"Don't blame them too much," she said. "They're not themselves. Usually they are all quite polite and well-behaved; but now they are perfectly savage. And I don't blame them. I didn't mind so much, because I'm slim and long-legged and not very dignified; but if I were a stout, elderly woman, rather proud of my appearance, I would bitterly resent being yanked out of a seat and violently propelled across a platform by a bearded ruffian with dirty hands. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes," agreed Stewart, laughing; "I should probably kick and bite and behave in a most undignified manner."
The girl leaned closer.
"Some of them did!" she murmured.
Stewart laughed again and looked at her with fresh interest. It was something to find a woman who could preserve her sense of humor under such circumstances.
"You have been doing the continent?" he asked.
"Yes, seventeen of us; all from Philadelphia."
"And you've had a good time, of course?"
"We'd have had a better if we had brought a man along. I never realized before how valuable men are. Women aren't fitted by nature to wrestle with time-tables and cabbies and hotel-bills and headwaiters. This trip has taught me to respect men more than I have ever done."
"Then it hasn't been wasted. But you say you're from Philadelphia. I know some people in Philadelphia—the Courtlandt Bryces are sort of cousins of mine."