The lovers settled back into the cushions. They were the one subject nobody was going to discuss.

“Look,” the young girl said in a low voice, from within the square of the young man’s arm, but not to him. “I see a face that keeps going past, looking through the window. A man, plying up and down, could he be the one so unfortunate?”

“Not him, he’s leading greyhounds, didn’t we see him come in?” The young man spoke eagerly, to them all. “Leading, or they leading him.”

“’Tis a long train,” the lady murmured to the Welshman. “The longest, most populated train leaving England, I would suppose, the one going over to catch the Innisfallen.”

“Is that the name of the boat? You were glad to leave England?”

“It is and I was—pleased to be starting my journey, pleased to have it over.” She gave a look at him—then at the others, the compartment, the tumbled baggage, everything. Outside, dim Wales clapped strongly at the window, like some accompanying bird. “I’ll just lower the shade, will I?” she said.

She pulled at the window shade and fastened it down, and pulled down the door shade after it. The minute she did that, the window shade flew up, with a noise like a turkey.

They shouted for joy—they knew it! She was funny.

The train stopped and waited a long time in the dark, out from nowhere. They sat awhile, swung their feet; the man from Connemara whistled for a minute marvelously, Victor had his third orange.

“Suppose we’re late!” shouted the man from Connemara. The mountains could hear him; they had opened the window to look out hoping to see the trouble, but could not. “And the Innisfallen sails without us! And we don’t reach the other side in this night!”

“Then you’ll all have to spend the night in Fishguard,” said the Welshman.

“Oh, what a scene there’ll be in Cork, when we don’t arrive!” cried the young wife merrily. “When the boat sails in without us, oh poor souls.”

Victor laughed harshly. He had made a pattern with his orange peel on the window ledge, which he now swept away.

“There’s none too much room for the traveler in the town of Fishguard,” said the Welshman over his pipe. “You’ll do best to keep dry in the station.”

“Won’t they die of it in Cork?” The young wife cocked her head.

“Me five brothers will stand ready to give me a beating!” Victor said, then looked proud.

“I daresay it won’t be the first occasion you’ve put in the night homeless in Fishguard.”

“In Fishguard?” warningly cried the man from Connemara. A scowl lit up his face and his eyes opened wide with innocence. “Didn’t you know this was the boat train you’re riding, man?”

“Oh, is that what you call it?” said the Welshman in equal innocence.