Trio?... Peter hated the Trio.
—“Come along, quick. You’ll miss your train.” He hurried them down the stairs and through the gangway—then up again—past the barrier—on to the platform—in time to see the nine-forty steam slowly away.
Peter let escape a long quivering sigh. Reprieved for a while. There was still a chance.
“When’s the next to Thatch Lane?”
“Ten-thirteen, sir. Express. Number four platform.”
They crossed to number four. And if Peter dragged behind, Merle likewise dragged. And if Peter swung ahead—there was Merle still beside her. Or so it seemed to Peter’s overwrought fancy. And after about five minutes’ aimless waiting, she could bear it no longer, but strolled off by herself, down the dark lonely platform, till it sloped away to meet a gleaming maze of rails.
Footsteps in her wake. She mastered herself sufficiently not to turn, but triumph clamoured within her. He had understood, and followed, as she intended he should. The footsteps drew level. It was Merle.
Merle had not noticed the direction Peter had taken; but discovering the accidental proximity, she tried as naturally as possible to break an awkward silence: “This was where we broke the egg, wasn’t it?”
For beyond anger and beyond pain, lurked within her an unspoken wish that Peter would not so far give herself away; fastidious recoil of girlhood from which the bloom had—not been brushed.
She received merely a look in response to her remark. Then, without speaking, they turned and walked back to Stuart, who, absorbed in a study of the ownerless motor-cars that eccentrically bestrew Euston, had apparently not noticed their absence.