Helena, Louisa, and Olive climbed the steps to go to the South-Western
platform. They were laden with dress-baskets, umbrellas, and little
packages. Olive and Louisa, at least, were in high spirits. Olive
stopped before the indicator.
'The next train for Waterloo,' she announced, in her contralto voice,
'is 10.30. It is now 10.12.' 'We go by the 10.40; it is a better train,' said Helena.
Olive turned to her with a heavy-arch manner.
'Very well, dear. There is a parting to be got through, I am told. We
sympathize, dear, but we regret it. Starting for a holiday is always a
prolonged agony. But I am strong to endure it.' 'You look it. You look as if you could tackle a bull,' cried Louisa,
skittish.
'My dear Louisa,' rang out Olive's contralto, 'don't judge me by
appearances. You're sure to be taken in. With me it's a case of '"Oh, the gladness of her gladness when she's sad,
And the sadness of her sadness when she's glad!"' She looked round to see the effect of this. Helena, expected to say
something, chimed in sarcastically: '"They are nothing to her madness--"' 'When she's going for a holiday, dear,' cried Olive.
'Oh, go on being mad,' cried Louisa.
'What, do you like it? I thought you'd be thanking Heaven that sanity
was given me in large doses.' 'And holidays in small,' laughed Louisa. 'Good! No, I like your madness,
if you call it such. You are always so serious.' '"It's ill talking of halters in the house of the hanged," dear,' boomed
Olive.
She looked from side to side. She felt triumphant. Helena smiled,
acknowledging the sarcasm.
'But,' said Louisa, smiling anxiously, 'I don't quite see it. What's the
point?' 'Well, to be explicit, dear,' replied Olive, 'it is hardly safe to
accuse me of sadness and seriousness in _this_ trio.' Louisa laughed and shook herself.
'Come to think of it, it isn't,' she said.
Helena sighed, and walked down the platform. Her heart was beating
thickly; she could hardly breathe. The station lamps hung low, so they
made a ceiling of heat and dusty light. She suffocated under them. For a
moment she beat with hysteria, feeling, as most of us feel when sick on
a hot summer night, as if she must certainly go crazed, smothered under
the grey, woolly blanket of heat. Siegmund was late. It was already
twenty-five minutes past ten.
She went towards the booking-office. At that moment Siegmund came on to
the platform.