Graustark | Page 4

paper,
and thought nothing more of it. With her, however, there was an air that
made him hesitate. He felt strangely awkward and inexperienced beside
her; precedents did not seem to count. He arose, tossed the paper over
the back of the chair as if casting it aside forever, and strolled to the
opposite window and looked out for a few moments, jingling his coins
carelessly. The jingle of the pieces suggested something else to him.
His paper still hung invitingly, upside down, as he had left it, on the
chair, and the lady was poring over her novel. As he passed her he drew
his right hand from his pocket and a piece of money dropped to the
floor at her feet. Then began an embarrassed search for the coin--in the
wrong direction, of course. He knew precisely where it had rolled, but
purposely looked under the seats on the other side of the car. She drew
her skirts aside and assisted in the search. Four different times he saw
the little piece of money, but did not pick it up. Finally, laughing
awkwardly, he began to search on her side of the car. Whereupon she

rose and gave him more room. She became interested in the search and
bent over to scan the dark corners with eager eyes. Their heads were
very close together more than once. At last she uttered an exclamation,
and her hand went to the floor in triumph. They arose together, flushed
and smiling. She had the coin in her hand.
"I have it," she said, gaily, a delicious foreign tinge to the words.
"I thank you--" he began, holding out his hand as if in a dream of
ecstacy, but her eyes had fallen momentarily on the object of their
search.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, the prettiest surprise in the world coming into her
face. It was a coin from her faraway homeland, and she was betrayed
into the involuntary exclamation. Instantly, however, she regained her
composure and dropped the piece into his outstretched hand, a proud
flush mounting to her cheek, a look of cold reserve to her eyes. He had,
hoped she would offer some comment on what she must have
considered a strange coincidence, but he was disappointed. He
wondered if she even heard him say:
"I am sorry to have troubled you."
She had resumed her seat, and, to him, there seemed a thousand miles
between them. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable and not a little abashed,
he left her and strode to the door. Again a mirror gave him a thrill. This
time it was the glass in the car's end. He had taken but a half dozen
steps when the brown head was turned slyly and a pair of interested
eyes looked after him. She did not know that he could see her, so he
had the satisfaction of observing that pretty, puzzled face plainly until
he passed through the door.
Grenfall had formed many chance acquaintances during his travels,
sometimes taking risks and liberties that were refreshingly bold. He had
seldom been repulsed, strange to say, and as he went to his section
dizzily, he thought of the good fortune that had been his in other
attempts, and asked himself why it had not occurred to him to make the
same advances in the present instance. Somehow she was different.

There was that strange dignity, that pure beauty, that imperial manner,
all combining to forbid the faintest thought of familiarity.
He was more than astonished at himself for having tricked her a few
moments before into a perfectly natural departure from indifference.
She had been so reserved and so natural that he looked back and asked
himself what had happened to flatter his vanity except a passing show
of interest. With this, he smiled and recalled similar opportunities in
days gone by, all of which had been turned to advantage and had
resulted in amusing pastimes. And here was a pretty girl with an air of
mystery about her, worthy of his best efforts, but toward whom he had
not dared to turn a frivolous eye.
He took out the coin and leaned back in his chair, wondering where it
came from. "In any case," he thought, "it'll make a good pocket-piece
and some day I'll find some idiot who knows more about geography
than I do." Mr. Lorry's own ideas of geography were jumbled and
vague--as if he had got them by studying the labels on his hat-box. He
knew the places he had been to, and he recognized a new country by
the annoyances of the customs house, but beyond this his ignorance
was complete. The coin, so far as he knew, might have come from any
one of a hundred small principalities scattered about the continent. Yet
it