The girl was still finding fault with her food when Betty and Bob rose to leave the car, and when they passed her table she stared at them with languid insolence, half closing her narrow hazel eyes.

“Wow, she’s bored completely,” snickered Bob, when they were out of earshot.  “I don’t believe she’s a day older than you are, Betty, and she is dressed up like a little Christmas tree.”

“I think her clothes are wonderful,” said Betty.  “I wish I had a lace vestee and some long white gloves.  Don’t you think they’re pretty, Bob?”

“No, I think they’re silly,” retorted Bob.  “You wouldn’t catch Bobby Littell going traveling in a party dress and wearing all the family jewels.  Huh, here comes the conductor—­wonder what he wants.”

The conductor, it developed, was shifting passengers from the car behind the one in which Bob and Betty had seats.  It was to be dropped at the next junction and the few passengers remaining were to be accommodated in this coach.

“You’re all right, don’t have to make any change,” said the official kindly, after examining their tickets.  “I’ll tell the porter you go through to Chicago.”

The car had been fairly well crowded before, and the extra influx taxed every available seat.  Betty took out her crocheting and Bob decided that he would go in search of a shoe-shine.

“I’ll come back and get you and we’ll go out on the observation platform,” he said contentedly.

“Chain six, double crochet—­into the ring—­” Betty murmured her directions half aloud.

“Right here, Ma’am?” The porter’s voice aroused her.

There in the aisle stood the girl she had noticed in the diner, and with her was a harassed looking porter carrying three heavy bags.

“Perhaps you would just as lief take the aisle seat?” said the girl, surveying Betty as a princess might gaze upon an annoying little page.  “I travel better when I can have plenty of fresh air.”

“You might have thought I was a bug,” Betty confided later to Bob.

The diamonds flashed as the girl loosened the fur collar at her throat.

“Please move over,” she commanded calmly.

Betty was bewildered, but her innate courtesy died hard.

“You—­you’ve made a mistake,” she faltered.  “This seat is taken.”

“The conductor said to take any vacant seat,” said the newcomer.  “You can’t hold seats in a public conveyance—­my father says so.  Put the bags in here, porter.  Be careful of that enamel leather.”

To Betty’s dismay, she settled herself, flounces and furs and bags, in the narrow space that belonged to Bob, and by an adroit pressure of her elbow made it impossible for Betty to resume her crocheting.

“I think you done made a mistake, lady,” ventured the porter.  “This seat belongs to a young man what has a ticket to Chicago.”

“Well, I’m going to Chicago,” answered the girl composedly.  “Do you expect me to stand up the rest of the way?  The agent had no business to sell me a reservation in a car that only went as far as the Junction.”