FATE
Turning to the man behind him Seabury attempted to extract a little
information, and the man was very affable and anxious to be of help, but
all he could do was to nod and utter Teutonic gutturals through a bushy
beard with a deep, buzzing sound, and Seabury sank back, beaten and
dejected.
"Good Lord!" he muttered to himself, "is the entire Fatherland
travelling on this accursed car! I--I've half a mind----"
He stole a doubtful sidelong glance at his blue-eyed neighbor across the
aisle, but she was looking out of her own window this time, her cheeks
buried in the fur of her chinchilla muff.
"And after all," he reflected, "if I ask her, she might turn out to be
of the same nationality." But it was not exactly that which prevented
him.
The train was slowing down; sundry hoarse toots from the locomotive
indicated a station somewhere in the vicinity.
"Plue Pirt Lake! Change heraus für Bleasant Falley!" shouted the
conductor, opening the forward door. He lingered long enough to glare
balefully at Seabury, then, as nobody apparently cared either to get out
at Blue Bird Lake or change for Pleasant Valley, he slammed the door and
jerked the signal rope; the locomotive emitted a scornful Teutonic
grunt; the train moved forward into the deepening twilight of the
December night.
The snow was now falling more heavily--it was light enough to see
that--a fine gray powder sifting down out of obscurity, blowing past the
windows in misty streamers.
The bulky man opposite breathed on the pane, rubbed it with a thumb like
a pincushion, and peered out.
"Der next station iss Beverly," he said.
"The next is Peverly?"
"No, der next iss _B_everly; und der nextest iss Peverly.
"Then, if I am going to Beverly, I get out at the next station, don't
I?" stammered the perplexed young fellow, trying to be polite.
The man became peevish. "Nun, wass ist es?" he growled. "I dell you
Peverly und you say Beverly. Don'd I know vat it iss I say alretty?"
"Yes--but _I_ don't----"
"Also, you ged owid vere you tam blease!" retorted the incensed
passenger, and resumed his newspaper, hunching himself around to present
nothing to Seabury except a vast expanse of neck and shoulder.
Seabury, painfully embarrassed, let it go at that. Probably the poor man
_had_ managed to enunciate the name of the station properly; no doubt
the next stop was Beverly, after all. He was due there at 6.17. He
looked at his watch. It was a quarter past six already. The next stop
_must_ be Beverly--supposing the train to be on time.
And already the guttural warning of the locomotive sounded from the
darkness ahead; already he sensed the gritting resistance of the brakes.
Permitting himself a farewell and perfectly inoffensive glance across
the aisle, he perceived her of the blue eyes and chinchilla furs
preparing for departure; and, what he had not before noticed, her maid
in the seat behind her, gathering a dainty satchel, umbrella, and
suit-case marked C. G.
So she was going to Beverly, too! He hoped she might be bound for the
Christmas Eve frolic at the Austins'. It was perfectly possible--in
fact, probable.
He was a young man whose optimism colored his personal wishes so vividly
that sometimes what he desired became presently, in his imagination, a
charming and delightful probability. And already his misgivings
concerning the proper name of the next station had vanished. He _wanted_
Beverly to be the next station, and already it was, for him. Also, he
had quite made up his mind that she of the chinchillas was bound for the
Austins'.
A cynical blast from the locomotive; a jerking pull of brakes, and, from
the forward smoker, entered the fat conductor.
"Beverly! Beverly!" he shouted.
So he, too, had managed to master his _P's_ and _B's_, concluded the
young man, smiling to himself as he rose, invested himself with his
heavy coat, and picked up his suit-case.
The young lady of the chinchillas had already left the car, followed by
her maid, before he stepped into the aisle ready for departure.
A shadow of misgiving fell upon him when, glancing politely at his
fellow-passenger, he encountered only a huge sneer, and concluded that
the nod of courtesy was superfluous.
Also he hesitated as he passed the fat conductor, who was glaring at
him, mouth agape--hesitated a moment only, then, realizing the dreadful
possibilities of reopening the subject, swallowed his question in
silence.
"It's _got_ to be Beverly, now," he thought, making his way to the snowy
platform and looking about him for some sign of a conveyance which might
be destined for him. There were several sleighs and depot-wagons
there--a number of footmen bustling about in furs.
"I'll just glance at the name of the station to be sure," he thought to
himself, peering up through the thickly descending snow where the name
of the station ought to be. And, as he stepped out to get a good view,
he backed into a fur-robed footman, who touched his hat in hasty
apology.
"Oh, Bailey! Is that you?" said Seabury, relieved to encounter one of
Mrs. Austin's men.
"Yes, sir. Mr. Seabury, sir! Were you expected----?"
"Certainly," nodded the young man gayly, abandoning his suit-case to the
footman and following him to a big depot-sleigh.
And there, sure enough, was his lady of the chinchillas, nestling under
the robes to her pretty chin, and her maid on the box with the
coachman--a strangely fat coachman--no doubt a new one to replace old
Martin.
When Seabury came up the young lady turned and looked at him, and he
took off his hat politely, and she acknowledged his presence very
gravely and he seated himself decorously, and the footman swung to the
rumble.
Then the chiming silver sleigh-bells rang out through the snow, the
magnificent pair of plumed horses swung around the circle under the
bleared lights of the station and away they speeded into snowy darkness.
A decent interval of silence elapsed before he considered himself at
liberty to use a traveller's privilege. Then he said something
sufficiently commonplace to permit her the choice of conversing or
remaining silent. She hesitated; she had never been particularly wedded
to silence. Besides, she was scarcely twenty--much too young to be
wedded to anything. So she said something, with perfect composure, which
left the choice to him. And his choice was obvious.
"I have no idea how far it is; have you?" he asked.
"Yes," she said coolly.
"This is a jolly sleigh," he continued with unimpaired cheerfulness.
She thought it comfortable. And for a while the conversation clung so
closely around the sleigh that it might have been run over had not he
dragged it into another path.
"Isn't it amazing how indifferent railroads are to the convenience of
their passengers?"
She turned her blue eyes on him; there was the faintest glimmer in their
depths.
"I know you saw me running after that train," he said, laughingly
attempting to break the ice.
"I?"
"Certainly. And it amused you, I think."
She raised her eyebrows a trifle. "What is there amusing about that?"
"But you _did_ smile--at least I thought so."
Evidently she had no comment to offer. She _was_ hard to talk to. But he
tried again.
"The fact is, I never expected to catch your--that train. It was only
when I saw--saw"--he floundered on the verge of saying "you," but veered
off hastily--"when I saw that brakeman's expression of tired contempt, I
simply sailed through the air like a--a--like a--one of those--er you
know----"
"Do you mean kangaroos?" she ventured so listlessly that the quick flush
of chagrin on his face died out again; because it was quite impossible
that such infantine coldness and candour could be secretly trifling with
his dignity.
"It was a long jump," he concluded gayly, "but I did some jumping at
Harvard and I made it and managed to hold on."
"You were very fortunate," she said, smiling for the first time.
And, looking at her, he thought he was; and he admitted it so blandly
that he overdid the part. But he didn't know that.
"I fancy," he continued, "that everybody on that train except you and I
were Germans. Such a type as sat opposite me----"
"Which car were you in?" she asked simply.
"Why--in your car----"
"In _my_ car?"
"Why--er--yes," he explained; "you were sitting across the aisle, you
know."
"Was I?" she asked with pleasant surprise; "across the aisle from you?"
He grew red; he had certainly supposed that she had noticed him enough
to identify him again. Evidently she had not. Mistakes like that are
annoying. Every man instinctively supposes himself enough of an entity
to be noticed by a pretty woman.
"I had no end of trouble of finding out where Beverly was," he said
after a minute.
"Oh! And how did you find out?"
"I didn't until I backed into Bailey, yonder.... Do you know that I had
a curious sort of presentiment that I should find you in this sleigh?"
"That is strange," she said. "When did you have it?"
"In the car--long before you got off."
She thought it most remarkable--rather listlessly.
"Those things happen, you know," he went on; "like thinking of a person
you don't expect to see, and looking up and suddenly seeing that very
person walking along."
"How does that resemble your case?" she asked.
It didn't. He realised it even before he began to try to explain the
similarity. It really didn't matter one way or the other; it was nothing
to turn red about, but he was turning. Somehow or other she managed to
say things that never permitted that easy, graceful flow of language
which characterised him in his normal state. Somehow or other, he felt
that he was not doing himself justice. He could converse well enough
with people as a rule. Something in that topsy-turvy and maddeningly
foolish colloquy with those Germans must have twisted his tongue or
unbalanced his logic.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "there's no similarity between the two
cases except the basic idea of premonition."
She had been watching him disentangle himself with bright eyes in which
something was sparkling--perhaps sympathy and perhaps not. It may have
been the glimmer of malice. Perhaps she thought him just a trifle too
ornamental--for he certainly was a very good-looking youth--perhaps
something in the entire episode appealed to her sense of mischief.
Probably even she herself could not explain just why she had thought it
funny to see him running for his train, and later entangling himself in
a futile word-fest with the conductor and the large mottled man.
"So," she said thoughtfully, "you were obsessed by a premonition."
"Not--er--exactly obsessed," he said suspiciously. Then his face
cleared. How could anybody be suspicious of such sweetly inquiring
frankness? "You see," he admitted, "that I--well, I rather hoped you
would be going to the Austins'."
"The _Austins'_!" she repeated.
"Yes. I--I couldn't help speculating----"
"About me?" she asked. "Why should you?"
"I--there was no reason, of course, only I k-kept seeing you without
trying to----"
"Me?"
"Certainly. I couldn't help seeing you, could I?"
"Not if you were looking at me," she murmured, pressing her muff to her
face. Perhaps she was cold.
Again it occurred to him that there was something foolish in her reply.
Certainly she was a little difficult to talk to. But then she was
young--very young and--close enough to being a beauty to excuse herself
from any overstrenuous claim to intellectuality.
"Yes," he said kindly and patiently, "I did see you, and I did hope that
you were going to the Austins'. And then I bumped into somebody and
there you were. I don't mean," as she raised her pretty eyebrows--"mean
that you were Bailey. Good Lord, _what_ is the matter with my tongue!"
he said, flushing with annoyance. "I don't talk this way usually."
"Don't you?" she managed to whisper behind her muff.
"No, I don't. That conductor's jargon seems to have inoculated me. You
will probably not believe it, but I _can_ talk the English tongue
sometimes----"
She was laughing now--a clear, delicious, irrepressible little peal that
rang sweetly in the frosty air, harmonising with the chiming
sleigh-bells. And he laughed, too, still uncomfortably flushed.
"Do you think it would help if we began all over again?" she asked,
looking wickedly at him over her muff. "Let me see--you had an obsession
which turned into a premonition that bumped Bailey and you found it
wasn't Bailey at all, but a stranger in chinchillas who was going
to--_where_ did you say she was going? Oh, to the Austins'! _That_ is
clear, isn't it?"
"About as clear as anything that's happened to me to-night," he said.
"A snowy night does make a difference," she reflected.
"A--a difference?"
"Yes--doesn't it?" she asked innocently.
"I--in _what_?"
"In clearness. Things are clearer by daylight?"
"I don't see--I--exactly how--as a matter of fact I don't follow you at
all," he said desperately. "You say things--and they sound all
right--but somehow my answers seem queer. _Do_ you suppose that German
conversation has mentally twisted me?"
Her eyes above the fluffy fur of her muff were bright as stars, but she
did not laugh.
"Suppose," she said, demurely, "that _you_ choose a subject of
conversation and try to make sense of it. If you _are_ mentally twisted
it will be good practice."
"And you will--you won't say things--I mean things not germane to the
subject?"
"Did you say German?"
"No, germane."
"Oh! Have _I_ been irrelevant, too?"
"Well, you mixed up mental clarity with snowy nights. Of course it was a
little joke--I saw that soon enough; I'd have seen it at once, only I
_am_ rather upset and nervous after that German experience."
[Illustration]
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