Sir George Tressady — Volume II by Ward, Humphry, Mrs., 1851-1920

He sat solitary in his brilliantly lit carriage, staring at the advertisements opposite, his long chin thrust forward, his head, with its fair curls, thrown moodily back. And all the time his mind was working with an appalling clearness. This cold light, in which he was beginning to see his wife and all she did--it was already a tragedy.

What was he flying to, what was he in search of--there in the East End? His whole being flung the answer. A little sympathy, a little heart, a little tenderness and delicacy of soul!--nothing else. He had once taken it for granted that every woman possessed them in some degree. Or, was it only since he had found them in this unexampled fulness and wealth that he had begun to thirst for them in this way? He made himself face the question. "One needn't lie to oneself!"

At Aldgate, as he was making his way out of the station, he stumbled upon Edward Watton.

"Hullo! You bound for No. 20, too?"

"No; there is no function to-night. Lady Maxwell is at a meeting. It has grown rather suddenly from small beginnings, and two days ago they made her promise to speak. I came down because I am afraid of a row. Things are beginning to look ugly down here, and I don't think she has much idea of it. Will you come?"

"Of course."

Watton looked at him with an amused and friendly eye.

It was another instance of her power--that she had been able to bind even this young enemy to her chariot-wheels. He hoped Letty had the sense to approve! As a matter of fact, Watton had never, by his own choice, become well acquainted with his cousin Letty, and had always secretly marvelled at Tressady's sudden marriage.

CHAPTER XIV

The two men were soon on the top of the Mile End Road tramcar, on their way eastward. It was a hot, dull evening. The setting sun behind them was already swallowed up in mist, and the heavy air held down and made palpable all the unsavoury odours of street and shop. Before them stretched the wide, interminable road which was once the highway from the great city to Colchester and East Anglia. A broad and comely thoroughfare on the whole, save that from end to end it has now the dyed and patched look that an old village street inevitably puts on when it has been swallowed up by the bricks and mortar of an overtaking town.