d like a Charity blanket pressed against each window.
Three of the bunches of violets shook and vibrated and slipped, the
train moved again and they fell on the floor of the carriage. Nina
watched their trembling in an agony of irritation induced by the fog,
the delay, and the persistent silence of her companion. When the flowers
fell, she spoke.

"You've dropped your flowers," she said. Again a bow, a silent bow, and
the flowers were picked up.

"Oh, I'm desperate!" Nina said inwardly. "He must be mad--or dumb--or
have a vow of silence--I wonder which?"

The train had not yet reached the next station, though it had left the
last nearly an hour before.

"Which is it? Mad, dumb, or a monk? I _will_ find out. Well, it's his
own fault; he shouldn't be so aggravating. I'm going to speak to him.
I've made up my mind."

In the interval between decision and action the train in a sudden brief
access of nervous energy got itself through a station, and paused a
furlong down the line exhausted by the effort.

The stranger had put down his _Spectator_ and was gazing gloomily out at
the fog.

Nina drew a deep breath, and said--at least she nearly said: "What a
dreadful fog!"

But she stopped. That seemed a dull beginning. If she said that he would
think she was commonplace, and she had that sustaining inward
consciousness, mercifully vouchsafed even to the dullest of us, of being
really rather nice, and not commonplace at all. But what should she say?
If she said anything about the colour of the fog and Turner or Whistler,
it might be telling, but it would be of the shop shoppy. If she began
about books--the _Spectator_ suggested this--she would stand as a prig
confessed. If she spoke of politics she would be an ignorant impostor
soon exposed. If----But Nina took out her watch and resolved: "When the
little hand gets to the quarter I _will_ speak. Whatever I say, I'll
say something."

And when the big hand did get to the quarter Nina did speak.

"Why shouldn't we talk?" she said.

He looked at her; and he seemed to be struggling silently with some
emotion too deep for words.

"It's so silly to sit here like mutes," Nina went on hurriedly--a little
frightened, now she had begun, but more than a little determined not to
be frightened. "If we were at a dance we shouldn't know any more of each
other than we do now--and you'd have to talk then. Why shouldn't we
now?"

Then the stranger spoke, and at the first sentence N