platform was crowded, the train was in. Doors banged open and shut.
There came such a loud hissing from the engine that people looked dazed
as they scurried to and fro. William made straight for a first-class
smoker, stowed away his suit-case and parcels, and taking a huge wad of
papers out of his inner pocket, he flung down in the corner and began to
read.

"Our client moreover is positive... We are inclined to reconsider... in
the event of--" Ah, that was better. William pressed back his flattened
hair and stretched his legs across the carriage floor. The familiar dull
gnawing in his breast quietened down. "With regard to our decision--" He
took out a blue pencil and scored a paragraph slowly.

Two men came in, stepped across him, and made for the farther corner. A
young fellow swung his golf clubs into the rack and sat down opposite.
The train gave a gentle lurch, they were off. William glanced up and saw
the hot, bright station slipping away. A red-faced girl raced along by
the carriages, there was something strained and almost desperate in the
way she waved and called. "Hysterical!" thought William dully. Then a
greasy, black-faced workman at the end of the platform grinned at the
passing train. And William thought, "A filthy life!" and went back to
his papers.

When he looked up again there were fields, and beasts standing for
shelter under the dark trees. A wide river, with naked children
splashing in the shallows, glided into sight and was gone again. The sky
shone pale, and one bird drifted high like a dark fleck in a jewel.

"We have examined our client's correspondence files... " The last
sentence he had read echoed in his mind. "We have examined... " William
hung on to that sentence, but it was no good; it snapped in the
middle, and the fields, the sky, the sailing bird, the water, all said,
"Isabel." The same thing happened every Saturday afternoon. When he
was on his way to meet Isabel there began those countless imaginary
meetings. She was at the station, standing just a little apart from
everybody else; she was sitting in the open taxi outside; she was at
the garden gate; walking across the parched grass; at the door, or just
inside the hall.

And her clear, light voice said, "It's William," or "Hillo, William!" or
"So William has come!" He touched her cool hand, her cool cheek.

The exquisite freshness of Isabel! When he had been a little boy, it was
his delight to run into the garden after a sh