Grant Allen

What's Bred in the Bone Grant Allen

It was late when Elma reached the station. Her pony had jibbed on the way downhill, and the train was just on the point of moving off as she hurried over the platform. Old Matthews, the stout and chubby-cheeked station master, seated her most unceremoniously by her left arm, and bundled her into a carriage. He had known her from a child, so he could venture upon such liberties."Second class, miss? Yes, miss. Here you go. Look sharp, please. Any more goin 'on? All right, Tom! Go ahead there!" And lifting his left hand, he whistled a shrill signal to the guard to start it. As for Elma, slightly hot in the face with the wild rush for her ticket, and grasping her uncounted change, pence and all, in her little gloved hand, she found herself thrilled, hap-hazard, at the very last moment, into the last compartment of the last carriage -alone - with an artist. Now, you and I, to be sure, the most proverbially courteous and intelligent reader, may never have guessed at first glance, from the young man's outer aspect, the nature of his occupation. The gross and clumsy male intellect, working in accordance with the stupid laws of inductive logic, has a queer habit of requiring something or other, in definite way, before committing himself to the distinct conclusion. But Elma Clifford was a woman; and therefore she knew a more excellent way. Her habit was, rather, to look at things fairly and squarely once, and then, with the unerring intuition of her sex, to make her mind about them firmly, at once and for ever. That's one of the many glorious advantages of being a woman. You do not need to learn in order to know. You know instinctively. And yet our girls want to go to Girton, and train themselves to be senior wranglers!Elma Clifford, however, had NOT been to Girton, so as she stumbled into her place, she snapped a hurried look at Cyril Wiring's face, and knew at one glance he was a painful landscape.