ion, but
there was something pathetic in her slow, listless walk, from which all
the eager grace of a few hours ago seemed to have departed.

It was not until they were nearing London, on the following afternoon,
that Catherine awoke from a lethargy during which she had spent the
greater portion of the journey. From her place in the corner seat of the
compartment in which they had been undisturbed since leaving Wells, she
studied her companion through half-closed eyes. Julian was reading an
article in one of the Reviews and remained entirely unconscious of her
scrutiny. His forehead was puckered, his mouth a little contemptuous. It
was obvious that he did not wholly approve of what he was reading.

Catherine, during those few hours of solitude, was conscious of a
subtle, slowly growing change in her mental attitude towards her
companion. Until the advent of those dramatic hours at Maltenby, she
had regarded him as a pleasant, even a charming acquaintance, but as
belonging to a type with which she was entirely and fundamentally out of
sympathy. The cold chivalry of his behaviour on the preceding night and
the result of her own reflections as she sat there studying him made her
inclined to doubt the complete accuracy of her first judgment. She
found something unexpectedly intellectual and forceful in his present
concentration,--in the high, pale forehead, the deep-set but alert eyes.
His long, loose frame was yet far from ungainly; his grey tweed suit and
well-worn brown shoes the careless attire of a man who has no need to
rely on his tailor for distinction. His hands, too, were strong and
capable. She found herself suddenly wishing that the man himself were
different, that he belonged to some other and more congenial type.

Julian, in course of time, laid down the Review which he had been
studying and looked out of the window.

"We shall be in London in three quarters of an hour," he announced
politely.

She sat up and yawned, produced her vanity case, peered into the mirror,
and used her powder puff with the somewhat piquant assurance of the
foreigner. Then she closed her dressing case with a snap, pulled down
her veil, and looked across at him.

"And how," she asked demurely, "does my fiance propose to entertain me
this evening?"

He raised his eyebrows.

"With the exception of one half-hour," he replied unexpectedly, "I am
wholly at your service."

"I am exacting," she declared. "I demand that half-hour