Siegmund picked up the luggage.
“I say,” cried Olive, rushing to catch Helena and Louisa by the arm, “look—look—both of you—look at that hat!” A lady in front was wearing on her hat a wild and dishevelled array of peacock feathers. “It’s the sight of a lifetime. I wouldn’t have you miss it,” added Olive in hoarse sotto voce.
“Indeed not!” cried Helena, turning in wild exasperation to look. “Get a good view of it, Olive. Let’s have a good mental impression of it—one that will last.”
“That’s right, dear,” said Olive, somewhat nonplussed by this outburst.
Siegmund had escaped with the heaviest two bags. They could see him ahead, climbing the steps. Olive readjusted herself from the wildly animated to the calmly ironical.
“After all, dear,” she said, as they hurried in the tail of the crowd, “it’s not half a bad idea to get a man on the job.”
Louisa laughed aloud at this vulgar conception of Siegmund.
“Just now, at any rate,” she rejoined.
As they reached the platform the train ran in before them. Helena watched anxiously for an empty carriage. There was not one.
“Perhaps it is as well,” she thought. “We needn’t talk. There will be three-quarters of an hour at Waterloo. If we were alone. Olive would make Siegmund talk.”