She had never done so before.  Her own interests had always loomed up before her like a beam in the eye of God.  Now she saw that they were infinitesimal, and the knowledge soothed her.  She leaned her head back and dozed a little.  She was awakened by the porter thrusting a menu into her hands.  She ordered something.  It was not served promptly, and she had no appetite.  There was some tea which tasted of soap.

Chapter XXXVII

There were very few people in this car, for the reason that there had recently been a terrible rear-end collision on the road, and people had flocked into the forward cars.  There were three young girls who filled the car with chatter, and irritated Maria unreasonably.  They were very pretty and well dressed, and with no reserve.  They were as inconsequently confidential about their own affairs as so many sparrows, but more intelligible.  One by one the men left and went into the smoker, before this onslaught of harsh trebles shrieking above the roar of the train, obtruding their little, bird-like affairs, their miniature hoppings upon the stage of life, upon all in the car.

Finally, there were none left in the car except Maria, these young girls, an old lady, who accosted the conductors whenever they entered and asked when the train was due in New York (a tremulous, vibratory old lady in antiquated frills and an agitatedly sidewise bonnet, and loose black silk gloves), and across the aisle a tiny, deformed woman, a dwarf, in fact, with her maid.  This little woman was richly dressed, and she had a fine face.  She was old enough to be Maria’s mother.  Her eyes were dark and keen, her forehead domelike, and her square, resigned chin was sunken in the laces at her throat.  Her maid was older than she, and waited upon her with a faithful solicitude.  The little woman had some tea, which the maid produced from a small silver caddy in a travelling-bag, and the porter, with an obsequious air, brought boiling water in two squat, plated tea-pots.  It was the tea which served to introduce Maria.  She had just pushed aside, with an air half of indifference, half of disgust, her own luke-warm concoction flavored with soap, when the maid, at her mistress’s order, touched the bell.  When the porter appeared, Maria heard the dwarf ask for another pot of boiling water, and presently the maid stood beside her with a cup of fragrant tea.

“Miss Blair wishes me to ask if you will not drink this instead of the other, which she fears is not quite satisfactory,” the maid said, in an odd, acquired tone and manner of ladyism, as if she were repeating a lesson, yet there seemed nothing artificial about it.  She regarded Maria with a respectful air.  Maria looked across at the dwarf woman, who was looking at her with kindly eyes which yet seemed aloof, and a half-sardonic, half-pleasant smile.