"Oh, yes," laughed Janice, "I am not at all afraid of losing it."
"You are so different. Me, I am always feeling to see if my jewel-bag iss safe. Oh, yes!"
Janice, having no jewels, was not much interested; though it seemed odd that the black-eyed woman should have her mind so fixed on robbery.
Before the train reached Chicago the woman had made herself very friendly with Janice. The latter refrained from telling her new acquaintance just why she was going to the Southwest, and alone, save that she expected to find her father there and that she was anxious about him.
"You will remain over a day in Chicago to rest?" queried the woman. "You haf friends there—yes?"
"Oh, no. We are going to arrive in good time. I know the schedule perfectly," Janice assured her. "I shall go right on."
It was not until then that the black-eyed woman revealed the fact that she, too, was going on beyond Chicago. It seemed odd to Janice that her fellow-traveler should not before have acknowledged that Chicago was not her destination, still she gave the matter little thought. She did not tell her name to the girl. Indeed, Janice did not reveal her own name during their conversation.
The woman asked Janice very particularly about the route over which the girl was to travel and then, consulting an ivory-bound memorandum book she carried, in which Janice could not help seeing the notes were written in some foreign language, the woman murmured.
"Ach, yes! It iss so. My dear, I can be your fellow-passenger for many hundred miles farther. Ach! such a great country as it iss. I shall see about having my routing changed at once. We may travel together yet a far way. And we are such goot friends."
Janice felt somewhat abashed at this claim. She enjoyed the black-eyed woman's conversation; but she was not strongly drawn toward her. If they were such "goot friends" the feeling of friendship must be mostly on Madam's side.