“Darling, don’t forget the sketch you promised. I shall have a frame all ready—waiting.”
And Maggie Crowder—
“I hope it will be fine, dear—such a nuisance if it’s wet; and then there’s our tennis dance next week, it won’t be a bit the same thing if——”
Lastly the Dorrington girls together—
“Dear Mrs. Maradick—good-bye—ripping—awfully sorry——” the rest lost in nervous laughter.
And then began that last dreadful minute when you do so wish in spite of yourself that the train would go. You have said your last words, you have given your last embrace, and you stare passionately down the platform hoping for that final whistle and the splendid waving of a green flag.
At last it came. The ladies surged forward in a body and waved their handkerchiefs. Mrs. Maradick leaned for a moment out of the window and waved hers. Tom Craddock shouted something hoarsely about James that no one could hear, and Epsom was finally bereft of its glory.
Mrs. Maradick collected her bags with her rugs, and then considered her girls. They were seated quietly, each in a corner, their faces bent studiously over their magazines. They were very much alike, with straight flaxen hair and pink and white complexions, light blue cotton frocks, and dark green waistbands.
Yes, they were nice girls—they were dear girls. Then she thought of her husband. James Maradick had stood in the background during the farewells. He had, indeed, been busy up to the very last moment, but he was a reserved and silent man, and he really hadn’t anything very much to say. He was well over six feet, and broad in proportion. He was clean shaven, with features very strongly marked, and a high forehead from which the hair, closely cut and a little grey at the temples, was brushed back and parted on the right side. His eyes were grey and, at times, wonderfully expressive. Epsom said that he was a dreadful man for looking you through. He wore a suit of dark brown excellently cut. He was sitting now opposite his wife and looking out of the window. He was thinking of Tom Craddock.
“James dear, where is my book? You know—that novel you gave me—‘Sir Somebody or other’s heir’ or something. I just like to know where everything is before I settle down. It was really awfully nice of Louie Denis coming all that way to say good-bye—and of the others too. I wonder Jack Hearne wasn’t there. He could have seen Louie back, and it would have been a good chance; but perhaps he didn’t know she was coming. It was nice of Mr. Craddock coming up, though of course he came to see you.”