I

TheADVENTUROUS LADY

Peaceand her blessings were flowing already. All the same there was a terrible crush at Belgravia. The congestion of passengers and their luggage at the terminus of the B. S. W. was enough to daunt the stoutest heart, but a girl in a sealskin coat with a skunk collar standing at the bookstall on Platform Three was as calm and collected as if the war was still going on. Outwardly at least she made no concession to the fact that the Armistice had been signed three days.

She chose some newspapers and magazines and paid for them with an air that almost treated money with the disdain it reserved for literature. Then she moved towards a figure of sombre dignity standing between the barrier and herself.

“Come on, Pikey,” she said.

A tall, griffin-like woman, craggy of feature but almost oppressively respectable, followed her mistress dourly. The duenna carried a large, queer-shaped, rather disreputable-looking dressing case whose fadedpurple cover was adorned with a coronet. As their tickets were franked at the barrier, these ladies were informed that “All stations beyond Exeter” were up on the right.

In spite of such clear and explicit instructions, it was not easy to get to all the stations beyond Exeter. Platform Three was a maelstrom of almost every known community. There were Italians and Serbians, Welshmen and such men, Japanese sailors and turbaned Hindoos; the personal suite of President Masaryk; Tommies and poilus; American tars and doughboys; British and Colonial officers, their kit and appurtenances; and over and above all these were the members of the traveling public which in other days had kept the railways running and had paid the shareholders their dividends.

A cool head and a firm will were needed to get as far as the stations beyond Exeter. And these undoubtedly belonged to the girl in the fur coat. Her course was slow but it was calm and sure. With rare fixity of will she pursued it despite the peace that had come so suddenly upon the world. It was a very long train, but she was in no hurry nor did she betray the least anxiety, although somewhere about the middle—Salisbury and Devizes only—she cast a half-glance back to say to her companion, “I don’t seeourporter, Pikey.”

To utter the word “porter” just then was either bravado or it was inhuman optimism. But the actof faith was justified by the event, for hardly had the lady of the fur coat made the remark when a figure in corduroys almost miraculously emerged from the welter. Both travelers had a doubt at first as to whether this rare bird was Trotsky himself or merely a Sinn Fein delegate to the Peace Conference, so aloof yet so grim was his manner. But at that moment there seemed to be no other porter on Platform Three—it followed, therefore, thattheirporter it must be.

It was rather providential perhaps that the porter had been able to find them, but he was by way of being a connoisseur in the human female. He had not been employed at Belgravia for thirty-five years without learning to sort out the various ranks and grades of a heterogeneous society. As a matter of fact, there were only two grades of society for Mr. Trotsky. One grade was worth while, the other was not.

The progress of the party up Platform Three to all the stations beyond Exeter was slow but, like fate, it was inevitable. They walked through, over and beyond armed representatives of five continents, nursemaids with babies and perambulators, not to mention remarkable women with remarkable dogs, trolleys and milk cans and piles of luggage, until at last they reached a compartment not far from the engine. It was notable for the fact that it was two-thirds empty. Rugs, umbrellas and minor portmanteaux claimed the unoccupied seats; those remaining were adorned bytwo distinguished-looking gentlemen who, however, were readingThe Timesnewspaper with an assiduity that definitely and finally dissociated them from Mr. Trotsky and party.

The lady of the fur coat was in the act of opening her purse at the carriage door when a wild, weak voice said, excitedly, “Oh, porter, can you find me a place—please?”

On instinct Mr. Trotsky disregarded the appeal. There was frenzy in it; and that fact alone made any examination of the overburdened, rather hunted little creature at his elbow unnecessary. Dark fate itself could not have turned a deafer ear than he.

“People are standing in all the thirds.” The piping, rather piteous little note grew more insistent. “Ican’tstand all the way to Clavering, St. Mary’s.”

“Not be so full after Reading,” said the laconic Mr. Trotsky, coldly accepting a substantial tip for services rendered.

“But—but there’s no place for my luggage.”

As Miss Fur Coat closed her bag she observed that a rather pretty gray-eyed mouse of a thing bearing a large wickerwork arrangement in one hand and an umbrella and a pilgrim basket in the other was standing at bay. She was literally standing at bay.

“There is room here, I believe.” The air of Miss Fur Coat was cautious and detached, but not unfriendly.

“But this is a first,” said Miss Gray Eyes, “and I have only a third-class ticket.”

“But if there’s no room?” Miss Fur Coat turned a gesture of immensely practical calm upon Mr. Trotsky.

“Better get in, I should think.” The servant of the railway company made the concession to the two honest half-crowns in his palm. “Inspector’ll be along in a minute. Talk to him.”

Mr. Trotsky, having done his duty to the public, turned augustly on his heel to make a private and independent examination of the engine. His advice, however, in the sight of the third-class passenger, seemed sound enough to put into practice. Or, perhaps, it would be more just to say that the other lady put it in practice for her. Miss Fur Coat was curiously quiet and unhurried in all her movements. She was absolutely cool, physically and mentally cool, in spite of the temperature of Platform Three and the mass of fur round her neck, whereas poor little Miss Gray Eyes could hardly breathe in her thin green ulster. And the slow-moving will of Miss Fur Coat had an almost dangerous momentum. Before the third class passenger realized what had happened, she had been taken charge of.

“Go first, Pikey. Clear a seat for this lady.”

Slightly Olympian if you like, but tremendously effective. Pikey, who looked fully capable of swallowing Miss Gray Eyes whole with a single motion of her large and powerful jaws, entered the carriage, andcalmly and competently transferred a plaid traveling rug and a leather-handled umbrella from one seat to the next.

“Thank you so much—thank youeverso much,” twittered the lady of the green ulster, at the same time inadvertently barging the end of the pilgrim basket into the middle of the middle prices on page eight of theTimesnewspaper.

A patient jobber from the oil market, en route to Croome Lodge for an hour’s golf, looked gently at the green ulster, looked at it less in anger than in divine resignation, over the top of his tortoise-shell pince-nez. One had to rub shoulders with all sorts of queer people these times! Still the Armistice was signed and Burmahs were up another half crown.

“This train is already twelve minutes late.” Miss Fur Coat announced the fact after a glance at almost the last thing in wrist watches on almost the last thing in wrists, and then assumed the best seat in the compartment, the one next the door with the back to the engine.

The tortoise-shell pince-nez peered over the top of Court and Society on page six. It looked slowly up and down Miss Fur Coat and then transferred an expert gaze to Pikey and the other lady. Before the head office could register any conclusion on a matter which really did not call for comment, a message was received from another department to ask what price Shells had closed at. And there for the time being theincident ended as far as the Oil Market was concerned—ended almost before it began. For nothing whatever had happened, so it really did not amount to an incident. All the same, something was about to happen.

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