He came as the guest of one of the county families, who regarded Haworth and his success a subject worth enlarging upon. He was taken to the Works and presented to their master. Haworth met him with little enthusiasm. He showed him over the place, but maintained his taciturnity. He was not even moved to any exhibition of gratitude on being told that he had done wonders.
The finale of the visit was a stately dinner given by the county family. Haworth and the member were the features of the festivity, and speeches were made which took a congratulatory and even a laudatory turn.
"I can't go," Ffrench cried, piteously, when Haworth came to his room at the Bank with the news. He turned quite white and sank back into his chair. "It is too much to ask. I—no. I am not strong enough."
He felt himself as good as a dead man when Haworth turned about and strode up to him, livid, and opening and shutting his hands.
"Blast you?" he hissed through his teeth. "You did it! You! And you shall pay for it as long as I'm nigh to make you!"
Saint Méran was among the guests, and Miss Ffrench, whose wonderful beauty attracted the dignitary's eye at once. Years after he remembered and spoke of her. He glanced toward her when he rose to make his after-dinner speech, and caught her eye, and was somewhat confused by it. But he was very eloquent. The master of "Haworth's" was his inspiration and text. His resources, his strength of will, his giant enterprises, his readiness and daring at the moment when all was at hazard—these were matters, indeed, for eloquence.
Haworth sat leaning forward upon the table. He played with his wine-glass, turning it round and round and not spilling a drop of the ruby liquid. Sometimes he glanced at the orator with a smile which no one exactly understood, oftener he kept his eyes fixed upon the full wine-glass.
When at length the speaker sat down with a swift final glance at Rachel Ffrench, there was a silence of several seconds. Everybody felt that a reply was needed. Haworth turned his wine-glass two or three times without raising his eyes, but at last, just as the pause was becoming embarrassing, he looked across the table at Ffrench, who sat opposite.
"I'm not a speech-making chap myself," he said. "My partner is. He'll say my say for me."
He gave Ffrench a nod. That gentleman had been pale and distracted through all the courses; now he became paler than ever. He hesitated, glanced around him, at the waiting guest and at Haworth (who nodded again), and then rose.