Miss Smith opened the book she had brought along and began to read. She felt that obliquely her enforced companions were studying her—at least two of them were. The one with whom she shared a seat had not looked her way; except to draw in her body a trifle as Miss Smith sat down she had made no movement of any sort. Certainly she had manifested no interest in the new arrival. In moments when her glance did not cross theirs, Miss Smith, turning the pages of her book, considered the two who faced her, subconsciously trying—as was her way—to appraise them for what outwardly they presumably were. Offhand she decided the man might be the superintendent of an estate; or then again he might be somebody's head gardener. He was heavily built and heavily mustached with a reddish cast to his skin and fat broad hands. The woman alongside him had the look about her of being a high-class domestic employee, possibly a housekeeper or perhaps a seamstress. Miss Smith decided that if not exactly a servant she was accustomed to dealing with servants and in her own sphere undoubtedly would figure as a competent and authoritative person.
Of her own seat mate she could make out little except that she was young—young enough to be the daughter of the woman across from her, and yet plainly enough not the woman's daughter. Indeed if first impressions counted for anything she was of a different type and a different fiber from the pair who rode in her company. One somehow felt that she was with them but not of them; that she formed the alien apex of a triangle otherwise harmonious in its social composition. She was muffled cheek to knees in a loose cape of blue military cloth which quite hid the outlines of her figure, yet nevertheless revealed that she was slimly formed and of fair height. The flaring collar of the garment was upturned, shielding her face almost to the line of her brows. But out of the tail of her eye Miss Smith caught a suggestion of a youthful regular profile and admiringly observed the texture of a mass of thick, fine, auburn hair. Miss Smith was partial to auburn hair; she wondered if this girl had a coloring to match the rich reddish tones that glinted in the smooth coils about her head.
Presently the man fumbled in a breast pocket of his waistcoat and found a long malignant-looking cigar. He bit the end of it and inserted the bitten end in his mouth, rolling it back and forth between his lips. Before long this poor substitute of the confirmed nicotinist for a smoke failed to satisfy his cravings. He whispered a word to his middle-aged companion, who nodded, and then with a mutter of apology to Miss Smith for troubling her he scrouged out into the aisle and disappeared in the direction of the smoker.
Left alone, the woman very soon began to yawn. It was to be judged that the stuffy air of the car made her dozy. She kept her eyes open with an effort, her head lolling in spite of her drowsy efforts to hold it straight, yet all the while bearing herself after the fashion of one determined not to fall asleep.
A voice spoke in Miss Smith's ear—a low and well-bred and musical voice.
"I beg your pardon," it said hesitatingly, then stopped.
Miss Smith turned her head toward the speaker and now for the first time had a fair chance to look into the face of the voice's owner. She looked and saw the oval of a most comely face, white and drawn as though by exhaustion or by deep sorrow, or perhaps by both. For all their pallor the cheeks were full and smooth; the brow was broad and low; the mouth firm and sweet. From between the tall collars of the cape the throat, partly revealed, rose as a smooth fair column. What made the girl almost beautiful were her eyes—eyes big and brown with a fire in them to suggest the fine high mettle of a resolute character, but out of them there looked—or else the other was woefully wrong—a great grief, a great distress bravely borne. To herself—all in that instant of looking—she said mentally that these were the saddest, most courageous eyes she ever had seen set in a face so young and seemingly bespeaking so healthful a body. For a moment Miss Smith was so held by what she saw that she forgot to speak.
"I beg your pardon," repeated the girl. "I wonder if you would be good enough to bring me a drink of water—if it isn't too much trouble. I'm so thirsty. I can't very well go myself—there are reasons why I can't. And I don't think she"—with a sidelong glance toward the nodding figure opposite—"I don't think she would feel that she could go and leave me.'
"Certainly I will," said Miss Smith. "It's not a bit of bother."