After his journey up from Dover, Shelton was still fathering his luggage at Charing Cross, when the foreign girl passed him, and, in spite of his desire to say something cheering, he could get nothing out but a shame-faced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurly-burly; one of his bags had gone astray, and so all thought of her soon faded from his mind. His cab, however, overtook the foreign vagrant marching along towards Pall Mall with a curious, lengthy stride--an observant, disillusioned figure.
The first bustle of installation over, time hung heavy on his hands.
July loomed distant, as in some future century; Antonia's eyes beckoned him faintly, hopelessly. She would not even be coming back to England for another month.
. . . I met a young foreigner in the train from Dover [he wrote to her]--a curious sort of person altogether, who seems to have infected me. Everything here has gone flat and unprofitable; the only good things in life are your letters . . . . John Noble dined with me yesterday; the poor fellow tried to persuade me to stand for Parliament. Why should I think myself fit to legislate for the unhappy wretches one sees about in the streets? If people's faces are a fair test of their happiness, I' d rather not feel in any way responsible . . . .
The streets, in fact, after his long absence in the East, afforded him much food for thought: the curious smugness of the passers-by;the utterly unending bustle; the fearful medley of miserable, over-driven women, and full-fed men, with leering, bull-beef eyes, whom he saw everywhere--in club windows, on their beats, on box seats, on the steps of hotels, discharging dilatory duties; the appalling choas of hard-eyed, capable dames with defiant clothes, and white-cheeked hunted-looking men; of splendid creatures in their cabs, and cadging creatures in their broken hats--the callousness and the monotony!
One afternoon in May he received this letter couched in French:
3, BLANK ROW
WESTMINSTER.
MY DEAR SIR, Excuse me for recalling to your memory the offer of assistance you so kindly made me during the journey from Dover to London, in which Iwas so fortunate as to travel with a man like you. Having beaten the whole town, ignorant of what wood to make arrows, nearly at the end of my resources, my spirit profoundly discouraged, I venture to avail myself of your permission, knowing your good heart. Since I saw you I have run through all the misfortunes of the calendar, and cannot tell what door is left at which I have not knocked. I presented myself at the business firm with whose name you supplied me, but being unfortunately in rags, they refused to give me your address.
Is this not very much in the English character? They told me to write, and said they would forward the letter. I put all my hopes in you.
Believe me, my dear sir, (whatever you may decide)Your devoted LOUIS FERRAND.
Shelton looked at the envelope, and saw, that it, bore date a week ago. The face of the young vagrant rose before him, vital, mocking, sensitive; the sound of his quick French buzzed in his ears, and, oddly, the whole whiff of him had a power of raising more vividly than ever his memories of Antonia. It had been at the end of the journey from Hyeres to London that he had met him; that seemed to give the youth a claim.
He took his hat and hurried, to Blank Row. Dismissing his cab at the corner of Victoria Street he with difficulty found the house in question. It was a doorless place, with stone-flagged corridor--in other words, a "doss-house." By tapping on a sort of ticket-office with a sliding window, he attracted the attention of a blowsy woman with soap-suds on her arms, who informed him that the person he was looking for had gone without leaving his address.
"But isn't there anybody," asked Shelton, "of whom I can make inquiry?""Yes; there's a Frenchman." And opening an inner door she bellowed:
"Frenchy! Wanted!" and disappeared.
A dried-up, yellow little man, cynical and weary in the face, as if a moral steam-roller had passed over it, answered this call, and stood, sniffing, as it were, at Shelton, on whom he made the singular impression of some little creature in a cage.
"He left here ten days ago, in the company of a mulatto. What do you want with him, if I may ask?" The little man's yellow cheeks were wrinkled with suspicion.
Shelton produced the letter.
"Ah! now I know you"--a pale smile broke through the Frenchman's crow's-feet--"he spoke of you. 'If I can only find him,' he used to say, 'I 'm saved.' I liked that young man; he had ideas.""Is there no way of getting at him through his consul?"The Frenchman shook his head.
"Might as well look for diamonds at the bottom of the sea.""Do you think he will come back here? But by that time I suppose, you'll hardly be here yourself?"A gleam of amusement played about the Frenchman's teeth:
"I? Oh, yes, sir! Once upon a time I cherished the hope of emerging;I no longer have illusions. I shave these specimens for a living, and shall shave them till the day of judgment. But leave a letter with me by all means; he will come back. There's an overcoat of his here on which he borrowed money--it's worth more. Oh, yes; he will come back--a youth of principle. Leave a letter with me; I'm always here."Shelton hesitated, but those last three words, "I'm always here,"touched him in their simplicity. Nothing more dreadful could be said.
"Can you find me a sheet of paper, then?" he asked; "please keep the change for the trouble I am giving you.""Thank you," said the Frenchman simply; "he told me that your heart was good. If you don't mind the kitchen, you could write there at your ease."Shelton wrote his letter at the table of this stone-flagged kitchen in company with an aged, dried-up gentleman; who was muttering to himself; and Shelton tried to avoid attracting his attention, suspecting that he was not sober. Just as he was about to take his leave, however, the old fellow thus accosted him:
