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My brain was awhirl as I sat in the wagon-lit rushing across those wide, never-ending plains that lie between the Russian capital and Berlin and the green valleys between the Rhine-lands and the sea.
Half an hour later Mildred and I were sitting in a compartment of the Wagon-Lit, while the Mother was talking to the conductor on the platform. Mildred, whose eyes were wet, was saying something about herself which seems pitiful enough now in the light of what has happened since. She was to leave the Convent soon, and before I returned to it she would be gone.
The gateman merely touched his hat, slid back the gate, and the Director of the Greatest Show on Earth, smiling haughtily, passed in, crossed the platform and stepped into a wagon-lit standing on the next track to me labelled "Paris 312," and left me behind. The gateman had had free tickets, of course, or would have, for himself and family whenever the troupe should be in Cologne.
I chose to sit up all night in my corner of an ordinary compartment, as a lesser evil than the wagon-lit in which you cannot sit up at all. In the morning one was in Switzerland, with a black collar, a rusty chin, and a countenance in keeping with its appointments.
We wouldn't have met Sir Charles if we had waited for a wagon-lit." She bowed her head to the Governor, and he smiled with gratitude. He had lost Mr. Collier somewhere in the Indian Ocean, and he was glad she had brought them back to the Windless Isles once more. "And again I repeat that the answer to that is, 'Why not? said the March Hare," remarked Mr. Collier, determinedly.
"Let us have our déjeuner." She led the way downstairs. At the gare next morning, Miss Clifford, having selected a likely train, leaned forward in her brother's car and eagerly scanned each arrival as he issued from the exit. What if Roger did not arrive after all? These trains were so booked up at this season, he might not have been able to secure a wagon-lit. Still, he usually managed things....
At this moment the little horn of departure sounded its quaint note from the end of the platform, and a porter hurried to lock the door of the wagon-lit. "Have you everything you want for the journey?" asked Matheson. "I have everything I want," replied his wife coldly. "My father has seen to that.... Good-bye." She did not offer to kiss him, and he for his part drew back into a shell of reserve.
In peace times one had only to go to Cook's and buy a ticket. In those days there was no more delay than in reserving a seat for the theatre. War followed us south. The windows of the wagon-lit were plastered with warnings to be careful, to talk to no strangers; that the enemy was listening. War had invaded even Aix-les-Bains, most lovely of summer pleasure-grounds.
"We are going to the Continent by the morning service the day after to-morrow, George," Rayne told me. "Tracy leaves to-night. Lola will go with us as far as Paris, where Duperré will meet us, and we go south together." And he produced a batch of tickets, among which I saw coupons for reserved compartments in the wagon-lit. Afterwards he gave some peculiar instructions to Tracy.
Just as the train was about to start he presented it to Madame Sennier. From the window of the wagon-lit Mrs. Shiffney looked at the two men standing together as the train drew away from the platform. Then she nodded and waved her hand. There was a mocking smile on her face. When the station was hidden she leaned back, turning toward Henriette. "Claude Heath is a fool!" she said.
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