"You're starting early," she remarked.
"I'm going a long way – right up to Hampstead. I've promised Harry to call on some people there."
"Ah! Who?"
"Their name's Carlin. He knows Mr. Carlin in business. Mr. Carlin's a friend of Mr. Ruston's."
"Oh, of Ruston's? I like that Ruston. He is interesting – inspiring."
"Is he?" said Mrs. Dennison, buttoning her glove. "You'd better marry him, Berthe."
"Marry him? No, indeed. I think he would beat one."
"Is that being inspiring? I'm glad Harry's not inspiring."
"Oh, you know what I mean. He's a man who – "
Mrs. Cormack threw up her arms as though praying for the inspired word. Mrs. Dennison did not wait for it.
"There's the carriage. Good-bye, dear," she said.
Mrs. Dennison started with a smile on her face. Berthe was so funny; she was like a page out of a French novel. She loved anything not quite respectable, and peopled the world with heroes of loose morals and overpowering wills. She adored a dominating mind and lived in the discovery of affinities. What nonsense it all was – so very remote from the satisfactory humdrum of real life. One kept house, and gave dinners, and made the children happy, and was fond of one's husband, and life passed most – Here Mrs. Dennison suddenly yawned, and fell to hoping that the Carlins would not be oppressively dull. She had been bored all day long; the children had been fretful, and poor Harry was hurt and in low spirits because of a cruel caricature in a comic paper, and Tom Loring had scolded her for laughing at the caricature (it hit Harry off so exactly), and nobody had come to see her, except a wretch who had once been her kitchenmaid, and had come to terrible grief, and wanted to be taken back, and of course couldn't be, and had to be sent away in tears with a sovereign, and the tears were no use and the sovereign not much.
The Carlins fortunately proved tolerably interesting in their own way. Carlin was about fifty-five – an acute man of business, it seemed, and possessed by an unwavering confidence in the abilities of Willie Ruston. Mrs. Carlin was ten or fifteen years younger than her husband – a homely little woman, with a swarm of children. Mrs. Dennison wondered how they all fitted into the small house, but was told that it was larger by two good rooms than their old dwelling in the country town, whence Willie had summoned them to take a hand in his schemes. Willie had not insisted on the coal business being altogether abandoned – as Mrs. Carlin said, with a touch of timidity, it was well to have something to fall back upon – but he required most of Carlin's time now, and the added work made residence in London a necessity. In spite of Mr. Carlin's air of hard-headedness, and his wife's prudent recognition of the business aspect of life, they neither of them seemed to have a will of their own. Willie – as they both called him – was the Providence, and the mixture of reverence and familiarity presented her old acquaintance in a new light to Maggie Dennison. Even the children prattled about "Willie," and their mother's rebukes made "Mr. Ruston" no more than a strange and transitory effort. Mrs. Dennison wondered what there was in the man – consulting her own recollections of him in hope of enlightenment.
"He takes such broad views," said Carlin, and seemed to find this characteristic the sufficient justification for his faith.
"I used to know him very well, you know," remarked Mrs. Dennison, anxious to reach a more friendly footing, and realising that to connect herself with Ruston offered the best chance of it. "I daresay he's spoken of me – of Maggie Sherwood?"
They thought not, though Willie had been in Carlin's employ at the time when he and Mrs. Dennison parted. She was even able, by comparison of dates, to identify the holiday in which that scene had occurred and that sentence been spoken; but he had never mentioned her name. She very much doubted whether he had even thought of her. The fool and the fool's wife had both been dismissed from his mind. She frowned impatiently. Why should it be anything to her if they had?
There was a commotion among the children, starting from one who was perched on the window-sill. Ruston himself was walking up to the door, dressed in a light suit and a straw hat. After the greetings, while all were busy getting him tea, he turned to Mrs. Dennison.
"This is very kind of you," he said in an undertone.
"My husband wished me to come," she replied.
He seemed in good spirits. He laughed, as he answered,
"Well, I didn't suppose you came to please me."
"You spoke as if you did," said she, still trying to resent his tone, which she thought a better guide to the truth than his easy disclaimer.
"Why, you never did anything to please me!"
"Did you ever ask me?" she retorted.
He glanced at her for a moment, as he began to answer,
"Well, now, I don't believe I ever did; but I – "
Mrs. Carlin interposed with a proffered cup of tea, and he broke off.
"Thanks, Mrs. Carlin. I say, Carlin, it's going first-rate. Your husband's help's simply invaluable, Mrs. Dennison."
"Harry?" she said, in a tone that she regretted a moment later, for there was a passing gleam in Ruston's eye before he answered gravely,
"His firm carries great weight. Well, we're all in it here, sink or swim; aren't we, Carlin?"
Carlin nodded emphatically, and his wife gave an anxious little sigh.
"And what's to be the end of it?" asked Mrs. Dennison.
"Ten per cent," said Carlin, with conviction. He could not have spoken with more utter satisfaction of the millennium.
"The end?" echoed Ruston. "Oh, I don't know."
"At least he won't say," said Carlin admiringly.
Mrs. Dennison rose to go, engaging the Carlins to dine with her – an invitation accepted with some nervousness, until the extension of it to Ruston gave them a wing to come under. Ruston, with that directness of his that shamed mere dexterity and superseded tact, bade Carlin stay where he was, and himself escorted the visitor to her carriage. Half-way down the garden walk she looked up at him and remarked,
"I expect you're the end."
His eyes had been wandering, but they came back sharply to hers.
"Then don't tell anybody," said he lightly.
She did not know whether what he said amounted to a confession or were merely a jest. The next moment he was off at a tangent.
"I like your friend Miss Ferrars. She says a lot of sharp things, and now and then something sensible."
"Now and then! Poor Adela!"
"Well, she doesn't often try. Besides, she's handsome."
"Oh, you've found time to notice that?"
"I notice that first," said Mr. Ruston.
They were at the carriage-door.
"I'm not dressed properly, so I mustn't drive with you," he said.
"Supposing that was the only reason," she replied, smiling, "would it stop you?"
"Certainly."
"Why?"
"Because of other fools."
"I'll take you as far as Regent's Park. The other fools are on the other side of that."
"I'll chance so far," and, waving his hand vaguely towards the house, he got in. It did not seem to occur to him that there was any want of ceremony in his farewell to the Carlins.
"I suppose," she said, "you think most of us fools?"
"I've been learning to think it less and to show it less still."
"You're not much changed, though."
"I've had some of my corners chipped off by collision with other hard substances."
"Thank you for that 'other'!" cried Mrs. Dennison, with a little laugh. "They must