HOSTILITIES BEGIN
During Mallory's absence, Marjorie had met with a little adventure of
her own. Ira Lathrop finished his re-encounter with Anne Gattle
shortly after Mallory set out stalking clergymen. In the mingled
confusion of finding his one romantic flame still glowing on a vestal
altar, and of shocking her with an escape of profanity, he backed away
from her presence, and sank into his own berth.
He realized that he was not alone. Somebody was alongside. He turned
to find the great tear-sprent eyes of Marjorie staring at him. He rose
with a recrudescence of his woman-hating wrath, and dashing up the
aisle, found the porter just returning from the baggage car. He seized
the black factotum and growled:
"Say, porter, there's a woman in my berth."
The porter chuckled, incredulous:
"Woman in yo' berth!"
"Yes--get her out."
"Yassah," the porter nodded, and advanced on Marjorie with a gentle,
"'Scuse me, missus--ye' berth is numba one."
"I don't care," snapped Marjorie, "I won't take it."
"But this un belongs to that gentleman."
"He can have mine--ours--Mr. Mallory's," cried Marjorie, pointing to
the white-ribboned tent in the farther end of the car. Then she
gripped the arms of the seat, as if defying eviction. The porter
stared at her in helpless chagrin. Then he shuffled back and murmured:
"I reckon you'd betta put her out."
Lathrop withered the coward with one contemptuous look, and strode
down the aisle with a determined grimness. He took his ticket from his
pocket as a clinching proof of his title, and thrust it out at
Marjorie. She gave it one indifferent glance, and then her eyes and
mouth puckered, as if she had munched a green persimmon, and a long
low wail like a distant engine-whistle, stole from her lips. Ira
Lathrop stared at her in blank wrath, doddered irresolutely, and
roared:
"Agh, let her have it!"
The porter smiled triumphantly, and said: "She says you kin have her
berth." He pointed at the bridal arbor. Lathrop almost exploded at the
idea.
Now he felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Little Jimmie
Wellington emerging from his berth with an enormous smile:
"Say, Pop, have you seen lovely rice-trap? Stick around till she
flops."
But Lathrop flung away to the smoking room. Little Jimmie turned to
the jovial negro:
"Porter, porter."
"I'm right by you."
"What time d'you say we get to Reno?"
"Mawnin' of the fo'th day, sah."
"Well, call me just before we roll in."
And he rolled in. His last words floated down the aisle and met Mrs.
Little Jimmie Wellington just returning from the Women's Room, where
she had sought nepenthe in more than one of her exquisite little
cigars. The familiar voice, familiarly bibulous, smote her ear with
amazement. She beckoned the porter to her anxiously.
"Porter! Porter! Do you know the name of the man who just hurried in?"
"No'm," said the porter. "I reckon he's so broken up he ain't got any
name left."
"It couldn't be," Mrs. Jimmie mused.
"Things can be sometimes," said the porter.
"You may make up my berth now," said Mrs. Wellington, forgetting that
Anne Gattle was still there. Mrs. Wellington hastened to apologize,
and begged her to stay, but the spinster wanted to be far away from
the disturbing atmosphere of divorce. She was dreaming already with
her eyes open, and she sank into number six in a lotus-eater's
reverie.
Mrs. Wellington gathered certain things together and took up her
handbag, to return to the Women's Room, just as Mrs. Whitcomb came
forth from the curtains of her own berth, where she had made certain
preliminaries to disrobing, and put on a light, decidedly negligée
negligée.
The two women collided in the aisle, whirled on one another, as women
do when they jostle, recognized each other with wild stares of
amazement, set their teeth, and made a simultaneous dash along the
corridor, shoulder wrestling with shoulder. They reached the door
marked "Women" at the same instant, and as neither would have dreamed
of offering the other a courtesy, they squeezed through together in a
Kilkenny jumble.