The Splendid Folly | Page 8

her confidence, finally leading her almost imperceptibly into telling him about herself.
In the middle of dinner she paused, aghast at her own loquacity.
"But what a horrible egotist you must think me!" she exclaimed. "I've been talking about my own affairs all the time."
"Not at all. I'm interested. This Signor Baroni who is training your voice--he is the finest teacher in the world. You must have a very beautiful voice for him to have accepted you as a pupil." There was a hint of surprise in his tones.
"Oh, no," she hastened to assure him modestly. "I expect it was more that I had the luck to catch him in a good mood that afternoon."
"And his moods vary considerably, don't they?" he said, smiling as though at some personal recollection.
"Oh, do you know him?" asked Diana eagerly.
In an instant his face became a blank mask; it was as though a shutter had descended, blotting out all its vivacious interest.
"I have met him," he responded briefly. Then, turning the subject adroitly, he went on: "So now you are on your way home for a well-earned holiday? Your people must be looking forward to seeing you after so long a time--you have been away a year, didn't you say?"
"Yes, I spent the other two vacations abroad, in Italy, for the sake of acquiring the language. Signor Baroni"--laughingly--"was horror-stricken at my Italian, so he insisted. But I have no people--not really, you know," she continued. "I live with my guardian and his daughter. Both my parents died when I was quite young."
"You are not very old now," he interjected.
"I'm eighteen," she answered seriously.
"It's a great age," he acknowledged, with equal gravity.
Just then a waiter sped forward and with praiseworthy agility deposited their coffee on the table without spilling a drop, despite the swaying of the train, and Diana's fellow-traveller produced his cigarette-case.
"Will you smoke?" he asked.
She looked at the cigarettes longingly.
"Baroni's forbidden me to smoke," she said, hesitating a little. "Do you think--just one--would hurt my voice?"
The short black lashes flew up, and the light-grey eyes, like a couple of stars between black clouds, met his in irresistible appeal.
"I'm sure it wouldn't," he replied promptly. "After all, this is just an hour's playtime that we have snatched out of life. Let's enjoy every minute of it--we may never meet again."
Diana felt her heart contract in a most unexpected fashion.
"Oh, I hope we shall!" she exclaimed, with ingenuous warmth.
"It is not likely," he returned quietly. He struck a match and held it while she lit her cigarette, and for an instant their fingers touched. His teeth came down hard on his under-lip. "No, we mustn't meet again," he repeated in a low voice.
"Oh, well, you never know," insisted Diana, with cheerful optimism. "People run up against each other in the most extraordinary fashion. And I expect we shall, too."
"I don't think so," he said. "If I thought that we should--" He broke off abruptly, frowning.
"Why, I don't believe you want to meet me again!" exclaimed Diana, with a note in her voice like that of a hurt child.
"Oh, for that!" He shrugged his shoulders. "If we could have what we wanted in this world! Though, I mustn't complain--I have had this hour. And I wanted it!" he added, with a sudden intensity.
"So much that you propose to make it last you for the remainder of your life?"--smiling.
"It will have to," he answered grimly.
After dinner they made their way back from the restaurant car to their compartment, and noticing that she looked rather white and tired, he suggested that she should tuck herself up on the seat and go to sleep.
"But supposing I didn't wake at the right time?" she objected. "I might be carried past my station and find myself heaven knows where in the small hours of the morning! . . . I am sleepy, though."
"Let me be call-boy," he suggested. "Where do you want to get out?"
"At Craiford Junction. That's the station for Crailing, where I'm going. Do you know it at all? It's a tiny village in Devonshire; my guardian is the Rector there."
"Crailing?" An odd expression crossed his face and he hesitated a moment. At last, apparently coming to a decision of some kind, he said: "Then I must wake you up when I go, as I'm getting out before that."
"Can I trust you?" she asked sleepily.
"Surely."
She had curled herself up on the seat with her feet stretched out in front of her, one narrow foot resting lightly on the instep of the other, and she looked up at him speculatively from between the double fringe of her short black lashes.
"Yes, I believe I can," she acquiesced, with a little smile.
He tucked his travelling rug deftly round her, and, pulling on his overcoat, went hack to his former corner, where he picked