CHAPTER XXI.
Rayburn went out first and Vane followed him, feeling, as he said to himself afterwards, as though he was walking across the boundary between one world and another. He knew that Carol and Dora were in the drawing-room. Dora he had never seen before. Carol he had not seen since the night of the University Boat Race. Ernshaw, with the memory of what he had said in Vane's room at Oxford fresh in his mind, caught him by the arm and said:
"Maxwell, I believe I am going to meet my fate to-night as you met yours in another way. Was there ever such a complication in the life-affairs of little mortals like ourselves?"
"I don't know," said Vane, "and I don't care," gripping his arm hard as they crossed the hall. "Wait, it may be the Providence that shapes our ends."
"Rough-hew them as we will," said Rayburn, looking backward.
"Ah, well, since we understand each other, as I think we do now, Vogue la galère! And, Mr. Ernshaw," he went on, "I have heard things and things. I am not giving any confidences away, but by the same token you and I will soon be sailing in the same boat or something very like it——"
"Oh, yes," said Ernshaw, "I see what you mean!" Then he gripped his arm a little harder before they went into the drawing-room. Vane went on with his father, and Ernshaw said:
"Look here, Maxwell, you have passed your crisis, you and Rayburn, I'm only getting near mine. What am I to do, what can I do?"
"That I can't tell you. You see, to put it into the twentieth-century language, the Eternal Feminine is here, and you have got to reckon with her just as Rayburn has done. Come now, if you've made your mind up, go and meet your fate."