He folded it up quickly for fear he should read more. “Why should it be funny?” he said to himself. The word haunted him all day.
Meanwhile Aunt Anne was deeply engaged. She was delighted with Florence’s unexpected gift; it would enable her to do a few things that only an hour or two ago she had felt to be impossible. She had not the least intention of paying Madame Celestine. She looked upon her as an inferior who must be content to wait till it was the pleasure of her superior to remember her bill, and any reminder of it she resented as a liberty. She spent a happy and very excited hour in Regent Street, and at eleven o’clock stood on the kerbstone critically looking for a hansom. She let several go by that did not please her; but at last with excellent instinct she picked out a good horse and a smart driver, and a minute later was whirling on towards Waterloo Station. She liked driving in hansoms; she was of opinion that they were well constructed, a great improvement on older modes of conveyance, and that it was the positive duty of people in a certain rank of life to encourage all meritorious achievements with their approval. She never for a moment doubted that she was one of those whose approval was important. She felt her own individuality very strongly, and was convinced that the world recognized it. She was keenly sensible of making effects, and it was odd, but for all her eccentricities, there was in her the making of a great lady; or it might have seemed to a philosophical speculator that she was made of the worn-out fragments of some past great lady, and dimly remembered at intervals her former importance. She had perfect control over her manner, and could use it to the best advantage; she had reserve, a power of keeping off familiarity, a graciousness, a winsomeness when she chose, that all belonged to a certain type and a certain class. As she went on swiftly to the station she looked half-disdainfully, yet compassionately, at the people who walked and the people who passed in omnibuses. She told herself that the last were excellent institutions, she wondered what the lower class would do without them; it rejoiced her to think that they had not got to do without them, it was a satisfaction to feel that she could enjoy her own superior condition without compunction.
At Waterloo, with an air of decision that showed a perfect knowledge of her own generosity, she gave the cabman sixpence over his fare and walked slowly into the station. She looked up and down the platform from which the Portsmouth train would depart, but saw no one she knew. She stood for a moment hesitating, and winked slowly to herself. Then she went to the bookstall and bought a Times and a Morning Post. The one cost threepence and the other was fashionable. She disliked penny papers. Again her mania for present-giving asserted itself, and quickly she bought also a pile of illustrated papers and magazines. “Gentlemen always like the Field,” she said to herself, and added it to the heap. She turned away with them in her arms, and as she did so Alfred Wimple stood facing her.
“I have ventured to get you a few papers, hoping they would beguile you on your journey,” she said.
Mr. Wimple was as grave as ever and as rickety on his legs. His face showed no sign of pleasure at the sight of the old lady, but his manner was deferential; he seemed to be trying to impress certain indefinite facts upon her.
“I never read in a train,” he answered, “but I shall be glad of them at the end of the journey. Thank you.”
He said the last two words with a sigh, and put them in the corner he had already secured of the railway carriage. He looked at the clock. Twenty minutes before he started. He seemed to consider something for a moment, looking critically at the old lady while he did so.
“Cannot I persuade you to give me your address in Hampshire?” He coughed a little. “Have you your glycerine lozenges with you?” she asked hurriedly.
“Yes,” he answered, “they are in my pocket. I will write to you, Mrs. Baines; I may have something of importance to say.”