Max

CHAPTER I


A night journey is essentially a thing of possibilities. To those who
count it as mere transit, mere linking of experiences, it is, of course,
a commonplace; but to the imaginative, who by gift divine see a picture
in every cloud, a story behind every shadow, it suggests
romance--romance in the very making.

Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as it
thundered over the sleeping plains of Germany and France on its night
journey from Cologne to Paris. A thing of possibilities indeed, with its
varying human freight--stolid Teutons, hard-headed Scandinavians, Slavs
whom expediency or caprice had forced to descend upon Paris across the
sea of ice. It was the month of January, and an unlikely and unlovely
night for long and arduous travel. There were few pleasure-passengers on
the express, and if one could have looked through the carriage windows,
blurred with damp mist, one would have seen upon almost every face the
look--resigned or resolute--of those who fare forth by necessity rather
than by choice. In the sleeping-cars all the berths were occupied, but
here and them throughout the length of the train an occasional traveller
slept on the seat of his carriage, wrapped in coats and rugs, while in
the dining-saloon a couple of sleepy waiters lurched to and fro in
attendance upon a party of three men whose energy precluded the thought
of wasting even the night hours and who were playing cards at one of the
small tables. Up and down the whole overheated, swaying train there was
the suggestion of mystery, of contrast and effect, and the twinkling
eyes of the electric lamps seemed to wink from behind their drawn hoods
as though they, worldly wise and watchful, saw the individuality--the
inevitable story--behind the drowsy units who sat or lay or lounged
unguarded beneath them.

In one carriage, the fifth or sixth from the thundering engine, these
lights winked and even laughed one to the other each time the train
lurched over the points, and the dark, shrouding hoods quivered,
allowing a glimpse at the occupant of the compartment.