Una hesitated a moment. She had heard of him.
“He was a wonderful man, but terrible to me. His eyes looked through one, and then he had been so wicked.”
She stopped short, and Una sighed. So there was another person who was wicked.
“Why are men so wicked?” she asked, in a low voice.
“I—I—don’t know. What a singular question,” said Mrs. Davenant. “No one knows. Perhaps it is because they have different natures to ours. But you need not look so grieved, my dear,” she added, with a little smile, “you need not know any wicked men.”
“Who can tell? One does not know; wicked men are just like the others, only we like them better.”
Mrs. Davenant stared at her, and utterly overwhelmed by the strange reply, sank into her corner and into silence.
The panting engine tore along the line, and presently the clear atmosphere was left behind, and the cloud of smoke which hangs over the Great City came down upon them and took them in, and infolded them.
To Una’s amazement the train seemed to glide over the tops of houses, houses so thick that there seemed but two, or three inches between them. With suppressed excitement—she had resolved to express no surprise or fear—she watched through the window. Sometimes she caught sight of streets thronged with people, and with commingled alarm and curiosity, wondered what had happened to draw them all together so.
She would not ask Mrs. Davenant, for wearied by her double journey, she was leaning back with closed eyes.