“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.”