," answered Claudius, smiling.