a
vacant seat. It was the last of the transverse seats, and at the moment
he dropped into it, the girl who had watched the unloading of the piano
with him passed him, and took the sidewise seat next the door.

She took it with a weary resignation which somehow made Gaites ashamed
of the haste with which he had pushed forward to the only good place,
and he felt as guilty of keeping her out of it as if he had known she
was following him. He kept a remorseful eye upon her as she arranged her
bag and umbrella about her, with some paper parcels which she must have
had sent to her at the station. She breathed quickly, as if from final
hurry, but somewhat also as if she were delicate; and tried to look as
if she did not know he was watching her. She had taken off one of her
gloves, and her hand, though little enough, showed an unexpected vigor
with reference to her face, and had a curious air of education.

When the train pulled out of the station into the clearer light, she
turned her face from him toward the forward window, and the corner of
her mouth, which her half-averted profile gave him, had a kind of
piteous droop which smote him to keener regret. Once it lifted in an
upward curve, and a gay light came into the corner of her eye; then the
mouth drooped again, and the light went out.

Gaites could bear it no longer; he rose and said, with a respectful bow:
"Won't you take my seat? That seems such a very inconvenient place for
you, with the door opening and shutting."

The girl turned her face promptly round and up, and answered, with a
flush in her thin cheek, but no embarrassment in her tone, "No, I thank
you. This will do quite well," and then she turned her face away as
before.

He had not meant his politeness for an overture to her acquaintance, but
he felt as justly snubbed as if he had; and he sank back into his seat
in some disorder. He tried to hide his confusion behind the newspaper he
opened between them; but from time to time he had a glimpse of her round
the side of it, and he saw that the hand which clutched her bag all the
while tightened upon it and then loosened nervously.

II.

"Ah, I see what you mean," said Gaites, with a kind of finality, as his
friend Birkwall walked him homeward through the loveliest of the lovely
old Burymouth streets. Something equivalent had been in his mind and on
his tongue at every dramatic instant of the afternoon; and, in fact,
ever since he had arrived from the s