"I had to make the whole blessed circuit," he said, tarrying willingly enough.
"Do you often have such deliciously irresponsible people to convoy?"
"Not often; but the regular people usually make up for it in—well, in cantankerousness; that's about the only word that will fit it." Brockway was thinking of the exacting majority in the Tadmor.
"And yet it doesn't make you misanthropic? I should think it would. What place is this we are coming to?"
"Carvalho—the supper station."
Gertrude saw her father coming toward them; she guessed his purpose and resented it. If she chose to make kindly amends to the passenger agent for his sorry dinner, she would not be prevented.
"We stop here a little while, don't we?" she asked of Brockway.
"Yes; twenty minutes or more. Would you like to go out for a breath of fresh air?" She had risen and caught up her wrap and hat.
"I should; it is just what I was going to propose. Cousin Jeannette, I'm going to walk on the platform with Mr. Brockway. Come," she said; and they escaped before Mr. Vennor could overtake them.
Once outside, they paced up and down under the windows of the train, chatting reminiscently of four bright days a year agone, and shunning the intervening period as two people will whose lives have met and touched and gone apart again. At the second turn, they met Mrs. Dunham and Fleetwell; and at the third, the President, sandwiched between Hannah and Priscilla Beaswicke. Whereupon Brockway, scenting espionage, drew Gertrude away toward the engine.