Meanwhile they abused Bradshaw, and discussed the weather. Bruce
said how wonderful it was how some people always knew what sort of
weather it was going to be. Madame Frabelle, who was getting
sufficiently irritable to be epigrammatic, said that she never cared to
know what the weather was going to be; the weather in England was
generally bad enough when it came without the added misery of knowing
about it beforehand.
Bruce complained that she was too Continental. He very nearly said that
if she didn't like England he wondered she hadn't remained in France,
but he stopped himself.
At last the train arrived. Bruce had settled his companion with her back
to the engine in a corner of a first-class carriage, and placed her rugs
in the rack above. As they will on certain days, every little thing went
wrong, and the bundle promptly fell off. As she moved to catch it, it
tumbled on to her hat, nearly crushing the crown. Unconsciously assuming
the expression of a Christian martyr, Madame Frabelle said it didn't
matter. Bruce had given her _The Gentlewoman_, _The World_, _The Field_,
_Punch_, and _The London Mail_ to occupy the twenty-five minutes or so
while they waited for the train to start.
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