He was just under thirty years, as good-looking as most men, with no one dependent upon him and an income that had withstood both the Maison Doree and a dahabeah on the Nile.  He never tired of seeing things and peoples and places.  “There’s game to be found anywhere,” he said, “only it’s sometimes out of season.  If I had my way—­and millions—­I should run a newspaper.  Then all the excitements would come to me.  As it is—­I’m poor, and so I have to go all over the world after them.”

This agreeable theory of life had worked well; he was a little bored at times—­not because he had seen too much, but because there were not more things left to see.  He had managed somehow to keep his enthusiasms through everything—­and they made life worth living.  He felt too a certain elation—­like a spirited horse—­at turning toward home, but Washington had not much to offer him, and the thrill did not last.  His big bag and his hatbox—­pasted over with foolish labels from continental hotels —­were piled in the corner of his compartment, and he settled back in his seat with a pleasurable sense of expectancy.  The presence in the next room of a very smart appearing young woman was prominent in his consciousness.  It gave him an uneasiness which was the beginning of delight.  He had seen her for only a second in the passageway, but that second had made him hold himself a little straighter.  “Why is it,” he wondered, “that some girls make you stand like a footman the moment you see them?” Grenfall had been in love too many times to think of marriage; his habit of mind was still general, and he classified women broadly.  At the same time he had a feeling that in this case generalities did not apply well; there was something about the girl that made him hesitate at labelling her “Class A, or B, or Z.”  What it was he did not know, but—­unaccountably-she filled him with an affected formality He felt like bowing to her with a grand air and much dignity.  And yet he realized that his successes had come from confidence.

At luncheon he saw her in the dining car.  Her companions were elderly persons—­presumably her parents.  They talked mostly in French—­occasionally using a German word or phrase.  The old gentleman was stately and austere—­with an air of deference to the young woman which Grenfall did not understand.  His appearance was very striking; his face pale and heavily lined; moustache and imperial gray; the eyebrows large and bushy, and the jaw and chin square and firm.  The white-haired lady carried her head high with unmistakable gentility.  They were all dressed in traveling suits which suggested something foreign, but not Vienna nor Paris; smart, but far from American tastes.

Lorry watched the trio with great interest.  Twice during luncheon the young woman glanced toward him carelessly and left an annoying impression that she had not seen him.  As they left the table and passed into the observation car, he stared at her with some defiance.  But she was smiling, and her dimples showed, and Grenfall was ashamed.  For some moments he sat gazing from the car window—­forgetting his luncheon-dreaming.