They walked slowly, like two tired persons, to her car. He saw about her tickets and bade her goodby at the steps.
“Is there—somebody else?” she asked quietly.
“Gracious, no!” he cried; but immediately he said, “Wait!” and looked worried. “Yes,” he corrected, “there is—and there isn’t at all!” His lips closed firmly, but his eyes seemed to be telling her not to believe a word of it.
“This little book,” he put the package into her hand hastily, as if he were eager to change the topic, “is five years of my life. It will explain what I have not been able to say to you tonight. But you are not to open it until your eighteenth birthday.”
“That is tomorrow—and tomorrow is almost here,” she told him. “In a few moments I’ll be eighteen.”
“Yes, I know!” he agreed. “So you will be! Well! well! On your ride home, then, you may read it. There is just one condition: you must begin at the beginning, and go straight through—‘Through hedge and over gate. Straight! straight! straight! straight!’” he quoted. “Promise!”
She promised.
The porters began to take on the appearance of getting under way; the Midnight Express was a punctual institution.
“All aboard!” someone called afar off. “Express for Philadelphia and Washington! All aboard!”
She leaned up to him with flaming invitation in her face.