Mark, with time to spare after he had made arrangements for a coupé to Dover, caught the contagion of excitement and gaiety, and could enter into the feelings of an octogenarian who was renewing his youth by playing a penny whistle. Couples were numerous as birds in pairing-time. Mark looked at these with sympathetic interest. They drifted by, pair after pair, an eternal procession of Jacks and Jills. It struck Mark, not for the first time, that these couples were very youthful. And he felt that Betty and he shared their youth, that they had not waited too long. Presently a man of his own class approached, peering eagerly to right and left, consulting first his watch, and then the great clock. Mark watched him and followed him. The man was excited and nervous. Suddenly his face brightened; he ran forward, with both hands extended. "You have come at last," Mark heard him say. A pretty girl, her face suffused with blushes, murmured something, and the man answered hoarsely, "If you had chucked me, I should have cut my throat." Then they passed, arm in arm, laughing and chattering, into the crowd and out of sight. Mark looked at his watch. In less than ten minutes Betty would be here; she also would blush and smile; her hand would be on his arm; and together they would pass out of the noise and confusion into sweet, secluded spaces beyond!
His train backed into the station, and passengers began to take their places. Mark made sure that his coupé was reserved for him, but he would not allow the porter to put his traps into it.
"I am expecting a friend," he said; and the porter grinned. He walked back to the trysting-place under the clock, one of half a dozen who had agreed to meet beneath it. Overhead, the great dial recorded the flight of time with inexorable, inhuman deliberation. Mark was fascinated by the minute hand, creeping on and on, nearing the appointed hour. Betty was running things rather fine, he reflected. In less than seven minutes the train would be despatched.
Five minutes more glided by. The discordant noises of the station fell like the boom of distant breakers upon an ear attuned to the sound of one voice which out of all the voices in the universe was now mute. The porter approached, anxious and insistent. Mark stammered out a score of questions. The porter shook his head dismally.
"She must come," said Mark harshly.
As if in derisive answer, the locomotive of the train about to start whistled. Doors banged. The long line of carriages began to move.
"'Ere she is," said the porter phlegmatically.
Mark turned with thrilling pulses. A woman had rushed up to him, out of breath and scarlet in the face. That she had missed her train, and was distressed inconceivably, no one could doubt; but she was not Betty. Mark could have struck her. She stared stupidly at the vanishing train.
"It's gone," she said.
"Yes," said Mark grimly.