Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 5.djvu/144

122 " Very well. But no one will ask us."

The bell rang, the door of the waiting-room opened, and the carefully veiled young woman rushed into a carriage with her youthful companion. The bell rang a second time, and the door of their compartment was closed.

"We are alone!" they exclaimed delightedly. But, almost at the same moment, a man of about fifty, dressed completely in black, with a grave and bored expression, entered the carriage and settled himself in a corner.

The engine whistled, and the train began to move. The two young people drew back as far as they could from their unwelcome neighbour and began to whisper in English as an additional precaution.

"Monsieur," said the other traveller, in the same tongue, and with a much purer British accent, " if you have secrets to tell to each other, you had better not tell them in English before me, for I am an Englishman. I am extremely sorry to annoy you; but there was only a single man in the other compartment, and I make it a rule never to travel alone with one man only. . . He had the face of a Judas and this might have tempted him."

He pointed to his travelling-bag, which he had thrown in before him on the cushion.