Suspense (Complete)
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'If,' he said to himself, 'I can only find him ... sober ... I will manage the rest.'
Without doubt this silent man was ready to speak at last—to tear aside the veil of reserve, behind which he was wont to take refuge. And this to the eyes of Alice Huston's husband. His was a nature capable of immense self-sacrifice, and to this capability had been added an almost exaggerated sense of discipline. That which he thought right he would probably do—not on the spur of the moment, but with deliberate purpose, and without fear of subsequent regret.
As has been mentioned, he was never under the influence of sudden enthusiasm; and, as a rule, his errors arose more from too great conscientiousness in setting both sides of a question equally before his own judgment than from rash partisanship.
Even as he passed down the broad staircase, against a stream of gaily-dressed guests, he was mentally apologizing to Hicks for having harboured a vague feeling of dislike against him. If there had been any distinct motive for this dislike, he would never have withdrawn it, but he recognised that it was without ground. Hicks was not a man after his own heart; he was neither a sportsman nor a soldier—in fact, he was what is euphoniously called a 'muff'; but these charges were merely negative in their bearing. Mrs. Wylie might have told him that he had come into closer familiarity with Hicks at a propitious moment, when the young artist was finding his own level and laying aside unconsciously his small affectations one by one, but of this Trist had no suspicion.
He called a hansom, and drove to the club of which the books showed a subscription as due from Captain Huston. In return for this privilege its doors were still thrown open to the disgraced soldier. Careful inquiries at the door elicited the information that Huston had been there.
'He was took ... he went away with a friend a good half-hour ago, sir,' the porter added, with a curious smile.
The smile did not escape the questioner's glance, and, in consequence of it, Trist went upstairs to the smoking-room. He was not a member of the club, but his name was a power in military circles.
The information he gathered from friends upstairs was not of an encouraging nature. One young blade, with downy lip and weak, dissipated eyes, volunteered the statement that Huston had gone home to his diggings as tight as a drum. This news was apparently of an hilarious drift, because the youthful speaker finished with a roar of throaty laughter. An older man looked up over his evening paper, and nodded a grave acquiescence in reply to Trist's raised eyebrows.
