Clad for a long railway journey on a hot day; a grey figure of fluent lines, of composedly decisive movements; a little felt hat close-fitting to the spirited head, leaving full and frank the soft rounded face, with its quietly observant eyes, its lips of contained humour—­Irene Derwent stepped from a cab at Euston Station and went forward into the booking-office.  From the box-seat of the same vehicle descended a brisk, cheerful little man, looking rather like a courier than an ordinary servant, who paid the cabman, saw to the luggage, and, at a respectful distance, followed Miss Derwent along the platform; it was Thibaut Rossignol.

Grey-clad also, with air no less calm and sufficient, a gentleman carrying newspapers in Britannic abundance moved towards the train which was about to start.  Surveying for a moment, with distant curiosity, the travellers about him, his eye fell upon that maiden of the sunny countenance just as she was entering a carriage; he stopped, insensibly drew himself together, subdued a smile, and advanced for recognition.

“I am going to Liverpool, Miss Derwent.  May I have the pleasure ——?”

“If you will promise not to talk politics, Mr. Jacks.”

“I can’t promise that.  I want to talk politics.”

“From here to Crewe?”

“As far as Rugby, let us say.  After that—­morphology, or some other of your light topics.”

It seemed possible that they might have the compartment to themselves, for it was mid-August, and the tumult of northward migration had ceased.  Arnold Jacks, had he known a moment sooner, would have settled it with the guard.  He looked forbiddingly at a man who approached; who, in his turn, stared haughtily and turned away.

Irene beckoned to Thibaut, and from the window gave him a trivial message for her father, speaking in French; Thibaut, happy to serve her, put a world of chivalrous respect into his “Bien, Mademoiselle!” Arnold Jacks averted his face and smiled.  Was she girlish enough, then, to find pleasure in speaking French before him?  A charming trait!

The train started, and Mr. Jacks began to talk.  It was not the first time that they had merrily skirmished on political and other grounds; they amused each other, and, as it seemed, in a perfectly harmless way; the English way of mirth between man and maid, candid, inallusive, without self-consciousness.  Arnold made the most of his thirty years, spoke with a tone something paternal.  He was wholly sure of himself, knew so well his own mind, his scheme of existence, that Irene’s beauty and her charm were nothing more to him than an aesthetic perception.  That she should feel an interest in him, a little awe of him, was to be hoped and enjoyed:  he had not the least thought of engaging deeper emotion—­would, indeed, have held himself reprobate had such purpose entered his head.  Nor is it natural to an Englishman of this type to imagine that girls may fall in love with him.  Love has such a restricted place in their lives, is so consistently kept out of sight in their familiar converse.  They do not entirely believe in it; it ill accords with their practical philosophy.  Marriage—­that is another thing.  The approaches to wedlock are a subject of honourable convention, not to be confused with the trivialities of romance.