On the Thursday he had told Maggie, with affected casualness, that on
the Friday he might have to go to London, about a new machine. Sheer
invention! Fortunately Maggie had been well drilled by her father in
the manner proper to women in accepting announcements connected with
`business.' And Edwin was just as laconic and mysterious as Darius had
been about `business.' It was a word that ended arguments, or prevented
them. On the Friday he had said that he should go in the afternoon. On
being asked whether he should return on the Saturday, he had replied
that he did not know, but that he would telegraph. Whereupon Maggie had
said that if he stayed away for the week-end she should probably have
all the children up for dinner and tea. At the shop, "Stifford," he had
said, "I suppose you don't happen to know a good hotel in Brighton? I
might run down there for the week-end if I don't come back to-morrow.
But you needn't say anything." "No, sir," Stifford had discreetly
concurred in this suggestion. "They say there's really only one hotel
in Brighton, sir--the Royal Sussex. But I've never been there." Edwin
had replied: "Not the Metropole, then?" "Oh _no_, sir!" Stifford had
become a great and wonderful man, and Edwin's constant fear was that he
might lose this indispensable prop to his business. For Stifford,
having done a little irregular commercial travelling in Staffordshire
and the neighbouring counties, had been seised of the romance of
travelling; he frequented the society of real commercial travellers, and
was gradually becoming a marvellous encyclopaedia of information about
hotels, routes, and topography.
Edwin having been to the Bank himself, instead of sending Stifford, had
departed with the minimum of ostentation. He had in fact crept away.
Since the visit of Janet and the child he had not seen either of them
again, nor had he mentioned the child to anybody at all.
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