“Meaning no offence,” said Denham, with a scrap of mock humility; “but I find I made a mistake. It was at one of the stations on this line I met Mrs. Curtis, that was my blunder. I forgot till I came here to-day, when it suddenly flashed across me, that it was here or somewhere near. I hope I have not caused you any anxiety.”
“Not at all,” said Arthur, with a blank countenance, which his diplomatic experience had taught him to wear when he chose; but then Denham was a brother of the trade, and it was scarcely worth while wasting it on him. “My—wife’s family lived near. It is very natural that you should have met her hereabouts. I thought it a mistake, you may remember.”
“Ah, did you? I did not recollect. I thought I might have been giving you deluding information. I hope you have good reports?”
He did not know what to say. He was a dealer in gossip, and would have given much to hear the full details of this separation, especially now when he was on the verge of half-a-dozen country houses; but at the same time he did not want to worry the man whom he was sorry for, by betraying his partial knowledge of the facts. He had made a great deal of Nancy in Paris, betraying her peculiarities, her ignorance to many admiring listeners, and he would have liked a second chapter, which probably would have amused society still more. But he did not want to affront Arthur or wound his feelings. What could he say? ought he to make believe that he had never heard anything? or delicately that there was a something, a mist of report, which he knew?
“Perfectly,” said Arthur, with cold self-restraint. “I am going to her now. Her mother, to whom she was much attached, is lately dead.”
“Oh, really!” said Denham; and he watched the young man’s face with keen scrutiny. Fortunately, he himself was not going by the train which went to Underhayes. He accompanied Arthur to the door of his carriage, and stood there talking. “My hommages to Mrs. Curtis,” he said, “I daresay she has forgotten me; but lay me at her feet, Curtis, all the same. One does not easily forget a face like hers; you won’t mind me saying so much?”
“Oh no—surely not;” said Arthur, smiling. He put himself into a corner of the train, glad to escape the other’s eyes. No, there were not many such faces as hers. Then, all suddenly, her aspect as she sat in the little Victoria in the Bois, that cold bright winter day, came up before him, he could not tell how; how bright she had looked! no wonder that Denham said one did not easily forget such a face. Her husband had been trying to forget it for two years, and now, the moment he had suspended that effort, how it came back! And where was she, where was he to find her? How slowly the train seemed to go! Might she be visible perhaps somewhere on one of the crowded railway platforms which they passed, where Denham had seen her? He gazed out anxiously whenever they stopped. Why should it be Denham, Denham! who cared nothing about her, that had seen her, and not Arthur, to whom such a meeting would have been new life? This was what was called providential; but what strange mistakes—mistakes that the poorest clerk in an office would be discharged if he made—were set down to Providence. If he had but met her, and not Denham, what trouble might have been spared!
It was about noon when he reached Underhayes; and he went direct, remembering what Durant had written, to the shop of Raisins, the grocer. Sarah Jane was dusting her drawing-room, when her maid brought her word that a gentleman wanted to see her. It was her pleasure, and not necessity (she liked people to know this), that made her dust the drawing-room herself. Servants were negligent, they chipped the china ornaments, and were not half particular enough about the gilding; but Sarah Jane had nearly completed this self-imposed task. She put down the long feather brush which she had been using in a corner, and took off her housemaid’s gloves.
“Show the gentleman in,” she said, with some grandeur; but when she saw who it was, Sarah Jane screamed out with surprise and excitement. “Arthur!” she cried. She was almost as much startled as if he had come back from the dead.
“Where is Nancy?” he said. He had got into such a state of excitement now that he forgot all preliminaries, and plunged at once into the subject which interested himself.