"Looks like Tamworth," said the man sleepily.
"Knype, sir!" George Cannon corrected him very sharply. He was so wrought up that he had omitted even to shake hands with Hilda. Making no effort to talk, and showing no curiosity about Hilda's welfare or doings, he moved uneasily on his seat, and from time to time opened and shut the Gladstone bag. Gradually the flush paled from his face.
At Lichfield the middle-aged couple took advice from a porter and stumbled out of the train.
II
"We're fairly out of the smoke now," said Hilda, when the train began to move again. As a fact, they had been fairly out of the smoke of the Five Towns for more than half an hour; but Hilda spoke at random, timidly, nervously, for the sake of speaking. And she was as apologetic as though it was she herself who by some untimely discretion had annoyed George Cannon.
"Yes, thank God!" he replied fiercely, blowing with pleasure upon the embers of his resentment. "And I'll take good care I never go into it again--to live, that is!"
"Really?" she murmured, struck into an extreme astonishment.
He produced a cigar and a match-box.
"May I?" he demanded carelessly, and accepted her affirmative as of course.
"You've heard about my little affair?" he asked, after lighting the cigar. And he gazed at her curiously.