"I'm smothering," she said, very much as it might have been said by a little child in distress.
She wore still another veil, but only that which was ordinarily attached to her hat. The car being not very brightly lighted, and most of our fellow-travelers having gone to dinner, she probably thought she had little to fear. As she gave no sign of recognition on my rendering my small services I subsided again into my chair.
But I knew she was as conscious of my presence as I was of hers. It was not wholly surprising, then, that some twenty minutes later she should swing round in the revolving-chair and drop all disguises. She did it with the words, tearfully yet angrily spoken:
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to Boston, Mrs. Brokenshire," I replied, meekly. "Are you doing the same?"
"You know what I'm doing, and you've come to spy on me."
There is something about the wrath of the sweet, mild, gentle creature, not easily provoked, which is far more terrible than the rage of an irascible old man accustomed to furies. I quailed before it now, but not so much that I couldn't outwardly keep my composure.
"If I know what you're doing, Mrs. Brokenshire," I said, gently, "it isn't from any information received beforehand. I didn't know you were to be on this train till you got in; and I haven't been sure it was you till this minute."
"I've a right to do as I please," she declared, hoarsely, "without having people to dog me."
"Do I strike you as the sort of person who'd do that? You've had some opportunity of knowing me; and have I ever done anything for which you didn't first give me leave? If I'm here this evening and you're here, too, it's pure accident—as far as I'm concerned." I added, with some deepening of the tone, and speaking slowly so that she should get the meaning of the words: "I'll only venture to surmise that accidents of that kind don't happen for nothing."