come--and we agreed not to give them to you till the very last
minute--for our last good-bye--" Her voice wavered and Dr. Black broke
in with surprised and grateful exclamations.
"The book 's a love story," said the youngest one, an apologetic note
perceptible in her voice, "but it's a pretty story, and the treatment's
interesting, and I thought you might enjoy it, for railroad travelling
always makes one feel sentimental, anyway."
"Oh, the train 's moving! Good-bye, dear!" The one who was nearest to
Dr. Black left a hurried kiss upon her cheek, the others hastily
pressed her hands, and all three scurried toward the door. Their
friend raised her window and looked out in time to wave a final
farewell as they landed safely upon the platform. As she settled back
in her seat she saw that one of the men in the next section had also
been watching for their reappearance outside. Their eyes met as she
turned from the window, relieved and smiling.
She admired her roses for a moment, tucked them into her belt, and then
opened her magazine. But her expression was more pensive than
interested as she idled over its pages, looking now and then at a
picture and reading only a paragraph or a stanza here and there. Her
thoughts were more with the scenes of the life she was leaving behind
her, or flying on, with inquiry and indecision, into that whither she
was bound. Should she stay on the Pacific Coast where she was going to
visit her father and mother in their new home, open an office in some
city near them, and build up a practice there? Or should she return to
take the position which had been offered her in the faculty of the
women's medical college from which she had been graduated with high
honors three years before? After her graduation, a year's work as
interne in the women's hospital had heightened the expectations of her
friends; and the success with which she had then served as physician
and superintendent of a branch dispensary and hospital in the slum
district had made all who were watching her progress predict for her a
brilliant career.
She had accepted the appointment to the college corps of instructors
with the deepest gratification, and she looked forward longingly to the
opportunities it would give her for special work and to the surety of
advancement that would follow. But her heart misgave her not a little
as she thought of the great joy it would give her father and mother
should she decide to stay near them in California, and of the grief
that her mother would try to dissemble if she should return to the East.
Well, she would not decide the question now, and she put it from her as
she cast a careless eye over her fellow travellers, let it rest for a
moment on the two men in the section in front of her own and then
turned to her book. Alternately reading, looking at the passing
landscape, and now and then lapsing into reverie, her attention was so
withdrawn from her surroundings that she was not aware that one of the
men in front had turned several times and allowed a casual glance to
pass from her down the row of heads behind her. Nor did she notice,
when they returned from an hour's absence in the smoker, that he sat
down in the front seat of their section.
"You don't mind riding backward?" commented his companion.
"I 'm not particularly stuck on it, but just now I want to look at that
girl in the section behind us. It's good for the eyes to rest on such
a splendid creature as she is."
"I 'll come over there with you and we 'll study her together," the
other replied, as he changed his seat.
"Is n't she a fine specimen?" said the first. "She 's five
feet nine if she 's an inch,--I noticed her when she got on at
Philadelphia,--broad-shouldered and deep-chested and clear-skinned.
And that glow in her cheeks rivals the roses her friends gave her. How
old do you guess her, Wilson?"
"I 'd never try guessing such a problem as that! She's evidently one
of the new women--you can tell that by her looks. And they never show
their age, maybe because they don't think about it. This girl might be
twenty, perhaps a year or two more, if you judge by her face. But if
you take her expression into account--these women who do things always
look as if they 'd had an experience of life that in former days they
could n't acquire under forty. Well, you might split the difference
and say she 's thirty."
"I don't think so. I 'd guess her under twenty-five. And she probably
won't look a day older than she does now for the next fifteen years."
"I don't know about that, Adams. If she's a school-teacher she 'll get
more or less sharp-featured or anxious-faced and have wrinkles and
crow's-feet. And those are things that do not aid and abet a woman in
forgetting her birthdays."
"But she is n't a school-teacher, Wilson. She has n't got the
unmistakable school-ma'am look. I 've been wondering what she is, and
I don't make it out. I don't think she 's a doctor, because she has
n't got the professional cast of countenance, and she 's too carefully
dressed."
Wilson laughed and turned a bantering eye upon his companion. "You
must be getting interested, Adams! Is it a case of love at first
sight?"
"No, you know I 'm not given to that sort of thing. But I don't read
much on the cars, on account of my eyes, and while you 've been reading
I 've spent the time looking at the passengers. And I found that girl
and her roses by far the most pleasing items in the car."
"But she is n't beautiful," Wilson objected. "Her face is not pretty,
and she 's inclined to be raw-boned."
"Yes, I 'll admit her features are irregular, and there 's fault to be
found with each one. But that does n't matter. No woman with that
live, creamy skin, that clear red in her cheeks, and that intelligent
expression, could be any less than handsome. And she fairly glows with
health and vitality. She has made me just curious enough about her
vocation to want to know what it is, and if she stays on the train long
enough to make an opening possible I intend to try to find out."
"Well," said Wilson, yawning, "you 're fortunate to be able to get up
so much interest in your fellow-passengers. It is n't once in a dozen
journeys that I find anybody on a railroad train who does n't strike me
as being an entirely superfluous person."
"Oh, well," responded Adams good-naturedly, "you must remember that you
are ten years older than I am, and that you are married and settled
down, while I 'm not."
"It would be better for you if you were."
"Yes, I know you are always preaching at me the advantages of double
blessedness. But I 'm not going to marry until I can't help it. When
the girl comes along who can make me forget everything in the world but
herself, I 'll marry her, if she 'll have me."
"Which she probably won't, as things generally turn out in this world,"
the other rejoined, smiling.
In the meantime Dr. Black was dipping here and there into the pages of
her book, which had proved to be Mallock's "Human Document," more
interested in its speculations concerning human nature and human
nature's twin problems of life and love than in its slender thread of
story. Gradually her interludes of meditation grew longer and more
frequent, until the book closed in her lap and she looked dreamily out
of the window, her thoughts busy with herself, her past, and her future.
Should she ever marry? She thought it rather unlikely, but she had no
definite intentions on either side of the question. She smiled as her
thoughts travelled back to her first engagement, in her high-school
days. She admitted to herself that she had been rather a gay lassie
then, and had thought more about the boys than about her studies. She
remembered, too, that she had been very popular among those same boys,
and that that very popularity had doomed the engagement to a brief but
exciting existence.
Then she recalled how she had passed, soon after this episode, under
the influence of an enthusiastic teacher who had wakened her ambitions
and led her to decide that she must make of herself something out of
the usual and go out into the world and take part in its work. Then
succeeded a period of such close application to her books that her
parents and friends became alarmed lest she should injure herself. She
ceased to smile upon her youthful admirers and treated them so curtly
or talked to them so toploftily that she got the reputation of having
become a man-hater.
"And I was n't anything of the sort," she said to herself, smiling and
smelling her roses. "I simply did n't like that kind of young men any
more. They bored me to death."
About that time, she remembered, she began to be much more interested
in older men, men of more knowledge and achievement, and that they also
began to show a liking for her. The teachers in the high school seemed
to find it interesting to talk with her. The district attorney, who
was their next door neighbor, seemed just as well satisfied, when he
strolled across the lawns for a chat with her father, if he found
Elizabeth alone on the veranda. The family physician encouraged the
scientific trend of her reading, loaned her books by Maudsley and
Darwin and Havelock Ellis, and often dropped in to talk with her about
her studies, her reading, and her plans. He applauded and encouraged
her first tentative notion that she would like to study medicine, and
it was his arguments and influence that overcame her mother's
objections and persuaded her father that it would be worth while to
spend upon her medical education the money it would demand. And,
finally, came the doctor's wife, asking to see her alone.
"I am sure you do not realize what you are doing," the doctor's wife
said, "and so I want to put it frankly before you, as one woman to
another. The truth is, my husband is falling in love with you; he is
fascinated by you. And I want to ask you to save him from himself, and
me from no end of heartache and misery, I 'm fond of you, Elizabeth,
you know that, and I 'm proud of your abilities, and I want you to have
a great success, but I don't want you to trample down my happiness on
your way. He and I have always been happy together until now; and it
all rests with you, Elizabeth,--as a woman you know that--whether we
keep our happiness and content with each other or go straight on into
such disaster and wretchedness as you cannot imagine. And so I 've put
my pride in my pocket--it was no small thing to do, my girl,--and have
come to ask you not to take my husband's love away from me."
As Elizabeth looked back to that time she owned to herself that, deeply
moved as she had been by the appeal of the doctor's wife, her feelings
had not all been of the same sort. In the depths of her soul there had
been no little pride and exultation that the doctor was being chained
to her chariot wheels, and she remembered quite distinctly that she had
had a strong desire to keep him there. She herself had felt for him
nothing more than cordial friendship and gratitude; but, nevertheless,
there had been mingled with generous compassion some resentment against
the wife, whose appeal she could not disregard.
Two years after that episode, while at home on her summer vacation, she
met a lawyer, a man of high position, wide intellectual sympathies, and
much culture, who promptly fell in love with her and proposed marriage.
He interested her deeply and exercised over her a greater fascination
than any man she had met before, and she gave her promise to be his
wife, without thought as to its effect upon her future. But when she
began to prepare for her return to the medical college he interposed an
amazed veto. If she was to be his wife she must give up all
expectation of a career separate from their home. She wavered and
hesitated for two days, and then packed her trunk and returned to her
studies. Thinking of him, as she gazed at the picturesque, wooded
hills and valleys of Pennsylvania, she did not regret her action. She
had never regretted it, she said to herself, but, nevertheless, she was
sorry, she had always felt a distinct sense of loss, that he had passed
out of her life.
Since then, the straight road to her medical degree and through her
subsequent labors had been undisturbed by emotional storms. Twice she
had refused offers of marriage, but they had come from men for whom she
felt no more than the merest passing friendship. She had worked hard,
and the farther she had progressed the more pleasure she had taken in
her work and the more absorbed she had become in her prospects and
ambitions. Looking into the future, for which she had planned and
toward which she was working with all her powers, she said calmly to
herself that it was more attractive to her than any other. And yet,
would she be tempted to give up her ambitions and hopes of achievement
if, for instance, she were to meet a man as well endowed in mind and
heart as the hero of the book she had just been reading,--with such
fineness of fibre and such power of loving? She would not face the
question squarely, but told herself that she was not at all likely to
meet such a paragon.
"And, at any rate," she thought, as she was roused from her reverie by
the cry of "Dinner now ready in the dining-car," "of one thing I am
very sure, and that is that I shall never marry until I meet a man
strong enough in himself and in his love for me to make me forget
everything else and not care whether or not I go on with my profession."
The dining-car was so full that she was about to turn back, when the
waiter beckoned her to a table at which the two forward seats were
unoccupied. She took one with some hesitation and turned her face
toward the window.
"I beg your pardon," said a voice from the other side of the table,
"but if you find it disagreeable to ride backward won't you take my
seat? I do not mind it in the least."
She turned with a smiling and grateful refusal upon her tongue, saw
that her two neighbors across the table were the men from the section
in front of hers, and hesitated. The other man quickly added his plea
to his companion's, and in a few moments they had changed seats. The
one who had first spoken asked if her friends in Philadelphia got
safely off the car, and presently all three were chatting pleasantly
together.
When Elizabeth returned to the Pullman the one who had proposed
exchanging seats, and whom his friend called Adams, brought her some
evening papers. She thanked him, and, seeing that he did not at once
turn away, asked him to sit down. They talked about the news in the
papers, laughed over stories which one or the other told, branched off
upon books, and were pleased to find that they had some favorites in
common. They spoke of the scenery through which they had passed during
the day and of the brilliant sunset into which the train seemed to be
plunging, and he told her of the gorgeous sunset panoramas of the Rocky
Mountains and of striking effects he had seen among the snow-clad peaks
of the Sierras. He related adventures into which his profession, that
of mining engineer, had taken him; and Elizabeth listened with
interest, asked questions, made comments, and talked entertainingly,
but said nothing of her own walk in life. When finally he said
good-night and went to rejoin his companion in the smoker, the evening
was so far gone that the busy porter had transformed the car into a
lane of tapestry.
As Elizabeth lay in her berth, musing pleasantly over the events of the
evening, it occurred to her that Mr. Adams had left a number of
openings into which it would have been easy for her to step with some
remark about herself or her work, which would have revealed her
vocation. She had not done so merely because something else which she
wanted to say had happened, each time, to come into her mind. Thinking
it over, she remembered so many such openings that it seemed as if they
must have been made with intent. She wondered if he had been trying to
find out her occupation, and smiled gleefully.
"If that's what he wants to know," she thought, "I 'll give him an
interesting time to-morrow trying to find out. I wonder if he and his
friend have made a wager about what my profession is. Very likely.
Well, he 's a good talker and interesting enough to help pass the time;
and if he wants to try again to-morrow, I 'll be at home in this
section until we reach Chicago."
The next morning, with the excuse of some trivial attention to her
comfort, Adams came again to Elizabeth's seat and they were soon
talking as interestedly as on the previous evening. A piece of news in
the morning paper gave him opportunity to turn the conversation upon
the profession of teaching for women and he talked of the noble work
for the public good which women do in that way. Elizabeth listened
with a little gleam in the corner of her eye, agreed with him warmly
and spoke with enthusiasm of her own indebtedness to some of those
under whom she had studied.
Then Adams dwelt on the widening opportunities for work and
self-expression which women have nowadays, and said he thought that the
profession of medicine was one for which women were well fitted, and
that he was not surprised that so many women found in it congenial work
and marked success. With some effort Elizabeth kept her face very
serious and doubted if the profession was one for which any but the
most exceptional women were suited, and, on the whole, was inclined to
think that if she were very ill she would rather call a man than a
woman physician. He led the talk on to other occupations in which
women engage, and some Elizabeth praised and others deprecated as
vocations for her sex. But not once did she give any indication that
they had touched upon her own kind of work. Adams looked puzzled and
Elizabeth concealed behind her handkerchief a smile which she was not
able to repress.
"I wonder what it can be," he thought. "She surely does something.
The expression of her face, her intelligence, and her interest in all
kinds of things tell that very plainly. I wish Chicago were not so
near. She 's an extremely interesting woman."
"I suppose I shall soon have to bid you good-bye," he said, as they
neared the station in Chicago. "I have enjoyed our brief acquaintance
very much, and if I can be of any assistance to you in Chicago I shall
be glad to do so. I am going farther west, to California, on the Santa
Fe line, but as my train does not leave at once I shall have some time
to spare."
"Why, what a jolly coincidence!" Elizabeth exclaimed. "I also am going
to California on the Santa Fe line!"
"Indeed! Then I am more fortunate than I expected to be!" His
pleasure shone in his brightening face. "My friend, Mr. Wilson, stops
in Chicago and I have been rather dreading the boredom of the rest of
the trip. I don't read much on the cars, as I have to be careful of my
eyes, and the time is apt to hang heavily on my hands. I have enjoyed
our talks so much that I shall be very grateful if you will let me pay
you an occasional visit during the rest of the journey."
Elizabeth cast him a sidewise glance and smile. "I think the passing
acquaintances one makes now and then and the brief friendships with
people who merely cross one's path are among the most delightful of the
small things of life. It often happens that they are more pleasant,
for the time, than the old friendships that have lasted so long they
have become commonplace."
"For my part," he answered, "I don't think a friendship is worth
continuing after it has become commonplace. I think I 'd like to be
arbiter of manners and customs long enough to make it quite the proper
thing to march up to any one whose appearance you like and say, 'How do
you do? Your face interests me and I 'd like to know you. Here 's my
card.'"
"Oh, if you 'll do that," smiled Elizabeth, "I 'll do my best to help
make you dictator! I've so often wished to do that very thing! But of
course you don't dare. And yet you see such interesting faces,
sometimes, faces of people you know you would like. Sometimes a face
of that sort haunts me long afterward, and I almost wish I had had the
courage to speak."
"I am glad you understand," Adams replied with a little embarrassed
laugh, "because now I can confess that that very desire took possession
of me when I saw you come into the car yesterday."
Elizabeth bent a demure glance upon his feet. "Shall I be very
gracious and make a reciprocal confession, or shall I be entirely
truthful and admit that I scarcely saw you yesterday until you offered
me your seat in the dining-car?"
The next day, as the train swept through the emerald levels of Iowa,
Adams spent most of the time at Elizabeth's side and they talked
together with constant interest and satisfaction, each feeling a
growing pleasure in the other's society, and an increasing sense of
consequence in whatever the other said. When Elizabeth withdrew that
night behind the curtains of her berth she was possessed by such a
feeling of elation as she had not felt in a long time. A smile was on
her lips, and a smile was in her heart. Her pulse beat fast, her brain
was active, she could not sleep. Her mind was full of the happenings
and the conversation of the last two days, and all that he had said to
her she went over again with vivid remembrance of the least details of
look and gesture. And in the background of her consciousness a
triumphant refrain was keeping time with her thoughts. "He loves me,"
it chanted, "already he loves me, more than he knows."
In the smoking-room Adams was making up for the cigars he had denied
himself during the day. He moved about restlessly, possessed by an
intense desire to get out of doors and walk fast and far. His mind was
filled by a galloping troop of vivid memories--a pair of bright,
dark-lashed gray eyes, the sound of a low, clear laugh, the turn of a
rosy cheek, an opinion which had interested him, a pretty thought, a
way she had of smiling appealingly after she had said something
whimsical or perverse. And underlying and overlying and penetrating
through all these was an irritated consciousness of the fact that it
would be a long time until the next day.
Dr. Black looked out the next morning on the wide, forlorn plains of
western Kansas, with her heart as flooded with happiness as they were
with sunshine. A luxurious sense of power throbbed in her veins as she
smiled a good-morning to Adams across the aisle. He came at once to
ask how she had slept, and if she was beginning to feel the journey
wearisome. Close upon the heels of her thrilling sense of gladness and
mastery came the feminine instinct of concealment, and presently Adams
began to notice in her manner a suggestion of reserve. There was
certainly a difference, he said to himself, a little lessening of the
frank comradeship she had shown toward him the day before. He wondered
if he bored her, if he had shown too much desire for her society. He
went away to the smoking car, where he fidgeted about, began a cigar,
threw it out of the window, and in ten minutes was back again with a
book he had fished out of his travelling-bag, asking if Miss Black had
read it and, if not,--would she like to take it for a while?
It was Lubbock's "Pleasures of Life." No, Elizabeth had not read it,
but she had read Lubbock's book on ants, bees, and wasps, and she began
to tell him about it, forgetting in the pleasure of companionship the
consciousness which a little while before had veiled her manner. He
followed with some stories about the tarantula and tarantula hawk which
he had seen while on a professional trip in the Southwest. And so they
wandered on, through talk about insects and animals, back to the book
which lay on Elizabeth's lap. He took it up and read to her a page
here and there, and soon they were talking earnestly about the varied
ideals that are possible to the young and ambitious.
Adams had not tried again, since their second conversation, to find out
her vocation. His pleasure in her society had driven all thought of it
from his mind. He had even forgotten that he had ever supposed her to
have a profession. Elizabeth had said nothing about her work, at first
from whimsical perversity. But this morning, as they talked, a
definite desire crept into her mind that he should not know.
"I shall not tell him I am a physician," she thought. "It's not much
longer, and for this little while I want to be just a mere woman."