"You'll have missed the express," said the girl behind the counter.
"I was bound to have a drink," protested the customer in a rather injured tone.
He turned away, stooped, lifted a hand-bag, and came down the room. Ashley noticed that his right hand was bandaged; he thought he noticed also a slight uncertainty in his walk; he did not lurch or stagger, but he swayed a little. "Just sixpenn'orth too much," was Ashley's summary. Then he walked up to the stranger and asked if he had the honour of addressing Mr. Fenning.
There remained always in Ashley Mead's mind a memory of Jack Fenning as he was that day, of his soft blurred voice, his abashed eyes, his slight swayings, and the exaggerated apologetic firmness (or even aggression) of gait that followed them, of his uneasy deference towards the man who met him, of his obvious and unfeigned nervousness on being told that Miss Pinsent was waiting for him. Had child married child? The question leapt to Ashley's thoughts. Here was no burly ruffian, full of drink and violence. He had been drinking, but surely as a boy who takes his second glass of birthday port, not knowing the snake which lurks among that pleasant, green grass? He had struck Ora; the ugly fact was there; yet now Ashley found himself asking whether children had not their tempers, whether they are to be judged as men are judged, as gentlemen claim to be judged. Jack Fenning came neither in a truculent resentment against his wife, nor in a masterful assertion of his rights, nor (which would have been worst of all) in a passion for her. He did not question Ashley's position, he did not ask how he came to be there; nor did he demand to be taken to his wife, nor did he fly to seek her.
"She's here, is she?" he said with an unmistakable accent of alarm.
"Yes, she's here. Come along. I'll take you to her," said Ashley curtly. He was angry to find his resentment oozing away. "Didn't you know she was coming to meet you?"
"She said she might," murmured Jack. "But I didn't think she would."
"I thought there'd be a crowd and so on, so I ran down with her," Ashley explained, despising himself for explaining at all.
"Awfully kind of you," said Mr. Fenning. "Where—where did you leave her?"
"Oh, on a seat on the platform. Where's your luggage?"