Once at Paddington Station—(he had taken another taxi and was twenty-five minutes too early)—Peter felt perfectly calm again. Twenty-five minutes seemed an enormous time: he inspected each of the three bookstalls; bought Punch, John Bull and The Tatler; lounged into the refreshment-bar for a last drink; was told he couldn’t be served after two-thirty; expostulated vainly—and made number four platform just in time to swing the door of a first-class carriage as the train got under way.

In his excitement, Peter had not noticed that the compartment was a non-smoker. Now, seeing a girl seated in the far corner of it, he flung his cigar-butt out of the window, put his cane on the rack, and settled himself down with his rather-crumpled papers. The train glided out of the station; started worming its way between smoky houses towards the country.

For a few minutes, Peter busied himself with John Bull—Horatio Bottomley was rather amusing, Bottomley had just been to the front, Bottomley had been telling Douglas Haig how to run the Army. “Good old Horatio!” thought Peter. ... Then he became aware that the girl was watching him. He looked up, and her eyes turned away.

The face seemed somehow familiar. Peter forgot all about Horatio; began to study his companion. At first, she did not strike him as pretty: her colouring was too pale, much paler than Patricia’s; her eyes, from his transient glimpse of them, he imagined to be gray, pale gray; the hair, as far as hat revealed it, held the colour of ripe barley—palest gold; curved cheek, lobe of close-set ear, dimpled but resolute chin, clean-cut nostrils, all made the same impression of paleness. But the dark eyebrows, long lashes, and red bow of mouth redeemed her pallor; heightened it to significance.

“A very pretty girl,” thought Peter at second glance.

She was dressed with extreme simplicity: dark blue coat and skirt, coat rather long, skirt pleated; blouse of pale silk, high at neck; gray doeskin gloves on slender hands. Patent-leather shoes and black silk stockings seemed moulded to the attractive feet and ankles. Peter judged her of medium height; put her age at twenty-three....

The certainty that he knew her face grew to conviction. ... He continued to study her over the top of his paper. She had nothing to read; seemed quite content to watch the outskirts of London—factories, fields, canal-banks, a church among greenery, an empty golf-course—as they slid past the carriage windows. Peter noticed, in the rack above her head, a suit-case of dark purple leather: but neither label nor monogram on the suit-case gave any clue to the girl’s identity.

Passing West Drayton, she turned round suddenly; and their eyes met again.

“Would you care to look at one of my papers?” asked Peter, tentatively proffering The Tatler.

“Thank you so much,” said the girl. Her voice, low and perfectly accented, betrayed no hint of shyness. “It was nice of you to throw away your cigar. But I don’t mind a bit if you want to light another.”

“Oh, I don’t want to smoke. Really, I don’t. I say”—Peter, no ladies’ man, felt thoroughly uncomfortable; bit off the question. “Yes”—began the girl.

He plunged in. “It’s frightfully stupid of me, of course—I mean, the question sounds perfectly idiotic—but I’m certain I’ve seen you before—somewhere or other.”

The girl laughed. “And I’ve been thinking the same about you ever since you opened that carriage door. You”—she hesitated—“you’re terribly like somebody I used to know very well. Only we can’t have met before, because I only landed in England for the first time yesterday evening.... Unless....”

She stared at him, positively stared; dumb with excitement.

“Unless what? ...” asked Peter. He too felt himself on the verge of some amazing disclosure.

“Unless you’re Mr. Gordon’s cousin Peter....” His look alone told the girl all she wanted to know; and she rushed on, tripping over her words.... “You are. I felt certain of it. You’re Patricia’s husband, and you live at a house called Sunflowers, and you’ve got two children, and you’re in the tobacco business, at least you were in the tobacco business, and you’ve been wounded and, and, and—is Mr. Gordon quite well?”

“He was yesterday. I didn’t see him before I came up this morning. And”—Peter’s mind leaped to the only possible conclusion—“your photograph’s still on his writing-table.”

“Oh!” She did not blush; but a faint rose tinged the pallor of her cheeks. “Is it?”

For a moment, neither spoke. Then Beatrice said: “But weren’t you expecting me?”

“Expecting you! Why, I don’t even know your name. But that’s just like Francis—I mean like he is now—never tells anybody anything.”

The train rattled through Slough Station.

“Mr. Gordon doesn’t even know I’m in England. It was Mrs. Jameson who wrote to me; and I cabled her ten days ago; they wouldn’t let me cable the port of arrival or the sailing-date.”

“Pat wrote to you!” Incredulity drove Peter’s voice up into his head.

“Yes. I—I thought she’d have told you. Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said anything about it. And I sent her a telegram from the boat as soon as we got in.”

“Well,” said Peter, “I don’t know about the telegram. That may have come some time today. But we’ve had no cable delivered. It couldn’t have come without my knowing it. Besides—”

Arrival at Maidenhead Junction interrupted further conversation.