Benny found this dinner one of the most uncomfortable entertainments at which he had yet assisted. It is true that he was received by a round of cheers when he entered the room, but he could not but remember that many who now applauded had derided him but a week ago.
For himself, he would have been hard put to it to say just what he did feel. That the whole world would tell the story of the flight to-morrow, he knew full well. It would have been absurd to have put aside so self-evident a fact. The nations would honour him, and his own people welcome a British victory. Looking further afield, he perceived that his social position had changed in a flash, and that he, who had called himself a beggar that morning, was now a rich man, with every prospect of adding enormously to his riches in the immediate future. Already the cable had brought offers which dazed him by their generosity. He was to fly at this meeting, to fly at that. A firm in London offered him two thousand pounds just to show his machine. Surely, this implied a permanence of fortune. And he had but begun to use those amazing brains which God had given him.
Here were things to be remembered subtly as the waiters filled his glass with champagne, and boisterous diners asked to drink wine with him. He found the speeches tedious enough, and thought Sir John a dreadful windbag. When the great moment came, and the cheque was handed over to him, it seemed such a sorry strip of paper to stand for so much, and he thrust it into his pocket carelessly, as though it were the visiting-card of an acquaintance. None the less, he was conscious of it being there during the rest of the dinner; and despite his desire not to do so, he touched it more than once with his fingers to be quite sure that he had not lost it.
His own speech amazed the company. No one expected an engineer to be also an orator, and yet his simple words had the stamp of true oratory. He spoke to the hearts of those who heard him, concealing none of his aims and ambitions, and confessing how greatly he had desired success. His honesty was inspiring. He believed that they would be glad to have this news in England. It was natural that he should think of his own country at such a moment. But he could give every credit to France, and the brains of those Frenchmen who had carried this art to such lengths. In conclusion, he hoped that his many friends at Andana would hold some memory of him in their affections.
There were rousing cheers at this—the cheers of those who had grown suddenly conscious of their own littleness, and knew that they had met a man. When the dinner broke up, young and old swarmed about Benny again, begging his experiences, proffering their books, congratulating him in volatile phrases. To all he pleaded that he was dead tired and must get to bed. The supreme day of his life had ended! He was about to say "good-bye" to it.
It was eleven o'clock then, and few were abroad. The excursionists had already returned to Sierre and the railway; the keepers of carnival had surrendered to the snow and a bitter wind arisen at sundown. What should have been an al fresco fête upon the skating rink had become but a collection of shivering impresarios gathered about ebbing fires. The pathway to the Park Hotel was deserted, nor could you have counted twenty people on the road to Vermala.
Benny had set out in the company of his brother Jack and the Abbé Villari, and the three pursued their way in silence toward the house. Usually, there would have been a beacon light to guide them, a lamp shining from the window of Lily Delayne's chalet; but no such lamp shone out to-night, and the gables shaped amid the snowflakes as the grey and silent towers of some deserted citadel. When they drew a little nearer they saw that the blinds were drawn, and that the whole chalet was in darkness: a fact which the abbé explained by saying that the English lady had left for Sierre earlier in the day, and that he did not believe she would return. To this Benny made no other answer than to suggest that she must have found the presence of so many strangers unwelcome, and perhaps had done well to go.
But he rested a moment at the door of the chalet for all that, and when he turned away neither of the others had the courage to mention the matter again.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE NIGHT MAIL