E. Nesbit

“ Arrived at Mill Vale the Slade students jumped from their carriage to meet a wind that swept grey curtains of rain across the bleak length of the platform.
“And we haven’t so much as a rib of an umbrella between us,” sighed Molly, putting her white handkerchief over the “best” hat which signalised her Saturday to Monday with her friend. “You’re right: that man is a pig. There he goes with an umbrella big enough for all three of us. Oh, it’s too bad! He’s putting it down—he’s running. He runs rather well. He’s exactly like the cast of the Discobolus in the Antique Room.” ”

“ Molly asked.
“I don’t know him. I tell you I only see him on the platform at Mill Vale. He and I seem to be the only people—the only decent people—who’ve found out the new station. He goes up by the 9.1 every day, and so do I. And the train’s always late, so we have the platform and the booking office to ourselves. And there we sit, or stand, or walk, morning after morning like two stuck pigs in a trough of silence.”
“Don’t jumble your metaphors, though you very nearly carried it off with the trough, I own. Stuck pigs don’t walk—in troughs, or anywhere else.” ”

“ It was when the country was wearing its full dress of green and the hawthorn pearls were opening into baby-roses in the hedgerows that it was Nina’s fortune to be put, by the zealous indiscretion of a mistaken porter, into an express train for Beechwood—the wrong station—the wrong line. ”

“ We’re human beings, not wild beasts. At least, I’m a human being.”
“And he’s a beast—I see.”
“I wish I were a man,” said Nina. “There he is again. His nose goes up another half inch every time he passes me. What’s he got to be so superior about? If I were a man I’d certainly pass the time of day with a fellow-creature if I were condemned to spend from ten to forty minutes with it six days out of the seven.”
“I expect he’s afraid you’d want to marry him. My brother Cecil says men are always horribly frightened about that.”
“Your brother Cecil!” said Nina scornfully. ”

“ When it came to thinking, the real, the earnest things of life—the Sketch Club, the chance of the Melville Nettleship Prize, the intricate hideousness of bones and muscles—took the field and kept it, against strangers and acquaintances alike. ”

“ Nina said with indicative brush, “and don’t keep on rubbing out so fiercely. You’ll get paralysed with bread—it’s a disease, you know. I heard Tonks telling you so only the other day——”
“It’s rather a good phrase: I wonder where he got it? He was rather nice that day,” said Molly. “Oh, this arm! It’s no good—I believe the model’s moved—I tell you I must.” More bread. Nina re-absorbed in her canvas. “Yours is coming well. What’s the matter with you to-day? You’re very mousy. Has the ‘stranger who might’ been scowling more than usual? ”

“ When the door closed on her he went slowly back to the churchyard to lay his violets on a grave. Nina saw them there next day when she came out of church. She saw him too, and gave him a bow and a very small smile, and turned away quickly. The bow meant: “You see I’m not going to speak to you. You mustn’t think I want to be always talking to you.” ”

“ Then the stranger spoke, and at the first sentence Nina understood exactly what reason had decided the stranger that they should not talk. Yet now they did. If this were a work of fiction I shouldn’t dare to pretend that the train took more than two hours to get to Mill Vale. But in a plain record of fact one must speak the truth. The train took exactly two hours and fifty minutes to cover the eleven miles between London and Mill Vale. After that first question and reply Nina and the stranger talked the whole way. ”