They were all French at St. Armand, but most of the strangers which chance brought that way spoke English, so that the St. Armand folks could speak English also.

Anything which is repeated at appreciable intervals has to occur very often before the unscientific mind will perceive the law of its repetition.  There was a little red-haired Englishman, John Gilby by name, who travelled frequently that way.  It was a good while before the loungers at the station remarked that upon a certain day in the week he always arrived by the local train and waited for the evening train to take him on to Montreal.  It was, in fact, Gilby himself who pointed out to them the regularity of his visits, for he was of a social disposition, and could not spend more than a few afternoons at that dull isolated station without making friends with some one.  He travelled for a firm in Montreal; it was his business to make a circuit of certain towns and villages in a certain time.  He had no business at St. Armand, but fate and the ill-adjusted time-table decreed that he should wait there.

This little red-haired gentleman—­for gentleman, in comparison with the St. Armand folk he certainly was—­was a thorough worldling in the sense of knowing the world somewhat widely, and corresponding to its ways, although not to its evil deeds.  Indeed, he was a very good sort of man, but such a worldling, with his thick gold chain, and jaunty clothes, and quick way of adjusting himself to passing circumstances, that it was some time before his good-natured sociableness won in the least upon the station loungers.  They held aloof, as from an explosive, not knowing when it would begin to emit sparks.  He was short in stature, much shorter than the hulking fellows who stood and surveyed him through the smoke of their pipes, but he had such a cocky little way with him that he overawed them much more than a big man would have done.  Out of sheer dulness he took to talking to Zilda.

Zilda stood with her back against the wall.

‘Fine day,’ said Gilby, stopping beside her.

‘Oui, monsieur.’

Gilby had taken his cigar from his mouth, and held it between two fingers of his right hand.  Her countrymen commonly held their pipes between their thumb and finger.  To Zilda, Gilby’s method appeared astonishingly elegant, but she hardly seemed to observe it.

‘You have a flat country here,’ said he, looking round at the dry summer fields; ‘rather dull, isn’t it?’

‘Oui, monsieur.’

‘Don’t you speak English?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Zilda.

This was not very interesting for Gilby.  He had about him a good deal of the modern restlessness that cannot endure one hour without work or amusement.  He made further efforts to make up to the men; he asked them questions with patronising kindness, he gave them scraps of information upon all subjects of temporary interest, with a funny little air of pompous importance.  When by mere force of habit they grew more familiar with him, he would strut up and engage them in long conversations, listen to all they said with consummate good nature, giving his opinion in return.  He was wholly unconscious that he looked like a bantam crowing to a group of larger and more sleepy fowls, but the Frenchmen perceived the likeness.