XXX. THE RESCUE EXPEDITION

And now to tell of those energetic chevaliers, Widgery, Dangle, and

Phipps, and of that distressed beauty, 'Thomas Plantagenet,' well known

in society, so the paragraphs said, as Mrs. Milton. We left them at

Midhurst station, if I remember rightly, waiting, in a state of fine

emotion, for the Chichester train. It was clearly understood by the

entire Rescue Party that Mrs. Milton was bearing up bravely against

almost overwhelming grief. The three gentlemen outdid one another in

sympathetic expedients; they watched her gravely almost tenderly. The

substantial Widgery tugged at his moustache, and looked his unspeakable

feelings at her with those dog-like, brown eyes of his; the slender

Dangle tugged at HIS moustache, and did what he could with

unsympathetic

grey ones. Phipps, unhappily, had no moustache to run any risks with, so

he folded his arms and talked in a brave, indifferent, bearing-up tone

about the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, just to cheer the

poor woman up a little. And even Mrs. Milton really felt that exalted

melancholy to the very bottom of her heart, and tried to show it in a

dozen little, delicate, feminine ways.

There is nothing to do until we get to Chichester," said Dangle.

Nothing."

"Nothing," said Widgery, and aside in her ear: "You really ate scarcely

anything, you know."

163

The Wheels of Chance