April 17th.
WE came back to Peking on the late afternoon train—Heloise, Hindmann and I. But Hindmann stayed in the smoking car most of the way.
Heloise and I sat in our compartment without saying much of anything. The sober spell of the funeral service was on us both. I bought some magazines at Tientsin, and laid them on the seat close to her hand. She picked one up, and turned the pages, but without much interest. In a few moments she laid it aside. Most of the way she rested her head back in the corner of the seat and watched the little brick stations flit by, and the Chinese farms with their mud-walled compounds.
After a time I went forward and joined Hindmann. I thought Heloise would be glad of a little solitude. Then there was a chance that she might sleep a little. But I don't believe she did, for when I looked in on her, half an hour later, she was sitting forward, chin on hand, studying the flat brown countryside with its occasional squares of green millet-spears.
She gave me a faint smile.
“Don't go away again,” she said, her eyes back on the brown and green fields and the dingy gray compounds.
And since she was not looking at me, and seemed not to expect a reply, I just dropped down opposite her and myself gazed out the window.
After a little she spoke again, with some uncertainty in her voice.
“I'll move my things back to our little hotel—first, Anthony.”
I must have shaken my head, for she added, more resolutely—