The next day he went north, and by accident travelled part of the way with a lady of his acquaintance.  She was young, not more than five or six and twenty, nice looking too, and very well dressed.  She had a lot of small impediments with her—­a cloak, a dressing-bag, sunshade, umbrella, golf clubs—­some one, no doubt, would come and clear her when the destination was reached; in the mean time, she and her belongings were an eminently feminine presence.  She talked pleasantly of what had happened since they last met; she had been to Baireuth that summer, she told him, and spoke intelligently of the music, the technique and the beauty of it, and what it stood for.  She was surprised to hear he had got no further than Holland, and more surprised still that he had not even seen Rembrandt’s masterpiece while he was there.  Her voice was smooth and even, a little loud, perhaps, from her spending much time out of doors, not in the least given to those subtle changes of tone which express what is not said; but as she never wanted to express any such things, that did not matter.

She did not bore him with too much conversation; she had papers with her—­some three or four, and she glanced at them between whiles.  Afterwards she commented on their contents—­the political situation, the war (there is always a war somewhere), the cricket news, the new books; touching lightly, but intelligently, on each topic in turn.

Rawson-Clew listened and answered, polite and mildly interested.  It was some time since he had heard this agreeable kind of conversation, and since he had come in contact with this agreeable kind of person.  He ought to have appreciated it more, as men appreciate the charm of drawing-rooms who have long been banished from them.  He came to the conclusion that he must be growing old, not to prefer the society of a pretty, agreeable and well-dressed woman to an empty railway carriage.

The girl had two fine carnations in her coat; the stalks were rather long, and so had got bruised.  She regretted this, and Rawson-Clew offered to cut them for her.  He began to feel for a knife in likely and unlikely pockets, and it was then that he first noticed a faint, sweet smell; dry, not strong at all, more a memory than a scent.  He did not recognise what it was, nor from where it came, but it reminded him of something, he could not think what.

He puzzled over it as he cut the flower stalks, then all at once he laid hold on the edge of a recollection—­a pair of dark eyes, in which mirthful, mocking lights flickered, as the sun splashes flicker on the ground under trees—­a voice, many-noted as a violin, that grew softest when it was going to strike hardest, that expressed a hundred things unsaid.