His tone, angry as it was, warmed her soul.
"But,—it was not your business," she said, in a low voice. "It had nothing to do with you."
"I couldn't tell him that," said Barnaby. "Lord, how he went for me, poor old chap—! Spared me nothing. Said I could never make it up to you.... It's ridiculous, isn't it? But if you'd heard him attacking me!—I had to promise him I would try."
He was walking on beside her, so close that his arm brushed hers, his long strides falling in with her little steps. And he was looking down on her with a sort of raging kindness.
"You poor little girl!" he said.
They went on for awhile in silence, and then Barnaby stopped in his absent-minded progress. His good-humour was back, and the joke of this expedition was again uppermost in his head. He pointed with his stick at a strange and wonderful work of art in a milliner's window.
"Let's go in here and buy some of these hats," he said.
All her life Susan remembered that day with him. It was all so absurd, so simple. That strange town, London, was always to her the place where he and she made acquaintance, playing to ignorant audiences their game of Let's Pretend. She began to know him;—the way he walked, swinging his shoulders, stopping short when a sight amused him; his whimsical earnestness over little things, and the lines that came round his mouth when he smiled....
There were horses being put into the train when they arrived at St. Pancras. The grooms in charge of them were leading them gingerly through the people, past the lighted bookstall, persuading them up the gangways into their boxes. There was a small commotion as one of them, snorting, refused to step on the slanting boards. Tugging and shouting at him made him worse; he began to plunge, scattering the onlookers and the porters smiting his flanks.
"Hi! you infernal idiots..." said Barnaby. "Back him in."