And Humphrey wanted love: the desire for love, love inseparable from passion, had made a turbulent underflow beneath the stream of his life. Twice he had tried to grasp love, twice it had eluded him. He had been despoiled by circumstance ... cheated by his own conscience.
It was miraculous to him now, that he should be able to wrest his prize from life with so little struggle after all. He looked at Desirée, and her eyes smiled--how incredibly near they seemed to one another, how the unattainable drew close to him and smiled....
He became aware of his name spoken aloud, and he looked up and saw a waiter looking round the room, with Dagneau at his side. Dagneau's face was strained and anxious. He seemed out of breath. Suddenly he caught sight of Humphrey, and hurried towards him. He raised his hat to the group. "Pardon, mad'm'selle," he said to Desirée, as he put a telegram before Humphrey.
The blue slips pasted on the paper danced before his eyes.
"_Qu'est que c'est?_" Margot asked, fussily.
"Ferrol wants you to go to Narbonne," Dagneau said. "There's been shooting there.... I looked up the trains. You can catch the one o'clock from the Gare d'Orsay if you hurry."
Humphrey stared stupidly at the telegram, and Desirée touched him with her hand.
"_C'est quelque chose de grave?_" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Narbonne," he said to Charnac, laconically.
"_Oh! nom d'un nom_--to-night?" asked Charnac. "_C'est embêtant, ça._"
And, suddenly, Humphrey grew peaceful again, and all the turbulence of his thoughts calmed down and flowed towards the one desire that he had made paramount in his life--the desire of the journalist for news, the longing of the historian for history.
Fleet Street called to him from those blue strips with their printed message. "Go Narbonne immediately cover riots," and the signature that symbolized Fleet Street--"Ferrol"--held in it all the power that had made him a puppet of Fate.
But Narbonne.... From all parts of Europe the Special Correspondents would be converging on the town. There would be great doings to describe, new interests to make him forget rapidly.
Dagneau helped him on with his coat. "Send on my bag," he said, glancing at his watch. "I'm awfully sorry," he added to Charnac. "You'll understand. Explain to them, won't you? Dagneau, stop and finish my supper."