“I cannot think about those things to-day,” she replied. “You may take it that I am tired and that you had business. You know my address. May I be favoured with yours?”
He handed her a card and scribbled a telephone number upon it. They were in the station now, and their baggage in the hands of separate porters. She walked slowly down the platform by his side.
“Will you allow me to say,” he ventured, “how sorry I am—for all this?”
The slight uncertainty of his speech pleased her. She looked up at him with infinite regret. As they neared the barrier, she held out her hand.
“I, too, am more sorry than I can tell you;” she said a little tremulously. “Whatever may come, that is how I feel myself. I am sorry.”
They separated almost upon the words. Catherine was accosted by a man at whom Julian glanced for a moment in surprise, a man whose dress and bearing, confident though it was, clearly indicated some other status in life. He glanced at Julian with displeasure, a displeasure which seemed to have something of jealousy in its composition. Then he grasped Catherine warmly by the hand.
“Welcome back to London, Miss Abbeway! Your news?”
Her reply was inaudible. Julian quickened his pace and passed out of the station ahead of them.