“Would that have altered it?” she said sharply.
“No. I suppose it wouldn’t,” he fenced, just in time to save himself.
The rattle of the approaching train grew suddenly loud. It was round the bend.
Joan spoke in a perfectly even voice. “I know you have been lying, Peter. I have known it all this week-end. I know your leave lasts until the twenty-first.”
He stared at her in astonishment.
“There was a time.... It’s to think of all this dirt upon you that hurts most. The lies, the dodges, the shuffling meanness of it. From you.... Whom I love.”
A gap of silence came. To the old porter twelve yards off they seemed entirely well-behaved and well-disciplined young people, saying nothing in particular. The train came in with a sort of wink under the bridge, and the engine and foremost carriages ran past them up the platform.
“I wish I could explain. I didn’t know—— The fact is I got entangled in a sort of promise....”
“Hetty!” Joan jerked out, and “There’s an empty first for you.”
The train stopped.