One day in the previous October, Carden had taken his seat in the afternoon express which stops at Birmingham on its way from the north to Euston, or rather, having taken a leisurely survey of the train, which was, as he quickly noted, agreeably empty, he had indicated to the porter carrying his bag a carriage in which sat, alone, a singularly pretty woman.
As he afterwards had the delight of telling her, and, as he now reminded himself with a retrospective thrill of feeling, he had experienced, when his eyes first met those of the fair traveller, that incommunicable sensation, part physical, part mental, which your genuine Lothario, if an intelligent man, always welcomes with quickening pulse as a foretaste of the special zest to be attached to a coming pursuit.
Carden's instinct as to such delicate matters had seldom played him false; never less so than on this occasion, for, within an hour, he and the lovely stranger had reached that delightful stage of intimacy in which a man and woman each feels that he and she, while still having much to learn about the other, are on the verge of a complete understanding.
During the three hours' journey, Carden's travelling companion told him a great deal more about herself than he had chosen to reveal concerning his own life and affairs; he learnt, for instance, that she was the young wife of an old man, and that the old man was exceedingly jealous. Further, that she found the life she was compelled to lead "horribly boring," and that a widowed cousin, who lived near London, and from whom she had "expectations," formed a convenient excuse for occasional absences from home.
Concerning three matters of fact, however, she completely withheld her confidence, both then, in those first delicious hours of their acquaintance, and even later, when their friendship—well, why not say friendship, for Carden had felt a very strong liking as well as an over-mastering attraction for this Undine-like creature?—had become much closer.
The first and second facts which she kept closely hidden, for reasons which should perhaps have been obvious, were her surname—she confided to him that her Christian name was Pansy—and her husband's profession. The third fact which she concealed was the name of the town where she lived, and from which she appeared to be travelling that day.
The trifling incidents of that eventful October journey had become to a great extent blurred in Theodore Carden's memory, but what had followed was still extraordinarily vivid, and to-day, on this holiday morning, standing idly looking out of the window, he allowed his mind a certain retrospective licence.
From whom, so he now asked himself, had first come the suggestion that there should be no parting at Euston between himself and the strange elemental woman he found so full of unforced fascination and disarming charm?
The answer soon came echoing down the corridors of remembrance: from himself, of course. But even now the memory brought with it shame-faced triumph as he remembered her quick acquiescence, as free, as unashamed, as joyous as that of a spoilt child acclaiming an unlooked-for treat.
And, after all, what harm had there been in the whole halcyon adventure—what injury had it caused to any human being?