noon
It was a pledge he was destined to keep inviolate . Ordinarily to Kenny , impatient in intervals of discomfort and delay , the trip with its rural junctions and branch roads would have been interminable torture . But to-day , with Joan 's eyes , wide , dark , intent , he chose to marvel with her . They lunched at noon between trains in a little country inn . At seven , having come after much fragmentary travel into a comforting world of express trains and Pullmans , they dined in the train itself . Joan watched the flying landscape , dotted with snow and vanishing lights , smiled with the shining wonder of it all in her eyes , and could not eat . Kenny tried scolding and found her sorry , but she could not eat .