done for yourself, Sally, my gel! You
come a mucker! Look at your husband! Look at him!" She could see Gaga in
the distance, moving agitatedly about a porter and the guard, and
tripping over luggage, and interrupting other eager passengers, and
stretching his long arm over their shoulders in order to touch the
guard. "That's your _husband_, that is! Man who's lost his head. Man
they all love. Fancy living with it for fifty years! Oh, Lor! A whole
lifetime. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days in the year, too. All day,
every day! Makes you start thinking!" And she watched Gaga speeding
exultantly towards her.

"All right. We've got a first," he panted, quite out of breath. "To
ourselves. I've tipped the guard. It's ... it's all right. Come along.
This way. Come along!"

"Oo!" cried Sally, with archness. "To ourselves! What a surprise!
Strange!" And to herself, returning to her own sober thoughts: "If you
did too much thinking you'd lose the use of your legs. And if girls
thought a bit before they got marrying, they'd.... Funny! I wonder what
they _would_ do!"

ii

What she would herself have done Sally had no time to consider; for they
were hurried to their compartment and were locked in by the obliging and
amused guard. They then sat demurely upon opposite sides of the carriage
until the train began to move. Every time anybody peered in at the
window Sally, who had recovered her good spirits, began to laugh; and
Gaga was full of consternation. But at last even that anxiety was
removed, and in the afternoon sunlight the country began to glow under
their eyes and race round in a sweeping circle with an intoxicating
effect not to be appreciated by those who are staled for railway
travelling. Sally allowed Gaga to embrace her; but she kept her face
resolutely turned from him for a long time while she relished her new
joy in rushing thus through the increasingly-beautiful districts which
bordered the track. It was only when Gaga became expostulatory that she
abandoned this pleasure and yielded to his tumultuous affection, with a
listlessness and a sense of criticism which was new to her. Silly fool;
why couldn't he sit still and be quiet! She belonged to herself, not to
him. Almost, she thrust him away from her.

They reached Penterby by four o'clock in the afternoon, and were turned
out upon the platform with their two light bags, like the stranded
wanderers they were. And then they walked out into the roughly paved