even a razor--"

"I am glad," said Miss Morris, "that Nolan has not taken a fancy to ME.
I doubt if I could resist such impetuosity."

The Orient Express, in which Carlton and the mistress of his heart and
fancy were speeding towards the horizon's utmost purple rim, was made
up of six cars, one dining-car with a smoking-apartment attached, and
five sleeping-cars, including the one reserved for the Duke of
Hohenwald and his suite. These cars were lightly built, and rocked in
consequence, and the dust raised by the rapid movement of the train
swept through cracks and open windows, and sprinkled the passengers
with a fine and irritating coating of soot and earth. There was one
servant to the entire twenty-two passengers. He spoke eight languages,
and never slept; but as his services were in demand by several people
in as many different cars at the same moment he satisfied no one, and
the complaint-box in the smoking-car was stuffed full to the slot in
consequence before they had crossed the borders of France.

Carlton and Miss Morris went out upon one of the platforms and sat down
upon a tool-box. "It's isn't as comfortable here as in an
observation-car at home," said Carlton, "but it's just as noisy."

He pointed out to her from time to time the peasants gathering twigs,
and the blue-bloused gendarmes guarding the woods and the fences
skirting them. "Nothing is allowed to go to waste in this country," he
said. "It looks as though they went over it once a month with a
lawn-mower and a pruning-knife. I believe they number the trees as we
number the houses."

"And did you notice the great fortifications covered with grass?" she
said. "We have passed such a lot of them."

Carlton nodded.

"And did you notice that they all faced only one way?"

Carlton laughed, and nodded again. "Towards Germany," he said.

By the next day they had left the tall poplars and white roads behind
them, and were crossing the land of low shiny black helmets and brass
spikes. They had come into a country of low mountains and black
forests, with old fortified castles topping the hills, and with
red-roofed villages scattered around the base.

"How very military it all is!" Mrs. Downs said. "Even the men at the
lonely little stations in the forests wear uniforms; and do you notice
how each of them rolls up his red flag and holds it like a sword, and
salutes the train as it passes?"

They spent the hour during which the train shif