And so he left me planted open-mouthed upon the river bank.
CHAPTER XII
"GOOD-BYE, RHODA POLLY"
At Château Schneider I was received with tumultuary questioning on my return from the reed-beds. Where had I been? What had I been doing? I might easily have got my throat cut and no one would have been sorry. It was a scurvy trick I played them, slipping off like that. And so on—Hugh De venter being the loudest and most persistent.
"My friend in whom I trusted," was his cry. His grievance was not that I had broken bounds and would give no account of myself, but that I had sneaked off alone without giving him a chance to come along with me. However, a glance from Rhoda Polly and the smiling response of her eyes shut my ears to all this hubbub. She understood, and that was enough. I would, of course, tell her about it, making only a mental reservation in the little private matter of Jeanne Félix, and the spraying shadows which her long lashes cast on her eyes of purple-velvet. With a woman, there is no use of talking of another woman—not at least till the listener is well over fifty, and even then it must be done with circumspection.
But I knew my duty, and with another glance at Rhoda Polly I demanded to know where her father was, and in five minutes was sitting among the chimney-pots with that old fighter and captain of men stuffing a pipe bowl and preparing to listen. He nodded his head gravely when I told of my meeting with Gaston Cremieux. He grew restless as a caged beast himself when I described to him the hither-and-yon wolf's prowl of the sullen young men in front of the riding-school. But when I told him of the men's resolve to go at once to work, he rose suddenly to his feet with a shout.
"Jaikes, Irvin, Allerdyce, Brown, Macallister! Here!"
And at his cry these subordinates came running to him like dogs at the shepherd's whistle. Eagerness was in their faces, and confidence in their leader showed in their eyes.
"Young Cawdor has brought good news," he said. "The men are coming back. It may not be for long, but they are coming. They have taken the terms, and now I shall have to fight the masters single-handed. However, I can manage that. Run, fellows! Get the squads together. Set the furnaces going, and steam up in the boilers. It will be the easier for the men when they come in if they find everything ready for them. A few will troop in first in a non-committal way, then will set in a steady trickle of the secretly willing, and lastly the factory benches will fill up with a rush. In two days we will have the ateliers working at high pressure, and we may begin to send out our orders by Saturday."