| [15] | Federated Malay States. |
| [16] | Army term for draught horses. |
§ 2
Once at Paddington Station—(he had taken another taxi and was twenty-five minutes too early)—Peter felt perfectly calm again. Twenty-five minutes seemed an enormous time: he inspected each of the three bookstalls; bought Punch, John Bull and The Tatler; lounged into the refreshment-bar for a last drink; was told he couldn’t be served after two-thirty; expostulated vainly—and made number four platform just in time to swing the door of a first-class carriage as the train got under way.
In his excitement, Peter had not noticed that the compartment was a non-smoker. Now, seeing a girl seated in the far corner of it, he flung his cigar-butt out of the window, put his cane on the rack, and settled himself down with his rather-crumpled papers. The train glided out of the station; started worming its way between smoky houses towards the country.
For a few minutes, Peter busied himself with John Bull—Horatio Bottomley was rather amusing, Bottomley had just been to the front, Bottomley had been telling Douglas Haig how to run the Army. “Good old Horatio!” thought Peter. . . . Then he became aware that the girl was watching him. He looked up, and her eyes turned away.
The face seemed somehow familiar. Peter forgot all about Horatio; began to study his companion. At first, she did not strike him as pretty: her colouring was too pale, much paler than Patricia’s; her eyes, from his transient glimpse of them, he imagined to be gray, pale gray; the hair, as far as hat revealed it, held the colour of ripe barley—palest gold; curved cheek, lobe of close-set ear, dimpled but resolute chin, clean-cut nostrils, all made the same impression of paleness. But the dark eyebrows, long lashes, and red bow of mouth redeemed her pallor; heightened it to significance.
“A very pretty girl,” thought Peter at second glance.
She was dressed with extreme simplicity: dark blue coat and skirt, coat rather long, skirt pleated; blouse of pale silk, high at neck; gray doeskin gloves on slender hands. Patent-leather shoes and black silk stockings seemed moulded to the attractive feet and ankles. Peter judged her of medium height; put her age at twenty-three. . . .
The certainty that he knew her face grew to conviction. . . . He continued to study her over the top of his paper. She had nothing to read; seemed quite content to watch the outskirts of London—factories, fields, canal-banks, a church among greenery, an empty golf-course—as they slid past the carriage windows. Peter noticed, in the rack above her head, a suit-case of dark purple leather: but neither label nor monogram on the suit-case gave any clue to the girl’s identity.