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Slightly perilous perhaps, but still he thought it rather neat. "Oh!" she said. "You see I've been so much out of England. We were just talking about holidays. I was saying to Mrs Cotterill they certainly ought to go to Switzerland this year for a change." "Yes, Mrs Capron-Smith was just saying " Mrs Cotterill put in. "It would be something too lovely!" said Nellie in ecstasy. Switzerland!
Mrs Capron-Smith and Denry glanced at each other, and even Mrs Capron-Smith was at a loss for a moment. Then Ruth approached Mrs Cotterill and took her hand. Perhaps Mrs Capron-Smith was not so astonished after all. She and Nellie's mother had always been "very friendly." And in the Five Towns "very friendly" means a lot.
"I'm going to file my petition to-morrow," said he, and gave a short laugh. "Really!" said Denry, who could think of nothing else to say. His name was not Capron-Smith. "Yes; they won't leave me any alternative," said Mr Cotterill. Then he gave a brief history of his late commercial career to the young man.
"What other chap," he demanded of the air, "would have thought of it? Or had the pluck?..." It was mere malice on the part of destiny that caused Denry to run across Mrs Capron-Smith at Euston some weeks later. Happily they both had immense nerve. "Dear me," said she. "What are you doing here?" "Only honeymooning," he said.
The upraising of the Cotterill family from the social Hades of the steerage to the respectability of the second cabin had demanded all his energy, and a lot of Ruth's. Ruth kissed Mrs Cotterill and then Nellie. And Mrs Cotterill and Nellie acquired rank and importance for the whole voyage by reason of being kissed in public by a woman so elegant and aristocratic as Ruth Capron-Smith.
"I haven't seen Mr Cotterill yet," said Mrs Capron-Smith. "When did you come?" Denry asked. "Only this afternoon." She continued to talk. As he looked at her, listening and responding intelligently now and then, he saw that Mrs Capron-Smith was in truth the woman that Ruth had so cleverly imitated ten years before. The imitation had deceived him then; he had accepted it for genuine.
And during the final weeks the Cotterill family had been obliged to quit their dismantled house and exist in lodgings. Even Denry, though he had visited them in their lodgings to say good-bye, had not seen them off at the station; but Ruth Capron-Smith had seen them off at the station.
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