For several moments neither spoke; both were too shy and too conscious of something uncomfortable.

“It isn’t so very remarkable to find you here, I suppose,” he remarked, after considering for some time an advertisement in a daily paper which he held in his hand.

“No, nor so strange to encounter you.”

“You have not been home for some time.”

“Not since I came in September.”

“And I have not since Will’s wedding day.  There was a shower that night, and your mother tried to keep me; and I wished she had more than a few times on my dark way home.”

“It is almost time to hear from Will.”  Marjorie had no taste for reminiscences.

“I expect to hear every day.”

“So do we.  Mrs. Kemlo watches up the street and down the street for the postman.”

“Oh, yes.  Morris.  I forgot.  Does he like the life?”

“He is enthusiastic.”

She turned a leaf, and read a page of extracts from Donald Grant Mitchell; but she had not understood one word, so she began again and read slowly, trying to understand; then she found her ticket in her glove, and examined it with profound interest, the color burning in her cheeks; then she gazed long out of the window at the snow and the bare trees and the scattered farmhouses; then she turned to study the lady’s bonnet in front of her, and to pity the mother with the child in front of her; she looked before and behind and out the windows; she looked everywhere but at the face beside her; she saw his overcoat, his black travelling bag, and wondered what he had brought his mother; she looked at his brown kid gloves, at his black rubber watch chain, from which a gold anchor was dangling; but it was dangerous to raise her eyes higher, so they sought his boots and the newspaper on his knee.  Had he spoken last, or had she?  What was the last remark?  About Morris?  It was certainly not about Donald Grant Mitchell.  Yes, she had spoken last; she had said Morris was—­

Would he speak of her long unanswered letter?  Would he make an excuse for not noticing it?  A sentence in rhetoric was before her eyes:  “Any letter, not insulting, merits a reply.”  Perhaps he had never studied rhetoric.  Her lips were curving into a smile; wouldn’t it be fun to ask him?

“I am going to London next week.  I came home to say good-bye to mother.”

“Will you stay long?” was all that occurred to her to remark.  Her voice was quite devoid of interest.

“Where?  In London, or at home?”

“Both,” she said smiling.

“I must return to New York on Monday; and I shall stay in London only long enough to attend to business.  I shall go to Manchester and to Paris.  My route is not all mapped out for me yet.  Do you like school as well as you expected to?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

“You expect to finish this year?”

“I suppose I shall leave school.”