Scarcely a minute before the train was due, Milly descried Twemlow coming out of the booking office. They pressed through the crowd towards him.
'Ah!' he exclaimed genially. 'Here you are! Baggage labelled?'
'We thought you weren't coming, Mr. Twemlow,' Milly said.
'You did? I was kept quite a few minutes at the hotel. You see I only had to walk across the road.'
'We didn't really think any such thing,' said Leonora.
Then the express, with its two engines, its gilded luncheon-cars, and its post-office van, thundered in, shaking the platform, and seeming to occupy the entire station. It had the air of pausing nonchalantly, disdainfully, in its mighty rush from one distant land of romance to another, in order to suffer for a brief moment the assault of a puny and needlessly excited multitude.
'First stop Willesden,' yelled the porters.
'Say, conductor,' said Twemlow sharply, catching the luncheon-car attendant by the sleeve, 'you've got two seats reserved for me--Twemlow?'
The girls kissed at the steps of the car: 'Good-bye.'
'Well, good-bye all!' said Twemlow. 'I hope to see you again some time. Say next fall.'
'Yes,' he resumed quickly, 'I sail Saturday. Must get back.'
'Oh, Mr. Twemlow!' Ethel and Milly complained together.
Rose was standing on the steps. Leonora leaned and kissed the pale girl madly, pressing her lips into Rose's cheek. Then she shook hands with Arthur Twemlow.
'I guess I shall write to you,' he said jauntily, addressing all three of them; and Ethel and Milly enthusiastically replied: 'Oh, do!'
The travellers penetrated into the car, and reappeared at a window, one on either side of a table covered with a white cloth and laid for two persons.
'Oh, don't I wish I was going!' Milly exclaimed, perceiving them.
Rose was now flushed with triumph. She looked at Twemlow, her lips moved, she smiled. She was a woman in the world. Then they nodded and waved hands.
The guard unfurled his green flag, the engine gave a curt, scornful whistle, and lo! the luncheon-car was gliding away from Leonora, Ethel, and Milly! Lo! the station was empty!
'I wonder what he will talk to her about,' thought Leonora.
They had to cross the station by the under-ground passage and wait twenty minutes for a squalid, shambling local train which took them to Shawport, at the foot of the rise to Hillport.