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On this bleak, bright day at the end of March, the pay-box with the wind howling round it did indeed look a bracing place to spend the day in, nor was it by any means an object which any would be likely to watch for five minutes at a stretch in a strong north-easter.
He intended to show her that he did not recognize any slightest claim on his attention which she might think she had gained from it. Then she had to cease looking after him in order to answer a stout lady visitor who made a point of being nice to the girl at the pay-box. "Yes a great pity the weather was not like this for the Gala."
But time and love wait on the convenience of none not even so important a body as the Thorhaven Amusements Committee and girl number one unexpectedly ran away with a ship's engineer, while girl number two developed bronchial tendencies which made the pay-box unsuitable. So there were none.
But the expression of Laura's face or was it that thought of a rough sea? had in some way brought back that time in the pay-box after Miss Ethel's death, when Caroline herself had looked up at the blue sky breaking through the grey. Once more she tried to grope across the barrier between the seen and the unseen. What was there after all?
But when she arrived her budget of news proved very disappointing to the expectant Lillie, who had lingered round the pay-box with her own tea waiting at home in the hope of hearing in more detail what every separate garment was like. But when she at length extracted the information that Wilson was also there, and that the party had taken afternoon tea together, her curiosity became intense.
Even when she reached Aunt Creddle's, whose words and exclamations fell about her ears like hail, she remained the same delivering her message, then going on at once to take her place in the pay-box. Lillie had already heard the news and was rather shocked that she should wish to remain. "Anybody can see you've been crying. Now, don't you think about me, Carrie. I don't mind stopping a bit."
But he searched his mind in vain for the recollection of a girl at that little window in the pay-box who could by any magic of clothes and swaying steps be transformed even for five minutes into a nymph on fire. But Wilf came up and he had to let her go felt, indeed, no particular desire to detain her; for Caroline greeted her admirer with such real relief that he had no doubt of her feelings.
Revolting, fighting having to find out with exasperated agony like every one else that those who fight against destiny only hurt themselves. But as she passed the short street leading to the promenade a strong current of sea-air blew down it and she turned her hot face towards the breeze, looking up towards the pay-box which stood silent and deserted in the fading light.
Then he heard Laura speaking to the girl in the pay-box as she went through the barrier; and with a sudden jolt of the memory the nymph in the flame-coloured gown came back to mind, though he had forgotten all about her from the night of the promenade dance until the present moment.
It is therefore not surprising that Wilfred Ball felt the same glow greatly intensified when he strolled up to the pay-box, twirling his walking-stick, to take his stand near by as the future proprietor of the girl inside.
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