“Stand away please, miss!” said the old porter, hurrying up to intervene. She abandoned that last remark with an impatient gesture.
Peter sat still. The end of the station ran by like a scene in a panorama. Her Medusa face had slid away to the edge of the picture that the window framed, and vanished.
For some seconds he was too amazed to move.
Then he got up heavily and stuck his head out of the window to stare at Joan.
Joan was standing quite still with her hands in the side pockets of her khaki overcoat; she was standing straight as a rod, with her heels together, looking at the receding train. She never moved....
Neither of these two young people made a sign to each other, which was the first odd thing the old porter noted about them. They just stared. By all the rules they should have waved handkerchiefs. The next odd thing was that Joan stared at the bend for half a minute perhaps after the train had altogether gone, and then tried to walk out to her car by the little white gate at the end of the platform which had been disused and nailed up for three years....
§ 22
After Oswald had seen the car whisk through the gates into the road, and after he had rested on his crutches staring at the gates for a time, he had hobbled back to his study. He wanted to work, but he found it difficult to fix his attention. He was thinking of Joan and Peter, and for the first time in his life he was wondering why they had never fallen in love with each other. They seemed such good company for each other....
He was still engaged upon these speculations half an hour or so later, when he heard the car return and presently saw Joan go past his window. She was flushed, and she was staring in front of her at nothing in particular. He had never seen Joan looking so unhappy. In fact, so strong was his impression that she was unhappy that he doubted it, and he went to the window and craned out after her.
She was going straight up towards the arbour. With a slight hurry in her steps. She had her fur collar half turned up on one side, her hands were deep in her pockets, and something about her dogged walk reminded him of some long-forgotten moment, years ago it must have been, when Joan, in hot water for some small offence, had been sent indoors at The Ingle-Nook.