“All right, darling, suppose you go and order it. Then get ready and let’s start as soon as possible; we’ll amuse ourselves well, and forget that we have not a month to do it in. Live and be happy in the present day, dear Floggie,” he went on in a mock-serious tone; “for there is always a chance that to-morrow will not declare itself.”
So they went off, like the boy he was in spite of his more than thirty years, and the girl that she sometimes felt herself to be still in spite of the two children and the eight years of matrimony. They walked a little way. Then Walter had a brilliant idea.
“Let’s get into a hansom,” he said, “drive to Waterloo and take the first train that is going in any pleasant direction; I think Waterloo is the best place for that sort of speculation. This beggar’s horse looks pretty good, jump in.”
As they drove up to the station, a four-wheel cab moved away, the cabman grumbling at the sum that had been given him by two people, a man and a woman, who still stood on the station steps looking after him.
“Why, there’s Wimple!” Walter exclaimed; “and who’s that with him, I wonder?”
Florence looked up quickly. Mr. Wimple wore a shabby grey coat, and round his neck and over his mouth there was a grey comforter, for the October morning was slightly chilly. In his hand he carried a worn brown portmanteau. Beside him stood a tall good-looking young woman of five-and-twenty, commonly, almost vulgarly dressed. She looked after the departing cab with a scowl on her face that told it was she who had paid the scanty fare. As they stood together, they looked poor and common and singularly unprepossessing; it was impossible to help feeling that they were nearly connected. They looked like husband and wife, and of an indefinite and insignificant class. Suddenly Alfred Wimple caught Walter’s eye, he nodded gravely without the least confusion, but he evidently said something quickly and in a low tone to his companion, for they hurried away through one of the station doors.
“That horrid Mr. Wimple seems to possess us lately,” Florence thought.
As they went from the ticket office she saw Mr. Wimple and his friend hurrying along the platform. A minute later they had entered a Portsmouth train which was on the point of starting.
“If that’s his Liphook friend I don’t think much of the looks of her. Alfred always picked up odd people,” Walter thought; but he kept these reflections to himself; all he said aloud was, “I say, Floggie dear, if Wimple turns up while I’m away, don’t be uncivil to him, and give him food if you can manage it. Somehow he always looks half starved, poor beggar. Fisher is going to give him some reviewing to do, perhaps that will help him a bit.”
There was a train starting to Windsor in ten minutes; so they went by it, and strolled down by the river and lingered near the boats, and went into the town and looked at the shops and the outside of the castle. Then they lunched at the confectioner’s, an extravagant lunch which Walter ordered, and afterwards, while they were still drowsy and happy, they hired an open fly and drove to Virginia Water. They hurried back to Windsor in time to catch the 6 p.m. train for town by half a minute, and congratulated themselves upon finding an empty carriage.