Presently the secretary returned to confer with Olive. Larssen had told him to keep in touch with her.
Clifford Matheson was once more John Rivière. He picked up his valise at the Avon Hotel and caught the first boat train for Germany. It took him to the Continent via Queenboro'—Flushing.
His thoughts on the railway journey to Queenboro' were very different to those which had filled his mind when he sped Calaiswards on his way to England. Then, he had felt as if he had just plunged into an ice-cold lake, and emerged tingling in every limb with the vigour of health renewed. The course before him had seemed straight; the issue clean-cut.
Now, he felt as if he had been tripped up and pushed bodily into a pool of mire.
Circumstances seemed more tangled than ever. Finality had not been reached either in regard to his relations towards his wife, towards Elaine, or towards Larssen; in regard to the Hudson Bay scheme, or in his regard to his future freedom for work on the lines he so earnestly desired. The whirlpool had sucked him back, and he was once more battling with swirling waters.
Out of all the welter of his thoughts one course became clearer and clearer. He must tell Elaine. He must put her in possession of the main facts of the situation which had developed in Larssen's office. That he could tell her without violating the spirit of his bargain with Olive was certain. He knew he could trust absolutely in Elaine's silence.
Till then—till he had told her—there was no definite line of action he could see as the one inevitable solution.
If the elements had seemed to bar his passage to London the day before, to-day they seemed to be calling welcome to him as train and boat sped him eastwards. The marshes of the Swale were almost a joyous emerald green under the sparkle of the sun in the early afternoon; the estuary of the Thames was alive with white and brown sail swelling full-bloodedly to the drive of a care-free, joyful breeze; torpedo-boats and destroyers sped in and out from Sheerness with the supple strength of greyhounds unleashed, tossing the blue waters in curling locks of foam from their bows; the open sea sparkled and glinted and danced with the joy of life in its veins.
At sundown, the sky behind the foaming wake of the packet was a blaze of glory. The sinking sun wove a cloth of gold on the halo of cloud about it, and circled the horizon with a belt of rose and opal. Gradually the gold faded into fiery purple, with arms of unbelievable green stretching out to clasp the round cup of ocean; the purple died away reluctantly like the drums of a triumphant march receding to a distance; night took sea and sky into her arms, and crooned to them a mother-song of rest.