Chaffery's sister lived at
Tongham, near Farnham, and Ethel, dismissed a week since by Lagune,
had started that morning, under her mother's maudlin supervision, to
begin her new slavery. She was to alight either at Farnham or Woking,
as opportunity arose, and to return to Vauxhall to meet him. So that
Lewisham's vigil on the main platform was of indefinite duration.
At first he felt the exhilaration of a great adventure. Then, as he
paced the long platform, came a philosophical mood, a sense of entire
detachment from the world. He saw a bundle of uprooted plants beside
the portmanteau of a fellow-passenger and it suggested a grotesque
simile. His roots, his earthly possessions, were all downstairs in
the booking-office. What a flimsy thing he was! A box of books and a
trunk of clothes, some certificates and scraps of paper, an entry here
and an entry there, a body not over strong--and the vast multitude of
people about him--against him--the huge world in which he found
himself! Did it matter anything to one human soul save her if he
ceased to exist forthwith? And miles away perhaps she also was
feeling little and lonely....
Would she have trouble with her luggage? Suppose her aunt were to come
to Farnham Junction to meet her? Suppose someone stole her purse?
Suppose she came too late! The marriage was to take place at
two.
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