Why passengers for Turin, who reach Susa dusty, tired, and sleepy, should be detained at that place for an hour and a half instead of being forwarded to their beds in the great city, is never made very apparent.  All travelling officials on the continent of Europe are very slow in their manipulation of luggage; but as they are equally correct we will find the excuse for their tardiness in the latter quality.  The hour and a half, however, is a necessity, and it is very grievous.  On this occasion the two Miss Spaldings ate their supper, and the two gentlemen waited on them.  The ladies had learned to regard at any rate Mr Glascock as their own property, and received his services, graciously indeed, but quite as a matter of course.  When he was sent from their peculiar corner of the big, dirty refreshment room to the supper-table to fetch an apple, and then desired to change it because the one which he had brought was spotted, he rather liked it.  And when he sat down with his knees near to theirs, actually trying to eat a large Italian apple himself simply because they had eaten one and discussed with them the passage over the Mont Cenis, he began to think that Susa was, after all, a place in which an hour and a half might be whiled away without much cause for complaint.

‘We only stay one night at Turin,’ said Caroline Spalding, the elder.

’And we shall have to start at ten to get through to Florence to-morrow,’ said Olivia, the younger.  ’Isn’t it cruel, wasting all this time when we might be in bed?’

‘It is not for me to complain of the cruelty,’ said Mr Glascock.

‘We should have fared infinitely worse if we hadn’t met you,’ said Caroline Spalding.

’But our republican simplicity won’t allow us to assert that even your society is better than going to bed, after a journey of thirty hours,’ said Olivia.

In the meantime Trevelyan was roaming about the station moodily by himself, and the place is one not apt to restore cheerfulness to a moody man by any resources of its own.  When the time for departure came Mr Glascock sought him and found him; but Trevelyan had chosen a corner for himself in a carriage, and declared that he would rather avoid the ladies for the present.  ‘Don’t think me uncivil to leave you,’ he said, ‘but the truth is, I don’t like American ladies.’

‘I do rather,’ said Mr Glascock.

‘You can say that I’ve got a headache,’ said Trevelyan.  So Mr Glascock returned to his friends, and did say that Mr Trevelyan had a headache.  It was the first time that a name had been mentioned between them.

‘Mr Trevelyan!  What a pretty name.  It sounds like a novel,’ said Olivia.

‘A very clever man,’ said Mr Glascock, ’and much liked by his own circle.  But he has had trouble, and is unhappy.’

‘He looks unhappy,’ said Caroline.

‘The most miserable looking man I ever saw in my life,’ said Olivia.  Then it was agreed between them as they went up to Trompetta’s hotel, that they would go on together by the ten o’clock train to Florence.