which she had allowed herself, the metre fairly ticking its heart out in
impotent rage behind the policeman's uplifted hand.

So it was with a sigh of relief that she found herself at last
comfortably installed in a corner seat of a first-class carriage. She
glanced about her to make sure that she had not mislaid any of her hand
baggage in her frantic haste, and this point being settled to her
satisfaction, she proceeded to take stock of her fellow-traveller, for
there was one other person in the compartment besides herself.

He was sitting in the corner furthest away, his back to the engine,
apparently entirely oblivious of her presence. On his knee rested a
quarto writing-pad, and he appeared so much absorbed in what he was
writing that Diana doubted whether he had even heard the commotion,
occasioned by her sudden entry.

But she was mistaken. As the porter had bundled her into the carriage,
the man in the corner had raised a pair of deep-set blue eyes, looked at
her for a moment with a half-startled glance, and then, with the barest
flicker of a smile, had let his eyes drop once more upon his writing-pad.
Then he crossed out the word "Kismet," which he had inadvertently written.

Diana regarded him with interest. He was probably an author, she
decided, and since a year's training as a professional singer had brought
her into contact with all kinds of people who earned their livings by
their brains, as she herself hoped to do some day, she instantly felt a
friendly interest in him. She liked, too, the shape of the hand that
held the fountain-pen; it was a slender, sensitive-looking member with
well-kept nails, and Diana always appreciated nice hands. The man's head
was bent over his work, so that she could only obtain a foreshortened