"Well, I'm hanged!" said Kenneth, conjuring up a similar parcel; "that's just what I bought for you. A five-and-sixpenny one, too."
"Then I've lost," Humphrey said, with mock gloom. "Mine cost six-and-six. He'll have to pay the cab, Elizabeth, won't he?"
"If you two are going to stand there talking nonsense Kenneth will miss the train. Come along! I'll carry the little bag. Can you both manage the big one?"
Both of them cunningly kept up their artificially high spirits. Even when Kenneth switched off the electric light, and the room was in darkness, except for a pallid moonbeam that accentuated the bareness of the floor and walls, they parodied their own feelings. They were both a little ashamed of the sentimental that was in them.
But as the cab drove out of Fleet Street, they were silent. The lights were flaming in the upper rooms, but the offices of The Herald and The Day and the rest of the large dailies were unlit and silent, for Sunday gave peace to them on Saturday night. But Fleet Street itself was still alive, and the offices of the Sunday papers were active, and the noise of the presses, without which no day passes in the Street, would soon be heard....
Half an hour later, under the great glass roof of Paddington Station, the last farewells had been said.
Nothing but a "So long, old man," and a "Good-bye" and a tight handshake marked the breaking of another thread of friendship. Humphrey watched the train curve outwards and away into the darkness with that queer emotion that always comes when one is left standing on a railway platform, and a lighted train has moved out, full of life behind its lit windows, leaving in its place a glistening, empty stretch of rails.
Elizabeth was fluttering a valedictory handkerchief to the shadows. Humphrey touched her arm gently.
"Shall we go now?" he said.
"I suppose we'd better." These were awkward, uneasy moments. He would have liked to have told her how much he felt the passing of Kenneth, but he was afraid of hurting her, for he knew that she, too, was saddened at his departure.