“May I take the liberty of offering Madame some?”
“No thank you, Monsieur!” I answer, shaking my head hastily and speaking rather abruptly. There is nothing that I dislike more than being offered strange eatables or drinkables in a train, or a strange hymn book in church.
He smiles politely, and then adds—
“Perhaps the other lady might be persuaded to take a little.”
“No thank you, sir, I’m much obliged to you,” replies Watson briskly, in almost as ungrateful a tone as mine.
Again he smiles, bows, and re-buries himself in his newspaper. The thread of my thoughts is broken, I feel an odd curiosity as to the nature of the contents of that bottle. Certainly it is not sherry or spirit of any kind, for it has diffused no odour through the carriage. All this time the man beside me has said and done nothing. I wish he would move or speak, or do something. I peep covertly at him. Well! at all events, he is well defended against the night chill. What a voluminous cloak he is wrapped in; how entirely it shrouds his figure; trimmed with fur too! why it might be January instead of September. I do not know why, but that cloak makes me feel rather uncomfortable. I wish they would both move to the window, instead of sitting next us. Bah! am I setting up to be a timid dove? I, who rather pique myself on my bravery—on my indifference to tramps, bulls, ghosts? The clock has been deposited with the umbrellas, parasols, spare shawls, rugs, etc., in the netting above Watson’s head. The dressing-case—a very large and heavy one—is sitting on her lap. I lean forwards and say to her—
“That box must rest very heavily on your knee, and I want a footstool—I should be more comfortable if I had one—let me put my feet on it.”
I have an idea that, somehow, my sapphires will be safer if I have them where I can always feel that they are there. We make the desired change in our arrangements. Yes! both my feet are on it.
The landscape outside is darkening quickly now; our dim lamp is beginning to assert its importance. Still the men read. I feel a sensation of irritation. What can they mean by it? it is utterly impossible that they can decipher the small print of the Times, by this feeble shaky glimmer.
As I am so thinking, the one who had before spoken lays down his paper, folds it up and deposits it on the seat beside him. Then, drawing his little bottle out of his bag a second time, drinks, or seems to drink, from it. Then he again turns to me—