What he was going to say broke off again with a snap. And the last glance I had of his blonde, sun-browned face and quick eyes showed them frozen in a stare of utter astonishment at the sight of my travelling-companion.
Yes—my goodness! What would he think of finding me with Sydney again?—Sydney, whose name has so often nearly cropped up between us. Would he think——?
What difference would it make if he did?
The train steamed out of the station across the flat Anglesey country, between marshlands ghostly-white with bog-cotton in the dusk.... What would he think?
This was what occupied me all the time Sydney was talking, for he was in a mood to talk to anyone. I, for example, was not the Rose, but I had shared rooms with the Rose, and he was eager to tell me about her, and how she had gone to stay with his married sister until—something or other to do with “the Mamma.” Poor Lady Vandeleur, fated to see her only son falling in love with such totally ineligible girls! First a City typist at twenty-five shillings a week; now a Bond Street mannequin!
But my employer didn’t know of this change. How could he? He probably—yes, certainly!—imagines things are as they might once have seemed to be.
Will he think I arranged this?
“Of course you know her—but not as one does now!—the last few weeks! We were together at the Café Royal—He’s going to paint her—Colouring!—Wonderful! You should have seen the costume I designed for her—Five Arts Ball——Purposely giving the effect of——Quite in the period, of course!—People who understand!—Such souplesse of mind as she has——” Sydney went on to the air. My whole attention was for someone very different.
He can’t imagine I’d do anything so underhand! Even if he did imagine that—well, I couldn’t explain unless he asked. If he did ask, I could explain less than ever! Oh, why can’t I wipe four months straight out of this year and begin again? But then, there would have been Jack to help! But then, there would have been Sydney.... I should have been engaged to this creature before me in that hat, talking of Cicely’s souplesse of mind! If he—the other one—only knew what I really think of Sydney!