There was not a breath of wind.
The fishing boats seemed to rest on the placid water as though the elements had for ever forgotten their old hostility.
The coast was incredibly green, but with a bright cosy greenness quite unlike the luxuriant, vehement verdure of Eastern jungles.
The red towns they passed here and there were comfortable and homelike.
They seemed to welcome the exiles with a smiling friendliness.
And when they drew into the estuary of the Thames they saw the rich levels of Essex and in a little while Chalk Church on the Kentish shore, lonely in the midst of weather-beaten trees, and beyond it the woods of Cobham.
The sun, red in a faint mist, set on the marshes, and night fell.
In the station the arc-lamps shed a light that spotted the darkness with cold hard patches.
It was good to see the porters lumbering about in their grubby uniforms and the station-master fat and important in his bowler hat.
The station-master blew a whistle and waved his arm.
Alban stepped into the carriage and seated himself in the corner opposite to Anne.
The train started.
'We're due in London at six-ten,' said Alban.
'We ought to get to Jermyn Street by seven.
That'll give us an hour to bath and change and we can get to the Savoy for dinner by eight-thirty.
A bottle of pop tonight, my pet, and a slap-up dinner.'
He gave a chuckle.
'I heard the Strouds and the Maundys arranging to meet at the Trocadero Grill-Room.'
He took up the papers and asked if she wanted any of them.
Anne shook her head.
'Tired?' he smiled.
'No.'
'Excited?'
In order not to answer she gave a little laugh.
He began to look at the papers, starting with the publishers' advertisements, and she was conscious of the intense satisfaction it was to him to feel himself through them once more in the middle of things.
They had taken in those same papers in Sondurah, but they arrived six weeks old, and though they kept them abreast of what was going on in the world that interested them both, they emphasized their exile.
But these were fresh from the press.
They smelt different.
They had a crispness that was almost voluptuous.
He wanted to read them all at once.
Anne looked out of the window.
The country was dark, and she could see little but the lights of their carriage reflected on the glass, but very soon the town encroached upon it, and then she saw little sordid houses, mile upon mile of them, with a light in a window here and there, and the chimneys made a dreary pattern against the sky.
They passed through Barking and East Ham and Bromley – it was silly that the name on the platform as they went through the station should give her such a tremor – and then Stepney.
Alban put down his papers.
'We shall be there in five minutes now.'
He put on his hat and took down from the racks the things the porter had put in them.
He looked at her with shining eyes and his lips twitched.
She saw that he was only just able to control his emotion.
He looked out of the window, too, and they passed over brightly lighted thoroughfares, close packed with tram-cars, buses and motor-vans, and they saw the streets thick with people.
What a mob!
The shops were all lit up.
They saw the hawkers with their barrows at the curb.
'London,' he said.
He took her hand and gently pressed it.
His smile was so sweet that she had to say something. She tried to be facetious.
'Does it make you feel all funny inside?'
'I don't know if I want to cry or if I want to be sick.'
Fenchurch Street.
He lowered the window and waved his arm for a porter.
With a grinding of brakes the train came to a standstill.