“I like you to be impatient. I’m so happy. I don’t think anything can ever be happier. Besides, you know,” and her eyes sparkled—“you may change—you may want to break it off—and then think how glad you’ll be that we waited.”
He held her then so fiercely that she cried out.
“Don’t say that—even as a joke. How dare you—even as a joke? I love you—I love you—I love you.” He kissed her mouth again and again, then suddenly, with a little movement of tenderness, stroked her hair very softly, whispering to her, “I love you—I love you—I love you—Oh! how I love you!”
That night she was so happy that she lay for many hours staring at the black ceiling, a smile on her lips. He, also, was awake until the early morning....
The departure to the station was a terrific affair. There were Mr. Trenchard, senior, Great Aunt Sarah (risen from a bed of sickness, yellow and pinched in the face, very yellow and pinched in the temper, and deafer than deaf), Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty, George Trenchard, Mrs. Trenchard, Millie (very pretty), Henry (very sulky), Katherine, Philip, Rocket and Aunt Sarah’s maid (the other maids had left by an earlier train)—twelve persons. The train to be caught was the eleven o’clock from Paddington, and two carriages had been reserved. The first business was to settle old Mr. Trenchard and Aunt Sarah. They were placed, like images, in the best corners, Mr. Trenchard saying sometimes in his silvery voice: “It’s very kind of you, Harriet,” or “Thank ye, Betty, my dear,” and once to Millie, “I like to see ye laughing, my dear—very pretty, very pretty”. Aunt Sarah frowned and wrinkled her nose, but was, in her high black bonnet, a very fine figure. Her maid, Clarence, was plain, elderly and masculine in appearance, having a moustache and a stiff linen collar and very little hair visible under her black straw hat. She, however, knew just how Great-Aunt Sarah liked to be....
The others in that compartment were Aunt Aggie, George Trenchard (he sat next to his father and told him jokes out of the papers) and Mrs. Trenchard. In the other carriage Katherine and Philip had the corners by the window. Aunt Betty sat next to Philip, Millie and Henry had the farther corners. When the train started, Katherine’s heart gave a jump, as it always did when she set off for Garth. “We’re really off. We’ll really be in Garth by the evening. We’ll really wake up there to-morrow morning.”
Philip had not seen Henry since his return from Manchester, so he tried to talk to him. Henry, however, was engaged upon a very large edition of “War and Peace,” and, although he answered Philip’s enquiries very politely, he was obviously determined to speak to no one. Millie had Henry Galleon’s “Roads” to read, but she did not study it very deeply—Aunt Betty had a novel called “The Rosary” and her knitting; now and then she would break into little scraps of talk as: “But if I moved the bed across lengthways that would leave room for the book-case,” or “I do think people must be clever to make up conversations in books,” or “There’s Reading”. The lovers, therefore, were left to one another....
Katherine had upon her lap the novel that had so greatly excited Henry; he had insisted upon her reading it, but now it lay idly there, unopened. That little smile that had hovered about her lips last night was still there to-day. Often her eyes were closed, and she might have seemed to be asleep were it not that the little smile was alive—her eyes would open, they would meet Philip’s eyes, they would be drawn, the two of them, closer and closer and closer.
They talked together, their voices scarcely above a whisper. The day was one of those that are given sometimes, in a fit of forgetfulness, by the gods, at the beginning of March. It was a very soft, misty day, with the sun warm and golden but veiled. Trees on the dim blue horizon were faintly pink, and streams that flashed for an instant before the windows were pigeon-colour. Everywhere the earth seemed to be breaking, flowers pushing through the soil, rivers released from their winter bondage laughing in their new freedom, the earth chuckling, whispering, humming with the glorious excitement of its preparation, as though it had never had a spring in all its life before, as though it did not know that there would yet be savage winds, wild storms of rain, many cold and bitter days. Blue mist—running water—trees with their bursting buds—a haze of sun and rain in the air—a great and happy peace.
Katherine and Philip, although they saw no one but one another, were aware of the day—it was as though it had been arranged especially for them. The rise and fall of their voices had a sleepy rhythm, as though they were keeping time with the hum of the train: