第20章 CHAPTER VIII(1)

Richard Hame1, although he certainly had not the appearance of a person afflicted with nerves, gave a slight start. For the last half-hour, during which time the train had made no stop, he had been alone in his compartment. Yet, to his surprise, he was suddenly aware that the seat opposite to him had been noiselessly taken by a girl whose eyes, also, were fixed with curious intentness upon the broad expanse of marshland and sands across which the train was slowly making its way. Hamel had spent a great many years abroad, and his first impulse was to speak with the unexpected stranger. He forgot for a moment that he was in England, travelling in a first-class carriage, and pointed with his left hand towards the sea.

"Queer country this, isn't it?" he remarked pleasantly. "Do you know, I never heard you come in. It gave me quite a start when I found that I had a fellow-passenger."

She looked at him with a certain amount of still surprise, a look which he returned just as steadfastly, because even in those few seconds he was conscious of that strange selective interest, certainly unaccounted for by his own impressions of her appearance.

She seemed to him, at that first glance, very far indeed from being good-looking, according to any of the standards by which he had measured good looks. She was thin, too thin for his taste, and she carried herself with an aloofness to which he was unaccustomed.

Her cheeks were quite pale, her hair of a soft shade of brown, her eyes grey and sad. She gave him altogether an impression of colourlessness, and he had been living in a land where colour and vitality meant much. Her speech, too, in its very restraint, fell strangely upon his ears.

"I have been travelling in an uncomfortable compartment," she observed. "I happened to notice, when passing along the corridor, that yours was empty. In any case, I am getting out at the next station."

"So am I," he replied, still cheerfully. "I suppose the next station is St. David's?"

She made no answer, but so far as her expression counted for anything at all, she was a little surprised. Her eyes considered him for a moment. Hamel was tall, well over six feet, powerfully made, with good features, clear eyes, and complexion unusually sunburnt. He wore a flannel collar of unfamiliar shape, and his clothes, although they were neat enough, were of a pattern and cut obviously designed to afford the maximum of ease and comfort with the minimum regard to appearance. He wore, too, very thick boots, and his hands gave one the impression that they were seldom gloved.

His voice was pleasant, and he had the easy self-confidence of a person sure of himself in the world. She put him down as a colonial - perhaps an American - but his rank in life mystified her.

"This seems the queerest stretch of country," he went on; "long spits of sand jutting right out into the sea, dikes and creeks - miles and miles of them. Now, I wonder, is it low tide or high?

Low, I should think, because of the sea-shine on the sand there."

She glanced out of the window.

"The tide," she told him, "is almost at its lowest."

"You live in this neighbourhood, perhaps?" he enquired.

"I do," she assented.

"Sort of country one might get very fond of," he ventured.

She glanced at him from the depths of her grey eyes.

"Do you think so?" she rejoined coldly. "For my part, I hate it."

He was surprised at the unexpected emphasis of her tone - the first time, indeed, that she had shown any signs of interest in the conversation.

"Kind of dull I suppose you find it," he remarked pensively, looking out across the waste of lavender-grown marshes, sand hummocks piled with seaweed, and a far distant line of pebbled shore. "And yet, I don't know. I have lived by the sea a good deal, and however monotonous it may seem at first, there's always plenty of change, really. Tide and wind do such wonderful work."

She, too, was looking out now towards the sea.

"Oh, it isn't exactly that," she said quietly. "I am quite willing to admit what all the tourists and chance visitors call the fascination of these places. I happen to dislike them, that is all.

Perhaps it is because I live here, because I see them day by day; perhaps because the sight of them and the thought of them have become woven into my life."

She was talking half to herself. For a moment, even the knowledge of his presence had escaped her. Hamel, however, did not realise that fact. He welcomed her confidence as a sign of relaxation from the frigidity of her earlier demeanour.

"That seems hard," he observed sympathetically. "It seems odd to hear you talk like that, too. Your life, surely, ought to be pleasant enough."

She looked away from the sea into his face. Although the genuine interest which she saw there and the kindly expression of his eyes disarmed annoyance, she still stiffened slightly.

"Why ought it?."

The question was a little bewildering.

"Why, because you are young and a girl," he replied. "It's natural to be cheerful, isn't it?"

"Is it?" she answered listlessly. "I cannot tell. I have not had much experience."

"How old are you?" he asked bluntly.

This time it certainly seemed as though her reply would contain some rebuke for his curiosity. She glanced once more into his face, however, and the instinctive desire to administer that well-deserved snub passed away. He was so obviously interested, his question was asked so naturally, that its spice of impertinence was as though it had not existed.

"I am twenty-one," she told him.

"And how long have you lived here?

"Since I left boarding-school, four years ago."

"Anywhere near where I am going to bury myself for a time, I wonder?" he went on.

"That depends," she replied. "Our only neighbours are the Lorneybrookes of Market Burnham. Are you going there?"

He shook his head.

"I've got a little shanty of my own," he explained, "quite close to St. David's Station. I've never even seen it yet."

She vouchsafed some slight show of curiosity.

"Where is this shanty, as you call it?" she asked him.