“Of course,” she said, smiling. “Until then.”
Clement completed his own reservations, and went out of the office with a feeling of elation. He was already looking forward to his trip to Canada, where he hoped to get some sport: trout and salmon fishing, and later some duck shooting, and, perhaps, a chance at moose. But now his trip seemed a much jollier affair, and he wasn’t thinking of sport when he felt that.
She had been so pretty. She had such an extraordinary charm. She was fine and upspringing if she was slim. She carried herself so well. And her face was so vivid and alluring. Her skin was cool and white and glowing, and her features delicate and exquisite. She was more than pretty, she was beautiful.
And that candor and kindness that seemed to be her nature. A sort of honesty, a nobility that placed her right above petty feminine things—yet there was no denying the warm and tender femininity of her nature. A real woman, a beautiful woman. A woman in a million.
And yet he had not found out her name. Beyond the fact that her companion called her Loise, he knew nothing about her. He might have inquired from the shipping clerk. He did not inquire. He was as young and as straight-minded as that.
He had thought about her a great deal between that time and the sailing of the boat. And he was early at Paddington on the day that the boat train left. He had got all his own luggage stowed with the celerity of an old traveler and was looking out for her some time before she arrived.
He helped her and her companion, the Gorgon. He had already found them a compartment, had secured it with a healthy tip. It was to be his own compartment, too, if she gave permission, and, delightfully, she did. He traveled with her all the way to Liverpool, but, looking back at it now, it had been rather a curious journey.
He had put certain things down to accidents, those accidents that will beset travelers at times. But now—he wondered.
In the first place, he had nearly missed the train. They had been sitting there, chatting, quite serenely, gazing with slightly amused contempt at those passengers of the breed always doomed to be late for trains. Then the Gordon discovered that a rather special parcel left in the baggage room yesterday (heaven knows why!—the Gorgon seemed the sort of feminine mystery who would do just that sort of thing) had not been retrieved. When the Gorgon mentioned the parcel, the girl Loise had made an exclamation of acute vexation.