’I know,’ said Philip, as the train drew up at Thionville, ’I know that when one has a cold, the secretion is acrid, but it is not sulphuric acid to burn holes in pocket-handkerchiefs. What? Turn out here, and have one’s boxes examined? I will come to the bottom of that disappearance of pocket-handkerchiefs. I am put to intolerable discomfort. I hate wiping my nose with silk till it has been washed three or four times and become flexible, and has lost its harshness—it irritates the mucous membrane. I am going through, _voyez mon billet_! What nonsense examining one’s baggage here! Salome will know how many handkerchiefs I had. I am glad I am going to Andermatt; it will set my mind at rest, and I can have these hateful new handkerchiefs washed there.’
But other matters occupied Philip’s mind. He had his wife’s letters—the last two—in his pocket, and he re-read them; the jolting of the train, the flicker of the light in the lamp overhead, made the reading difficult, and predisposed him to take umbrage at her expressions. What especially annoyed him was her praise of her new friend, the American lady, and it gave him satisfaction to conjure up before his imagination the scene of introduction of himself to her, and to picture himself, with frigid courtesy looking at her, raising his hat, stiffly bowing, and with cold words giving her to understand that her friendship with his wife was against his wishes, and must be discontinued. The places at _table d’hôte_, he supposed, were arranged according to priority. He would inform the waiter that as he came last, all his belongings, his wife, his sister-in-law, and her nieces must relinquish their seats and come down to the end of the table by him—that would separate his party from the ambiguous stranger. If, after dinner, she came to speak to his wife, he would offer Salome his arm and ask her to come a stroll alone with him.
There were many ways in which this person might be given to understand that she was no longer desired as an associate. A feeble sense of pity for her in her confusion at being shaken off stirred in his heart, and then died away.
He had not written to announce his intention of coming with the baby to Andermatt. He intended to surprise Salome. There would be something flattering to himself in the change of colour, the delight that would spring up in her eyes, the cry of recognition—then the humble hesitation, awaiting his permission to spring into his arms.