who had led the charge, settling himself between his large lady and the small Helena. The latter crushed herself against the side of the carriage. The German’s hips came down tight against her. She strove to lessen herself against the window, to escape the pressure of his flesh, whose heat was immediately transmitted to her. The man squeezed in the opposite direction.
“I am afraid I press you,” he said, smiling in his gentle, chivalric German fashion. Helena glanced swiftly at him. She liked his grey eyes, she liked the agreeable intonation, and the pleasant sound of his words.
“Oh no,” she answered. “You do not crush me.”
Almost before she had finished the words she turned away to the window. The man seemed to hesitate a moment, as if recovering himself from a slight rebuff, before he could address his lady with the good-humoured remark in German: “Well, and have we not managed it very nicely, eh?”
The whole party began to talk in German with great animation. They told each other of the quaint ways of this or the other; they joked loudly over “Billy”—this being a nickname discovered for the German Emperor—and what he would be saying of the Czar’s trip; they questioned each other, and answered each other concerning the places they were going to see, with great interest, displaying admirable knowledge. They were pleased with everything; they extolled things English.
Helena’s stout neighbour, who, it seemed, was from Dresden, began to tell anecdotes. He was a raconteur of the naïf type: he talked with face, hands,
