Souls Belated

Their railway-carriage had been full when the train left Bologna; but at
the first station beyond Milan their only remaining companion--a courtly
person who ate garlic out of a carpet-bag--had left his crumb-strewn seat
with a bow.

Lydia's eye regretfully followed the shiny broadcloth of his retreating
back till it lost itself in the cloud of touts and cab-drivers hanging
about the station; then she glanced across at Gannett and caught the same
regret in his look. They were both sorry to be alone.

"_Par-ten-za!_" shouted the guard. The train vibrated to a sudden slamming
of doors; a waiter ran along the platform with a tray of fossilized
sandwiches; a belated porter flung a bundle of shawls and band-boxes into
a third-class carriage; the guard snapped out a brief _Partensa!_ which
indicated the purely ornamental nature of his first shout; and the train
swung out of the station.

The direction of the road had changed, and a shaft of sunlight struck
across the dusty red velvet seats into Lydia's corner. Gannett did not
notice it. He had returned to his _Revue de Paris,_ and she had to rise
and lower the shade of the farther window. Against the vast horizon of
their leisure such incidents stood out sharply.

Having lowered the shade, Lydia sat down, leaving the length of the
carriage between herself and Gannett. At length he missed her and looked
up.

"I moved out of the sun," she hastily explained.

He looked at her curiously: the sun was beating on her through the shade.

"Very well," he said pleasantly; adding, "You don't mind?" as he drew a
cigarette-case from his pocket.

It was a refreshing touch, relieving the tension of her spirit with the
suggestion that, after all, if he could _smoke_--! The relief was only
momentary. Her experience of smokers was limited (her husband had
disapproved of the use of tobacco) but she knew from hearsay that men
sometimes smoked to get away from things; that a cigar might be the
masculine equivalent of darkened windows and a headache. Gannett, after a
puff or two, returned to his review.

It was just as she had foreseen; he feared to speak as much as she did. It
was one of the misfortunes of their situation that they were never busy
enough to necessitate, or even to justify, the postponement of unpleasant
discussions. If they avoided a question it was obviously, unconcealably
because the question was disagreeable. They had unlimited leisure and an
accumulation of mental energy to devote to any subject that presented
itself; new topics were in fact at a premium. Lydia sometimes had
premonitions of a famine-stricken period when there would he nothing left
to talk about, and she had already