"I hope that we shall meet again some day, but not in Berlin."

There was a moment's silence. He thought, even, that she had gone away.
Then her reply came back.

"So be it," she murmured. "Not in Berlin. Au revoir!"




CHAPTER III


Faithful to his insular prejudices, Norgate, on finding that the other
seat in his coupé was engaged, started out to find the train attendant
with a view to changing his place. His errand, however, was in vain. The
train, it seemed, was crowded. He returned to his compartment to find
already installed there one of the most complete and absolute types of
Germanism he had ever seen. A man in a light grey suit, the waistcoat of
which had apparently abandoned its efforts to compass his girth, with a
broad, pink, good-humoured face, beardless and bland, flaxen hair
streaked here and there with grey, was seated in the vacant place. He had
with him a portmanteau covered with a linen case, his boots were a bright
shade of yellow, his tie was of white satin with a design of lavender
flowers. A pair of black kid gloves lay by his side. He welcomed Norgate
with the bland, broad smile of a fellow-passenger whose one desire it is
to make a lifelong friend of his temporary companion.

"We have the compartment to ourselves, is it not so? You are English?"