Once he glanced at the ladies before him as if for sympathy, but perceiving none, restrained some expression of admiration which he had seemed about to utter.
More than once he glanced at a lady who sat in the farthest corner of the compartment, looking out in the opposite direction. She had a somewhat dusky oval face, dark eyes with long lashes, and black hair heavy about the forehead. She looked like a grand lady, though she was traveling alone. She wore a simple costume of a dark dull purple and a full scarf of yellow-tinted lace loosely tied around her neck.
She took no notice of her traveling companions. The wild grandeur of the scene was reflected in her uplifted eyes, and woke an occasional sparkle in them; but she seemed not strange to the mountains.
Once, when the rock wall shut close to her side of the carriage, she turned toward the other side, just skimming the three strangers with a glance. At that moment their progress unrolled an exquisite mountain picture, and the gentleman turning toward her quickly, they exchanged an involuntary smile.
“I never was so enamored of the Alps as some people are,” said one of the other ladies to her companion. She had caught this sign of sympathy. “They are so theatrical.”
Her friend laughed. “You remind me,” she replied, “of the man who said that there was a good deal of human nature in God.”
The stranger lady started.
“Madam!” she exclaimed.
The one who had spoken shrugged her shoulders.
The gentleman changed his seat for one opposite the stranger.