“Really?  How I should have liked to be in the same carriage.  Perhaps I should have heard the creature talk.  Oh, and this compartment is so full, so hot!  Is it impossible to find a better?”

Dyce rushed at a passing guard.  He learnt that, if Miss Tomalin were willing to change half way on her journey, she could travel at ease; only the through carriages for Hollingford were packed.  To this May at once consented.  Dyce seized her dressing-bag, her umbrella; they sped to another part of the train, and sprang, both of them, into an empty first-class.

“This is delightful!” cried the girl.  “I am so much obliged to you!”

“Tickets, please.”

“Shown already,” replied May.  “Change of carriage.”

The door was slammed, locked.  The whistle sounded.

“But we’re starting!” May exclaimed.  “Quick!  Jump out, Mr. Lashmar!”

Dyce sat still, smiling calmly.

“It’s too late, I’m afraid I mustn’t try to escape by the window.”

“Oh, and you have sacrificed yourself just to make me more comfortable!  How inconvenient it will be for you!  What a waste of time!”

“Not at all.  The best thing that could have happened.”

“Well, we have papers at all events.”  May handed him one.  “Pray don’t feel obliged to talk.”

“As it happens, I very much wish to talk.  Queer thing that I should owe my opportunity to Robb.  I shall never again feel altogether hostile to that man.  I wish you had seen him.  He looked apoplectic.  This weather must try him severely.”

“You never spoke to him, I suppose?” asked May.

“I never had that honour.  Glimpses only of the great man have been vouchsafed to me.  Once seen, he is never forgotten.  To-day he looks alarmingly apoplectic.”

“But really, Mr. Lashmar,” said the girl, settling herself in her corner, “I do feel ashamed to have given you this useless journey—­ and just when you are so busy.”

She was pretty in her travelling costume.  Could Lashmar have compared her appearance to-day with that she had presented on her first arrival at Rivenoak, he would have marvelled at the change wrought by luxurious circumstance.  No eye-glasses now; no little paper-cutter hanging at her girdle.  Called upon to resume the Northampton garb, May would have been horrified.  The brown shoes which she had purchased expressly for her visit to Lady Ogram would have seemed impossibly large and coarse.  Exquisite were her lavender gloves.  Such details of attire, formerly regarded with some contempt, had now an importance for her.  She had come to regard dress as one of the serious concerns of life.

“I went to Pont Street this afternoon,” said Dyce, “with a wish that by some chance I might see you alone.  It was Very unlikely, but it has come to pass.”

May exhibited a slight surprise, and by an imperceptible movement put a little more dignity into her attitude.