of France. But Winton saw only the third.

She was taller than either of her companions--tall and straight and
lithe; a charming embodiment of health and strength and beauty:
clear-skinned, brown-eyed--a very goddess fresh from the bath, in
Winton's instant summing up of her, and her crown of red-gold hair
helped out the simile.

Now, thus far in his thirty-year pilgrimage John Winton, man and
boy, had lived the intense life of a working hermit, so far as the
social gods and goddesses were concerned. Yet he had a pang--of
disappointment or pointless jealousy, or something akin to both--when
Adams lifted his hat to this particular goddess, was rewarded by a
little cry of recognition, and stepped up to the platform to be
presented to the elder and younger Bisques.

So, as we say, Winton turned and walked away as one left out, feeling
one moment as though he had been defrauded of a natural right, and
deriding himself the next, as a sensible man should. After a bit he
was able to laugh at the "sudden attack," as he phrased it, but later,
when he and Adams were settled for the day-long run in the Denver
sleeper, and the Limited was clanking out over the switches, he
brought the talk around with a carefully assumed air of lack-interest
to the party in the private car.

"She is a friend of yours, then?" he said, when Adams had taken the
baited hook open-eyed.

The Technologian modified the assumption.