“Only Urquhart. I saw him last night,” said the young man.
“You'll be a Metternich yet, Willie,” replied Roderick. As young Lathrop belonged to the diplomatic service, he was dimly conscious that his friend's remark was in some fashion ironical. But Roderick waved him a flourishing adieu and swaggered out of the club.
A man met him on the steps.
“Seen Willie Lathrop lately?”
Roderick looked him squarely between the eyes.
“He 's a braying jackass,” he said.
Having thus conveyed an answer to the implied question and given vent to his anger at the same time, he hailed a cab and drove to Pont Street. It was a foggy, murky day. Already the lights had appeared in shop windows, and, where they streamed, the pavement and roadway glistened in brown slime. Impressionable to external surroundings, Roderick shivered and drew his fur coat closer round him. The world wore an air of hopeless depression. On such a day no human undertaking could prosper. It was only his intellectual contempt for superstition that restrained him from turning round and driving back to his club. The dreary stretch of Sloane Street seemed interminable. At last he arrived and was shown up to the drawing-room. Lady Milmo, Ella, and a lady visitor were having afternoon tea. He exerted himself to amuse in his usual way, but his efforts resulted in failure. When should he be able to see Ella alone? The lady visitor seemed resolved to outstay him. She plied him with questions concerning the Colony. He replied vaguely. Realisation of the project was a long way off. To start such a concern otherwise than on a sound financial basis was magnificent, but it was not business. He was thinking of a last appeal to the public. Ella listened, somewhat out of spirits. Roderick's pessimistic utterances argued loss of faith in the Colony. He caught her glance fixed upon him with perturbed questioning, and his depression deepened.
At last they were alone. He cleared his throat and plunged into the midst of things. Speech restored his confidence. He made an eloquent appeal. He loved her, worshipped her; the deferring of their marriage to an indefinite date was making his heart sick, robbing him of energy and the joy of life. Christmas it must be. He hinted at personages waiting for their marriage to subscribe largely to the fund. What had the marriage to do with it? Well, he was an artist, a Bohemian; his very class did not inspire confidence. But his marriage would set upon him the seal of irreproachable responsibility. He pleaded desperately, the restoration of the three thousand pounds being his paramount and imperative aim. His heart sank at the coldness with which she received his fervour. His ear detected the note of insincerity, to which he felt conscious she, too, was sensitive.
“I can't marry you yet, Roderick,” she said, at length, wearily. “I can't. It means too much.”
“Then you don't love me,” he exclaimed, starting to his feet. The old dramatic device did not succeed.