“Phil,” he cried with a frightened sob in his voice, “Phil, please shut up!”
“O, Annie Moore——”
“Oh, Phil, please, please lie down and shut up!” begged Chester. “You’re—you’re daffy, you know!”
[CHAPTER XXIV]
John stood on the platform of the Back Bay station awaiting the arrival of the Federal Express from Washington bearing Margaret. The time was a few minutes before seven of a blustery March morning, and down here underground the cold was intense. John thumped his gloved hands together and took a turn up the platform. A suburban express had just emptied a portion of its load, but the arrivals had already hurried away and the place was deserted. John glanced at the clock and for the fiftieth time wondered how he should greet Margaret. His heart was beating at a disconcerting rate, and his thoughts refused to grapple with the stupendous problem, but darted off to recollections of their parting nearly three months before, to what he must tell her about Phillip. And all the while he was conscious of a disappointing attempt to summon before him a mental picture of her. Her eyes, brown, deep, inscrutable, looked back at him from the gloom, but the rest of her features were illusive, indistinct on the shadowy canvas of memory. And suddenly the long train thundered in.
He waited by the steps of the Pullman, and when the last passenger had descended turned away in keen disappointment. She had not come! But the next instant his eyes caught her farther up the platform, standing, a lithe figure in a gray cloth dress, looking perplexedly about her. She wore a great fur boa about her neck and her bag stood beside her. And after all his thought what he said to her was simply:
“Margaret!”
She turned with a little flash of pleasure and relief and gave him her hand.