“Do you want to pick them?”
“O, no!”
“Or write a nice little poem about them?”
“No.”
“How refreshing! Isn’t it rather revolting putting beauty into a sausage machine and turning out words, popular pulp? Yes, the word-game can become rather loathsome.”
She looked up at the mountains.
“One asks—only to sit and stare. But then—one has to sell things—to live.”
“Need one?”
“I have to.”
“Not necessarily. Hallo, there’s the steamer. Always makes me think of ‘The White Horse Inn.’ Yes, I saw it when I was in London last year. It amused me. What about lunch?”
“I’m ready, disgracefully ready.”
“That’s splendid. You’re capable of a comfortable greed?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Same here. Nothing like being a couple of gross kids.”
She reproved him.
“Not quite gross.”
“Well, like a couple of birds.”
After their lunch—and it was a very good lunch—they went and sat by the lake, and he smoked a pipe.
He said, “In the winter—it’s almost as marvellous up here. Down there—I feed the birds, hundreds of birds. You should see their footmarks in the snow. I have one chaffinch who comes and sits on the foot of my bed and cheeks me till I get up. Last year I had a blackbird with a white cap on his head. I can’t say that I pine for Piccadilly.”
She said, “Don’t be cruel. I have to go back to a shabby little corner in Camden Town.”
“Am I cruel? You know, Mallison is supposed to be a merciless beast.”
“Who feeds the birds.”
She was silent for a while, and he watched her face.
“Ten thousand pounds, my dear!”
She turned quickly.
“Or a penny?”
“Tell.”
“I was thinking that I have just two more days.”
“Nonsense. You can’t be more than thirty-three. Supposing you were to live to seventy. Thirty-seven more years. I’m fifty-three. That gives me, say, seventeen. Stay and feed the birds.”
She understood. His hand rested upon her shoulder.
“Nothing else?”
“Well—Mallison the egoist ought to say something. The selfish devil needs a good wife. Stay. Chuck your return ticket into the Inn. My dear—I’m not a bad sort of brute.”
“I’ll stay.”
FINIS
Books by
WARWICK DEEPING
The Man on the While Horse
Seven Men Came Back
Two Black Sheep
Smith
Old Wine and New
The Road
Short Stories
Exiles
Roper’s Row
Old Pybus
Kitty
Doomsday
Sorrell and Son
Suvla John
Three Rooms
The Secret Sanctuary
Orchards
Lantern Lane
Second Youth
Countess Glika
Unrest
The Pride of Eve
The King Behind the King
The House of Spies
Sincerity
Fox Farm
Bess of the Woods
The Red Saint
The Slanderers
The Return of the Petticoat
A Woman’s War
Valour
Bertrand of Brittany
Uther and Igraine
The House of Adventure
The Prophetic Marriage
Apples of Gold
The Lame Englishman
Marriage by Conquest
Joan of the Tower
Martin Valliant
The Rust of Rome
The White Gate
The Seven Streams
Mad Barbara
Love Among the Ruins
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.
A cover has been created for this book. The resulting cover is placed in the public domain.
[The end of Two in a Train and Other Stories by Warwick Deeping]
Two in a Train Page 48