n't."

Miss Smith opened the book she had brought along and began to read. She
felt that obliquely her enforced companions were studying her--at least
two of them were. The one with whom she shared a seat had not looked her
way; except to draw in her body a trifle as Miss Smith sat down she had
made no movement of any sort. Certainly she had manifested no interest
in the new arrival. In moments when her glance did not cross theirs,
Miss Smith, turning the pages of her book, considered the two who faced
her, subconsciously trying--as was her way--to appraise them for what
outwardly they presumably were. Offhand she decided the man might be the
superintendent of an estate; or then again he might be somebody's head
gardener. He was heavily built and heavily mustached with a reddish cast
to his skin and fat broad hands. The woman alongside him had the look
about her of being a high-class domestic employee, possibly a
housekeeper or perhaps a seamstress. Miss Smith decided that if not
exactly a servant she was accustomed to dealing with servants and in her
own sphere undoubtedly would figure as a competent and authoritative
person.

Of her own seat mate she could make out little except that she was
young--young enough to be the daughter of the woman across from her, and
yet plainly enough not the woman's daughter. Indeed if first impressions
counted for anything she was of a different type and a different fiber
from the pair who rode in her company. One somehow felt that she was
with them but not of them; that she formed the alien apex of a triangle
otherwise harmonious in its social composition. She was muffled cheek to
knees in a loose cape of blue military cloth which quite hid the
outlines of her figure, yet nevertheless revealed that she was slimly
formed and of fair height. The flaring collar of the garment was
upturned, shielding her face almost to the line of her brows. But out of
the tail of her eye Miss Smith caught a suggestion of a youthful regular
profile and admiringly observed the texture of a mass of thick, fine,
auburn hair. Miss Smith was partial to auburn hair; she wondered if this
girl had a coloring to match the rich reddish tones that glinted in the
smooth coils about her head.

Presently the man fumbled in a breast pocket of his waistcoat and found
a long malignant-looking cigar. He bit the end of it and inserted the
bitten end in his mouth, rolling it back and forth between his lips.
Before long th