His eyes flashed, his fingers tightened, his dark head was bent lower over the paper.  Two pictures confronted him.  The first was of a woman in Russian court dress, who wore her jewels and her splendor of apparel with an air of pride and careless supremacy that had in it something magnificent, something semi-barbaric.  The boy looked at this curious and arresting picture, but only for a moment; by some affinity, some subtle attraction, his eyes turned instantly to the second portrait—­the girl carrying the gun—­and as if in answer to some secret sympathy, some silent comprehension, the frown upon his brows relaxed and his lips parted.

It was still the woman of the jewels and the splendid apparel, but it was a woman infinitely free, infinitely unhampered.  The plain, serviceable clothes fitted the slight figure as though they had been long worn and loved; the hair was closely coiled, so that the young face looked out upon the world frank and unadorned as a boy’s.  Here, as in the first picture, the eyes looked forth with a curious, proud directness; but beneath the directness was a glint of humor, a flash of daring absent in the other face; the mouth smiled, seeming to anticipate life’s secrets, the ungloved hand held the gun with a touch peculiarly caressing, peculiarly firm.

The traveller looked, looked again, and then, with a deliberation odd in so slight a circumstance, folded the paper, rose, and stepped to the window of the carriage.

The night mist beat in, still raw and cold, but somewhere behind the darkness was the stirring, the vague presage of the day to come.  He leaned out, fingers close about the paper, lips and nostrils breathing in the suggestive, vaporous air.  For a moment he stood, steadying himself to the motion of the train, palpitating to his secret thoughts; then, with a little theatricality all for his own edification, he opened his fingers and, freeing the paper, watched it swirl away, hang for a second like a moth against the lighted window, and vanish into the night.

CHAPTER II

‘Journeys end in lovers’ meeting.’  The phrase conjures a picture.  The court-yard of some inn, glowing ripe in the tints of the setting sun—­open doors—­an ancient coach disgorging its passengers!  This—­or, perhaps, some quay alive with sound and movement—­cries of command in varying tongues—­crowded gangways—­rigging massed against the sky—­all the paraphernalia of romance and travel.  But the real journey—­the journey of adventure itself—­is frequently another matter:  often gray, often loverless, often demanding from the secret soul of the adventurer spirit and inspiration, lest the blood turn cold in sick dismay, and the brain cloud under its weight of nostalgia.

Paris in the dawn of a wet day is a sorry sight; the Gare du Nord in the hours of early morning is a place of infinite gloom.  As the north express thundered into its recesses, waking strange and hollow echoes, the long sweep of the platform brought a shudder to more than one tired mind.  A string of sleepy porters—­gray silhouettes against a gray background—­was the only sign of life.  Colors there were none, lovers there were none, Parisian joy of living there was not one vestige.