Laura ran along, level with the moving window, scarlet, voluble.
“No, no! I wanted to tell you. I forgot, talking. It was a mistake. I ought to have reminded him. He couldn’t help it. It was the eggs—the new cases—it put it all out of his head. He was awfully sorry.” She quickened her pace, panting, as the train drew away from her. But Coral’s was a carrying voice.
“Take my tip, Laura—smash up his old eggs! Then you’ll have some peace! Good-bye! Kiss Timmy! Good-bye! Good-bye!”
The train roared out of the station.
Laura, as she muddled her way back to her own platform and settled herself for the slow return journey, had a half smile for Coral and her characteristic farewell. She must tell Justin ... or better not?... He was not likely to stand a joke about his collection.... He wouldn’t see anything funny.... And yet there was something comical in a grown man being so absorbed.... If he could only realize that ... join in the joke against himself.... People would laugh with him then ... but as it was—she winced—people who didn’t understand laughed at him. He made himself ridiculous....
She wriggled her shoulders uneasily.
“Of course,” she began, talking aloud to herself in her usual fashion, “of course it’s only idiots like Coral and silly little Brackenhurst—and Gran’papa’s always down on every one anyway—but they do laugh. I wonder—I suppose I couldn’t tell Justin?” And then bitterly—“As if he’d listen! I don’t count. Nothing counts with Justin except the collection. Queer how men get wrapped up in a toy! If I told him what they said—not that one cares a dandelion for what they say—but if I told him——They’re always saying ‘Why doesn’t he get a job?’ Pure envy, of course. But he’d only shrug his shoulders. ‘They say. Let them say!’ Justin doesn’t care a bit about people. Half the time he doesn’t know they’re there. And he walks on all their corns—bless him! No wonder they get annoyed. Because it is pure jealousy. Why shouldn’t he play? He’s got plenty of money. Besides,” she laughed aloud tenderly as she sat all by herself in the empty carriage and thought of him, “it’s so lovable. It’s like a child. He’s awfully like Timothy——”
“Only a child,” she was frowning again, “a child grows out of its toys. But a man—what’s one to do with a man? A man’s so horribly careful of his toys. What’s one to do? One can’t sit still and let him be laughed at. What’s one to do with Justin?”
The Brackenhurst hills shrugged their tapestried shoulders as she stared at them through the jolting windows, saying to her—
“Heaven knows! We bore him and bred him, but—what is one to do?”