Ruth regretted this when she had said it, because obviously a little deduction on Ben’s part would have led him to her real thread of thought. But he showed no sign of animation, patted her knee in a soothing, proprietory way, and settled his coat round him like a dog coiling for another nap. “We’ll soon be there,” he said. “I hope so. I’d forgotten it was such a long ride. It’ll be strange to see the Island again. What a queer thing, George getting hold of the old Richmond place. It’s been empty a long time, the family never went back to it after the little girl (what was her name?) died.” As though plunging into a tunnel the train drummed into a squall. Grey slants of rain thrashed the windows, there were heavy explosions of sound. Ruth was usually afraid of storms, but this one seemed to make the long green car comfortable. The smooth hum of the train softened the jagged edges of thunder. She would have liked a woman there to talk to about Joyce. She had been cheerful in the certainty that her own hat was the smartest on the train until Joyce (for certainly it was she) entered the dining car. That curly black felt, with what an air she carried it. There was something gipsyish about her: something finely unconscious in her way of enjoying her lunch while every other woman was watching her. Women run in a pack and hasten to ally themselves against any other who seems to have secret funds of certainty. Those who live from hand to mouth are always indignant at a private income. Ruth knew Joyce at once as one of the lonely kind. While she had been sitting there, apparently idle and half asleep, she had turned her chair to command the aisle and was waiting intently to see her come back through their car.