He let the wandering sentence lose itself in the clamor of the train, and put the rest of his meaning into the glance with which he clung to hers. The appeal for sympathetic kindliness of treatment glowed in his eyes and shone upon his eager face.
She took time for her answer, and when she spoke it was hardly in direct reply. “Your business in England,” she said, as unconcernedly as might be—“it is that, I take it, which causes so much anxiety. Fortunately it is soon to be settled—to-morrow, I think you said.”
“I wish I might tell you about it,” he responded with frank fervency. “I wish it—you cannot imagine how much!”
The look with which she received his words recalled to him her earlier manner. “I’m afraid—” she began, in a measured voice, and then stopped. Intuition helped him to read in her face the coming of a softer mood. Finally she smiled a little. “Really, this is all very quaint,” she said, and the smile crept into her voice. “But the train is slowing down—there is no time now.”
They were indeed moving through the street of a town, at a pace which had been insensibly lowered while they talked. The irregular outlines of docks and boat-slips, overhanging greenish water, revealed themselves between dingy houses covered with signs and posters. At the barriers crossing the streets were clustered groups of philosophic observers, headed by the inevitable young soldier with his hands in the pockets of his red trousers, and flanked by those brown old women in white caps who seem always to be unoccupied, yet mysteriously do everything that is done.
“This is Dieppe, then?” he asked, with a collecting hand put out for his wraps.
The train had halted, and doors were being opened for tickets.
“We sit still, here, and go on to the wharf,” she explained.
“And then to the boat!” he cried. “How long is it?—the voyage on the boat, I mean. Three hours and over! Excellent!”
She laughed outright as she rose, and got together her books and papers.