At eight in the morning a great London station is fully awake, but not yet stifling and noisy; the cool air of the night still lurks about the platforms; the glass has not got hot; the early people are cool themselves.
Bertie was up early so as to call for Estelle; his taxi sped to the quiet square where her aunt lived. A gloomy place, with tall houses standing in formidable respectability, where grave old butlers opened doors, and broughams and victorias still came round to take their owners for an airing.
Estelle was on the doorstep, cool and fresh, one of the few people who can get up early without looking sleepy.
They flew to Devonshire.
"First class!" Estelle frowned as she saw her ticket. "Oh, Captain Carteret!"
"This is my day," he pleaded. "To be economical travelling one must be economical in company. Come along."
They had an empty carriage; going down to the restaurant for breakfast—a little gritty as train breakfasts are, but excellent.
London slipped away; they ran past lush meadows, past placid streams, old farmhouses sheltered by trees. The countryside was alive with busy workers. Steel knives cut the grass and laid it in fragrant swathes. Steel teeth tossed it up through the hot, dry air. It was perfect weather for saving hay, for gathering the early harvest. The earth gives to us living, takes our clay to its heart when our spirits have left it.
The heat mists swept up slowly from the world; fairy vapours floating heavenwards until the summer's day was clear in its sunlit beauty; and they tore into far Devon with the salt breath of the sea in the faint wind.
A dogcart met them at the station; a short drive, with the sea pulsing far below them, brought them to Cliff End. An old house standing amid a blaze of flowers, it was its owner's whim to have it kept up as if he were living there. There were quaintly-shaped rooms, with windows flung wide. Estelle ran through them, getting her first glimpse of a true English home, while Bertie went over accounts and did his business.