wondering how soon she would see him, but she never dreamed that he would meet the train, and the wild color flew to her face as she saw him coming down the crowded platform. He looked very tall and very much of a man, she thought, as she gave him a trembling hand to shake. She felt herself very childish and insignificant beside his magnificence as she walked with him to the waiting car, for the house in the country had long since been given up, and George Chester had lived in London for some years before his death. "Have you got your ticket?" Christopher asked, very much as he might have asked a child, and Marie fumbled in her pocket with fingers that shook. "I nearly lost it once," she volunteered, and Chris smiled as he answered: "Yes, that's the sort of thing you would do." He looked 5 down at her. "You haven't altered much," he said condescendingly. "You're still just a kid." 5 Marie did not answer, but her heart swelled with disappointment. She was eighteen, and she knew that he was but six years older. Years ago that six years had not seemed much of a gap, but now, looking up at him, she felt it to be an insuperable gulf. He was a man and she was only a school girl with short skirts and her hair down her back. They sat opposite one another in the car, and Chris looked at her consideringly. "It's a long time since I saw you," he said. "Yes, eight months," she answered readily. She could have told him the date and the month and almost the hour of their last meeting had she chosen, but somehow she did not think he would be greatly interested. "It's rough luck—about Uncle George," he said awkwardly, and Marie nodded. "Yes." She wondered if he thought she ought to be crying. She would have been amazed if she could have known that he was hoping with all his heart and soul that she would not. He changed the subject abruptly. "Aunt Madge would have come to meet you, but there is so much to see to. She sent her love and told me to say she was sorry not to be able to come."
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