"It"s of no consequence," said Edward Henry, feeling in his pockets.
Having discovered therein a piece of paper he twisted it and rose to put it to the gas.
"Could you slip round to your bank and meet me at the station in the morning with the cash?" suggested Mr. Bryany.
"No, I couldn"t," said Edward Henry.
"Well, then, what--?"
"Here, you"d better take this," the "Card," reborn, soothed his host and, blowing out the spill which he had just ignited at the gas, he offered it to Mr. Bryany.
"What?"
"This, man!"
Mr. Bryany, observing the peculiarity of the spill, seized it and unrolled it--not without a certain agitation.
He stammered:
"Do you mean to say it"s genuine?"
"You"d almost think so, wouldn"t you?" said Edward Henry. He was growing fond of this reply, and of the enigmatic, playful tone that he had invented for it.
"But--"
"We may, as you say, look twice at a fiver," continued Edward Henry.
"But we"re apt to be careless about hundred-pound notes in this district. I daresay that"s why I always carry one."
"But it"s burnt!"
"Only just the edge. Not enough to harm it. If any bank in England refuses it, return it to me and I"ll give you a couple more in exchange. Is that talking?"
"Well, I"m dashed!" Mr. Bryany attempted to rise, and then subsided back into his chair. "I am simply and totally dashed!" He smiled weakly, hysterically.
And in that instant Edward Henry felt all the sweetness of a complete and luscious revenge.
He said commandingly:
"You must sign me a transfer. I"ll dictate it!"
Then he jumped up.
"You"re in a hurry?"
"I am. My wife is expecting me. You promised to find me a match."
Edward Henry waved the unlit cigarette as a reproach to Mr. Bryany"s imperfect hospitality.
IV
The clock of Bleakridge Church, still imperturbably shining in the night, showed a quarter to one when he saw it again on his hurried and guilty way home. The pavements were drying in the fresh night wind and he had his overcoat b.u.t.toned up to the neck. He was absolutely solitary in the long, muddy perspective of Trafalgar Road. He walked because the last tram-car was already housed in its shed at the other end of the world, and he walked quickly because his conscience drove him onwards. And yet he dreaded to arrive, lest a wound in the child"s leg should have maliciously decided to fester in order to put him in the wrong. He was now as apprehensive concerning that wound as Nellie herself had been at tea-time.
But, in his mind, above the dark gulf of anxiety, there floated brighter thoughts. Despite his fears and his remorse as a father, he laughed aloud in the deserted street when he remembered Mr. Bryany"s visage of astonishment upon uncreasing the note. Indubitably he had made a terrific and everlasting impression upon Mr. Bryany. He was sending Mr. Bryany out of the Five Towns a different man. He had taught Mr. Bryany a thing or two. To what brilliant use had he turned the purely accidental possession of a hundred-pound note! One of his finest inspirations--an inspiration worthy of the great days of his youth! Yes, he had had his hour that evening, and it had been a glorious one. Also, it had cost him a hundred pounds, and he did not care; he would retire to bed with a net gain of two hundred and forty-one pounds instead of three hundred and forty-one pounds--that was all!
For he did not mean to take up the option. The ecstasy was cooled now and he saw clearly that London and theatrical enterprises therein would not be suited to his genius. In the Five Towns he was on his own ground; he was a figure; he was sure of himself. In London he would be a provincial, with the diffidence and the uncertainty of a provincial.
Nevertheless, London seemed to be summoning him from afar off, and he dreamt agreeably of London as one dreams of the impossible East.
As soon as he opened the gate in the wall of his property he saw that the drawing-room was illuminated and all the other front rooms in darkness. Either his wife or his mother, then, was sitting up in the drawing-room. He inserted a cautious latch-key into the door and entered the silent home like a sinner. The dim light in the hall gravely reproached him. All his movements were modest and restrained.
No noisy rattling of his stick now!
The drawing-room door was slightly ajar. He hesitated, and then, nerving himself, pushed against it.
Nellie, with lowered head, was seated at a table, mending, the image of tranquillity and soft resignation. A pile of children"s garments lay by her side, but the article in her busy hands appeared to be an under-shirt of his own. None but she ever reinforced the b.u.t.tons on his linen. Such was her wifely rule, and he considered that there was no sense in it. She was working by the light of a single lamp on the table, the splendid chandelier being out of action. Her economy in the use of electricity was incurable, and he considered that there was no sense in that either.
She glanced up, with a guarded expression that might have meant anything.
He said:
"Aren"t you trying your eyes?"
And she replied:
"Oh, no!"
Then, plunging, he came to the point:
"Well, doctor been?"
She nodded.
"What does he say?"
"It"s quite all right. He did nothing but cover up the place with a bit of cyanide gauze."
Instantly, in his own esteem, he regained perfection as a father. Of course the bite was nothing! Had he not said so from the first? Had he not been quite sure throughout that the bite was nothing?
"Then why did you sit up?" he asked, and there was a faint righteous challenge in his tone.
"I was anxious about you. I was afraid--"
"Didn"t Stirling tell you I had some business?"
"I forget--"
"I told him to, anyhow.... Important business."
"It must have been," said Nellie, in an inscrutable voice.