'You did? I was kept quite a few minutes at the hotel. You see I only had to walk across the road.' 'We didn't really think any such thing,' said Leonora. The conversation fell to pieces. Then the express, with its two engines, its gilded luncheon-cars, and its post-office van, thundered in, shaking the platform, and seeming to occupy the entire station. It had the air of pausing nonchalantly, disdainfully, in its mighty rush from one distant land of romance to another, in order to suffer for a brief moment the assault of a puny and needlessly excited multitude. 'First stop Willesden,' yelled the porters. 'Say, conductor,' said Twemlow sharply, catching the luncheon-car attendant by the sleeve, 'you've got two seats reserved for me--Twemlow?' 'Twemlow? Yes, sir.' 'Come along,' he said, 'come along.' The girls kissed at the steps of the car: 'Good-bye.' 'Well, good-bye all!' said Twemlow. 'I hope to see you again some time. Say next fall.' 'You surely aren't----' Leonora began. 'Yes,' he resumed quickly, 'I sail Saturday. Must get back.' 'Oh, Mr. Twemlow!' Ethel and Milly complained together. Rose was standing on the steps. Leonora leaned and kissed the pale girl madly, pressing her lips into Rose's cheek. Then she shook hands with Arthur Twemlow. 'Good-bye!' she murmured. 'I guess I shall write to you,' he said jauntily, addressing all three of them; and Ethel and Milly enthusiastically replied: 'Oh, do!' The travellers penetrated into the car, and reappeared at a window, one on either side of a table covered with a white cloth and laid for two persons. 'Oh, don't I wish I was going!' Milly exclaimed, perceiving them. Rose was now flushed with triumph. She looked at Twemlow, her lips moved, she smiled. She was a woman in the world. Then they nodded and waved hands. The guard unfurled his green flag, the engine gave a curt, scornful whistle, and lo! the luncheon-car was gliding away from Leonora, Ethel, and Milly! Lo! the station was empty! 'I wonder what he will talk to her about,' thought Leonora. They had to cross the station by the under-ground passage and wait twenty minutes for a squalid, shambling local train which took them to Shawport, at the foot of the rise to Hillport. CHAPTER VIII THE DANCE About three months after its rendering of _Patience_, the Bursley Amateur Operatic Society arranged to give a commemorative dance in the very scene of that histrionic triumph. The fête was to surpass in splendour all previous entertainments of the kind recorded in the annals of the town. It was talked about for weeks in advance; several dressmakers nearly died of it; and as the day approached the difficulty of getting one's self invited became extreme. 'You know, Mrs. Stanway,' said Harry Burgess when he met Leonora one afternoon in the street, 'we are relying on you to be the best-dressed woman in the place.' She smiled with a calmness which had in it a touch of gentle cynicism. 'You shouldn't,' she answered.