"I can not help caring more for the things you put aside, since I happen to be one of them."
"You are selfish," she said, hotly. "I ask you to leave me; I tell you your presence pains me; and you will not go." She drew her arm from his, and turned toward the car. He lifted his hat, and went across to the dining-hall.
Mademoiselle was eating cold toast. She considered that toast retained its freshness longer than plain bread. Anne sat down beside her. She felt a hope that Heathcote would perhaps take the city-bound train after all. She heard the bell ring, and watched the passengers hasten forth from the dining-hall. The eastward-bound train was going—was gone; a golden space of sunshine and the empty rails were now where had been its noise and bell and steam.
"Our own passengers will soon be returning," said Jeanne-Armande, brushing away the crumbs, and looking at herself in the glass to see if the helmet was straight.
"May I sit here with you?" said Anne.
"Certainly, my dear. But Mr. Heathcote—will he not be disappointed?"
"No," replied the girl, dully. "I do not think he will care to talk to me this afternoon."
Jeanne-Armande said to herself that perhaps he would care to talk to some one else. But she made no comment.
The train moved on. An hour passed, and he did not appear. The Frenchwoman could not conceal her disappointment. "If he intended to leave the train at Centerville, I am surprised that he should not have returned to make us his farewells," she said, acidly.
"He is not always attentive to such things," said Anne.