Lunch, alone at a pillar-table in the crammed restaurant, proved an expensive fiasco. The music annoyed, the waiter fidgeted. Half way through, he got an attack of nerves; his left hand shook so that he could hardly hold his fork. Coffee arrived ten minutes after the sweets—stone-cold. Peter paid his bill disgustedly; retrieved cap and cane from the cloak-room; looked up his train; and passed out into the courtyard. The usual baggage stood piled on the pavement—a miscellaneous collection, “Saratogas,” “Innovations,” flat cabin-trunks and dome-topped portmanteaux. “People still travelling, I see,” said Peter to the commissionaire. “Yes, sir. The _George Washington_ arrived yesterday. Taxi, sir?” “Thanks. No. I’ll walk for a bit.” Half way down the Strand, another attack of nerves came on. He would be late for his train—he would miss his train. . . . “Undoubtedly,” thought Peter, “those chaps were right when they told me to live in the country.” ----- [15] Federated Malay States. [16] Army term for draught horses. § 2 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.