“I want to catch my train,” responded Ursula.
“Don’t be so peevish. Is this all the reward I get for allowing your box to scratch the paint off my dog-cart?”
“Oh, Gerard, will it do that?”
“Of course it will. But make yourself easy. I’m going to have the cart repainted, anyway. The green spikes were well enough two years ago, but I’ve seen another shade I like better.”
“Gerard, you are horribly extravagant.”
“So my father says each time he gets himself some new plaything. By George! I believe we really are too late.”
With a shout to the groom he leaped from his seat, and was lost in the interior of the station; as Ursula hurriedly followed, a whistle of departure pierced straight through her heart.
“Quick, you stupid,” she heard Gerard’s voice saying to somebody. The train had stopped again. She was bustled in. They were off!
“Now that never happened to me before,” said Gerard. “The man is an ass. But, in fact, it is all your fault.”
Ursula sat staring at her hero in unmixed awe. Her infrequent railway journeys had always been occasions of flurry and alarm. Never had she realized that any son of man could influence a station-master.