As for the ladies who filled the
other half of the three seats, they might as well have been lay figures
from a Broadway drygoods store; conversation with them being prohibited
by the etiquette of railway travelling. A man may journey two hundred
and fifty miles in a car, with his elbow unavoidably jogging a lady's
all the way, and still be as far from her acquaintance (unless she is
graciously inclined to say something first) as if the pair were leagues
apart. This is proper, but peculiar.
The strange sadness that possessed Marcus that morning was intensified
as the ears rolled on. There is something in the monotonous vibration of
the train, and the recurring click of the wheels against the end of the
rails, that provokes melancholy. Marcus looked out of the window at the
flying landscape, and the distant patches of wood which seemed to be
slowly revolving about each other, and was profoundly wretched. He was
totally unconscious of the sharp, pale, nervous face by his side.
The owner of the face was about thirty-five years old, though the lines
on her brow and cheeks added an apparent five years to her age.
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