"I never, never enjoyed myself so perfectly," she said emphatically. "Suppose we beseech the engine-driver to lie still for a couple of hours?" Richard's smile was inattentive.
"You are sure you haven't done too much," he said with sudden solicitude, looking at her half anxiously.
"I! not a bit. I am absolutely well again." Her eyes found his and held them, and it seemed to him that mystic messages passed to and fro.
"How long do you think of staying?"
"Not long. It gets rather boring, being alone. I expect I shall return on Saturday."
"I was thinking I would run down again on Saturday for the week-end,—take a week-end ticket," he said; "but of course, if—"
"In that case I should stay a few days longer. I couldn't allow myself to deprive you of the sea air which is doing you so much good. By next Saturday I may have discovered more nice places to visit, perhaps even prettier than Angmering.... But you must get in."
He would have given a great deal just then to be able to say firmly: "I have changed my mind about going. I will stay at a hotel to-night and take the first train to-morrow." But it required more decision than he possessed, and in a few moments he was waving good-bye to her from the carriage window.
There were several other people in the compartment,—a shy shop-girl and her middle-aged lover, evidently employés of the same establishment, and an artisan with his wife and a young child. Richard observed them intently, and found a curious, new pleasure in all their unstudied gestures and in everything they said. But chiefly he kept a watch on the shop-girl's lover, who made it no secret that he was dwelling in the seventh heaven. Richard sympathised with that man. His glance fell on him softly, benignantly. As the train passed station after station, he wondered what Adeline was doing, now, and now, and now.