‘Yes. Will be for a month or so, he says.’
‘Well, we won’t talk of it. As you say, that’s the end. Nothing worse could have happened. Has he been speaking of me again like he used to?’
‘I haven’t heard him mention your name.’
She heaved a sigh, and began to look round the office.
‘Let us try to forget, and talk of pleasanter things. It seems such a long time since you told me anything about your business. You remember how we used to gossip. I suppose I have been so absorbed in that poor boy’s affairs; it made me selfish—I was so overjoyed, I really could think of nothing else. And now—! But I must and will drive it out of my mind. I have been moping at home, day after day, in wretched solitude. I wanted to write to you, but I hadn’t the heart—scarcely the strength. I kept hoping you might call—if only to ask how I was. Of course everything had to be explained to inquisitive people—how I hate them all! It’s the nature of the world to mock at misfortunes such as this. It would really have done me good to speak for a few minutes with such a friend as you—a real friend. I am going to live a quiet, retired life. I am sick of the world, its falsity, and its malice, and its bitter, bitter disappointments.’
Crewe’s native wit and rich store of experience availed him nothing when Mrs. Damerel discoursed thus. The silvery accents flattered his ear, and crept into the soft places of his nature. He felt as when a clever actress in a pathetic part wrought upon him in the after-dinner mood.
‘You must bear up against it, Mrs. Damerel. And I don’t think a retired life would suit you at all. You are made for Society.’
‘Don’t seek for compliments. I am speaking quite sincerely. Ah, those were happy days that I spent at Whitsand! Tell me what you have been doing. Is there any hope of the pier yet?’
‘Why, it’s as good as built!’ cried the other. ‘Didn’t you see the advertisements, when we floated the company a month ago? I suppose you don’t read that kind of thing. We shall begin at the works in early spring.—Look here!’
He unrolled a large design, a coloured picture of Whitsand pier as it already existed in his imagination. Not content with having the mere structure exhibited, Crewe had persuaded the draughtsman to add embellishments of a kind which, in days to come, would be his own peculiar care; from end to end, the pier glowed with the placards of advertisers. Below, on the sands, appeared bathing-machines, and these also were covered with manifold advertisements. Nay, the very pleasure-boats on the sunny waves declared the glory of somebody’s soap, of somebody’s purgatives.