You ate all you could manage at breakfast,
because lunch was likely to consist of a sandwich and an orange bought
from the train butcher; with perhaps the lucky addition of a cup of
coffee at some junction point where you changed trains. You lugged your
suit-case down to the station, and had your arrival there noted by the
manager, who, of course, bought all the tickets for the company. You
needn't even bother to know where you were going, except out of idle
curiosity. The train came along and you got a seat by yourself on the
shady side, if you could; though the men being more agile, generally got
there first.
The convention of giving precedence to the ladies, Rose promptly
discovered, and with a sort of satisfaction, did not apply. Indeed, all
the automatic small courtesies and services which, in any life she'd
known, men had been expected to show to women, were here completely
barred. A girl could let a man come up to her on a platform where they
were all gathered waiting for the train, and casually slide an arm
around her, without any one's paying the slightest attention to the act.
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