A few moments later he became aware that the portière at the door of his compartment had been drawn aside. Irritated that anyone should intrude upon the privacy he had paid high to secure himself, he looked up. In the doorway stood a young woman, twenty-two or three perhaps, slender but not too slender, with hair of the colour of midnight, long black eyelashes and a smooth dark skin faintly flushed with the cold. The eyes were of that deep clear blue that is sometimes given a brunette. She wore a long loose fur coat of a rich dark brown, and a cap of the same dark fur, and she carried a brown muff, and over her wrist a leather bag.
For only an instant did she pause, with the portière in one hand. Then without a word to Drexel, who had half risen, she entered the compartment and took the opposite seat.
CHAPTER II
CAUGHT IN THE CURRENT
WITH her chin in one slender, exquisitely gloved hand, she stared out into the flying darkness. As for Drexel, not another thought went to America or to fortune-building. The moment he had seen that darkly beautiful figure a thrill had gone through him and a dizzying something that choked him had risen into his throat.
Her fixed gaze into the outward blackness gave him his chance and he was not the man to squander it. He eyed her steadily, noticed that she breathed quickly, as though she had hurried for the train—noticed how white and even were the teeth between her barely parted lips—noticed again how smooth was the texture of her skin and how like rich old marble was its colour—noticed how finely chiselled were all her features, how small the ear that nestled up in her dark hair. He wondered who she was, and what. But who, or what, she was decidedly a Russian, and decidedly the most beautiful woman he had seen in all the Czar’s wide realm.
Once he gazed out the window, with the purpose that he might look back upon her with the freshness of a first glance. When he turned, it was to give a start. She was gazing straight at him. And her eyes did not fall or turn when met by his. She continued to gaze straight into his face, with those black-lashed blue eyes of hers, such a blue as he had never before seen—with no overture in her look, no invitation, no whit of coquetry—continued peering, peering, as though studying the very fibre of his soul.
What her outward eye saw was a figure of lithe strength, built as the man should be built who had been his university’s greatest tackle, and a dark-mustached, square-chinned, steady-eyed face that bespoke power and one used to recognition and authority.
Drexel met her gaze with held breath, in suspense as to what remarkable event this remarkable look would the next minute lead to. But it led to none. She merely turned her eyes back into the darkness.
He noticed now that she seemed a little tense, as though mastering some emotion. But other things claimed his thoughts above this. He wanted to speak to her—wondered if he dared; but, despite that long direct look, despite her walking into his private compartment, he knew she was not the woman with whom one could pick up acquaintance on a train. He saw what was going to happen; they would ride on thus to St. Petersburg—part without a word—never see each other again.
The train sped on. At length they neared the environs of the capital. They stopped at a station where lay a train from St. Petersburg, then started up again. It seemed to Drexel that her tensity was deepening.