For ten minutes, in a funereal silence, the train hurried towards the Metropolis, while the temperature of the compartment, both actually and temperamentally, dropped to freezing-point. Once, as an unusually pretty meadow met her eye (and where are there such meadows as one sees in England?), Pippa emitted an exclamation of delight and clapped her hands. A look of horror from the fierce gentleman caromed off the _Morning Post_ to the face of the offender. The anemic woman stopped blowing her nose, and concentrated all her energies on a disdainful sniff. The very young Guardsman brought his eyes out of the future, and stared right through the girl--rotten form, what! The intense young woman frowned and made a mental note that she would write an article on "The Girl of To-day"--or, perhaps, a letter to the _New Statesman_ would be more effective. One never knew, these degenerate times, if an author was writing from conviction or merely writing for a living. The Australian smiled generously, and burrowed his hands deeper into his capacious pockets. Very timidly the erring daughter of France shifted closer to her protector, and her hand reached appealingly for his, which caused all eyes but the Australian's to disappear like the legs of a troupe of Japanese acrobats from a cross-bar. "Your Majesty----" she said. "Hush, Pippa. You must call me just 'monsieur.'" "But why?" "Well--you see, a prince is very important, and----" "Then that is why these people are so solemn? They know you are a prince, yes?" The airman tapped the bridge of his nose meditatively. "N-not exactly," he said. "But they are so sad." "They are," he agreed; "but my countrymen sink to their greatest melancholy when they travel." "But why, monsieur?" "That," he said, "I cannot tell you. Perhaps traveling on a train reminds them of the brief journey of life itself. At any rate, all really well-bred people who travel resent others doing the same thing." "What are well-bred people?" He gazed at an advertisement for pyjamas. "Well-bred people," he said sententiously, "are those who base their superiority on such intangible things that they leave nothing on which one can contest it. Do you understand me?" "No," said Pippa frankly; "but I like your voice." "Thank you, little one. It was one of the first things I learned at Harrow--to say something well rather than something worth hearing." "I wonder if Louis had his breakfast," said she, at a tangent. "I think so," he said, with a man's vagueness towards domestic economy; "but, to finish my definition of well-bred people----" "Louis will be angry at my leaving him," she said musingly. "Pippa, you must listen to me," he said gravely. "But may I not talk as well?" "Really charming women only listen." "_Tiens!_ What a droll country! Do these people understand what we say?" "I don't think so, youngster. Most Britishers look on foreign languages as immoral."