She talked about everything which least concerned them, and he wished himself away. He hated her at that moment.
They were in the Pullman, with one more minute by Felix’s watch before the train started. He was wishing it were over, when she smiled reminiscently and said “Do you remember seeing me off to Springfield two years ago?”
“I remember,” he said doggedly. Why did she want to torment him?
“Only two years—and a whole lifetime to forget them in,” she mused. “We ought to be able to manage that.”
He looked up, but did not reply.
“Aren’t you going to kiss me good-bye?” she said.
He put his arms about her—and once more, as a long time ago, they were swept together in a passionate embrace, that sought by its very pain to impress this moment on their souls, to annihilate time and space for them, and make them remember it always....
And then Felix was outside on the platform, and she was waving him a cheerful good-bye.
2
Back in his apartment, where he had not been since morning, he found a note from Clive, asking him to come out and spend the week-end in Woods Point. Clive had thrown up his job on the Chronicle to write his long postponed novel. As he had told it, he and Phyllis had tossed up a penny to decide which should come first—his novel or her baby ... and he had lost.