He was alone again with the ladies at breakfast,
and during the long day he was much in their company.
It was like no other day he had ever imagined to himself.
On the morrow, in the morning train by which he
returned alone to town, his mind roved luxuriously
among the fragrant memories of that day. He had been
so perfectly at home--and in such a home! There were
some things which came uppermost again and again--but
of them all he dwelt most fixedly upon the recollection
of moving about in the greenhouses and conservatories,
with that tall, stately, fair Lady Cressage for his guide,
and watching her instead of the flowers that she pointed out.
Of what she had told him, not a syllable stuck in his mind,
but the music of the voice lingered in his ears.
"And she is old Kervick's daughter!" he said to himself
more than once.
CHAPTER VIII
IT may be that every other passenger in that morning train
to London nursed either a silent rage, or declaimed aloud
to fellow-sufferers in indignation, at the time consumed
in making what, by the map, should be so brief a journey.
In Thorpe's own compartment, men spoke with savage irony
of cyclists alleged to be passing them on the road,
and exchanged dark prophecies as to the novelties in
imbecility and helplessness which the line would be preparing
for the Christmas holidays.
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