"It's cheerful to be with some one who can tell things by one's tone. Well, he thinks, if I can't make a beginning, that I may as well go back."
"I see," he said. "I won't ask you if you mean to."
She laughed a shade defiantly. "Duluth has many charms—I've been remembering them since his letter. There is my father, and there's strawberry-shortcake. My father will be disappointed in me if I have to go; the strawberry-shortcake—well, there's a tiny shop there where they sell it hot. I've never seen it hot anywhere else—and they turn on the cream with a tap, out of a thing that looks like a miniature cistern."
"You're not going back," he said. "You're going on the stage as a supernumerary instead?"
In the flare of the station lamps her eyes flashed at him; he could see the passionate trembling of her mouth. The cab stopped, and they got out, and threaded their way among the crowd to the barriers. There was a train in ten minutes, Heriot learnt.
"Shall we go to the waiting-room?"
"No," said Miss Cheriton.
"Forgive me what I said just now. I am sorry."
"What does it matter?"
"It was brutal."