The card-playing travellers had opened the door of the carriage.
From his shadowy corner the boy eyed them; and they, alert from their game, slightly dazed by the darkness of the carriage, peered back at him, frankly curious.

When they had left the compartment he had been a huddled figure demanding no attention; now he was awake and an individual, and human nature prompted interest.
Each in turn looked at him, and at each new glance his coldness of demeanor deepened; until, as the eldest of the party came down the carriage and appropriated the seat beside him, he turned away, pulling up the window with resentful haste.
"Don't do that!" said the third man, pausing in the doorway and speaking in French easily and pleasantly.

"Don't do that--if you want the air!" The boy started and looked round.
"I thank you! But I do not need the air!" The man smiled acquiescence, but as he stepped into the carriage he took a sharp look at the boy's clothes--the common Russian clothes--and a slightly questioning, slightly satirical expression crossed his face.

He was a man who knew his world the globe over, and in his bearing lurked the toleration, the kindly scepticism that such knowledge breeds.
"As you please!" he said, settling himself comfortably in the corner by the door, while the elder of his companions--a tall, spare American--crossed his long legs and lighted a thin black cigar, and the younger--a spruce young Englishman wearing an eye-glass and a small mustache--wrapped himself in his rugs, took a clean pocket-handkerchief from his dressing-case, and opened a large bundle of illustrated papers--French, German, and English.
For a space the train rocked on.

No one attempted to speak, and the Russian boy continued to stand by the window, pretending to look through the blurred panes, in reality wondering how he could with least commotion pass down the carriage to his own vacated place.
At last the man with the long cigar broke the silence in a slow, cool voice that betrayed his nationality.
"We're well on time, Blake," he remarked, drawing out his watch.
The youth by the window shot an involuntary, fleeting glance at the two younger men, to see which would answer to the name; and the student of human nature noted the fact that he understood English.
"Oh, it's a good service!" he acquiesced, the tolerant look--half sceptical, half humorous--- passing again over his face.
"I don't know! I think we could do with another few kilometres to the hour." The thin man studied his flat gold watch with the loving interest of one to whom time is a sacred thing.
At this point the youngest of the three raised his head.
"Marvellous sight you have, McCutcheon! Wish I could see by this light!" McCutcheon leaned forward, replacing his watch.