CHAPTER XXIII
Mr. Dashwood, piloting his undesirable companion, led the way to the station, where they arrived ten minutes before the train was due.
He had seven pounds, the remains of the twelve pounds he had won at the Bridge Club, and he thanked fervently the powers above that he had the money about his person. To have left Mr. Giveen while he rushed back to The Martens for the sinews of war would have been a highly dangerous proceeding. He felt intuitively that Giveen was one of those people who, incapable of trust, have no trust in others, and that once this gentleman's suspicions were aroused, the affair would be hopeless.
Above Bobby's intense desire to save French and thwart his enemy was the desire to shine in the eyes of Violet Grimshaw, to execute some stroke of finesse, to trump the ace that Fate had suddenly laid down on the card-table on which French was playing the greatest game of his life.
And he had not a trump-card, to his knowledge.
The train came steaming in, disgorged a few passengers, received some baskets of country produce, and steamed out again, with Mr. Dashwood and his antagonist seated opposite to one another in a third-class smoking carriage.
Dashwood was by no means an "intellectual," yet before they reached Victoria the unintellectuality of Mr. Giveen had reduced him from a condition of mild wonder to pure amazement. An animal of the meanest description would have been a far preferable companion to this gentleman from over the water, childish without the charm of childhood, ignorant, and little-minded.
As Mr. Dashwood stepped out of the carriage at Victoria he saw, amid the crowd on the platform, a figure and a face that he knew.