time, and Carlyle's French
Revolution, which he had not read and was doubtful of enjoying; he felt
that he ought to buy the latter, but he did not relish giving up the
former. While he hesitated thus, his carriage was beginning to fill
up; so, quickly buying both, he took up a position from which he
could defend his rights. "Nothing," he thought, "shows people up like
travelling."

The carriage was almost full, and, putting his bag, up in the rack, he
took his seat. At the moment of starting yet another passenger, a girl
with a pale face, scrambled in.

"I was a fool to go third," thought Shelton, taking in his neighbours
from behind his journal.

They were seven. A grizzled rustic sat in the far corner; his empty
pipe, bowl downwards, jutted like a handle from his face, all bleared
with the smear of nothingness that grows on those who pass their lives
in the current of hard facts. Next to him, a ruddy, heavy-shouldered man
was discussing with a grey-haired, hatchet-visaged person the condition
of their gardens; and Shelton watched their eyes till it occurred to
him how curious a look was in them--a watchful friendliness, an allied
distrust--and that their voices, cheerful, even jovial, seemed to be
cautious all the time. His glance strayed off, and almost rebounded from
the semi-Roman, slightly cross, and wholly self-complacent face of a
stout lady in a black-and-white costume, who was reading the Strand
Magazine, while her other, sleek, plump hand, freed from its black
glove, and ornamented with a thick watch-bracelet, rested on her lap. A
younger, bright-cheeked, and self-conscious female was sitting next her,
looking at the pale girl who had just got in.

"There's something about that girl," thought Shelton, "they don't
like." Her brown eyes certainly looked frightened, her clothes were of
a foreign cut. Suddenly he met the glance of another pair of eyes; these
eyes, prominent and blue, stared with a sort of subtle roguery from
above a thin, lopsided nose, and were at once averted. They gave Shelton
the impression that he was being judged, and mocked, enticed, initiated.
His own gaze did not fall; this sanguine face, with its two-day growth
of reddish beard, long nose, full lips, and irony, puzzled him. "A
cynical face!" he thought, and then, "but sensitive!" and then, "too
cynical," again.

The young man who owned it sat with his legs parted at the knees, his
dusty trouser-ends and boots slanting back beneath