JUDY sat staring out of the railway carriage window. Of course there was a war on, but could any train that was trying at all really dawdle the way this one was doing?
 [ ... ]
   The train stopped at yet another little halt, and this time, perhaps because the driver was tired, it stopped so suddenly that Judy was almost thrown on the floor and her lipstick was actually thrown out of her hand.  It went under the seat.
   Judy, in a flash of thought, weighed the situation. The lipstick being round would have rolled as far under the seat as was possible. Its top was not on it so that an assortment of dust, half sandwiches, match-ends and bits of paper that live under railway carriages would by now have stuck to it. To retrieve it would mean hunting on the dirty carriage floor and, almost for a certainty, starting a ladder in her stockings. It was sickening to lose a lipstick which, because it was a present from an American, had been better than most, but it would be far worse to ladder a stocking. Maddening though it was, the lipstick would have to stay where it had rolled.
   “Which side did it go?”
   The studious young man who had seemed to Judy to take an interest in nothing but his heavy-looking book was half-way to the floor. Judy noticed how thin he was and how long, built to go grubbing under a railway seat.
  “Don’t bother. The top was off, things will have stuck to it.”
   He was kneeling on the floor. He raised his head. He was nice-looking in a sensitive, highly strung way, he had eyes as blue as Judy’s own and a charming shy smile.
   “But aren’t they a bit hard to get? And it would clean, wouldn’t it?”
   Judy did not want to appear a helpless female. She was quite willing to believe it was a good rôle at the right time, but the right time was hardly the fourth year of a world war.
   “It will, but I weighed it against my stockings. There’s almost certainly grit on the floor and I simply can’t face laddering them.”
   The young man accepted the stocking situation as a major issue, his face showed that he saw that a ladder could not be risked.
   “Which side?” Judy told him. There was a pause while he searched. Then, in triumph, he passed the lipstick to her. “It is pretty dirty. Still, it’s greasy, it would rub off on my paper.”
   Judy, having got back her lipstick, felt a sudden extra affection for it. She had seen men handle them before and knew that they thought it did no harm to break the paint away from the holder.
   “I’ll do it. As a matter of fact I think I’ll have to do you too. Look at your knees! And there’s a fluff of cotton wool or something on the back of your collar.”
   Obviously, after an introduction like that, the young man could not disappear back into his book. He closed it to show he had no intention of doing so. He gave Judy one of his shy, engaging smiles.
   “Which is your station?”
   “Pinlock.”
   He looked at her with interest.
   “Are you coming to work there?”
   Judy remembered all she had read and heard about careless talk. She answered him carefully.
   “Yes. Not there exactly, but in the neighbourhood.”
   “It looks as if we were going to work under the same roof as it were.”
   Judy’s eyes widened.
   “Are we? Have you been directed here too?”
   He laughed.
   “The cat’s out of the bag. There’s no one to hear so we may as well speak the truth. You are going to work in Bigfields. I already work there.”
   Judy got up and sat down opposite him. “No! What’s it like? If it’s simply foul you can tell me. I can take it. I’ve worked as a V.A.D. under what, before the war, was the matron of a workhouse and you can take anything after that.