He did not apologize for having nearly deafened her; it never occurred to him that anybody could be upset by the pleasantly familiar racket of fire-arms. Nor did he ever notice that he walked much too fast for her—although he bowed like a Spanish hidalgo as he stood aside for her to pass through chop-house doors, handed her into hansom cabs as if she were a princess, and often looked at her across soiled tablecloths with the eyes of a mediæval knight kneeling before the shrine of his patron saint. And perhaps Miss Verinder’s most exquisite bliss lay in her recognition of the fact that, beyond thinking her the loveliest of created things, beyond thinking her his counsellor and moral supporter, he instinctively regarded her as a comrade and a pal. Merely for dashing about the city, there was not a man in the world—and, scattered about the earth, there were, as she knew, many men for whom he had a great tenderness—there was not one that he would have preferred as companion to his staunchly trotting breathless little Emmie.
One day she met the captain of the ship on which Dyke was to sail, and the three of them had a delightful intimate luncheon in a remarkable eating-house with low beamed ceilings, panelled walls, and partitions surrounding each of the tables—a place, it was said, exactly the same as it had been in the time of Mr. Pickwick and little changed since the time of Dr. Johnson. It was hot, full of loud voices and oppressive kitchen smells; but Miss Verinder ate with appetite, being astonished to discover the charm afforded by grilled steak, tomatoes, and Worcestershire sauce, when you happen to be very hungry as well as very much in love. She liked Captain Cairns, a short but enormously strong man of fifty, with grizzled beard, and face and hands the colour of the woodwork that perhaps had seen Dr. Johnson and faithful Boswell. Captain Cairns inspired confidence; her Anthony would be safe with him. She was pleased, moreover, to observe his profound regard and admiration, when he spoke of Dyke’s famous deeds.
“One of my oldest and loyalest friends,” Dyke himself had said of him.
“Oh, Miss Verinder,” said the captain, “it does make me that angry when folks cast doubt on his discoveries. Pack o’ silly stay-at-home fools. I saw a bit in the newspaper the other day actually sneering at what he’d seen with his own eyes—those pigmies at Patagonia, Tony—you know—and the remnants of them temples in the Andes. Has he ever said what isn’t true? Oh, it makes me fair mad, when they go on like that—in print, too”; and Captain Cairns grew warm in his genuine disgust and indignation. “Not fit to clean his boots, they aren’t.”
Miss Verinder said that the incredulity of Mr. Dyke’s critics had made her very angry also.
“What does it matter?” said Dyke grandly. “Wasn’t Columbus doubted? We’re prepared for that sort of thing. It all comes right—we get our due at long last. Calumny and suspicion, perhaps, as long as we’re alive, but a piece of sculpture and a brass plate, a tomb in St. Paul’s or the Abbey, when the last cruise is done.”
“Oh, don’t speak like that”; and Miss Verinder shivered.
The industrious city clerks did not linger over their meal; the room grew nearly empty; but Dyke and the captain sat smoking cigars and talking of the cargo. She listened with unabated interest and puffed at a cigarette—one of the queer Spanish cigarettes given to her by Dyke. To smoke was a new accomplishment, and she was not yet very good at it, coughing occasionally, and blowing out when she meant to suck in. But she gloried in it, because it seemed to bring her closer still to him.
Captain Cairns, it appeared, had himself a share in the cargo; and it appeared further that a small portion of the cargo was for Uruguay and not for the Argentine. This consisted of bicycles and bicycle parts.