The gloves allusion was explained to a different audience as follows. “Did I ever tell you, gents, about that time I was in the train with him going to Sandmouth? Y’know, it’s funny, the way you remember things … Well, thanks, sir, that’s very kind of you. Well, I was sort of dozing off, y’know, the same as you do in trains, when suddenly the doc stumbled over my feet, waking me up sudden, and I see him deliberately throw one of his gloves out of the window. ‘Goodness, is the fellow crazy?’ I sez to myself, for it was a good glove, by the look of it, real kid. Course I asked him what the idea was, and I’ll take a bet none of you fellers can’t guess the answer … I thought it would stump you — stumped me at the time. I’ll tell you what he sez to me — ‘Barney,’ he sez, — he always called me Barney, — I just dropped a glove accidental on the line as I was opening the window, and I thought I might as well throw the other one after it, so as maybe the same person would find ’em both. After all, an odd glove’s not much use to anybody, is it?’ Must ’ave had a queer mind to think of things as quick as that …”

“Queer is the word,” somebody responded.

They arrived at Charlham at nine-thirty and had breakfast in the Railway Arms. The morning papers had just come, and everyone in the coffee room was talking and prophesying — the waiter, a few commercial travelers, and a man in a green baize apron who was cleaning the fireplace. The bacon was cold and the toast burnt. David had looked up the timetable and found an express to London at eleven; the station was just across the road, so there was plenty of time. He left Leni in the hotel lounge while he found a barber’s shop and had a shave.

Most of the way to London she slept again, but this time the train was crowded and she leaned her head against his shoulder while he talked with the other people in the compartment. That always happened wherever he went; people always began talking to him, telling him all their lives if there were time enough, because he had a way of listening gently. But this time, as he talked and listened, he sometimes stole a glance at the head so limp against his arm; it had been a long way to the Junction for her — poor child, let her sleep. But once she half-awakened, roused by the crash of the train into a tunnel, and in the sudden soft glow of the electric light her eyes melted to his glance. “Du kleine doctor … ” she murmured, dreamily. “Where are we going to? Where are you taking me?” Then she remembered something he had told her — that she must not speak during the journey in case anyone should hear her foreign accent.