knowing what had happened in the tale. Such a thing had never happened to him before.
The woman who kept thrusting herself between him and the story was dressed all in black, though she did not appear to be in mourning. Rather it seemed that she wore black because it became her. Across one shoulder was thrown a stole of black fox and from the brim of her small hat hung a froth of black lace which obscured her dark eyes and permitted her to regard her companions without receiving in return the force of their stares. From beneath the hat there escaped a bit of tawny hair, so dark that in some lights it appeared almost red. She appeared to take full advantage of the shield made by the lace, for from time to time she put down her yellow-backed novel and fell to observing the people about her . . . a middle-aged woman with a little boy in a sailor suit, a fat man who lay back in his seat and snored quietly, a pair of college girls, one reading ponderously the essays of Emerson and the other absorbed (self-consciously) in the pages of Boccacio; another traveling salesman and a pair of old women returning from a funeral who vied with each other in a talking race.
"And then I said to her . . ." "She said, 'Mabel, he'll never be well again . . . even if he didn't die, he'll never be well again'" . . . and "What do you think of such behavior? . . . Unpardonable, I thought. . . ." "I quite agree with you, unpardonable. . . ." "Well, that's what I told Mabel."
Snatches of the old women's talk, projected in voices pitched high enough to override the clamor of the train, were tossed about them like jagged fragments of glass.
The woman with the veil put down her book and, smiling quietly, listened to them. She turned away from Clarence a little so that he was able to shift his position and thus obtain a clearer view of her.
She was beautiful, and even to Clarence, unskilled in such fine distinctions, it was clear that she was a lady. This fact was conveyed beyond all doubt by the way she sat, poised with
