My new acquaintance leaned forward, and discoursed volubly, a great many of her terms being quite unintelligible to me. Yet I found myself evincing an increasing interest in her. She seemed such a curious mixture of child and woman. Though perfectly worldly-wise, and able, as she expressed it, to take care of herself, there was yet something curiously ingenuous in her single-minded attitude towards life, and her whole-hearted determination to “make good.” This glimpse of a world unknown to me was not without its charm, and I enjoyed seeing her vivid little face light up as she talked. We passed through Amiens. The name awakened many memories. My companion seemed to have an intuitive knowledge of what was in my mind. “Thinking of the War?” I nodded. “You were through it, I suppose?” “Pretty well. I was wounded once, and after the Somme they invalided me out altogether. I had a half fledged Army job for a bit. I’m a sort of private secretary now to an M. P.” “My! That’s brainy!” “No, it isn’t. There’s really awfully little to do. Usually a couple of hours every day sees me through. It’s dull work too. In fact, I don’t know what I should do if I hadn’t got something to fall back upon.” “Don’t say you collect bugs!” “No. I share rooms with a very interesting man. He’s a Belgian—an ex-detective. He’s set up as a private detective in London, and he’s doing extraordinarily well. He’s really a very marvellous little man. Time and again he has proved to be right where the official police have failed.” My companion listened with widening eyes. “Isn’t that interesting, now? I just adore crime. I go to all the mysteries on the movies. And when there’s a murder on I just devour the papers.” “Do you remember the Styles Case?” I asked. “Let me see, was that the old lady who was poisoned? Somewhere down in Essex?” I nodded. “That was Poirot’s first big case. Undoubtedly, but for him, the murderer would have escaped scot-free. It was a most wonderful bit of detective work.” Warming to my subject, I ran over the heads of the affair, working up to the triumphant and unexpected dénouement. The girl listened spellbound. In fact, we were so absorbed that the train drew into Calais station before we realized it. “My goodness gracious me!” cried my companion. “Where’s my powder-puff?” She proceeded to bedaub her face liberally, and then applied a stick of lip salve to her lips, observing the effect in a small pocket glass, and betraying not the faintest sign of self-consciousness. “I say,” I hesitated. “I dare say it’s cheek on my part, but why do all that sort of thing?” The girl paused in her operations, and stared at me with undisguised surprise. “It isn’t as though you weren’t so pretty that you can afford to do without it,” I said stammeringly.