She knelt down and began to rummage in a trunk, then called her maid, and an endless conversation began concerning what she should wear on the journey. No sooner was a decision reached than it was ridiculed and the discussion renewed. Half-filled trunks were ransacked, drawers and wardrobes pillaged, till the room resembled a shop that had been struck by lightning.
Rendell stayed till nearly ten o’clock. He returned the next morning at eleven—when Rosalie informed him that she would not be able to go as she had no stockings. He was about to refer to the dozens of pairs he had seen the night before, but a sign from the maid silenced him. He agreed that the journey to Italy must be postponed. The three of them then remained seated on trunks, listening to the ticking clock, till Rosalie suddenly became helpless with laughter. Finally, she leapt up, kissed the maid, said she was a darling, and announced that she would go to Italy. After which, she swung round to Rendell and asked if there would be time to buy a Dachshund puppy she had seen the day before in a Bond Street window. He replied that the presence of a small dog might complicate the journey. But, as this new difficulty was regarded as an overwhelming reason for not going to Italy, Rendell promised to inspect the Dachshund the next day and purchase it—if he found its attractions irresistible.
They then discovered that Rosalie had not bought the tickets.
So Rendell, having ascertained that Milan was their destination, went out and returned in due course with the tickets.
The question of passports then precipitated a new crisis. The maid said Rosalie had them. Rosalie replied that she had never seen them—and that only criminals required them. She then asked Rendell to go and buy some. Half an hour later they were found at the bottom of the only trunk packed by Rosalie.
The whole of the hotel staff were then tipped—not on the basis of services rendered, but according to whether or not Rosalie regarded them as nice people.
Then, having dissuaded her from buying a new hat—and having given her some French, Swiss, and Italian money—Rendell began to regard her departure as a possibility.
They left the hotel soon after one o’clock: Rosalie and Rendell in the car, the maid following in a luggage-laden taxi.
He said little during the drive to Victoria. She was going—and he did not know whether they would meet again. Although they had met almost daily for a month, she had never referred to the future. For Rendell, however, it was a fundamental issue. He knew that if their companionship were renewed, he would become wholly dependent on it. He would ask her to marry him. He knew he would do this, although his logical faculty regarded such a proceeding as worse than folly.
But, if they did not meet after to-day, sanity would prevail—and he would escape.
He glanced at her. She was leaning forward, gazing at the thronged street with an expression that was half curiosity and half bewilderment. It seemed to him that she had no part or place in the world, that her physical presence in it represented a cruel caprice on the part of destiny. She was an outcast, endlessly seeking the realm from which she had been banished. And so, to her, the normal was the unreal; the extraordinary the familiar.
On reaching Victoria, Rendell was fully occupied till ten minutes before the train left. Then he joined Rosalie on the platform, leaving the maid to attend to the arrangement of the light luggage in the carriage.
Rosalie took his arm and they walked up and down the platform. She disassociated herself so entirely from the bustle surrounding her that she created an illusion of solitude.
Up and down they went, while she talked quietly on a number of subjects in no way connected with the journey. Rendell forgot time, place, circumstances. The sound of her voice, the pressure of her hand on his arm, the rhythm of her movement hypnotised him.
Porters began to bang doors.
“You’ll have to get in, Rosalie.”
They returned to the carriage and Rendell held out his hand.
“You’ll come—in a month?” she asked, as if referring to a long-established arrangement.
“In a month!” he exclaimed.
“Yes, to bring me back.”
“And then?” he heard himself ask.
“Oh, then we’ll just go on as we have done. You’ll take me to places and show me things.”
He did not reply. Her hand remained in his.
“You’ll come—in a month?” she repeated.
A whistle blew.
“Yes, I’ll come—and bring you back. Jump in! Quick!”
She got in a second before the train started.
As it began to move, she leaned from the window and beckoned him. He had to run to keep up with her.
“Don’t forget to go and look at that puppy.”
She waved her hand and vanished.
Rendell stood motionless till the train had disappeared.
At last he turned and walked slowly towards the barrier—a sentence of Wrayburn’s circling in his mind.
“Probably you’ll marry again—but it will be a dangerous sort of affair this time.”
One result of Rosalie’s departure was Rendell’s rediscovery of Time.