The God in the Car by Antonio Hope

In all things evil and good, to the world, and -- a thing quite rare -- to himself, Willie Ruston was an unaffected man. Success, the evidence of power and the earnest of more power, gave him his greatest pleasure, and he received it with his greatest and most open satisfaction. It did not surprise him, but it elated him, and his habit was to conceal neither the presence of elation nor the absence of surprise. That irony in the old sense, which means the well-bred though hardly sincere depreciation of a man's own qualities and achievements, was not his. When he had done anything, he liked to dine with his friends and talk it over. He had been sharing the Carlins' unfashionable six o'clock meal at Hampstead this evening, and had taken the train to Baker Street, and was now sauntering home with a cigar. He had talked the whole thing over with them. Carlin had said that no one could have managed the affair so well as he had, and Mrs. Carlin had not once referred to that lost _tabula in naufragio_, the coal business. Yes, his attack on London had been a success. He had known nothing of London, save that its denizens were human beings, and that knowledge, whether in business or society, had been enough. His great scheme was floated; a few months more would see him in Omofaga; there was money to last for a long time to come; and he had been cordially received and even made a lion of in the drawing-rooms. They would look for his name in the papers ("and find it, by Jove," he interpolated). Men in high places would think of him when there was a job to be "put through;" and women, famous in regions inaccessible to the vulgar, would recollect their talks with Mr. Ruston. Decidedly they were human beings, and therefore, raw as he was (he just knew that he had come to them a little raw), he had succeeded.

Yet they were, some of them, strange folk. There were complications in them which he found it necessary to reconnoitre. They said a great many things which they did not think, and, _en revanche_, would often only hint what they did. AndBut here he yawned, and, finding his cigar out, relit it. He was not in the mood for analysing his acquaintance. He let his fancy play more lightly. It was evening, and work was done. He liked London evenings. He had liked bandying repartees with Adela Ferrars (though she had been too much for him if she could have kept her temper); he liked talking to Marjory Valentine and seeing her occupied with his ideas. Most of all, he liked trying to catch Maggie Dennison's thought as it flashed out for a moment, and fled to shelter again. He had laughed again and again over the talk that Tom Loring had interrupted -- and not less because of the interruption. There was little malice in him, and he bore no grudge against Tom. Even his anger at the Omofaga articles had been chiefly for public purposes and public consumption. It was always somebody's "game" to spoil his game, and one must not quarrel with men for playing their own hands. Tom amused him, and had amused him, especially by his behaviour over that talk. No doubt the position had looked a strange one. Tom had been so shocked. Poor Tom, it must be very serious to be so easily shocked. Mr. Ruston was not easily shocked.