Her pleasure in finding an English officer at Nish was now being marred, as so many pleasures are marred for women, by consciousness of the sight she must present at this moderately early hour of the morning after thirty-six hours in the train.
The Englishman laughed.
"Antitch takes an occasion like this very seriously," he said.
"It's the only way to treat half past eight in the morning," Sylvia answered. "Even after a bath."
"I know. I must apologize for my effervescence at such an hour. We try to assume this kind of attitude toward life when we assume temporary commissions. I'm a parvenu to such an hour and don't really know how to behave myself. Now at dawn you would have found my manner as easy as a doctor's by a bedside. Well, what have you been doing?"
"Really, I think that's for you to tell me," Sylvia replied.
"Where did you meet your fellow-traveler—the Bulgarian?"
"The rose-grower?"
"Oh, you think he is a rose-grower?"
"I didn't speculate upon the problem. He got into the train at Plevna and did all he could to make himself useful and agreeable," Sylvia said.