FullReads

Well, she would not decide the question now, and she put it from her as she cast a careless eye over her fellow travellers, let it rest for a moment on the two men in the section in front of her own and then turned to her book. Alternately reading, looking at the passing landscape, and now and then lapsing into reverie, her attention was so withdrawn from her surroundings that she was not aware that one of the men in front had turned several times and allowed a casual glance to pass from her down the row of heads behind her. Nor did she notice, when they returned from an hour’s absence in the smoker, that he sat down in the front seat of their section.

“You don’t mind riding backward?” commented his companion.

“I ‘m not particularly stuck on it, but just now I want to look at that girl in the section behind us. It’s good for the eyes to rest on such a splendid creature as she is.”

“I ‘ll come over there with you and we ‘ll study her together,” the other replied, as he changed his seat.

“Is n’t she a fine specimen?” said the first. “She ‘s five feet nine if she ‘s an inch,–I noticed her when she got on at Philadelphia,–broad-shouldered and deep-chested and clear-skinned. And that glow in her cheeks rivals the roses her friends gave her. How old do you guess her, Wilson?”

“I ‘d never try guessing such a problem as that! She’s evidently one of the new women–you can tell that by her looks. And they never show their age, maybe because they don’t think about it. This girl might be twenty, perhaps a year or two more, if you judge by her face. But if you take her expression into account–these women who do things always look as if they ‘d had an experience of life that in former days they could n’t acquire under forty. Well, you might split the difference and say she ‘s thirty.”

“I don’t think so. I ‘d guess her under twenty-five. And she probably won’t look a day older than she does now for the next fifteen years.”

“I don’t know about that, Adams. If she’s a school-teacher she ‘ll get more or less sharp-featured or anxious-faced and have wrinkles and crow’s-feet. And those are things that do not aid and abet a woman in forgetting her birthdays.”

“But she is n’t a school-teacher, Wilson. She has n’t got the unmistakable school-ma’am look. I ‘ve been wondering what she is, and I don’t make it out. I don’t think she ‘s a doctor, because she has n’t got the professional cast of countenance, and she ‘s too carefully dressed.”

Wilson laughed and turned a bantering eye upon his companion. “You must be getting interested, Adams! Is it a case of love at first sight?”

“No, you know I ‘m not given to that sort of thing. But I don’t read much on the cars, on account of my eyes, and while you ‘ve been reading I ‘ve spent the time looking at the passengers. And I found that girl and her roses by far the most pleasing items in the car.”

“But she is n’t beautiful,” Wilson objected. “Her face is not pretty, and she ‘s inclined to be raw-boned.”

“Yes, I ‘ll admit her features are irregular, and there ‘s fault to be found with each one. But that does n’t matter. No woman with that live, creamy skin, that clear red in her cheeks, and that intelligent expression, could be any less than handsome. And she fairly glows with health and vitality. She has made me just curious enough about her vocation to want to know what it is, and if she stays on the train long enough to make an opening possible I intend to try to find out.”