orner, to whom she was obviously an equally unwelcome
fellow-passenger.

He had retired once more behind his newspaper, and practically all that
was offered for her contemplation consisted of a pair of knee-breeches
and well-cut leather leggings and two strong-looking, sun-tanned hands.
These latter intrigued Sara considerably--their long, sensitive fingers
and short, well-kept nails according curiously with their sunburnt
suggestion of great physical strength and an outdoor life. She wished
their owner would see fit to lower his newspaper once more, since her
momentary glimpse of his face had supplied her with but little idea of
his personality. And the hands, so full of contradictory suggestion,
aroused her interest.

As though in response to her thoughts, the newspaper suddenly crackled
down on to its owner's knees.

"I have every intention of smoking," he announced aggressively. "This is
a smoking carriage."

Sara, supported by the recollection of a dainty little gold and
enamel affair in her hand-bag, filled with some very special Russian
cigarettes, smiled amiably.

"I know it is," she replied in unruffled tones. "That's why I got in. I,
too, have every intention of smoking."

He stared at her in silence for a moment, then, without further comment,
produced a pipe and tobacco pouch from the depths of a pocket, and
proceeded to fill the former, carefully pressing down the tobacco with
the tip of one of those slender, capable-looking fingers.

Sara observed him quickly. As he lounged there indolently in his corner,
she was aware of a subtle combination of strength and fine tempering
in the long, supple lines of his limbs--something that suggested the
quality of steel, hard, yet pliant. He had a lean, hard-bitten face,
tanned by exposure to the sun and wind, and the clean-shaven lips met
with a curious suggestion of bitter reticence in their firm closing. His
hair was brown--"plain brown" as Sara mentally characterized it--but it
had a redeeming kink in it and the crispness of splendid vitality. The
eyes beneath the straight, rather frowning brows were hazel, and, even
in the brief space of time occupied by the inimical colloquy of a few
moments ago, Sara had been struck by the peculiar intensity of their
regard--an odd depth and brilliance only occasionally to be met with,
and then preferably in those eyes which are a somewhat light grey in
colour and ringed round the outer edge of the iris with a deeper tin