Mr. Travers

“ Waters, fresh and cool, with a smile upon her pleasant face, sat behind the tray. She looked at her guest curiously, Mr. Travers's spirits being somewhat higher than the state of his wardrobe appeared to justify.
"Why don't you get some settled work?" she inquired, with gentle severity, as he imparted snatches of his history between bites.
"Easier said than done," said Mr. Travers, serenely. "But don't you run away with the idea that I'm a beggar, because I'm not. I pay my way, such as it is. And, by-the-bye, I s'pose I haven't earned that two pounds Benn gave me?" ”

“ A discreet knocking at the cabin door sounded deferential.
Mrs. Travers got up to see what was wanted, and returned without uttering a single word to the folding armchair by the side of the bed-place, with an envelope in her hand which she tore open in the greenish light. Mr. Travers remained incurious but his wife handed to him an unfolded sheet of paper which he condescended to hold up to his eyes. ”

“ Travers, suspiciously.
"My regard for you," he answered without hesitation.
"I intended to join you in your captivity. I was just trying to persuade him. . . ."
"I forbid you absolutely," whispered Mr. Travers, forcibly. "I am glad to get away. I don't want to see you again till your craze is over."
She was confounded by his secret vehemence. But instantly succeeding his fierce whisper came a short, inane society laugh and a much louder, "Not that I attach any importance . . ."
He sprang away, as it were, from his wife, and as he went over the gangway waved his hand to her amiably. ”

“ I feel deeply that it is so. At my expense. It's a most sinister thing," Mr. Travers pursued, still with downcast eyes and in an unforgiving tone. "I must tell you that when I saw you in that courtyard in a crowd of natives and leaning on that man's arm, it gave me quite a shock."
"Did I, too, look sinister?" said Mrs. Travers, turning her head slightly toward her husband. "And yet I assure you that I was glad, profoundly glad, to see you safe from danger for a time at least. To gain time is everything. . . ."
"I ask myself," Mr. Travers meditated aloud, "was I ever in danger? Am I safe now? ”

“ Mr. Travers said gravely. "She looks weak and thin, and she occasionally forgets things. This is a most unusual and serious sign in a woman of her capacity."
"Damn her capacity!" said Julian savagely. "Why on earth couldn't you stop her working?"
"It is not in my province to stop people earning their daily bread," said Mr. Travers, coldly, "and I have never discussed this or any other private question with the elder Miss Waring since her return. When she came back to the town hall she refused to displace her sister, who had undertaken her former work and went into the surveyor's office." ”

“ Amongst them the form of d'Alcacer arose and moved. The systematic or else the morbid dumbness of Mr. Travers bored and exasperated him, though, as a matter of fact, that gentleman's speeches had never had the power either to entertain or to soothe his mind.
"It's very nice of you. You have a great capacity for sympathy, but after all I am not certain on which side your sympathies lie. With me, or those much-tried people," said Mrs. Travers.
"With the child," said Lingard, disregarding the bantering tone. "A child can have a very bad time of it all to itself." ”

“ Travers was not there to take charge of his men. "He's never where he's wanted," he said, and took most of "A" company away with him.
"Where can Mr. Travers have gone?" I kept on wondering, but hadn't much time for thinking, as I only had been left a very few men to guard the burning house, and there were still a good many prowling Chinese sneaking round, and I had to make my men keep them away. It seemed an awfully long time before suddenly we heard a shout and a cheer from somewhere up the hill. "Thank God, sir, they've found that pretty little American lady!" ”

“ Mrs. Travers' loud, “Martin!” made Lingard wince, caused d'Alcacer to lift his head down there in the boat, and even Jorgenson, forward somewhere out of sight, ceased mumbling in his moustache. The only person who seemed not to have heard that exclamation was Mr. Travers himself, who continued smoothly:
“. . . at the aberration of your mind, you who seemed so superior to common credulities. You are not yourself, not at all, and some day you will admit to me that . . . No, the best thing will be to forget it, as you will soon see yourself. ”

“ Travers says they are dreadfully fierce, and that when they are not at war with other people, they fight among themselves, and go on in the most dreadful way.
This Professor that came to see father didn't look a bit fierce, but Mr. Travers says that was just his deceitful way, and that if we had had a valuable old bone or a queer kind of shell in the house, the Professor would have got up in the night, and stolen it and killed us all in our beds; but Sue said it was a shame, and that the Professor was a lovely old gentleman, and there wasn't the least harm in his kissing her. ”

“ I really must speak to some one about Mr Travers. His poor wife has enough to bear. I can’t trouble her. The man is insufferable; he upsets the whole house. His nurse has just been to me in tears. Nothing will please him. He rings his bell all day, and half the night, and for nothing—literally nothing! Just an excuse to give trouble. We have honestly done our best—more than our best. With such a patient it is easier to give in than to protest, but I’m beginning to think we’ve been wrong. He is not getting on as quickly as he should. ”

“ An hysterical gasp caused Travers to start.
"No, please keep your face turned. I must tell you in my way. I have just taken care of—Mr. Huntter. He is not—fit to marry any woman—he cannot marry—Margaret! Doctor Hapgood told him, but—he—means to marry! She came to see him; she did not see me; she does not know; but she must know!" fiercely; "she must know! That is the one thing above all else that would matter to her; she told me so! She does not live for the—the now; she was made for—for bigger things!"
"My God!" Travers was on his feet, and he dragged Priscilla with him. ”

“ Travers to herself, with a complete and reassuring conviction. Yet she waited motionless till the footsteps of the two men stopped outside the deckhouse, then separated and died away, before she went out on deck. She came out on deck some time after her husband. As if in intended contrast to the conflicts of men a great aspect of serenity lay upon all visible things. Mr. Travers had gone inside the Cage in which he really looked like a captive and thoroughly out of place. D'Alcacer had gone in there, too, but he preserved—or was it an illusion?—an air of independence. ”

“ KATE. None, except that the room is filled with smoke and—is hot.
MRS. VERNON. Well, to my mind, Travers may as well get himself used to places that are hot and filled with smoke—fur if he ain't one of Old Nick's own ones, I never see any—
KATE. Mother!! Mr. Travers is a gentleman!
MRS. VERNON. How do you know? Four years to a female seminary don't make you a better judge of gentlemen than us who stay to home here. Your pa's a gentleman if he is a wheelwright—so is Jim Radburn—
LIZBETH. And Dave—
MRS. VERNON. Yes, and Dave—
KATE. But none of them is like Mr. Travers. ”

“ Travers recognized there something like real suffering.—"I assure you," she said, seriously (for she was accessible to pity) , "I assure you that this strange Lingard has no idea of your importance. He doesn't know anything of your social and political position and still less of your great ambitions." Mr. Travers listened with some attention.—"Couldn't you have enlightened him?" he asked.—"It would have been no use; his mind is fixed upon his own position and upon his own sense of power. He is a man of the lower classes. ”

“ Benn, shaking his head, “and the Beehive is in a lonely place. It's right through the village, and the nearest house is arf a mile off.”
“Silly place for a pub,” commented Mr. Travers.
“I've been telling her 'ow unsafe it is,” said the boatswain. “I've been telling her that she wants a man to protect her, and she only laughs at me. She don't believe it; d'ye see? Likewise I'm a small man—small, but stiff. She likes tall men.”
“Most women do,” said Mr. Travers, sitting upright and instinctively twisting his moustache. ”

“ The game of billiards proceeded, and Henry caught his uncle in the eighties and ran out with an unfinished fifteen. Then Ernest Travers and his wife—old and dear friends of Sir Walter—played a hundred up, the lady receiving half the game. Mr. Travers was a Suffolk man, and had fagged for Sir Walter at Eton. Their comradeship had lasted a lifetime, and no year passed without reciprocal visits. Travers also looked at life with the eyes of a wealthy man. ”

“ It seems to me that there can be no possible object.”
“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “But don't you think that the uttermost farthing should always be paid?”
Mr. Travers' head rolled over on the pillow and gave a covertly scared look at that outspoken woman. But it rolled back again at once and the whole man remained passive, the very embodiment of helpless exhaustion. Mrs. Travers noticed this, and had the unexpected impression that Mr. Travers was not so ill as he looked. “He's making the most of it. It's a matter of diplomacy,” she thought. ”

“ Travers will be here in a few minutes and there's Mr. Martin down cellar and I feel as if I should fly what shall I do?"
I was real sorry for her, and thought I'd help her, for girls are not like us. They never know what to do when they are in a scrape, and they are full of absence of mind when they ought to have lots of presence of mind. So I said: "I'll fix it for you, Sue. Just leave it all to me. You stay here and meet Mr. Travers, who is just coming around the corner, and I'll manage Mr. Withers." Sue said, "You darling little fellow there don't muss my hair" ”

“ Travers's tenants, but of farmers and their families within the range of eight or ten miles from the Park, with a few of the neighbouring gentry and clergy.
It was not a supper intended to include the labouring class; for Mr. Travers had an especial dislike to the custom of exhibiting peasants at feeding-time, as if they were so many tamed animals of an inferior species. When he entertained work-people, he made them comfortable in their own way; and peasants feel more comfortable when not invited to be stared out of countenance. ”

“ Travers married late in life a pretty, penniless girl, and found himself in failing health with a young wife and infant daughter to provide for. Had this child been a son, he would have been heir to landed estates entailed in the male line, but to a girl Mr. Travers could only leave a sum of money he possessed in the funds, and of this, he settled the half on his widow for life with reversion to Evelyn at her mother’s death; the remainder was left as a marriage portion to the former, or, if unmarried, she was to come into the full control of her property on attaining the age of eighteen, Mrs. ”

“ A more reckless and more brilliant horseman I have never seen. He took that double jump at the gate and that stream like a centaur. But he will break his neck sooner or later, and he ought to be stopped." Young Paddock was so delighted with his prospective brother-in-law's great riding that that night in the smoking-room he made him a present of Satan before all the men.
"No," said Travers, gloomily, "I can't take him. Your sister has asked me to give up what is dearer to me than anything next to herself, and that is my riding. ”

“ Gray interposed himself between his client and the door.
"Pray excuse me, Mr. Western. I know that you are angry, but pray excuse me. I should ill do my duty to an old client whom I respect did I not dare, as being older than he is, to give the advice which as a bystander I think that he requires." Mr. Western stood perfectly silent before him, but clearly showing his wrath by the frown upon his brow. "I venture to say that you are taking upon yourself as a husband to do that which the world will not pardon."
"I care nothing for the world." ”

“ Mona's laugh only half concealed her rising colour.
"Older has it," she said, nodding to the Sahib. "Score!"
As they went in to dinner, she looked round at the unpretentious perfection of the room and the table, with a long sigh of satisfaction.
"There is no house in the world," she said, "where I have precisely the sense of restfulness that I have here. Nothing jars; I don't need to talk unless I like; and I can afford to be my very own self."
"That's a good hearing," said Mr Colquhoun heartily. "Have some soup!" ”

“ But surely you have felt that there are few friends one likes more cordially, and ought to respect more heedfully, than the enemy with whom one has just made it up."
"You say well, and I accept the rebuke," said Travers, more and more surprised. "And I certainly have less right to abuse Mr. Bowles than you have, since I had not the courage to fight him. To turn to another subject less provocative. Mr. Lethbridge has told me of your amiable desire to serve two of his young parishioners, Will Somers and Jessie Wiles, and of your generous offer to pay the money Mrs. ”

“ Faces like those faces that glare with intolerable strangeness upon the sleeper in the evil hours of his dreams. Evil, greedy eyes that were full of a covetous curiosity, faces with knit brows and snarling, smiling lips; their vague hands clutched at Mr. Bessel as he passed, and the rest of their bodies was but an elusive streak of trailing darkness. ”

“ A girl's position in such matters is so delicate, especially that of such a girl as you!"
"I know all about that," said Lady Mary, with something almost approaching to scorn in her tone. "Of course I have to be—delicate. I don't quite know what the word means. I am not a bit ashamed of being in love with Mr. Tregear. He is a gentleman, highly educated, very clever, of an old family,—older, I believe, than papa's. And he is manly and handsome; just what a young man ought to be. Only he is not rich." ”