There were not many passengers going out on the island, but scores of commuters were hurrying through the station on their way to their offices and other places of employment.

“You don’t see many of the commuters up here,” Dicky remarked.  “There’s a passage direct from the trains to the subway on the lower level, and most of them take that.  Some of the women come up to prink a bit in the waiting room, and some of the men come through here to get cigars or papers, but the big crowd is down on the train level.”

I hardly heard him, for I was so interested in a girl who had just come into the waiting room.  I had never seen so self-possessed a creature in my life.  She was unusually beautiful, with golden hair that was so real the most captious person could not suspect that hair of being dyed.  Her eyes were dark, and the unusual combination of eyes and hair fitted a face with regular features and a fair skin.  I had seen Christmas and Easter cards with faces like hers.  But I had never seen anyone like her in real life, and I am afraid I stared at her as hard as did everyone else in the waiting room.

“By jove!” Dicky drew in a deep breath.  “Isn’t she the most ripping beauty you ever saw?”

His eyes were following her lithe, perfect figure as she walked down the waiting room.  I have never seen a pretty girl appear so utterly unconscious of the glances directed toward her as she did.  But with a woman’s intuition I knew that underneath her calm exterior she was noticing and appraising every admiring look she received.  I could not have told how I knew this, but I did know it.

She sat down a little distance from us, and Dicky frankly turned quite around to stare at her.

“I wonder if she’s going on our train,” he mused.  “By George, I never saw anything like her in my life.”

I looked at him in open amazement, tinged not a little with resentment.  He was with me, his bride of less than a month, for our first day’s outing since our marriage, and yet his eyes were following this other woman with the most open admiration.  I felt hurt, neglected, but I was determined he should not think me jealous.

“Yes, isn’t she beautiful,” I said as enthusiastically as I could.  “I never have seen just that combination of eyes and hair.”

“It’s her features and figure that get me.  I’d like to get a glimpse of her hands and feet.  Perhaps she will sit near us in the train.  If she does, I promise you I am going to stare at her unmercifully.”

As luck would have it, just as we seated ourselves in the train, the girl we had seen in the railway station came through the door with the same air of regal unconsciousness of her surroundings that she had shown while running the gauntlet of the admiring and critical eyes in the waiting room.

She carried in her hand a small traveling bag, which, while not new, had received such good care that it was not at all shabby.  She spent no time in selecting a seat, but with an air of taking the first one available sat down directly opposite Dicky and me, depositing her bag close to her feet.