oked at her just at that moment, he saw her burst into
a pretty laugh. It was the sudden, merry peal of a big girl, still
scarcely more than a hoyden. She considered this tardy exchange of names
rather droll. Then something else amused her.

'How funny--Claude, Christine--they begin with the same letter.'

They both became silent once more. He was blinking at his work, growing
absorbed in it, and at a loss how to continue the conversation. He
fancied that she was beginning to feel tired and uncomfortable, and in
his fear lest she should stir, he remarked at random, merely to occupy
her thoughts, 'It feels rather warm.'

This time she checked her laughter, her natural gaiety that revived and
burst forth in spite of herself ever since she had felt easier in mind.
Truth to tell, the heat was indeed so oppressive that it seemed to her
as if she were in a bath, with skin moist and pale with the milky pallor
of a camellia.

'Yes, it feels rather warm,' she said, seriously, though mirth was
dancing in her eyes.

Thereupon Claude continued, with a good-natured air:

'It's the sun falling straight in; but, after all, a flood of sunshine
on one's skin does one good. We could have done with some of it last
night at the door, couldn't we?'

At this both burst out laughing, and he, delighted at having hit upon
a subject of conversation, questioned her about her adventure, without,
however, feeling inquisitive, for he cared little about discovering the
real truth, and was only intent upon prolonging the sitting.

Christine simply, and in a few words, related what had befallen her.
Early on the previous morning she had left Clermont for Paris, where
she was to take up a situation as reader and companion to the widow of a
general, Madame Vanzade, a rich old lady, who lived at Passy. The train
was timed to reach Paris at ten minutes past nine in the evening, and
a maid was to meet her at the station. They had even settled by letter
upon a means of recognition. She was to wear a black hat with a grey
feather in it. But, a little above Nevers, her train had come upon a
goods train which had run off the rails, its litter of smashed trucks
still obstructing the line. There was quite a series of mishaps
and delays. First an interminable wait in the carriages, which the
passengers had to quit at last, luggage and all, in order to trudge to
the next station, three kilometres distant, where the authorities had
decided to make up anothe