n himself anywhere near to
a point resembling laughter, and in the sudden and inexplicable
spontaneity of it he was startled. He turned quickly, as though some one
at his side had laughed and he was about to demand an explanation. He
looked across the aisle and his eyes met squarely the eyes of a woman.

He saw nothing but the eyes at first. They were big, dark, questing
eyes--eyes that had in them a hunting look, as though they hoped to find
in his face the answer to a great question. Never in his life had he
seen eyes that were so haunted by a great unrest, or that held in their
lustrous depths the smouldering glow of a deeper grief. Then the face
added itself to the eyes. It was not a young face. The woman was past
forty. But this age did not impress itself over a strange and appealing
beauty in her countenance which was like the beauty of a flower whose
petals are falling. Before David had seen more than this she turned her
eyes from him slowly and doubtfully, as if not quite convinced that she
had found what she sought, and faced the darkness beyond her own side of
the car.

David was puzzled, and he looked at her with still deeper interest. Her
seat was turned so that it was facing him across the aisle, three seats
ahead, and he could look at her without conspicuous effort or rudeness.
Her hood had slipped down and hung by its long scarf about her
shoulders. She leaned toward the window, and as she stared out, her chin
rested in the cup of her hand. He noticed that her hand was thin, and
that there was a shadowy hollow in the white pallor of her cheek. Her
hair was heavy and done in thick coils that glowed dully in the
lamplight. It was a deep brown, almost black, shot through with little
silvery threads of gray.

For a few moments David withdrew his gaze, subconsciously ashamed of the
directness of his scrutiny. But after a little his eyes drifted back to
her. Her head was sunk forward a little, he caught now a pathetic droop
of her shoulders, and he fancied that he saw a little shiver run through
her. Just as before he had felt the desire to thrust his face out into
the night, he felt now an equally unaccountable impulse to speak to her
and ask her if he could in any way be of service to her. But he could
see no excuse for this presumptuousness in himself. If she was in
distress it was not of a physical sort for which he might have suggested
his services as a remedy. She was neither hungry nor cold, for there