One
cannot remember everything, and I have forgotten at what station these
people got out; they bade me a kindly farewell, telling me that in
about two hours and a half I should be at Plessy, and that I should
have to change at the next station, and this lag end of my journey
dragged itself out very wearily.
Plessy is difficult to get at; one has to change, and while waiting
for the train I seemed to lose heart; nothing seemed to matter, not
even Doris. But these are momentary capitulations of the intellect and
the senses, and when I saw her pretty face on the platform I
congratulated myself again on my wisdom in having sent her the
telegram. How much pleasanter it was to walk with her to the hotel
than to walk there alone! "She is," I said to myself, "still the same
pretty girl whom I so bitterly reproached for selfishness in
Cumberland Place five years ago." To compliment her on her looks, to
tell her that she did not look a day older, a little thinner, a little
paler, that was all, but the same enchanting Doris, was the facile
inspiration of the returned lover. And we walked down the platform
talking, my talk full of gentle reproof--why had she waited up? There
was a reason.... My hopes, till now buoyant as corks, began to sink.
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