"Do you know, I never heard you come in.

It gave me quite a start when I found that I had a fellow-passenger." She looked at him with a certain amount of still surprise, a look which he returned just as steadfastly, because even in those few seconds he was conscious of that strange selective interest, certainly unaccounted for by his own impressions of her appearance.

She seemed to him, at that first glance, very far indeed from being good-looking, according to any of the standards by which he had measured good looks.

She was thin, too thin for his taste, and she carried herself with an aloofness to which he was unaccustomed.

Her cheeks were quite pale, her hair of a soft shade of brown, her eyes grey and sad.