"Tut—tut! If it is, not sending the letter at all will be suppressio of still more veri. You stick to what Challis asks for, and let him be responsible. Married couples, when they quarrel, are kittle cattle to shoe behind. Now we must say good-bye, or one of us will be late for lunch."
They had overshot the point at which the path diverged to the Rectory, and it was time to hark back. But before Judith was out of hearing the Rector called after her.
"Tell poor Challis I'm writing to him. I shall go and see him when I get up to town—some time next week. Good-bye!"
[CHAPTER XXXIII]
CHALLIS'S INSIPID RETURN HOME. WHAT HAD IT ALL BEEN, THIS DREAM? OLD LINKS WITH BYGONES. HOW CONFESS, AND TO WHAT? OF A FIRE GOD GAVE FOR OTHER ENDS
Mr. Challis gave Lord Felixthorpe's chauffeur half-a-sovereign when he was landed at the Station. This was because he stood in such awe of that great man that he doubted if so haughty a soul would brook a tip at all. However, it not only brooked it, but changed it immediately for nine shillings in silver and eightpence in coppers and a glass of bitters at the Barleymow, opposite the Station. So Challis felt easy, and wondered to himself that so small a matter should disquiet him, with all his great perplexities on hand. How on earth did Napoleon Bonaparte contrive to exist?
However, all the perplexities came back in force as soon as he was off; indeed, he was almost sorry no small distraction occurred during his flight home. For he was alone nearly all the way to Euston; the many who nearly entered his carriage seeming to condemn him on inspection, and choosing every other carriage on its merits. The porter who put his valise on a cab at the terminus seemed callous and preoccupied; and the driver, when told to go to the nearest Metropolitan Station, struck him as too unsympathetic when he said: "Which will you have—King's Cross or Gower Street? It don't make no difference to me," not without some imputation of weakness of character. Also, this cabman appeared to form a lower opinion of his fare when the latter chose Gower Street than he would have had he chosen King's Cross.
By the time Challis had described a large segment of the Inner Circle, and had waited a quarter of an hour at Gloucester Road for a Wimbledon train, he had resolved that nothing would ever induce him to try that route again. Then a distasteful thought struck him:—should he ever make the same journey again? "Much better not," said he to himself; and kept on repeating it to himself till he had found his seat in the Wimbledon train, the gear of which caught the phrase, and seemed to repeat it to itself all the way to East Putney.