Her voice was very soft. He found himself gripping the pages of the
telephone book which hung by his side.

"But is that kind? Have I sinned, Mr. Francis Norgate?"

"Of course not," he answered, keeping his tone level, almost indifferent.
"I hope that we shall meet again some day, but not in Berlin."

There was a moment's silence. He thought, even, that she had gone away.
Then her reply came back.

"So be it," she murmured. "Not in Berlin. Au revoir!"

CHAPTER III

Faithful to his insular prejudices, Norgate, on finding that the other
seat in his coupe was engaged, started out to find the train attendant
with a view to changing his place. His errand, however, was in vain. The
train, it seemed, was crowded. He returned to his compartment to find
already installed there one of the most complete and absolute types of
Germanism he had ever seen. A man in a light grey suit, the waistcoat of
which had apparently abandoned its efforts to compass his girth, with a
broad, pink, good-humoured face, beardless and bland, flaxen hair
streaked here and there with grey, was seated in the vacant place. He had
with him a portmanteau covered with a linen case, his boots were a bright
shade of yellow, his tie was of white satin with a design of lavender
flowers. A pair of black kid gloves lay by his side. He welcomed Norgate
with the bland, broad smile of a fellow-passenger whose one desire it is
to make a lifelong friend of his temporary companion.

"We have the compartment to ourselves, is it not so? You are English?"

Some queer chance founded upon his ill-humour, his disgust of Germany and
all things in it, induced Norgate to tell a deliberate falsehood.

"Sorry," he replied in English. "I don't speak German."

The man's satisfaction was complete.

"But I--I speak the most wonderful English. It pleases me always to speak
English. I like to do so. It is practice for me. We will talk English
together, you and I. These comic papers, they do not amuse. And books in
the train, they make one giddy. What I like best is a companion and a
bottle of Rhine wine."

"Personally," Norgate confessed gruffly, "I like to sleep."

The other seemed a little taken aback but remained, apparently, full of
the conviction that his overtures could be nothing but acceptable.

"It is well to sleep," he agreed, "if one has worked hard. Now I myself
am a hard worker. My name is Selingman. I manufacture crockery which I
sell in England.