“I hope,” I said, “that he won’t have left the cathedral before she gets
there.”
“No fear,” said Thompson, “he’s a most conscientious boy. Having started
out to do that cathedral he’ll look at every stone of it before he
leaves. He’ll be there for hours yet. What I’m afraid of is that she
won’t go there.”
“She started in the right direction,” I said “I saw her out of the
window.”
“I did my best anyhow,” said Thompson. “I told her I wasn’t going there.
She didn’t like me. I could see that. If I’d let her think I was going
to the cathedral she’d have marched straight off to the station and sat
in the Ladies’ Waiting-room till her train started.”
The girl, it appeared, did visit the cathedral and the boy was there. He
was waiting for us on the platform at the railway station at half-past
nine. He talked half the night to Thompson about his wonderful stroke
of luck. Just as I dropped off to sleep I heard Thompson quoting
Shakespeare. It was, to the best of my belief, the only time in his life
that Thompson ever did quote Shakespeare.
“Journeys end in lovers’ meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know,”
he said.