At that moment a whistle sounded, and the train began to slow down for a station. To his almost sick relief, Mrs. Kildare drew her cape about her shoulders. "I get off here," she said.
He rushed into speech. "Will you please tell Jacqueline how miserably sorry I am—how I regret—"
She cut him short. "I will tell Jacqueline nothing, and neither will you. All this"—she waved an inclusive hand about the stateroom—"it never happened."
"What! You mean—she is to believe I did not come for her?"
"Exactly. You have disappeared. And without any explanations to anybody."
"But, Mrs. Kildare! Good Lord! What will she think of me?"
"That you have simply broken your word again; which," said Kate, "is what I intend her to think. She shall not be further humiliated by the knowledge that there has been—an audience."
He began to understand. Kate knew her daughter. Pride was to be called to the rescue, and he himself would play a very sorry part hereafter in the memory of Jacqueline.
"But, Mrs. Kildare!" his vanity protested. "Really, I can't—"
His eyes dropped again, as if magnetized, to that twisting whip.