There was always a faint animosity in her bearing towards Siegmund. He understood, and smiled at her enmity, for the two were really good friends.
“It is your turn now,” he repeated, smiling, and he turned away.
He and Helena walked down the platform.
“How did you find things at home?” he asked her.
“Oh, as usual,” she replied indifferently. “And you?”
“Just the same,” he answered. He thought for a moment or two, then added: “The children are happier without me.”
“Oh, you mustn’t say that kind of thing protested Helena miserably. “It’s not true.”
“It’s all right, dear,” he answered. “So long as they are happy, it’s all right.” After a pause he added: “But I feel pretty bad tonight.”
Helena’s hand tightened on his arm. He had reached the end of the platform. There he stood, looking up the line which ran dark under a haze of lights. The high red signal-lamps hung aloft in a scarlet swarm; farther off, like spangles shaking downwards from a burst sky-rocket, was a tangle of brilliant red and green signal-lamps settling. A train with the warm flare on its thick column of smoke came thundering upon the lovers. Dazed, they felt the yellow bar of carriage-windows brush in vibration across their faces. The ground and the air rocked. Then Siegmund turned his head to watch the red and the green lights in the rear of the train swiftly dwindle on the darkness. Still watching the distance where the train had vanished, he said:
“Dear, I want you to promise that, whatever happens to me, you will go on. Remember, dear, two wrongs don’t make a right.”