‘She’s Carolyn Dacres all the time. Except in hotel registers, of course. Carolyn is a great actress. Please don’t think I’m using the word ‘great’ carelessly. She is a great actress. Her father was a country parson, but there’s a streak of the stage in her mother’s family, I believe. Carolyn joined a touring company when she was seventeen. She was up and down the provinces for eight years before she got her chance in London. Then she never looked back.” Hambledon paused and glanced apologetically at his companion. “In a moment you will accuse me of talking shop.”

“Why not? I like people to talk shop. I can never understand the prejudice against it.”

“You don’t do it, I notice.”

The tall man raised one eyebrow.

“I’m on a holiday. When did Miss Dacres marry Mr. Alfred Meyer?”

“About ten years ago,” said Hambledon, shortly. He turned in his seat and looked down the carriage. The Carolyn Dacres Company had settled down for the night. George Mason and Gascoigne had given up their game of two-handed whist and had drawn their rugs up to their chins. The comedian had spread a sheet of newspaper over his head. Young Courtney Broadhead was awake, but Mr. Liversidge’s mouth was open and those rolls of flesh, so well disciplined by day, were now subtly predominant. Except for Broadhead they were all asleep. Hambledon looked at his watch.

“It’s midnight,” he said.

Midnight. Outside their hurrying windows this strange country slept. Farm houses, lonely in the moonlight, sheep asleep or tearing with quick jerks at the short grass, those arching hills that ran in curves across the window-panes, and the white flowering trees that made old Susan dab her eyes. They were all there, outside, but remote from the bucketing train with its commercial travellers, its tourists, and its actors.

“The fascination of a train journey,” thought the tall man, “lies in this remoteness of the country outside, and in the realisation that it is so close. At any station one may break the spell of the train and set foot on the earth. But as long as one stays in the train, the outside is a dream country. A dream country.” He closed his eyes again and presently was fast asleep and troubled by long dreams that were half broken by a sense of discomfort. When he woke again he felt cold and stiff. Hambledon, he saw, was still awake.

Their carriage seemed to be continually turning. His mind made a picture of a corkscrew with a gnat-sized train twisting industriously. He looked at his watch.

“Good Lord,” he said. “It’s ten past two. I shall stay awake. It’s a mistake to sleep in these chairs.”

“Ten past two,” said Hambledon. “The time for indiscreet conversation. Are you sure you do not want to go to sleep?”

“Quite sure. What were we speaking of before I dozed off. Miss Dacres?”