There was some truth in this, but we did not argue the point further.  We were too much engrossed with the interests of our journey north, and with the entertainment provided for us by our fellow-travellers.  The train for Edinburgh and Glasgow was crowded with men of that particular social class who find grouse-shooting an intelligent way of using their brain and muscle, and gun-cases cumbered the ground in every corner.  It wanted yet several days to the famous Twelfth of August, but the weather was so exceptionally fine and brilliant that the exodus from town had begun earlier than was actually necessary for the purposes of slaughter.  Francesca and I studied the faces and figures of our companions with lively and unabated interest.  We had a reserved compartment to ourselves, and from its secluded privacy we watched the restless pacing up and down in the adjacent corridor of sundry male creatures who seemed to have nothing whatever to think about but the day’s newspaper, and nothing to do but smoke.

“I am sure,” said Francesca, suddenly—­“that in the beginning of creation we were all beasts and birds of prey, eating each other up and tearing each other to pieces.  The love of prey is in us still.”

“Not in you, surely?” I queried, with a smile.

“Oh, I am not talking or thinking of myself.  I’m just—­a woman.  So are you—­a woman—­and something more, perhaps—­something not like the rest of us.”  Here her kind eyes regarded me a trifle wistfully.”  I can’t quite make you out sometimes,—­I wish I could!  But—­apart from you and me—­look at a few of these men!  One has just passed our window who has the exact physiognomy of a hawk,—­cruel eyes and sharp nose like a voracious beak.  Another I noticed a minute ago with a perfectly pig-like face,—­he does not look rightly placed on two legs, his natural attitude is on four legs, grunting with his snout in the gutter!”

I laughed.

“You are a severe critic, Francesca!”

“Not I. I’m not criticising at all.  But I can’t help seeing resemblances.  And sometimes they are quite appalling.  Now you, for instance,”—­here she laid a hand tentatively on mine—­“you, in your mysterious ideas of religion, actually believe that persons who lead evil lives and encourage evil thoughts, descend the scale from which they have risen and go back to the lowest forms of life—­”

“I do believe that certainly”—­I answered—­“But—­”

“‘But me no buts,’”—­she interrupted—­“I tell you there are people in this world whom I see in the very act of descending!  And it makes me grow cold!”