That would be magnificent. She was sure she was not in the least callous or hard-hearted, yet it pleased her to think that her father was lonely without her. One of her dreams was to be passionately loved by a great man, and to have to explain to him “kindly but firmly” that she desired only friendship....
One day she did meet her father.
She walked into a third-class compartment at Bockley Station and there he was, sitting in the far corner! Worse still, the compartment was full, saving the seat immediately opposite to him. There is a tunnel soon after leaving the station and the trains are not lighted. In the sheltering darkness Catherine felt herself growing hot and uncomfortable. What was she to do? She thought of her ideal conversation, and remembered that in it he was supposed to lead off. But if he did not lead off? She wished she had devised a dialogue in which she had given herself the lead. Yet it would be absurd to sit there opposite to him without a word. She decided she would pretend not to see him. She was carrying a music-case, and as the train was nearing the end of the tunnel she fished out a piece of music and placed it in front of her face like a newspaper. When the train emerged into daylight she discovered that it was a volume of scales and arpeggios, and that she was holding it the wrong way up. The situation was absurd. Yet she decided to keep up the semblance of being engrossed in harmonic and melodic minors. After a while she stole a glance over the top of her music. It was risky, but her curiosity was too strong for her.
She saw nothing but the back page of the Daily Telegraph. It was strange, because he never read in trains. It was one of his fads. He believed it injurious to the eyes. (Many and many a time he had lectured her on the subject.)
Obviously then he was trying to avoid seeing her, just as she was trying to avoid seeing him. The situation was almost farcical.... There seemed to be little opening for that ideal dialogue of hers. She wished he would lean forward and tap her knee and say: “Catherine!”
Then she could drop her music, look startled, and follow up with: “I beg your pardon!”
Unfortunately he appeared to have no artistic sense of what was required of him.
It was by the merest chance that at a certain moment when she looked over the top of the scales and arpeggios he also looked up from his Daily Telegraph. Their eyes met. Catherine blushed, but it was not visible behind her music. He just stared. If they had both been quick enough they might have looked away and let the crisis pass. Unfortunately each second as it passed made them regard each other more unflinchingly. The train ground round the curve into Bethnal Green Station. Catherine was waiting for him to say something. At last the pause was becoming so tense that she had to break it. She said the very first thing that entered her head. It was: “Hullo!”
Then ensued the following conversation.
“Good-morning, Catherine ... going up to the City, I suppose?”