The enclosure in Elaine's letter did not surprise him. If Larssen of his own accord offered to extend the truce until May 20th, it must mean that the shipowner was aware of his shaky position and ready to suggest compromise.
The effect of those three communications on Rivière's mind was what Larssen had so shrewdly planned. Rivière wired to his wife that he would meet her at Boulogne Harbour.
That evening he caught a Paris express with a through P.L.M. carriage for Boulogne. At the Gare de Lyon, in the early morning, they shunted him round the slow and tedious Girdle Railway to the Gare du Nord, clanked him on the boat train, and sped him northwards again in a revigorated burst of railway energy. North of Paris, a P.L.M. carriage undergoes a marked change of character. It deferentially subdues its nationality, and takes on an Anglo-American aspect. Harris-tweeded young men pitch golf-bags and ice-axes on the rack, and smoke bulldog pipes in its corridors with an air of easy proprietorship. American spinsters, scouring Europe in couples, order lunch in high-pitched American without troubling to translate. The few Frenchmen who find themselves in the train have almost the apologetic air of intruders.
While passing through the corridor of a second-class carriage, Rivière happened on the tubby little figure and rosy smiling countenance of Jimmy Martin the journalist. Martin never forgot a face or a name—it was part of his profession to make an unlimited acquaintanceship with everyone who might possibly "have a story to tell."
"Hail, sir!" said he cheerily. "You haven't forgotten the little sermon I had to preach to you on the infallibility of my owners, the Europe Chronicle?"
Rivière shook hands cordially. "I remember perfectly. You're going home on holiday, I expect?"
"I'm going home for good, praise be. I've sacked my owners. I told them that they were a set of unmitigated liars, scoundrels and bloodsuckers, and that I couldn't reconcile it with my conscience to work for them any longer without a 20 per cent. increase in pay. They demurred, and I promptly sacked them—having in my pocket an offer from a London paper. Thus we combine valour with prudence—a mixture which is more colloquially known as 'business.'"
"What's your new post?"
"Reporter for the London Daily Truth. If you've a story to tell at any time, and want a platform to speak from, 'phone me up."
"Thanks; I will."