f gray, misted glass, and,
letting down the window, leaned out into the night.

The scene was vague and ghostly, but to eyes accustomed to northern
whiteness it was full of suggestion, full of secrecy; to nostrils
accustomed to keen, rarefied air there was something poignant and
delicious in the scent of turned earth, the savor of vegetation. He
could see little or nothing as the train rocked and the landscape tore
past, but the atmosphere spoke to him as it speaks to blind men,
penetrating his consciousness. Here were open spaces, tracts of country
fructifying for the spring to come. A land of promise--of growth--of
fulfilment!

He closed his eyes, living in the suggestion, and his spirit sped
forward with the onrush of the train. Somewhere beyond the darkness lay
the land of his desires! Somewhere behind the veil shone the lights of
Paris! With a quick, exulting excitement he laughed; but even as the
laugh was caught and scattered to the winds by the thunder of the
engine, his bearing changed, the excitement dropped from him, a mask of
immobility fell upon his face, and he wheeled round from the window. The
card-playing travellers had opened the door of the carriage.

From his shadowy corner the boy eyed them; and they, alert from their
game, slightly dazed by the darkness of the carriage, peered back at
him, frankly curious. When they had left the compartment he had been a
huddled figure demanding no attention; now he was awake and an
individual, and human nature prompted interest.

Each in turn looked at him, and at each new glance his coldness of
demeanor deepened; until, as the eldest of the party came down the
carriage and appropriated the seat beside him, he turned away, pulling
up the window with resentful haste.

"Don't do that!" said the third man, pausing in the doorway and speaking
in French easily and pleasantly. "Don't do that--if you want the air!"

The boy started and looked round.

"I thank you! But I do not need the air!"

The man smiled acquiescence, but as he stepped into the carriage he took
a sharp look at the boy's clothes--the common Russian clothes--and a
slightly questioning, slightly satirical expression crossed his face. He
was a man who knew his world the globe over, and in his bearing lurked
the toleration, the kindly scepticism that such knowledge breeds.

"As you please!" he said, settling himself comfortably in the corner by
the door, while the elder of his companions--a tall,