Throughout these reflections I have no intention of following him, but they seemed less gloomy and miserable than might be conceived possible under the circumstances. His eye was clear and determined, his mouth set firmly, and now and then he smiled sadly to himself—just as he had smiled in the presence of the Bishop.
The express reached London in about six hours, so that it was evening when Bradley arrived at King’s Cross, carrying with him only a small hand-bag. Instead of hailing a cab, he walked right on along the streets—through Taviton Street to Russell Square, thence into Holborn, and thence, across Lincoln’s Inn Fields, into the Strand. He then turned off towards the Temple, which he entered with the air of one who knew its quiet recesses well.
He was turning into Pump Court when he suddenly came face to face with a man of about thirty, elegantly dressed, with faultless gloves and boots, and carrying a light cane. He was very fresh and fair-complexioned, with sandy whiskers and moustaches; and to complete his rather dandified appearance he sported an eyeglass.
‘Cholmondeley!’ cried the clergyman, pronouncing it ‘Chumley’ according to the approven mode.
‘Ambrose Bradley!’ returned the other. ‘Is it possible? Why, I thought you were hundreds of miles away.’
‘I came up here by the express, and was just coming to see you.’
‘Then come along with me and dine at the “Reform.”’
They looked a strange contrast as they walked on side by side—the powerful, gravelooking man, shabbily attired in his semiclerical dress, and the elegant exquisite attired in the height of London fashion, with his mild blue eye and his eyeglass in position. Yet John Cholmondeley was something more than the mere ornamental young person he appeared; and as for his mildness, who that had read his savage articles on foreign politics in the ‘Bi-monthly Review’ would have taken him for a harmless person? He was a Positivist of Positivists, an M.A. of Oxford, and the acting-editor of the ‘Charing Cross Chronicle.’
His literary style was hysterical and almost feminine in its ferocity. Personally he was an elegant young man, with a taste for good wines and good cigars, and a tendency in external matters to follow the prevailing fashion.
They drove to the ‘Reform’ in a hansom, and dined together. At the table adjoining theirs on one side two Cabinet Ministers were seated in company with Jack Bustle, of the ‘Chimes,’ and Sir Topaz Cromwell, the young general just returned from South Africa; at the table on the other side an Under-Secretary of State was giving a little feast to Joseph Moody, the miners’ agent and delegate, who had been a miner himself, and who was just then making some stir in political circles by his propaganda.