“I have not been sleeping much in anything,” replied Trist, “and just at the moment a wash is what I require. After that some dinner.”
This served as an answer to Hicks, and an order to the waiter at the same time; and with a nod Trist passed on to the dressing-rooms.
“Where will Mr. Trist dine?” asked Hicks, turning to the waiter, and speaking somewhat sharply, as people do who fear the ridicule of their inferiors.
“At my table, sir!” with a certain air of possession.
“Then just move my plate … and things … to the same, will you?”
When the war-correspondent returned to the dining-room, he found Hicks established at the table where he invariably sat, and the waiter holding a chair in readiness for him with a face of the most complete stolidity. Without betraying either pleasure or annoyance, he took the proffered chair and attacked his soup in a businesslike way, which did not promise conversational leisure.
“In a deuce of a hurry, old man!” suggested the artist.
“Yes. Have to catch a train.”
“Going off to the East, I suppose?” asked Hicks carelessly.
With his shallow blue eyes persistently fixed on Trist’s face, he stroked his moustache daintily.
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“At eight-twenty,” replied Trist, meeting his gaze with gentle impatience.
“Ah! Lady Pearer was asking me the other day if you were there, or on the way to the seat of war.”
“Lady Pearer? Don’t know her,” observed Trist, with his mouth full of bread.
“She seemed to know you.”
The suggestion of a smile flickered across Trist’s face, but his entire attention was absorbed just then by a bony piece of turbot. He made no answer, and silently shelved the subject in a manner which was not strictly complimentary to Mr. Hicks’ fair and aristocratic friend.
The artist was one of those exceedingly pleasant persons who can never quite realize that their presence and conversation might, without serious inconvenience, be dispensed with. The mere fact of being seen in friendly intercourse with a person of his social distinction was, in his own simple heart, worthy of the consideration of greater men than Theodore Trist. In recounting the fact later, of his having dined with the celebrated war-correspondent on the eve of his departure for Bulgaria, he took exceeding great care to omit the mention of certain details. Moreover, he allowed it to be understood that the farewell feast was organized by Trist, and that there was some subtle political meaning in the hurried interview thus obtained.
“Trist,” he said, with a suggestion of melancholy, to Lady Pearer and other of his friends, “is a strange fellow. He has a peculiar repelling manner, which causes people to imagine that he is indifferent to them. Now, when I dined with him at the ‘Press’ the other night,” etc., etc.
Trist continued his dinner with that tranquillity of demeanour which marked his movements upon all occasions, but more especially, perhaps, when he was displeased or very much on the alert. The silence which followed the collapse of the Lady Pearer incident did not appear in the least irksome to him, whatever it may have been to his companion.
Hicks toyed with the rind of his late cheese, and wondered whether the novel bow of his voluminous dress-tie was straight.
“By the way,” he said at length, “have you not been in Norway with the Wylies?”
The young artist had at one time been a protégé of Mrs. Wylie’s, but her protection had been gradually withdrawn.
“The fair Brenda was with them, n’est-ce pas?”
Trist broke his bread with grave deliberation and looked stolid. After a momentary pause he raised his eyes to his companion’s face.
“Eh?” he murmured softly.
“Miss Gilholme,” explained the other, with an involuntary change of manner.
“Yes, she was there.”
“I thought,” reflected Hicks aloud, as he stroked his moustache contentedly, “that I remembered her telling me that she was going to Norway. How is she?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Is she any stouter?” with affectionate interest.
“I don’t know,” replied Trist suavely.
“Because,” continued the other in his best “private-view-of-the-Academy” style, “that is the only fault I have to find with her. Her figure is perfect, except that she is a trifle too slight—if you understand.”
“Indeed,” very gently.
“From an artistic point of view, of course,” explained Hicks with a graceful wave of his hand, full of modest deprecation. For some unknown reason a sudden sense of discomfort had come over him.
“Ah, I am not an artist … thank goodness!”
Hicks glanced uneasily across the table at his companion. There was something in the calm tone of his voice that was not quite natural, a peculiar thrill as if of some suppressed emotion which might have been laughter, but was more probably anger. William Hicks was not endowed with that species of brute courage which enables its possessor to enter boldly into controversy, wordy or otherwise. He was eminently a lover of peace, and for its gentle sake was ever ready to suppress pride, honour, or any other inconvenient passion likely to prove inimical to its preservation.
He had mixed with men and women of all shades and tastes. They were mostly affected, hypocritical, insincere, and utterly wearisome; but there is one virtue which we cannot help acquiring from contact with our fellow-beings, however silly, however shallow and profitless, their influence may be. This virtue is tact, and William Hicks possessed a sufficiency of it to smooth his own path through life. If he failed to use it for the benefit of others, neglected to render the footsteps of others less stony and less difficult, he was, perhaps, no worse in such respect than the majority of us.
He now began to perceive
