The psychological effect of such a state of things is not difficult
to realize. Take a man of naturally quixotic temperament, a man of
chivalrous instincts and a feeling for romance, and cut him off for
five years from the exercise of those qualities, and you get an
accumulated store of foolishness only comparable to an escape of
gas in a sealed room or a cellarful of dynamite. A flicker of a
match, and there is an explosion.
This girl's tempestuous irruption into his life had supplied flame
for George. Her bright eyes, looking into his, had touched off the
spiritual trinitrotoluol which he had been storing up for so long.
Up in the air in a million pieces had gone the prudence and
self-restraint of a lifetime. And here he was, as desperately in
love as any troubadour of the Middle Ages.
It was not till he had finished shaving and was testing the
temperature of his bath with a shrinking toe that the realization
came over him in a wave that, though he might be in love, the
fairway of love was dotted with more bunkers than any golf course
he had ever played on in his life. In the first place, he did not
know the girl's name. In the second place, it seemed practically
impossible that he would ever see her again. Even in the midst of
his optimism George could not deny that these facts might
reasonably be considered in the nature of obstacles. He went back
into his bedroom, and sat on the bed. This thing wanted thinking
over.
He was not depressed--only a little thoughtful. His faith in his
luck sustained him. He was, he realized, in the position of a man
who has made a supreme drive from the tee, and finds his ball near
the green but in a cuppy lie. He had gained much; it now remained
for him to push his success to the happy conclusion. The driver of
Luck must be replaced by the spoon--or, possibly, the niblick--of
Ingenuity. To fail now, to allow this girl to pass out of his life
merely because he did not know who she was or where she was, would
stamp him a feeble adventurer. A fellow could not expect Luck to
do everything for him. He must supplement its assistance with his
own efforts.
What had he to go on? Well, nothing much, if it came to that,
except the knowledge that she lived some two hours by train out of
London, and that her journey started from Waterloo Station. What
would Sherlock Holmes have done? Concentrated thought supplied no
answer to the question; and it was at this point that the cheery
optimism with which he had begun the day left George and gave place
to a grey gloom. A dreadful phrase, haunting in its pathos, crept
into his mind. "Ships that pass in the night!" It might easily turn
out that way. Indeed, thinking over the affair in all its aspects
as he dried himself after his tub, George could not see how it
could possibly turn out any other way.