After that--morphology, or some other of your light topics." It seemed possible that they might have the compartment to themselves, for it was mid-August, and the tumult of northward migration had ceased.

Arnold Jacks, had he known a moment sooner, would have settled it with the guard.

He looked forbiddingly at a man who approached; who, in his turn, stared haughtily and turned away.
Irene beckoned to Thibaut, and from the window gave him a trivial message for her father, speaking in French; Thibaut, happy to serve her, put a world of chivalrous respect into his "Bien, Mademoiselle!" Arnold Jacks averted his face and smiled.

Was she girlish enough, then, to find pleasure in speaking French before him?
A charming trait! The train started, and Mr.Jacks began to talk.

It was not the first time that they had merrily skirmished on political and other grounds; they amused each other, and, as it seemed, in a perfectly harmless way; the English way of mirth between man and maid, candid, inallusive, without self-consciousness.