THE WHEELS OF CHANCE
momentary pause. Who would be Hoopdriver on a night like this?
"But the Christian name?"
"Christian name? My Christian name. Well—Chris." He snapped his lamp and stood up. "If you will hold my machine, I will light yours," he said.
She came round obediently and took his machine, and for a moment they stood face to face. "My name, brother Chris," she said, "is Jessie."
He looked into her eyes, and his excitement seemed arrested. "Jessie," he repeated slowly. The mute emotion of his face affected her strangely. She had to speak. "It's not such a very wonderful name, is it?" she said, with a laugh to break the intensity.
He opened his mouth and shut it again, and, with a sudden wincing of his features, abruptly turned and bent down to open the lantern in front of her machine. She looked down at him, almost kneeling in front of her, with an unreasonable approbation in her eyes. It was, as I have indicated, the hour and season of the full moon.
XXV
Mr. Hoopdriver conducted the rest of that night's journey with the same confident dignity as before, and it was chiefly by good luck and the fact that most roads about a town converge thereupon, that Chichester was at last attained. It seemed at first as though every one had gone to bed, but the Red Hotel still glowed yellow and warm. It was the first time Hoopdriver had dared the mysteries of a "first-class"
120
