Thus Millicent Tracy passed away for the moment out of Ben’s life; and he turned and walked from London Bridge all through the City in the cordial air of the May morning,--walked all the way to be alone and think of her in that crowd of London, before he should begin to work and win her,--with a hundred sweet pangs and stings of hope and suffering in his foolish heart.
Everybody who has ever passed by that passage of life’s poignant yet ordinary way, knows what a reaction there is when the one is gone who has thus occupied the first place in the thoughts of a man,--or woman either, for that matter. The moment she,--or he,--is gone, what a sudden quickening of energy, what a rush of all the faculties at the suspended work,--suspended for the sake of that engrossing presence. It had been natural to delay and muse the day before, recalling what sweet moments there might be in the past, imagining what might be in the future; but now, when all is over, with what an impulse the man works at his occupation, to fill the void, to hasten, if he could, the very movement of the earth, till the time of meeting again. Ben had a double motive at this crisis of his history. For the first time in his life he had actual work in hand, and the positive prick of necessity to drive him to it; and at the same time the hope of making,--of winning,--what?--his fortune,--Millicent,--a position in the world,--all out of the chance that had fallen into his hands, of becoming assistant to an engineer on some little bit of American railway,--a profession of which he knew nothing. Knowledge, or skill, did not seem to him at this moment to count for much. It was a beginning a man wanted. Given that beginning, and what had he to do but follow it to the ultimate success which must come? It was in itself a foolish idea, common to the novice in every department; but perhaps in Ben’s case it was less foolish than in that of most men, for it was his nature to hold by anything he took up desperately, until success of one kind or another rewarded him. He was intense in everything, taking what happened to him not lightly, but very seriously,--and such men are not apt to fail.
It was still early, when fresh from his long walk, and with his faculties all cleared up and awakened by the withdrawal of the presence which had absorbed him, he went to Hillyard’s rooms to breakfast, as his friend had invited him to do. It was in one of those dingy parlours in Jermyn Street, which to so many young men are radiant with that freedom from domestic restraints, and privilege of having things their own way, which makes the long, unlovely street into a succession of palaces. Hillyard was sitting in his dressing-gown, over the same papers which he had carried to the club the night before. He was not less eager, not less excited than Ben,--or, indeed, it would be safe to say he was more excited. It was the end only Ben was looking at; but the means, with which he was so much better acquainted than his assistant was,--the work itself, with its difficulties and obstacles,--had inflamed the mind of the adventurer. Of course there would be a great many difficulties,--there would be schemes to lead the line, one way or another, through this man’s grounds or that man’s, by this village or away from that; and Hillyard felt, with a little thrill of delight, that he was the man who could solve all these difficulties. It was not a work of the first importance, and yet he had never had such an opening before. He was to be chief engineer, and have everything in his hands. It was to an American, who had travelled home part of the way with him from Australia, that he owed this preferment; and the new chance was as precious to Hillyard as to Ben, though not perhaps of so much supposed importance in his life.