he said, standing on the railway track and looking up at her with his air of very urbane intelligence. "Present circ.u.mstances permit us the privilege--or otherwise--of laying aside restraints of speech, along with other small proprieties of behaviour commonly observed by the polite. So don't spare my feelings, dear Miss St. Quentin. If I am a bore, tell me so, and I will return, and that without any lurking venom in my breast, whence I came."

"Do anything you please," Honoria replied, "except be run over by the Paris train."

"The Paris train, so I have just learned, is an hour late, consequently its arrival hardly enters into the question. But, since you are graciously pleased to bid me do as I like, I stay," Mr. Quayle returned, stepping on to the platform and turning to pace beside her.--"What a gaol delivery it is to get into the open! That last engine of ours threw ashes to a truly penitential extent. My mouth and throat still claim unpleasantly close relation to a neglected, kitchen grate. And if our much vaunted _waggon-lits_ is the last word of civilisation in connection with travel, then all I can say is that, in my humble opinion, civilisation has yet a most exceedingly long way to go. It really is a miraculously uncomfortable vehicle. And how Lady Calmady contrives to endure its eccentricities of climate and of motion, I'm sure I don't know."

"In her case the end would make any sort of means supportable," Honoria answered.

Her pacings had brought her to the extreme end of the platform where it sloped to the level of the track. She stood there a moment, her head thrown back, snuffing the wind as a hind, breaking covert, stands and snuffs it. A spirit of questioning possessed her, though not--as in the hind's case--of things concrete and material. It is true she could have dispensed with Mr. Quayle's society. She did not want him. But he had shown himself so full of resource, so considerate and helpful, ever since the news of Sir Richard Calmady's desperate state had broken up the peace of the little party at Ormiston Castle, now five days ago, that she forgave him even his preciousness of speech, even his slightly irritating superiority of manner. She had ceased to be on her guard with him during these days of travel, had come to take his presence for granted and to treat him with the comfortable indifference of honest good-fellowship. So, it followed that now, speaking with him, she continued to follow out her existing train of thought.

"I'm by no means off my head about poor d.i.c.kie Calmady," she said presently,--"specially where Cousin Katherine is concerned. I couldn't go on caring about anybody, irrespective of their conduct, just because they were they. And yet I can't help seeing it must be tremendously satisfying to feel like that."

"A thousand pardons," Ludovic murmured, "but like what?"

"Why as Cousin Katherine feels--just whole-heartedly, without a.n.a.lysis, and without alloy--to feel that no distance, no fatigue, no nothing in short, matters, so long as she gets to him in time. I don't approve of such a state of mind, and yet"--Honoria wheeled round, facing the glory of colour dyeing all the west--"and yet, I'm untrue enough to my own principles rather to envy it."

She sighed, and that sigh her companion noted and filed for reference.

Indeed, an unusually expansive cheerfulness became, perceptible in Mr.

Quayle.

"By the bye, is there any further news?" she inquired.

"General Ormiston has just had a telegram."

"Anything fresh?"

"Still unconscious, strength fairly maintained."

"Oh! we know that by heart!" Honoria said.

"We do. And we know the consequences of it--the sweet little see-saw of hope and fear, productive of unlimited discussion and anxiety. No weak letting one stand at ease about that telegram! It keeps one's nose hard down on the grindstone."

"If he dies," Honoria said slowly, "if he dies--poor, dear Cousin Katherine!--When can we hear again?"

"At Turin," Mr. Quayle replied.

Then they both fell silent until the far end of the platform was reached. And there, once more, Honoria paused, her small head carried high, her serious eyes fixed upon the sunset. The rosy light falling upon her failed to disguise the paleness of her face or its slight angularity of line. She was a little worn and travel-stained, a little disheveled even. Yet to her companion she had rarely appeared more charming. She might be tired, she might even be somewhat untidy, but her innate distinction remained--nay, gained, so he judged, by suggestion of rough usage endured. Her absolute absence of affectation, her unself-consciousness, her indifference to advent.i.tious prettinesses of toilet, her transparent sincerity, were very entirely approved by Ludovic Quayle.

"Yes, that see-saw of hope and fear must be an awful ordeal, feeling as she does," Miss St. Quentin said presently. "And yet, even so, I am uncertain. I can't help wondering which really is best!"

"Again a thousand pardons," the young man put in, "but I venture to remind you that I was not cradled in the forecourt of the temple of the Pythian Apollo, but only in the nursery of a conspicuously Philistine, English country-house."

For the first time during their conversation Honoria looked full at him. Her glance was very friendly, yet it remained meditative, even a trifle sad.

"Oh! I know, I'm fearfully inconsequent," she said. "But my head is simply rattled to pieces by that beastly _waggon-lit_. I had gone back to what I was thinking about before you joined me, and to what we were saying just now about Cousin Katherine."

"Yes--yes, exactly," Ludovic put in tentatively. She was going to give herself away--he was sure of it. And such giving away might make for opportunity. In spirit, the young man proceeded to take his shoes from off his feet. The ground on which he stood might prove to be holy.

Moreover Miss St. Quentin's direct acts of self-revelation were few and far between. He was horribly afraid those same shoes of his might creak, so to speak, thereby startling her into watchfulness, making her draw back. But Honoria did not draw back. She was too much absorbed by her own thought. She continued to contemplate the glory of the flaming west, her expression touched by a grave and n.o.ble enthusiasm.

"I suppose one can't help worrying a little at times--it's laid hold of me very much during the last month or two--as to what is really the finest way to take life. One wants to arrive at that fairly early; not by a process of involuntary elimination, on the burnt-child-fears-the-fire sort of principle, when the show's more than half over, as so many people do. One wants to get hold of the stick by the right end now, while one's still comparatively young, and then work straight along. I want my reason to be the backbone of my action, don't you know, instead of merely the push of society and friendship, and superficial odds and ends of so-called obligation to other people."

"Yes," Mr. Quayle put in again.

"Now, it seems to me, that"--Honoria extended one hand towards the sunset--"is Cousin Katherine's outlook on life and humanity, full of colour, full of warmth. It burns with a certain prodigality of beauty, a superb absence of economy in giving. And that"--with a little shrug of her shoulders she turned towards the severe, and sombre, eastern landscape--"that, it strikes me, comes a good deal nearer my own. Which is best?"

Mr. Quayle congratulated himself upon the removal of his shoes. The ground was holy--holy to the point of embarra.s.sment even to so unabashable and ready-tongued a gentleman as himself. He answered with an unusual degree of diffidence.

"An intermediate position is neither wholly inconceivable nor wholly untenable, perhaps."

"And you occupy it? Yes, you are very neatly balanced. But then, do you really get anywhere?"

"Is not that a rather knavish speech, dear Miss St. Quentin?" the young man inquired mildly.

"I don't know," she answered, "I wish to goodness I did."

Now was here G.o.d-given opportunity, or merely a cunningly devised snare for the taking of the unwary? Ludovic pondered the matter. He gently kicked a little pebble from the dingy gray-drab of the asphalt on to the permanent way. It struck one of the metals with a sharp click. A blue-linen-clad porter, short of stature and heavy of build, lighted the gas lamps along the platform. The flame of these wavered at first, and flickered, showing thin and will-o'-the-wisp-like against the great outspread of darkening country across which the wind came with a certain effect of harshness and barrenness--the inevitable concomitant of its inherent purity. And the said wind treated Miss St. Quentin somewhat discourteously, buffeting her, obliging her to put up both hands to push back stray locks of hair. Also the keen breath of it pierced her, making her shiver a little. Both of which things her companion noting, took heart of grace.

"Is it permitted to renew a certain pet.i.tion?" he asked, in a low voice.

Honoria shook her head.

"Better not, I think," she said.

"And yet, dear Miss St. Quentin, pulverised though I am by the weight of my own unworthiness, I protest that pet.i.tion is not wholly foreign to the question you did me the honour to ask me just now."

"Oh! dear me! You always contrive to bring it round to that!" she exclaimed, not without a hint of petulance.

"Far from it," the young man returned. "For a good, solid eighteen months, now, I have displayed the acc.u.mulated patience of innumerable a.s.ses."

"Of course, I see what you're driving at," she continued hastily. "But it is not original. It's just every man's stock argument."

"If it bears the hall-mark of h.o.a.ry antiquity, so much the better. I entertain a reverence for precedent. And honestly, as common sense goes, I am not ashamed of that of my s.e.x."

Miss St. Quentin resumed her walk.

"You really think it stands in one's way," she said reflectively, "you really think it a disadvantage, to be a woman?"

"Oh! good Lord!" Mr. Quayle e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, softly yet with an air so humorously aghast that it could leave no doubt as to the nature of his sentiments. Then he cursed himself for a fool. His shoes indeed had made a mighty creaking! He expected an explosion of scornful wrath. He admitted he deserved it. It did not come.

Miss St. Quentin looked at him, for a moment, almost piteously. He fancied her mouth quivered and that her eyes filled with tears. Then she turned and swung away with her long, easy, even stride. Mentally the young man took himself by the throat, conscience-stricken at having humiliated her, at having caused her to fall, even momentarily, from the height of her serene, maidenly dignity. For once he became absolutely uncritical, careless of appearances. He fairly ran after her along the platform.

"Dear Miss St. Quentin," he called to her, in tones of most persuasive apology.

But Honoria's moment of piteousness was past. She had recovered all her habitual lazy and gallant grace when he came up with her.

"No--no," she said. "Hear me. I began this rather foolish conversation.

I laid myself open to--well to a snubbing. I got one, anyhow!"

"In mercy don't rub it in!" Mr. Quayle murmured contritely.