“Great heavens! You mean to say that there’s no train to-night?”
“You see, if a carriage isn’t lighted, sir, we——”
The man perceived the weakness of Harold’s case—from the standpoint of a railway official—and seemed determined not to lose sight of it. “Contributory negligence” he knew to be the most valuable phrase that a railway official could have at hand upon any occasion.
“And how do you expect us to go on to Abbeylands to-night?” asked Harold.
“There’s a very respectable hotel a mile from the junction, sir,” said the man. “Ruins of the Priory, sir—dates back to King John, page 84 Tourist’s Guide to Brackenshire.”
“Oh,” said Harold, “this is quite preposterous.” He went to where Beatrice was seated watching, with only a moderate amount of interest, the departure of five passengers for Ashmead.
“Well, dear?” said she, as Harold came up.
“For straightforward, pig-headed stupidity I’ll back a railway company against any institution in the world,” said he. “The last train has left for Abbeylands. Did you ever know of such stupidity? And yet the shareholders look for six per cent, out of such a system.”
“Perhaps,” said she timidly—“perhaps we were in some degree to blame.”
He laughed. It was so like a woman to suggest the possibility of some blame attaching to the passengers when a railway company could be indicted. To the average man such an idea is as absurd as beginning to argue with a person at whom one is at liberty to swear.