Instead she observed the girl attentively. A tall girl, very slight and graceful, with the ash-blonde hair and milky skin which belong more to the Scandinavian than to the English type. An English girl as fair as this would have blue eyes, but the eyes which were now fixed on the moving landscape were of a pure deep grey fringed with lashes which were many tones darker than that very light hair. The eyebrows were golden, narrow and oddly arched, like frail gold wings spread for a flight. This gold gave the face its only colour. Miss Silver thought she had never seen a living person look so pale. The very white skin made the effect more startling.

The girl was wearing a grey flannel coat and skirt, beautifully cut. Everything she had on was perfectly simple, but the simplicity was of the kind which cannot be achieved without money. The small grey felt hat with its blue cord looped in a careless twist, the grey handbag with the initial L, the fineness of the silk stockings, the quality of the grey shoes – all these things Miss Silver observed. Her eye passed to the ungloved hands, noted a platinum wedding ring, and dropped to her own drab lap. Her practised mind summed up its impression in three words – shock – money – married.

She took up the magazine which Ethel had so kindly provided and began to turn the pages. When she had turned three in rapid succession she went no further. Her gaze, at first fixed and intent, became abstracted.

After a little she closed the magazine and leaned forward.

“Do you care to read? Would this interest you?”

The grey eyes came slowly to her face. She thought there was a resolute attempt to focus then. They had not really been seeing the flat green fields with their chess-board pattern of hedgerows – all the same size, all slipping by faster and faster as the train gained speed. She was not really seeing Miss Silver now, but she was making an effort.

Miss Silver abandoned the magazine as a gambit, and said directly.