Whats Bred In The Bone | Page 2

stock-broker. In other words, there was none of the brown velveteen
affectation about his easy get-up. He was an artist, to be sure, but he
hadn't assiduously and obtrusively dressed his character. Instead of
cutting his beard to a Vandyke point, or enduing his body in a
Titianesque coat, or wearing on his head a slouched Rembrandt hat,
stuck carelessly just a trifle on one side in artistic disorder, he was
habited, for all the world like anybody else, in the grey tweed suit of
the common British tourist, surmounted by the light felt hat (or bowler),
to match, of the modern English country gentleman. Even the soft silk
necktie of a delicate aesthetic hue that adorned his open throat didn't
proclaim him at once a painter by trade. It showed him merely as a man
of taste, with a decided eye for harmonies of colour.
So when Elma pronounced her fellow-traveller immediately, in her
own mind, a landscape artist, she was exercising the familiar feminine
prerogative of jumping, as if by magic, to a correct conclusion. It's a
provoking way they have, those inscrutable women, which no mere
male human being can ever conceivably fathom.
She was just about to drop down, as propriety demands, into the corner
seat diagonally opposite to--and therefore as far as possible away
from--her handsome companion, when the stranger rose, and, with a
very flushed face, said, in a hasty, though markedly deferential and
apologetic tone--
"I beg your pardon, but--excuse me for mentioning it--I think you're
going to sit down upon--ur--pray don't be frightened--a rather large
snake of mine."
There was something so comically alarmed in the ring of his tone--as of
a naughty schoolboy detected in a piece of mischief--that, propriety to
the contrary notwithstanding, Elma couldn't for the life of her repress a
smile. She looked down at the seat where the stranger pointed, and
there, sure enough, coiled up in huge folds, with his glossy head in

attitude to spring at her, a great banded snake lay alert and open-eyed.
"Dear me," Elma cried, drawing back a little in surprise, but not at all in
horror, as she felt she ought to do. "A snake! How curious! I hope he's
not dangerous."
"Not at all," the young man answered, still in the same half-guilty tone
of voice as before. "He's of a poisonous kind, you know; but his fangs
have been extracted. He won't do you any injury. He's perfectly
harmless. Aren't you, Sardanapalus? Eh, eh, my beauty? But I oughtn't
to have let him loose in the carriage, of course," he added, after a short
pause. "It's calculated to alarm a nervous passenger. Only I thought I
was alone, and nobody would come in; so I let him out for a bit of a run
between the stations. It's so dull for him, poor fellow, being shut up in
his box all the time when he's travelling."
Elma looked down at the beautiful glossy creature with genuine
admiration. His skin was like enamel; his banded scales shone bright
and silvery. She didn't know why, but somehow she felt she wasn't in
the least afraid of him. "I suppose one ought to be repelled at once by a
snake," she said, taking the opposite seat, and keeping her glance fixed
firmly upon the reptile's eye; "but then, this is such a handsome one! I
can't say why, but I don't feel afraid of him at all as I ought, to do.
Every right-minded person detests snakes, don't they? And yet, how
exquisitely flexible and beautiful he is! Oh, pray don't put him back in
his box for me. He's basking in the sun here. I should be sorry to
disturb him."
Cyril Waring looked at her in considerable surprise. He caught the
creature in his hands as he spoke, and transferred it at once to a tin box,
with a perforated lid, that lay beside him. "Go back, Sardanapalus," he
said, in a very musical and pleasant voice, forcing the huge beast into
the lair with gentle but masterful hands. "Go back, and go to sleep, sir.
It's time for your nap. ... Oh no, I couldn't think of letting him out any
more in the carriage to the annoyance of others. I'm ashamed enough as
it is of having unintentionally alarmed you. But you came in so
unexpectedly, you see, I hadn't time to put my queer pet away; and,
when the door opened, I was afraid he might slip out, or get under the
seats, so all I could do was just to soothe him with my hand, and keep
him quiet till the door was shut to again."
"Indeed, I wasn't at all afraid of him," Elma answered, slipping her

change into her pocket, and looking prettier through her