Poor Adele! So she had come too—and had evidently failed in her quest, not been able to fend a way through the crowd, and perhaps not even had a glimpse of her hero. The thought smote Campton with compunction: he regretted his sneering words when they had last met, regretted refusing to dine with her. He wished the barrier of people between them had been less impenetrable; but for the moment it was useless to try to force a way through it. He had to wait till the crowd shifted to other platforms, whence other trains were starting, and by that time she was lost to sight.
At last he was able to make his way through the throng, and as he came out of a side entrance he saw her. She appeared to be looking for a taxi—she waved her sunshade aimlessly. But no one who knew the Gare de l’Est would have gone around that corner to look for a taxi; least of all the practical Adele. Besides, Adele never took taxis: she travelled in the bowels of the earth or on the dizziest omnibus tops.
Campton knew at once that she was waiting for him. He went up to her and a guilty pink suffused her nose.
“You missed him after all——?” he said.
“I—oh, no, I didn’t.”
“You didn’t? But I was with him all the time. We didn’t see you——”
“No, but I saw—distinctly. That was all I went for,” she jerked back.
He slipped his arm through hers. “This crowd terrifies me. I’m glad you waited for me,” he said.
He saw her pleasure, but she merely answered: “I’m dying of thirst, aren’t you?”
“Yes—or hunger, or something. Could we find a laiterie?”