“Mind—you’re to come back at once if it isn’t all right,” he said authoritatively. “You understand, Doris?” I nodded—I couldn’t speak. Then the porter yelled angrily at Colin, and he dropped back. I leaned out until the train went round the curve, while he and Madge stood waving on the platform.
I cried a little at first—I couldn’t help it. I had never been away by myself before; it was so suddenly lonely, and they had been such dears to me. It was not pleasant, either, to picture little Madge going back to the flat by herself, to tidy up; then to spend all the afternoon, until Colin came home, over dull old lesson-books. And I knew Colin would miss me: we were such chums. I was missing him horribly already.
After awhile I cheered up. The thing had to be, and I might as well make the best of it, and remember that my whole duty in life, according to Madge, was to get fat. The country was pretty, too: it had been a wet season, and all the paddocks were green and fresh, and the cattle and sheep looked beautiful. Fate had made Father a doctor, but he had always said that his heart lay in farming, and I had inherited his tastes. To Colin and Madge a bullock was merely something that produced steak, but to me it was a thing of beauty. It was so long since I had been for any kind of a journey that the mere travelling was a pleasure. Mrs. McNab had sent money for a first-class fare, which we all thought very decent of her: she had explained in a stiff little note that she did not approve of young girls travelling alone second-class. Colin had snorted, remarking that he had never had the slightest intention of letting me do so: but it was decent, all the same. I sent her a brainwave of thanks as I leaned back in comfort, glad to rest after the racket of the last few days. I did not even want to read my magazines, though a new magazine was unfamiliar enough to us, nowadays, to be a treat. It was delightful to watch the country, to do nothing, to enjoy the luxury of having the compartment to myself.
That lasted for nearly half the journey. Then, just as the engine whistled and the train began to move slowly out of a little station, a porter flung open the door hurriedly, and some one dashed in, stumbling over my feet, and distributing golf-clubs, fishing-rods, and other loose impedimenta about the carriage. The porter hurled through the window other articles—a stick, a kit-bag, an overcoat; and the new-comer, leaning out, tossed him something that rattled loudly on the platform. Then he sat down and panted.
CHAPTER III
I MAKE A FRIEND
‟I BEG your pardon for tumbling over you in such a way,” he said. “Awfully rude of me—but I hadn’t time to think. The car went wrong, and I never thought we’d catch the train—had to sprint the last two hundred yards. I do hope I didn’t hurt you?”
He was a tall young man with the nicest ugly face I had ever seen. His hair was red, and he was liberally freckled: he had a nondescript nose, a mouth of large proportions, and quite good blue eyes. He seemed to hang together loosely. There was something so friendly about his face that I found myself answering his smile almost as if he were Colin.
“No, you didn’t hurt me,” I told him. “I would have moved out of the way if I hadn’t been dreaming—but I had no time.”
“I should think you hadn’t!” he said, laughing. “It was the most spectacular entry I ever made. But I’d have hated to miss the train.”
I murmured something vaguely polite, and relapsed into silence, bearing in mind the fact that well-brought-up young persons do not talk in railway carriages to strange men, even if the said men have fallen violently over their feet. My fellow-traveller became silent, too, though I felt him glance at me occasionally. The placid content which had seemed to fill the carriage was gone, and I began to feel tired. I read a magazine, wishing the journey would end.