"I," he answered. "I am a temporary aggregation of molecules, or, let us say, electrons. By and by we shall find another word to express the infinitely little--or the infinitely great----"
Here a shrill whistle from the speaking-tube made Helen start and Peter Ramsay smile. "That, I'll bet, will be the infinitely little."
He leant over to listen, and his face hardened. "I must go--an old man, apparently in a fit, brought in from the street. Good-bye, Mrs.
Tressilian. I'll try and save _his_ life anyhow."
She lingered on in the room for a while after he had left it, laying an orderly hand almost unconsciously here and there, and feeling that, had she dared, she would like to have gone into his bedroom beyond, and seen if there were any buttons on the back of his shirts. She remembered having heard him ask the matron for the loan of a safety--pin; that looked ominous.
He, meanwhile, going hastily into the surgery, saw a white-haired figure lying flat on the table, and, having the gift of swift diagnosis, called as he entered,
"Prop him up, please--and--dresser--amyl, sharp."
Held back thus by swift help from sinking down to perfect rest, the weary heart rallied, and after a time the old man's set face wavered, he opened his large, pale-blue eyes, and looked about him.
Then the doctor looked about him also. "Hullo! Cruttenden," he said, "you here?"
"I brought him in," replied Ted Cruttenden; "he was speaking to some work-people in the street when he collapsed."
"If you know his friends, you had better send for them to take him home--he ought not to go alone."
The patient was by this time able to smile. Lying back on the pillow, he looked extraordinarily frail and refined, and his voice, urbane to a degree, matched his appearance.
"Friends!" he echoed. "I have none. I left friendship behind me--with other things--years ago."
"Then, if you know no one, you'd better stop here," suggested Peter Ramsay brusquely.
"I said nothing of knowledge, sir," replied the old man; "I know many, and every one knows me. I am Sylvanus Smith."
Dr. Ramsay glanced swiftly at Ted Cruttenden, as if to refresh a casual memory. "Sylvanus Smith," he echoed. "Oh yes! I remember. Then you live near Dinas, and have a beautiful granddaughter--and--and you know Cruttenden?"
Mr. Sylvanus Smith sat up, and flushed a delicate pink. "Excuse me; neither of those qualifications have any bearing on the question. I am President of the Social Congress, and I do happen to have a slight acquaintance with this gentleman. I have to thank you, sir. I saw you amongst my audience, and I presume----"
"Not at all--not at all," interrupted Ted. "If you like, Dr. Ramsay, I will see him home."
As he said the words, he knew that here was a stroke of luck. Without in any way infringing on his compact with Ned Blackborough, here was an opportunity of ingratiating himself with Aura's legal guardian. He would be a fool not to take it, a fool not to make the very most of it.
And yet when, a whole week afterwards, the old man, leaning out of the through carriage to Wales, in which Ted had placed him duly fortified with papers and egg sandwiches, shook him warmly by the hand, saying, "Then you will come to Cwmfairnog at Christmas." The words brought a distinct feeling of meanness to the hearer. Ned Blackborough would have to go alone to the inn. That was not what had been intended; but then the whole business was absurd. He had a great mind to back out of it altogether. And here the swift thought came, that from what he had seen of Mr. Sylvanus Smith, a lordling would have scantier grace than a commoner; so that it might be as well if Ned----
A twinge of remorse had to be stilled by the recollection that everything was fair in love and war, and by heaven--no one could love Aura better than he did. No! no one!
Of course, he would have been a fool not to take the luck sent him, and he was a still greater fool to feel that there was in it any stealing of a march on Ned Blackborough.
What would Hirsch say? For, ever since he had given himself up soul and body to that great man, he had formed a habit of referring to him as his standard of conduct. The result here was that Ted positively blushed at his own scruples.
No, if--there was any unpleasantness--it would be better to end the compact, and let them each do their best on their own footing.
His was very different to what it had been five months ago. There was nothing now to prevent his being as rich as Ned Blackborough; or, in the future, having such a title as his. For at bottom, all things were a question of money. That he had learnt from Mr. Hirsch. A quick wave of eager ambition sent the young blood tingling to the finger-tips. He felt glad he might have to fight fair for the girl he loved. Besides, it would be so much fairer on her. She ought not to be deceived. This highly moral thought brought with it such a sense of conscious virtue as sent him back to his office thinking deliberately how Hirsch would admire Aura when he saw her--in pink satin and diamonds of course.
CHAPTER XII
Ned Blackborough had been to the Mountains of the Moon; at least so he told his cousin when he drove her out from the hospital to New Park the very day of his arrival at home.
"Call it the Mountains of the Moon, my dear," he had said, "it sounds definite and may mean so much--or so little."
This was about a week before Christmas. It gave promise of being a hard one, for a slight sprinkling, more of frost than snow, lay on the roads, and the horses' roughened hoofs echoed cheerfully through the keen air. It was exhilarating, Helen felt, after those long months at the hospital broken only by dull constitutionals. She had begun these by setting her face always to the country; but after a time the long rows of workmen's houses, the dreary muddiness of gravel side-walkings, the intolerable admixture of bricks and bakers' carts had driven her back to wander aimlessly through crowded streets. There she could at any rate see civilisation, pure and undefiled by attempts after the Garden of Eden!
So this was joy. The hedgerows were black with unutterable soot, the sky was grey with smoke, but the birds were twittering among the smutty hips and haws, and overhead a flight of cawing rooks made the grey seem light by their blackness.
She looked round for sympathy to Ned, and was struck by his face.
"You're looking awfully well, Ned," she remarked; "What have you been doing to yourself? You look a perfect boy."
He laughed.
"Having a good time. I found an old man--but that passes. Meanwhile I expect I shall require some healthful calm. My manager tells me the business has been going to pot since I've been away. I shall have to interfere myself, I expect, but that won't be till after Christmas.
How's Ramsay getting on?"
Helen looked a trifle stiff. "You had better ask him yourself, you will see him when you drive me back; I only know that he has resigned his appointment."
"So he wrote me. Had a row apparently with the Governing Body--that was ill advised."
"Very," said Helen coolly, "but then Dr. Ramsay has no tact, and is a very obstinate person. Is that New Park? You know I have never been here before."
Ned Blackborough shot a faintly amused glance at her. "It is New Park.
Did you ever see an inheritance more calculated to make a man cut his throat?"
It was indeed unexpressibly dreary in its long pompous facade of regularly recessed windows, each with its sham pilasters and heavy entablature.
"It always seems as if it had a sick headache, and it gives me one to look at it. It's a fact," added Ned, as Helen laughed. "It is positively more hideous than--than the Sea View Hotel. I hear, by the way, they have rebuilt that. Have you heard anything more of Hirsch since then?"
Helen gave a fine flush. "He comes down to Blackborough on business.
And I have seen him. He is really frightfully distressed because I will not let him pay back that money. Last time he nearly wept."
"He wept because he could not understand," paraphrased Ned. "It is not his fault. It is astonishing how little sense of abstract justice and fairness people have as a rule. They're so set on mercy and loving-kindness that they forget the eye-for-an-eye, the tooth-for-a-tooth ideal. Well, here we are. The house is not quite so bad inside, but it is pretty awful."
It was, though it had been built and upholstered to order regardless of cost. Still there was a certain comfort in the dull red flock of its walls, the dull red fleece of its floors, and when once you reached it, the fire lit up the marvellous expanse of priceless tiles, and steel, and ormulu, and bronze, cheerfully enough.
"Don't try and sit on any of those chairs," said Ned, "they're screwed to their places, I believe. Here's a basket one of mine; and will you pour out tea?"
Yet it was pleasant enough sitting there by the fire in the growing dusk, and Ned's heart gave a great throb as he thought of Aura in her blue smock walking unconcernedly over the priceless pile carpets as if they had been Kidderminster. And she would be right. When she was there all other things sank into insignificance.
"It's terribly big," said Helen. "You ought to marry, Ned."
"I suppose I ought," he replied solemnly, but his thoughts were simply running riot over the suggestion; "it is too big for one."