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The Geneva express jerked itself out of the Gare de Lyons. For a few
minutes the lights of outer Paris twinkled past its windows and then with
a spring it reached the open night. The jolts and lurches merged into one
regular purposeful throb, the shrieks of the wheels, the clatter of the
coaches, into one continuous hum. And already in the upper berth of her
compartment Mrs. Thesiger was asleep. The noise of a train had no unrest
for her. Indeed, a sleeping compartment in a Continental express was the
most permanent home which Mrs. Thesiger had possessed for a good many
more years than she would have cared to acknowledge. She spent her life
in hotels with her daughter for an unconsidered companion. From a winter
in Vienna or in Rome she passed to a spring at Venice or at
Constantinople, thence to a June in Paris, a July and August at the
bathing places, a September at Aix, an autumn in Paris again. But always
she came back to the sleeping-car. It was the one familiar room which was
always ready for her; and though the prospect from its windows changed,
it was the one room she knew which had always the same look, the same


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