"No—business, Chitty. No riding clothes."
"Very good, sir. Thank you."
Helen saw me off the next evening, accompanied by the family. Her eyes were swimming, but she didn't let go. She was the last to kiss me, after a formal kiss from my mother and a huge puppy embrace from Frances.
"Don't worry, Ted darling. I promise not to be homesick. I love you."
A guard most unceremoniously slammed the door between us. The train pulled out. I sat and swore nearly all the way to Harwich.
The month did not pass quickly, although I worked hard, for long hours. The process was intricate and complicated, quite beyond the range of anything I had done before. The German chemists did their best to help me, and at the same time made no secret of their contempt for my training.
Helen wrote amusing and cheerful letters, in which Leonidas and Frances chiefly figured. She spoke little of my mother, and only to reassure me that "everything was all right." I knew, therefore, that no progress had been made there. One piece of news, which, I thought might possibly come, did not. That had been one of my chief anxieties over leaving Helen.
I saw a lot of Berlin and went nightly to cheap seats at the theatre. My experiences of this city are not, however, germane to this narrative. It was not until the middle of the fifth week of my stay that the Treptow Chemische Gesellschaft notified me that I had now performed the process successfully several times and was in a position to return to instruct others. I made one of the quickest trips to a telegraph office known to German history. From there to my hotel and on to the Bahnhof I at least equalled any existing record. Twenty-four hours later Helen was in my arms on the platform of Victoria Station.
The family were at dinner when we reached Kensington. I hope Gabriel's trumpet is not timed for the dinner hour, for it is quite certain my mother will not allow even that to postpone her sitting down.