His lips trembled. Ah! those lips!
I made a sign that there was no hope. And we sat in silence, overcome.
A servant came to arrange the compartment for sleeping, and we were obliged to assume nonchalance and go into the corridor. All the windows of the corridor were covered with frost traceries. The train with its enclosed heat and its gleaming lamps was plunging through an ice-gripped night. I thought of the engine-driver, perched on his shaking, snorting, monstrous machine, facing the weather, with our lives and our loves in his hand.
‘We’ll leave each other now, Frank,’ I said, ‘before the people begin to come back from dinner. Go and eat something.’
‘But you?’
‘I shall be all right. Yvonne will get me some fruit. I shall stay in our compartment till we arrive.’
‘Yes. And when we do arrive—what then? What are your wishes? You see, I can’t leave the train before we get to Mentone because of my registered luggage.’
He spoke appealingly.
The dear thing, with his transparent pretexts!
‘You can ignore us at the station, and then leave Mentone again during the day.’