Napier went back to the hotel at five o'clock with Julian, who drove his own big car to take the three to the station. The progress was slow and penitential, for Miss Greta declined to lose sight of the two taxis which followed with the luggage. Napier, with Madge at his side, sitting opposite Nan and Miss Greta, found himself taking refuge from the unconscious reproach in Nan's face by studying the buttons on Miss Greta's ulster. There was a great many of those buttons. The immense labor of changing them induced thoughtfulness. They were thicker, but weren't the bigger ones exactly sovereign size? The smaller on collar, cuffs, and pocket-flaps—weren't they precisely of half-sovereign dimensions, excepting, again in thickness? He began to count....
"Look at that shop!" Nan leaned forward over the long narrow cardboard box she was carrying.
The front glass was smashed, the place empty. Over the door was a sign, "Zimmerman, Family Baker." A little way on stood yet another shop with demolished front. On the opposite side was a third. There were seven in all, over each a German name.
Nan looked away. Miss Greta seemed not to have heard the exclamation, seemed to see nothing.
Some recruits for the army came lumping along, out of step, a sorry enough crew, pasty-faced, undersized, in ill-fitting, shabby, civilian clothes.
The china-blue eyes that had "gone blind" in front of raided German shops were full of vision before this mockery of militarism. As she looked out upon the human refuse for which war had found a use at last, the subtle pity in Miss Greta's face asked as plain as words, "What chance have these poor deluded 'volunteers' against the well-drilled German, fed and fashioned for war?"
The station at last! As Napier helped Miss Greta out, the front of her ulster swung heavily against his leg. "Sovereigns!" he said to himself.
The station was already densely crowded. While Napier and Madge mounted guard over Behemoth and the lesser luggage, Julian and Nan, with Miss Greta between them, disappeared in the crush.
When the reconnoitering party reappeared, Singleton was with them, porters at his beck, in his hand Miss Greta's ticket, passport, and German and Dutch money to the value of twenty pounds. He met the chief inspector as if by appointment, near the luggage, that loomed so important by contrast with that of other travelers.
To Miss Greta—although in her ugly ulster she looked less a person of consequence than she might—was plainly accorded a special consideration. Mr. Singleton was there to see to that. He could not, to be sure, prevent some respectful interrogation as to the money, etc., she was taking out of the country, some perfunctory examination of luggage.