The boy came quickly, his slight figure in its nankeen suit, at once alert and watchful.
“Go, and find out when there is a train to join the main line for England. Get a carriage and horses; have the things ready—we shall start for it at the earliest minute, do you understand?”
“Si, Signore!” The boy whistled to Shikari, and vanished down the pier at a long stealthy trot.
Giles crammed his cap down over his eyes, as if he were riding at a fence, and shut his teeth together with a snap. He must act! He must know. Phew! That was a relief. He twisted the slight ends of his dark moustache fiercely upwards, and took a glance all round him.
Westwards the brig’s sails were glistening under the sun like the snow of a mountain peak.
Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his coat he walked rapidly down the pier.
CHAPTER XXIII
Travelling night and day, Legard arrived in London late on Wednesday afternoon. Except upon one occasion, for a few days, he had not been in England for twelve years. It was strange to him that every one should talk his own language; the feel of the air, the grey irregular streets, the soberness of costume were strange. He drove straight to the Langham Hotel. He had a friendly recollection of it from days when he used to come up from Eton and stop there with his mother to see the match at Lords. It was very much the same, inside and out—quite immutable apparently—only it seemed to him, like everything else, exceedingly dingy.
After he had seen to the necessities of his servant and his dog, he dined; and when he came out into the hall it was already nine o’clock. He lit a cigar, but he found it quite impossible to sit and smoke it quietly. He was very tired from his long journey, but he could not sit still. He was possessed by that feeling of restlessness which haunts one who has come a long way for a certain purpose, and finds at the end a gap of inaction intervening. He walked out of the hotel, and stood on the pavement staring blankly up the lighted avenue of Portland Place.
The restless roar of traffic from Regent Street attracted him, it was companionable—it suited his mood. He began to walk slowly towards it. The warm air was full of the smell of tobacco smoke and patchouli, and of other odours. On either hand of the street the lamps sent forth shafts of white or golden light upon the constant streams of passengers, motley and white-faced, who thronged the pavements. The curve of the quadrant bent in a clear-cut line against the impalpable loom of the purple heavens; and, through the streets, the traffic ran like blood through the veins of a strong man.