Nor is it less impossible to supply the significance of Eleanor's intonation.
“Ladies, ladies!” he implored, “do not, I pray you, misunderstand! I vas not responsible—I could not help it. You both VOULD come mit me! No, no, do not look so at me! I mean not zat—I mean I could not do vizout both of you. Ach, Himmel! Vat do I say? I should say zat—zat——”
He broke off with a start of apprehension.
“Look! Zere comes a man mit a bicycle! Zis is too public! Come mit me into ze station and I shall eggsplain! He waves his fist! Come! you vould not be seen here?”
He offered one arm to Eva, the other to Eleanor; and so alarming were the gesticulations of the approaching cyclist, and so beseeching the Baron's tones, that without more ado they clung to him and hurried on to the platform.
“Come to ze vaiting-room!” he whispered. “Zere shall ve be safe!”
Alack for the luck of the Baron von Blitzenberg! Out of the very door they were approaching stepped a solitary lady, sole passenger from the south train, and at the sight of those three, linked arm in arm, she staggered back and uttered a cry more piercing than the engine's distant whistle.
“Rudolph!” cried this lady.
“Alicia!” gasped the Baron.
His rescuers said nothing, but clung to him the more tightly, while in the Baroness's startled eyes a harder light began to blaze.