Now, though, near the more distant end of the car she saw a break in one line of heads. Perhaps the gap might mean there would be room for her. She made her way toward the spot, her trim small figure swaying to the motion as the locomotive picked up speed. Drawing nearer, she saw the back of one seat had been turned so that its occupants faced rearward toward her. In this seat, the one farther from her as she went up the aisle, were a man and a woman; in the nearer seat, facing this pair and sitting next the window, was a second woman--a girl rather--all three of them, she deduced from the seating arrangement, being members of the same party. A suitcase rested upon the cushions alongside the younger woman.
"I beg your pardon," said the lone passenger, halting here, "but is this place taken?"
The man's face twisted as though in annoyance. He made an undecided gesture which might be interpreted either as an affirmative or the other thing. "I'm sorry if I am disturbing you," added Miss Smith, "but the car is crowded--every inch of it except this seems to be occupied."
"Oh, I guess it's all right," he said, though in his begrudged consent was a sort of indirect intimation that it was not altogether all right. He half rose and swung the suitcase up into the luggage rack overhead, then tucked in his knees so she might slip into the place opposite him next the aisle.
"Excuse me," he said a moment later, "but I could change seats with you if you don't mind."
In her experiences it had not often happened that seemingly without reason a male fellow traveler had suggested that she give him a place commonly regarded as preferable to his own.
"I do mind, rather," she answered. "Riding backward makes me carsick sometimes. Still I will change with you if you insist on it. I'm the intruder, you know."
"No, no, never mind!" he hastened to say. "I guess it don't make any difference. And there's no intrusion, miss--honest now, there ain'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.