“Nancy and I will have an escort up. We are shopping; the summer sales get earlier and earlier every year.”
The porter began to clang the noisy brass bell, and along the line, which ran perfectly straight for a mile or more, they saw the blue smoke and bulky, indistinct outline of the approaching engine:
“I’ll go and hurry Edred.”
She stepped out of the sun into the little booking-office, with its torn excursion-bills and gay pictures of ocean liners.
He was scooping up his change, throwing it, with his accustomed carelessly reckless air, into his trousers pocket. The door of the waiting-room was half open. On the platform Aunt Sophy was talking earnestly to Jethro about farming affairs, and Nancy was staring at the enameled advertisement of a local seedsman.
“Come in here for a moment.”
She jerked her hand toward the open door. They went in. The window was of frosted glass.
“I can’t go with you,” she said, looking up hopelessly through her veil. “You see how it is! Aunt Sophy and Nancy are going up. Everything is against us. Perhaps it is as well. Good-by.”
He had never been so nearly disposed to sacrifice himself for a woman. Then, with his unquenchable selfishness, he remembered too that a pretty woman would be positively useful in his mode of life: many a dubious bit of business had been pulled off by a good dinner and an attractive woman. She was so devoted to him. A devoted woman was invaluable and very rare. They usually played their own game.
He kissed her turbulently on her closed eyes, through the crisp net, on her burning cheeks and dry lips. They both felt the rush and sway of the train as it rushed into the station. They both became conscious of a figure in the narrow door. She lifted her head, unclasped her fierce arms, to see Jethro.