Mr. Mole found that he had just time to catch the last train home, and, after arranging for his return on the following day, he exchanged courtesies all round, was shown out by a little door at the back of the stage, and walked away through the now empty streets. He was greatly excited and uplifted, and it was not until he reached the incline of the station that memory reasserted itself and brought with it the old habit of prudence, discretion, and common sense. He was able to go far enough back to see the little dusty theater and the queer characters in it as fantastic and antipodean, but when he came to the events of that evening the contrast was blurred and the world of settled habit and conviction was merged into the unfamiliarity of the stage and became one with it in absurdity. The thought of stepping back from his late experience into ordinary existence filled him with anger and hot resentment: the passage from the scene at the club and the interview with his chief to Mr. Copas’s company was an easy and natural transition, or so it seemed when he thought of Matilda.
He felt very defiant when he reached Bigley and half hoped that he might meet some of his acquaintances. They would go on catching the early train in the morning and the through train in the evening, while he would be away and free. Some such feeling he had always had in July of superiority over the commercial men who had but three weeks’ holiday in the year, while he had eight weeks at a stretch. Now he was to go away forever, and Bigley would talk for a little and then forget and go on cluttering about its families and its ailments and its inheritances and its church affairs and its golf course and the squabbles with the Lord of the Manor. He met no one and found his house shut up, and it took him fully half an hour to rouse his man. By that time he had lost his temper and had no desire save to bully the fellow. Everything else was wiped out, and he wanted only to assert himself in bluster. In this way he avoided any awkward wondering whether the man knew, got out the information that he was going away, probably leaving Bigley, selling the house and furniture, and would write further instructions when he had settled down. He ordered and counter-ordered and ordered breakfast until he had fixed it at ten, and at last, after a round volley of oaths because the man turned to him with a question in his eyes, went upstairs to his room, rolled into bed, and slept as deeply as an enchanted knight beneath the castle of a fairy princess.
The next morning he went through his accounts, found that his capital amounted to nearly four thousand pounds, had his large suitcase packed with a careful selection of clothes and books, told his man he was going abroad, paid him three months’ wages in advance, apologized for his violence overnight, shook hands, went round the garden to say good-bye to his vegetable marrows and sweet peas, and then departed.
In Thrigsby he saw his solicitor (an old pupil), who was professionally sympathetic, but took his instructions for the sale of his house and furniture gravely and promised to keep his whereabouts and all communications secret.
“It is a most serious calamity,” said the solicitor.
“Damn it all,” rejoined Old Mole, “I like it.” And he visited his bank. The manager had always thought Beenham “queer,” and received his rather unusual instructions without astonishment.
“You are leaving Thrigsby?”
“For good. Can’t think why I’ve stayed here so long.”
He drew a large sum of money in notes and gold and dined well and expensively at a musty, heavily carpeted commercial hotel. When the porter had placed his bag in a cab and turned for his instructions he gaped in surprise on being told to drive to the Flat Iron Market. Even more surprised were the frequenters of that resort when the cab drew up by the pavement and a well-dressed, middle-aged gentleman with gold spectacles descended and pushed his way through the crowd jostling and chattering under the blare and din of the mechanical organs and the flicker and flare of the naphtha lamps to the back of Copas’s Theater Royal, which he entered by the stage door. It was whispered that he was a detective, and he was followed by a buzzing train of men and women. Disappointed of the looked-for sensation, they soon dispersed and were swallowed up in the shifting crowd.
Groping through the darkness, he came to the greenroom—Mr. Copas’s word for it—and deposited his bag. On the stage, through a canvas curtain, he could hear the thudding of feet and the bellowing of a great voice broken every now and then with cheers at regular intervals and applause from the auditorium. In a corner on a basket sat Matilda. She was wearing a pasteboard crown and gazing at herself in a mirror. As he dropped his bag she looked up and grinned.