Part 25 (2/2)

Jones had risen to his feet.

”Who's gone?”

”Teresa--gone with Maniloff.”

He sat down. Then she blazed out.

”Are you going to do nothing--are you going to sit there and let us all be disgraced? She's gone--she's going--to Paris. It was through her maid I learned it; she's gone from the hotel by this--gone with Maniloff--are you deaf or simply stupid? You _must_ follow her.”

He rose.

”Follow her now, follow her and get her back, there is just a chance.

They are going to the Bristol. The maid told everything--I will go with you. There is a train at nine o'clock from Victoria, you have only just time to catch it.”

”I have no money,” said Jones, feeling in his pockets distractedly, ”only about four pounds.”

”I have,” replied she, ”and our car is at the door--are you afraid, or is it that you don't mind?”

”Come on,” said Jones.

He rushed into the hall, seized a hat and overcoat, and next minute was buried in a stuffy limousine with Venetia's sharp elbow poking him in the side.

He was furious.

There are people who seem born for the express purpose of setting other people by the ears. Venetia was one of them. Despite Voles, Mulhausen, debts and want of balance one might hazard the opinion that it was Venetia who had driven the unfortunate Rochester to his mad act.

The prospect of a journey to Paris with this woman in pursuit of another man's wife was bad enough, but it was not this prospect that made Jones furious, though a.s.sisting. No doubt, it was Venetia herself.

She raised the devil in him, and on the journey to the station, though she said not a word, she managed to raise his exasperation with the world, herself, himself and his vile position to the limit just below the last.--The last was to come.

At the station they walked through the crowd to the booking-office where Venetia bought the tickets. Reminiscences of being taken on journeys as a small boy by his mother flitted across the mind of Jones and did not improve his temper.

He looked at the clock. It wanted twenty minutes of the starting time and he was in the act of evading a barrow of luggage when Venetia arrived with the tickets.

It had come into the mind of Jones that not only was he travelling to Paris with the Hon. Venetia Birdbrook, in pursuit of the wife of another man, but that they were travelling without luggage. If, in Philadelphia, he had dreamt of himself in such a position he would have been disturbed as to the state of his health and the condition of his liver, yet now, in reality, the thing did not seem preposterous, he was concerned as to the fact about the want of luggage.

”Look here,” said he, ”what are we to do--I haven't even a night-suit of pyjamas. I haven't even a toothbrush. No hotel will take us in.”

”We don't want an hotel,” said Venetia, ”we'll come back straight if we can save Teresa. If not, if she insists in pursuing her mad course, you had better not come back at all. Come on and let us take our places in the train.”

They moved away and she continued.

”For if she does you will never be able to hold up your head again, everyone knows how you have behaved to her.”

”Oh, stop it,” said he irritably. ”I have enough to think about.”

”You ought to.”

<script>