Everyone knows the great railway station at Clapham Junction just outside London, where so many lines meet and cross, and where trains start for so many different parts.
Our little town, too, had its junction of ways just outside, where the high road branches out into three, each in a different direction. It was the accepted meeting-place for all secretly engaged couples, being a convenient spot that could be reached, accidentally as it were, by two people happening to come along by different routes.
It was Vindt, the humorist, who had christened it Clapham Junction, and he was the first to ferret out the fact that Banker Hermansen and Mrs. Rantzau had been walking together along the road by the shore several mornings in succession.
Vindt went round to the bank on some pretext of business, but really to see if the banker was in a softer mood than usual. After all, the man was no more than human!
But no; there he stood behind the counter, stiff and coldly polite as ever. Nice sort of man for a lover, thought Vindt.
What could the banker and Mrs. Rantzau have in common?
It was not easy to imagine. Some said he was fascinated by her voice, others laid the blame on her black eyes; the fact remained that the pair were more and more frequently together. Vindt had not been down to Holm's for a long time now; he hated the sight of women in business, and that Holm should have been one of the first to introduce a petticoat within the private sanctum among good cigars and vintage port—it was unpardonable. In the present state of things, however, he felt desperately in need of someone to talk to. This affair of Hermansen's was so unparalleled a marvel that he simply must open his mind to someone about it.
He thrust his head in at the doorway, and discovered Holm standing behind the counter.
"All alone, old stick-in-the-mud?"
"Not a soul in the place. Come in. Haven't seen you for ages."