Very soon it was all over and then to her own intense surprise she was alone in the train with Paul.What had she expected? She did not know--but somehow not this.
They were in a first-class carriage.Paul was doing the thing nobly.
He sat close to her, his broad knee against her dress.How broad his knee was, a great expanse of black shining cloth.He took her hand and rested it on the expanse, and, at the touch of the stuff and the throb of the warm flesh beneath it, she shivered a little and would wish to have drawn her hand away.He seemed so much larger than she had expected; from his knee to his high shining white collar was an immense distance and midway there was a thick gold watch-chain rising and falling as he breathed.He smelt very faintly of tooth-powder.
But on the whole she was comfortable; only the thin gold ring round her finger felt strange.Deep in a little pocket inside her blouse was the ring with the three little pearls.
"I do hope, Maggie darling," he said, "you don't think it strange our not going somewhere else for our honeymoon.My lads will be expecting me back--I was kept longer in London than I should have been--by you, you little witch.My witch now--"He put his arm round her waist and urged her head towards his coat.
But her hat, her beautiful hat that had cost so much more than she had ever spent on a hat before, was in the way.It struck into his chin.They were both uncomfortable and then, thank heaven, the train slowed down; they were at a station and some one got into their carriage, a stout man, all newspaper and creases to his trousers.
That, in the circumstances, was a great relief and soon Maggie dozed, seeing the telegraph wires and the trees like waving hands through a mist of sleep.