The American girl sitting opposite could not have taken in anything they said as long as she kept feeling it necessary, herself, to subside. As long as the train stood in the station, her whole predicament seemed betrayed by her earliness. She was leaving London without her husband’s knowledge. She was wearing rather worn American clothes and thin shoes, and, sitting up very straight, kept pulling her coat collar about her ears and throat. In the strange, diminished light of the station people seemed to stand and move on some dark stage; by now platform and train must be almost entirely Irish in their gathered population.

A fourth person suddenly came inside the compartment, a small, passionate-looking man. He was with them as suddenly as a gift—as if an arm had thrust in a bunch of roses or a telegram. There seemed something in him about to explode, but—he pushed off his wet coat, threw it down, threw it up overhead, flung himself into the seat—he was going to be a good boy.

“What’s the time?” The round man spoke softly, as if perhaps the new man had brought it.

The lady bowed her head and looked up at him: she had it: “Six minutes to four.” She wore an accurate-looking wristwatch.

The round man’s black eyes flared, he looked out at the rain, and asked the American if she, too, were going to Cork—a question she did not at first understand; his voice was very musical.

“Yes—that is—”

“Four minutes to four,” the lady in the raincoat said, those fours sounding fated.

“You don’t need to get out of the carriage till you get to Fishguard,” the round man told her, murmuring it softly, as if he’d told her before and would tell her again. “Straight through to Fishguard, then you book a berth. You’re in Cork in the morning.”

She looked fondly as though she had never heard of Cork, wouldn’t believe it, and opened and shut her great white heavy eyelids. When he crossed his knees she stole her arm through his and seesawed him on the seat. Holding his rows of little black-rimmed fingers together like a modest accordion, he said, “Two ladies going to Cork.”

“Two minutes to four,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You’ll go through the customs when you get to Fishguard,” he told her. “They’ll open your case and see what there is to detect. They’ll be wanting to discover if you are bringing anything wrongly and improperly into the country.” He eyed the lady, above their linked arms, as if she had been a stranger inquiring into the uses and purposes of customs inspection in the world. By ceasing to smile he appeared to anchor himself; he said solidly, “Following that, you go on board.”