'I think I'll take a cab, if you don't mind,' Lucy answered quietly. 'Perhaps you'll take Dick.'
She did not bid them good-bye, but walked slowly away.
'How exasperating you people are!' cried Mrs. Crowley. 'I wanted to throw myself in her arms and have a good cry on the platform. You have no heart.'
Dick walked along by her side, and they got into Mrs. Crowley's carriage. She soliloquised.
'I thank God that I have emotions, and I don't mind if I do show them. I was the only person who cried. I knew I should cry, and I brought three handkerchiefs on purpose. Look at them.' She pulled them out of her bag and thrust them into Dick's hand. 'They're soaking.'
'You say it with triumph,' he smiled.
'I think you're all perfectly heartless. Those two boys were going away for heaven knows how long on a dangerous journey, and they may never come back, and you and Lucy said good-bye to them just as if they were going off for a day's golf. I was the only one who said I was sorry, and that we should miss them dreadfully. I hate this English coldness. When I go to America, it's ten to one nobody comes to see me off, and if anyone does he just nods and says "Good-bye, I hope you'll have a jolly time."'
'Next time you go I will come and hurl myself on the ground, and gnash my teeth and shriek at the top of my voice.'
'Oh, yes, do. And then I'll cry all the way to Liverpool, and I shall have a racking headache and feel quite miserable and happy.'
Dick meditated for a moment.