Mr. Grenfall Lorry boarded the east-bound express at Denver with all the
air of a martyr. He had traveled pretty much all over the world, and
he was not without resources, but the prospect of a twenty-five hundred
mile journey alone filled him with dismay. The country he knew; the
scenery had long since lost its attractions for him; countless newsboys
had failed to tempt him with the literature they thrust in his face, and
as for his fellow-passengers--well, he preferred to be alone. And so it
was that he gloomily motioned the porter to his boxes and mounted the
steps with weariness.
As it happened, Mr. Grenfall Lorry did not have a dull moment after the
train started.
He stumbled on a figure that leaned toward the window in the dark
passageway. With reluctant civility he apologized; a lady stood up to
let him pass, and for an instant in the half light their eyes met, and
that is why the miles rushed by with incredible speed.
Mr. Lorry had been dawdling away the months in Mexico and California.
For years he had felt, together with many other people, that a
sea-voyage was the essential beginning of every journey; he had started
round the world soon after leaving Cambridge; he had fished through
Norway and hunted in India, and shot everything from grouse on the
Scottish moors to the rapids above Assouan. He had run in and out of
countless towns and countries on the coast of South America; he had done
Russia and the Rhone valley and Brittany and Damascus; he had seen
them all--but not until then did it occur to him that there might be
something of interest nearer home. True he had thought of joining
some Englishmen on a hunting tour in the Rockies, but that had fallen
through. When the idea of Mexico did occur to him he gave orders to pack
his things, purchased interminable green tickets, dined unusually well
at his club, and was off in no time to the unknown West.
There was a theory in his family that it would have been a decenter
thing for him to stop running about and settle down to work. But his
thoughtful father had given him a wealthy mother, and as earning a
living was not a necessity, he failed to see why it was a duty. “Work is
becoming to some men,” he once declared, “like whiskers or red ties,
but it does not follow that all men can stand it.” After that the family
found him “hopeless,” and the argument dropped.
He was just under thirty years, as good-looking as most men, with no
one dependent upon him and an income that had withstood both the Maison
Doree and a dahabeah on the Nile. He never tired of seeing things and
peoples and places. “There's game to be found anywhere,” he said, “only
it's sometimes out of season. If I had my way--and millions--I should
run a newspaper. Then all the excitements would come to me. As it
is--I'm poor, and so I have to go all over the world after them.”
This agreeable theory of life had worked well; he was a little bored at
times--not because he had seen too much, but because there were not
more things left to see. He had managed somehow to keep his enthusiasms
through everything--and they made life worth living. He felt too a
certain elation--like a spirited horse--at turning toward home, but
Washington had not much to offer him, and the thrill did not last. His
big bag and his hatbox--pasted over with foolish labels from continental
hotels--were piled in the corner of his compartment, and he settled back
in his seat with a pleasurable sense of expectancy. The presence in the
next room of a very smart appearing young woman was prominent in his
consciousness. It gave him an uneasiness which was the beginning of
delight. He had seen her for only a second in the passageway, but that
second had made him hold himself a little straighter. “Why is it,” he
wondered, “that some girls make you stand like a footman the moment
you see them?” Grenfall had been in love too many times to think of
marriage; his habit of mind was still general, and he classified
women broadly. At the same time he had a feeling that in this case
generalities did not apply well; there was something about the girl that
made him hesitate at labelling her “Class A, or B, or Z.” What it was
he did not know, but--unaccountably-she filled him with an affected
formality He felt like bowing to her with a grand air and much dignity.
And yet he realized that his successes had come from confidence.
At luncheon he saw her in the dining car. Her companions were
elderly persons--presumably her parents. They talked mostly in
French--occasionally using a German word or phrase. The old gentleman
was stately and austere--with an air of deference to the young woman
which Grenfall did not understand. His appearance was very striking; his
face pale and heavily lined; moustache and imperial gray; the eyebrows
large and bushy, and the jaw and chin square and firm. The white-haired
lady carried her head high with unmistakable gentility. They were all
dressed in traveling suits which suggested something foreign, but not
Vienna nor Paris; smart, but far from American tastes.
Lorry watched the trio with great interest. Twice during luncheon
the young woman glanced toward him carelessly and left an annoying
impression that she had not seen him. As they left the table and passed
into the observation car, he stared at her with some defiance. But she
was smiling, and her dimples showed, and Grenfall was ashamed. For
some moments he sat gazing from the car window--forgetting his
luncheon-dreaming.
When he got back to his compartment he rang vigorously for the porter. A
coin was carelessly displayed in his fingers. “Do you suppose you could
find out who has the next compartment, porter?”
“I don't know their name, sub, but they's goin' to New York jis as fas'
as they can git thuh. I ain' ax um no questions, 'cause thuh's somethin'
'bout um makes me feel's if I ain' got no right to look at um even.”
The porter thought a moment.
“I don' believe it'll do yuh any good, suh, to try to shine up to tha'
young lady. She ain' the sawt, I can tell yuh that. I done see too many
guhls in ma time--”
“What are you talking about? I'm not trying to shine up to her. I only
want to know who she is--just out of curiosity.” Grenfall's face was a
trifle red.
“Beg pahdon, suh; but I kind o' thought you was like orh' gent'men when
they see a han'some woman. Allus wants to fin' out somethin' 'bout huh,
suh, yuh know. 'Scuse me foh misjedgin' yuh, suh. Th' lady in question
is a foh'ner--she lives across th' ocean, 's fuh as I can fin' out.
They's in a hurry to git home foh some reason, 'cause they ain' goin' to
stop this side o' New York, 'cept to change cahs.”
“Where do they change cars?”
“St. Louis--goin' by way of Cincinnati an' Washin'ton.”
Grenfall's ticket carried him by way of Chicago. He caught himself
wondering if he could exchange his ticket in St. Louis.
“Traveling with her father and mother, I suppose?”
“No, suh; they's huh uncle and aunt. I heah huh call 'em uncle an' aunt.
Th' ole gent'man is Uncle Caspar. I don' know what they talk 'bout. It's
mostly some foh'en language. Th' young lady allus speaks Amehican to me,
but th' old folks cain't talk it ver' well. They all been to Frisco,
an' the hired he'p they's got with 'em say they been to Mexico, too. Th'
young lady's got good Amehican dollahs, don' care wha' she's been. She
allus smiles when she ask me to do anythin', an' I wouldn' care if she
nevah tipped me, 's long as she smiles thataway.”
“Servants with them, you say?”
“Yas, suh; man an' woman, nex' section t'other side the ole folks.
Cain't say mor'n fifteen words in Amehican. Th' woman is huh maid, an'
the man he's th' genial hustler fer th' hull pahty.”
“And you don't know her name?”
“No, sun, an' I cain't ver' well fin' out.”
“In what part of Europe does she live?”
“Australia, I think, suh.”
“You mean Austria.”
“Do I? 'Scuse ma ig'nance. I was jis' guessin' at it anyhow; one place's
as good as 'nother ovah thuh, I reckon.”
“Have you one of those dollars she gave you?”
“Yes, sub. Heh's a coin that ain' Amehican, but she says it's wuth
seventy cents in our money. It's a foh'en piece. She tell me to keep
it till I went ovah to huh country; then I could have a high time with
it--that's what she says--'a high time'--an' smiled kind o' knowin'
like.”
“Let me see that coin,” said Lorry, eagerly taking the silver piece from
the porter's hand. “I never saw one like it before. Greek, it looks to
me, but I can't make a thing out of these letters. She gave it to you?”
“Yas, suh--las' evenin'. A high time on seventy cents! That's
reediculous, ain't it?” demanded the porter scornfully.
“I'll give you a dollar for it. You can have a higher time on that.”
The odd little coin changed owners immediately, and the new possessor
dropped it into his pocket with the inward conviction that he was the
silliest fool in existence. After the porter's departure he took the
coin from his pocket, and, with his back to the door, his face to the
window, studied its lettering.
During the afternoon he strolled about the train, his hand constantly
jingling the coins. He passed her compartment several times, yet
refrained from looking in. But he wondered if she saw him pass.
At one little station a group of Indian bear hunters created
considerable interest among the passengers. Grenfall was down at the
station platform at once, looking over a great stack of game. As he
left the car he met Uncle Caspar, who was hurrying toward his niece's
section. A few moments later she came down the steps, followed by the
dignified old gentleman. Grenfall tingled with a strange delight as she
moved quite close to his side in her desire to see. Once he glanced at
her face; there was a pretty look of fear in her eyes as she surveyed
the massive bears and the stark, stiff antelopes. But she laughed as she
turned away with her uncle.
Grenfall was smoking his cigarette and vigorously jingling the coins in
his pocket when the train pulled out. Then he swung on the car steps and
found himself at her feet. She was standing at the top, where she had
lingered a moment. There was an expression of anxiety, in her eyes as
he looked up into them, followed instantly by one of relief. Then she
passed into the car. She had seen him swing upon the moving steps and
had feared for his safety--had shown in her glorious face that she was
glad he did not fall beneath the wheels. Doubtless she would have been
as solicitous had he been the porter or the brakeman, he reasoned, but
that she had noticed him at all pleased him.
At Abilene he bought the Kansas City newspapers. After breakfast he
found a seat in the observation car and settled himself to read.
Presently some one took a seat behind him. He did not look back, but
unconcernedly cast his eyes upon the broad mirror in the opposite car
wall. Instantly he forgot his paper. She was sitting within five feet of
him, a book in her lap, her gaze bent briefly on the flitting buildings
outside. He studied the reflection furtively until she took up the book
and began to read. Up to this time he had wondered why some nonsensical
idiot had wasted looking-glasses on the walls of a railway coach; now he
was thinking of him as a far-sighted man.
The first page of his paper was fairly alive with fresh and important
dispatches, chiefly foreign. At length, after allowing himself to become
really interested in a Paris dispatch of some international consequence,
he turned his eyes again to the mirror. She was leaning slightly
forward, holding the open book in her lap, but reading, with straining
eyes, an article in the paper he held.
He calmly turned to the next page and looked leisurely over it. Another
glance, quickly taken, showed to him a disappointed frown on the pretty
face and a reluctant resumption of novel reading. A few moments later he
turned back to the first page, holding the paper in such a position
that she could not see, and, full of curiosity, read every line of the
foreign news, wondering what had interested her.
Under ordinary circumstances Lorry would have offered her the paper,
and thought nothing more of it. With her, however, there was an air that
made him hesitate. He felt strangely awkward and inexperienced beside
her; precedents did not seem to count. He arose, tossed the paper over
the back of the chair as if casting it aside forever, and strolled to
the opposite window and looked out for a few moments, jingling his coins
carelessly. The jingle of the pieces suggested something else to him.
His paper still hung invitingly, upside down, as he had left it, on the
chair, and the lady was poring over her novel. As he passed her he drew
his right hand from his pocket and a piece of money dropped to the floor
at her feet. Then began an embarrassed search for the coin--in the
wrong direction, of course. He knew precisely where it had rolled, but
purposely looked under the seats on the other side of the car. She drew
her skirts aside and assisted in the search. Four different times he
saw the little piece of money, but did not pick it up. Finally, laughing
awkwardly, he began to search on her side of the car. Whereupon she rose
and gave him more room. She became interested in the search and bent
over to scan the dark corners with eager eyes. Their heads were very
close together more than once. At last she uttered an exclamation, and
her hand went to the floor in triumph. They arose together, flushed and
smiling. She had the coin in her hand.
“I have it,” she said, gaily, a delicious foreign tinge to the words.
“I thank you--” he began, holding out his hand as if in a dream of
ecstacy, but her eyes had fallen momentarily on the object of their
search.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, the prettiest surprise in the world coming into her
face. It was a coin from her faraway homeland, and she was betrayed
into the involuntary exclamation. Instantly, however, she regained her
composure and dropped the piece into his outstretched hand, a proud
flush mounting to her cheek, a look of cold reserve to her eyes. He had,
hoped she would offer some comment on what she must have considered a
strange coincidence, but he was disappointed. He wondered if she even
heard him say:
“I am sorry to have troubled you.”
She had resumed her seat, and, to him, there seemed a thousand miles
between them. Feeling decidedly uncomfortable and not a little abashed,
he left her and strode to the door. Again a mirror gave him a thrill.
This time it was the glass in the car's end. He had taken but a
half dozen steps when the brown head was turned slyly and a pair of
interested eyes looked after him. She did not know that he could see
her, so he had the satisfaction of observing that pretty, puzzled face
plainly until he passed through the door.
Grenfall had formed many chance acquaintances during his travels,
sometimes taking risks and liberties that were refreshingly bold. He
had seldom been repulsed, strange to say, and as he went to his section
dizzily, he thought of the good fortune that had been his in other
attempts, and asked himself why it had not occurred to him to make the
same advances in the present instance. Somehow she was different. There
was that strange dignity, that pure beauty, that imperial manner, all
combining to forbid the faintest thought of familiarity.
He was more than astonished at himself for having tricked her a few
moments before into a perfectly natural departure from indifference.
She had been so reserved and so natural that he looked back and asked
himself what had happened to flatter his vanity except a passing show
of interest. With this, he smiled and recalled similar opportunities in
days gone by, all of which had been turned to advantage and had resulted
in amusing pastimes. And here was a pretty girl with an air of mystery
about her, worthy of his best efforts, but toward whom he had not dared
to turn a frivolous eye.
He took out the coin and leaned back in his chair, wondering where it
came from. “In any case,” he thought, “it'll make a good pocket-piece
and some day I'll find some idiot who knows more about geography than I
do.” Mr. Lorry's own ideas of geography were jumbled and vague--as if he
had got them by studying the labels on his hat-box. He knew the places
he had been to, and he recognized a new country by the annoyances of the
customs house, but beyond this his ignorance was complete. The coin,
so far as he knew, might have come from any one of a hundred small
principalities scattered about the continent. Yet it bothered him a
little that he could not tell which one. He was more than curious about
a very beautiful young woman--in fact, he was, undeniably interested in
her. He pleasantly called himself an “ass” to have his head turned by a
pretty face, a foreign accent and an insignificant coin, and yet he was
fascinated.
Before the train reached St. Louis he made up his mind to change cars
there and go to Washington with her. It also occurred to him that
he might go on to New York if the spell lasted. During the day he
telegraphed ahead for accommodations; and when the flyer arrived in
St. Louis that evening he hurriedly attended to the transferring and
rechecking of his baggage, bought a new ticket, and dined. At eight
he was in the station, and at 8:15 he passed her in the aisle. She was
standing in her stateroom door, directing her maid. He saw a look of
surprise flit across her face as he passed. He slept soundly that night,
and dreamed that he was crossing the ocean with her.
At breakfast he saw her, but if she saw him it was when he was not
looking at her. Once he caught Uncle Caspar staring at him through his
monocle, which dropped instantly from his eye in the manner that is
always self-explanatory. She had evidently called the uncle's attention
to him, but was herself looking sedately from the window when Lorry
unfortunately spoiled the scrutiny. His spirits took a furious bound
with the realization that she had deigned to honor him by recognition,
if only to call attention to him because he possessed a certain coin.
Once the old gentleman asked him the time of day and set his watch
according to the reply. In Ohio the manservant scowled at him because he
involuntarily stared after his mistress as she paced the platform
while the train waited at a station. Again, in Ohio, they met in the
vestibule, and he was compelled to step aside to allow her to pass. He
did not feel particularly jubilant over this meeting; she did not even
glance at him.
Lorry realized that his opportunities were fast disappearing, and that
he did not seem to be any nearer meeting her than when they started. He
had hoped to get Uncle Caspar into a conversation and then use him, but
Uncle Caspar was as distant as an iceberg. “If there should be a wreck,”
Grenfall caught himself thinking, “then my chance would come; but I
don't see how Providence is going to help me in any other way.”
Near the close of the day, after they left St. Louis, the train began
to wind through the foothills of the Alleghenies. Bellaire, Grafton and
other towns were left behind, and they were soon whirling up the steep
mountain, higher and higher, through tunnel after tunnel, nearer and
nearer to Washington every minute. As they were pulling out of a little
mining town built on the mountain side, a sudden jar stopped the train.
There was some little excitement and a scramble for information. Some
part of the engine was disabled, and it would be necessary to replace
it before the “run” could proceed.
Lorry strolled up to the crowd of passengers who were watching the
engineer and fireman at work. A clear, musical voice, almost in his
ear, startled him, for he knew to whom it belonged. She addressed the
conductor, who, impatient and annoyed, stood immediately behind him.
“How long are we to be delayed?” she asked. Just two minutes before
this same conductor had responded most ungraciously to a simple question
Lorry had asked and had gone so far as to instruct another inquisitive
traveler to go to a warmer climate because he persisted in asking for
information which could not be given except by a clairvoyant. But now
he answered in most affable tones: “We'll be here for thirty minutes, at
least, Miss--perhaps longer.” She walked away, after thanking him, and
Grenfall looked at his watch.
Off the main street of the town ran little lanes leading to the mines
below. They all ended at the edge of a steep declivity. There was a drop
of almost four hundred feet straight into the valley below. Along the
sides of this valley were the entrances to the mines. Above, on the
ledge, was the machinery for lifting the ore to the high ground on which
stood the town and railroad yards.
Down one of these streets walked the young lady, curiously interested in
all about her. She seemed glad to escape from the train and its people,
and she hurried along, the fresh spring wind blowing her hair from
beneath her cap, the ends of her long coat fluttering.
Lorry stood on the platform watching her; then he lighted a cigarette
and followed. He had a vague feeling that she ought not to be alone
with all the workmen. She started to come back before he reached her,
however, and he turned again toward the station. Then he heard a sudden
whistle, and a minute later from the end of the street he saw the train
pulling out. Lorry had rather distinguished himself in college as a
runner, and instinctively he dashed up the street, reaching the tracks
just in time to catch the railing of the last coach. But there he
stopped and stood with thumping heart while the coaches slid smoothly
up the track, leaving him behind. He remembered he was not the only
one left, and he panted and smiled. It occurred to him--when it was too
late--that he might have got on the train and pulled the rope or called
the conductor, but that was out of the question now. After all, it might
not be such a merry game to stay in that filthy little town; it did not
follow that she would prove friendly.
A few moments later she appeared--wholly unconscious of what had
happened. A glance down the track and her face was the picture of
despair.
Then she saw him coming toward her with long strides, flushed and
excited. Regardless of appearances, conditions or consequences, she
hurried to meet him.
“Where is the train?” she gasped, as the distance between them grew
short, her blue eyes seeking his beseechingly, her hands clasped.
“It has gone.”
“Gone? And we--we are left?”
He nodded, delighted by the word “we.”
“The conductor said thirty minutes; it has been but twenty,” she cried,
half tearfully, half angrily, looking at her watch. “Oh, what shall I
do?” she went on, distractedly. He had enjoyed the sweet, despairing
tones, but this last wail called for manly and instant action.
“Can we catch the train? We must! I will give one thousand dollars. I
must catch it.” She had placed her gloved hand against a telegraph
pole to steady her trembling, but her face was resolute, imperious,
commanding.
She was ordering him to obey as she would have commanded a slave. In her
voice there was authority, in her eye there was fear. She could control
the one but not the other.
“We cannot catch the flyer. I want to catch it as much as you and”--here
he straightened himself--“I would add a thousand to yours.” He hesitated
a moment-thinking. “There is but one way, and no time to lose.”
With this he turned and ran rapidly toward the little depot and
telegraph office.