She walked to and fro by the door, gazing anxiously down the platform; then, on an impulse, she took O’Rane’s arm, whispered in his ear and led him away from the others.
“Nothing serious, I hope?,” he murmured.
“Then you can hear there’s something wrong!,” she laughed. “I wish people’s voices told me as much... No, I just wanted you to pull the party together as much as possible; it’s not too well chosen, and poor Bobbie isn’t very clever at seeing a squall until he’s run right into it. Do you remember poor Jim’s last ball at Chepstow on the eve of the war? I shall never forget how wonderful you were in keeping things going then. So, if you do feel a storm brewing...?”
O’Rane nodded, and they walked back to rejoin Eric. The last stragglers were being urged into their places and the doors slammed, when her eyes opened wider. Looking past her, Eric saw a man in the light-blue uniform of the Air Force.
“I was hoping they’d be left behind,” murmured Amy, as she got into the carriage.
“Who’s with him?,” Eric asked.
“Barbara,” she answered shortly.
“Some one told me she’d gone to Ireland,” he said indifferently.
“No. George has only gone for two days on business, and she’s such a bad sailor that she preferred to stay behind... My dear Babs, you nearly lost the train!”
A leap, a scramble and the support of anxious hands landed the last-comers in safety, as the platform slid from under their feet. Barbara felt her way into a vacant corner and looked round to see who was in the carriage, nodding easily to Eric when his turn came. She seemed so radiantly well and happy that he wondered whether she was trying to make him forget the damning expression of tragedy which he had seen on her face a week before. The train was not out of the station before she had focussed all attention on herself, and she kept the carriage in amused subjection until the journey’s end. Once or twice Eric stole a glance at Ivy; but, if she felt shock or embarrassment at being with Gaymer, she concealed it as nonchalantly as he did and listened with the rest to Barbara’s picturesque story of a luncheon with Gaymer, the theft of a general’s car, a scheme for flying to Croxton, the breakdown of the car, the beguilement of a taxi-driver from his dinner and a breakneck drive to a barren aerodrome and from the aerodrome to Euston. She told a story as well as ever, he found, always shewing herself in the absurdest light; and one story followed another until the train drew in to Croxton.