"I'm going," he said; "and my chum can't stay here!"
"Is it fixed?" Her eyes were startled. He had never known her eyes were quite so blue.
"Yes, he's travelling at night, and won't break the journey. I'm to be at the station."
At six in the morning he was to be at the station—the next morning but one. The train reaches Rouen at an earlier hour now, but the service was a tidal one twenty years ago. When she had scanned the letter neither of them spoke for—it seemed a long time to him. They had crossed the road into the Solférino Garden, and he stood beside her with his hands thrust in his jacket pockets, staring at the little lake.
"So we shall soon be saying 'good-bye,'" she said at last.
He nodded miserably. "To-morrow evening about nine o'clock," he said.
"Why so early?"
"Have you forgotten you're going to a dance with Miss McGuire to-morrow night? I didn't forget; I thought of it directly I saw the date. What time shall you begin to dress?"
"You don't know me very well, Con, after all," she murmured.
His heart leapt; he pretended not to understand what she meant.