down and trampled on.” A stolid German and his wife occupied opposite corners, and the man probably wondered why the Englischer frau glared at him so fiercely. But he did not move. Helen, thinking to throw oil on the troubled waters, said pleasantly, “Won’t you change seats with me? I don’t mind whether I face the engine or not. In any case, I intend to stand in the corridor most of the time.” The stout woman, hearing herself addressed in English, lifted her mounted eyeglasses and stared at Helen. In one sweeping glance she took in details. As it happened, the girl had expended fifteen of her forty pounds on a neat tailor made costume, a smart hat, well fitting gloves, and the best pair of walking boots she could buy; for, having pretty feet, it was a pardonable vanity that she should wish them well shod. Apparently, the other was satisfied [Pg 67]that there would be no loss of caste in accepting the proffered civility. [Pg 67] “Thank you. I am very much obliged,” she said. “It is awfully sweet of you to incommode yourself for my sake.” It was difficult to believe that the woman who had just stormed at the conductor, who had the effrontery to subject Helen to that stony scrutiny before she answered, could adopt such dulcet tones so suddenly. Helen, frank and generous-minded to a degree, would have preferred a gradual subsidence of wrath to this remarkable volte-face. But she reiterated that she regarded her place in a carriage as of slight consequence, and the change was effected. The other adjusted her eyeglasses again, and passed in review the remaining occupants of the compartment. They were “foreigners,” whose existence might be ignored. “This line grows worse each year,” she remarked, by way of a conversational opening. “It is horrid traveling alone. Unfortunately, I missed my son at Lucerne. Are your people on the train?” “No. I too am alone.” “Ah! Going to St. Moritz?” “Yes; but I take the diligence there for Maloja.” “The diligence! Who in the world advised that? Nobody ever travels that way.”
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