She nodded. "Any train—anytime."
There was an instant's silence. It seemed to her that she could hear one or two deep-drawn breaths from him. Then:
"Would you mind looking up just once more? I must go in a minute; I can't even take you to your train."
But she answered, with an odd little trembling of the lips: "Please don't ask me to. I'm—afraid!"
A low laugh replied to that. "So am I!" said Jefferson Craig.
He rose, and she rose with him. The others came around and he took leave of them. His handclasp was all that Georgiana had for farewell, for when she lifted her eyes she let them rest on his finely moulded chin. But she knew that in spite of his expressed fear it was not her round little chin he looked at, but the gleam of her dark eyes through their sheltering lashes, and that his hand gave hers a pressure which carried with it much meaning. It told her that which as yet she hardly dared believe.
Since the journey home was made up of changes of trains, no sleeper was possible, and Georgiana sat staring out of her car window while those about her slumbered. There was too much to think of for sleep, if she had wanted to sleep. She did not want to sleep, she wanted to live over and over again those five minutes with their incredible revelation. And as the wheels turned, the rhythm of their turning was set to one simple phrase, the one which had sent her world whirling upside down and made the stars leap out of their courses:
"When may I come?"