Part 30

“Are you timid about the train?” he asked.

“No. I never think of it. I never thought of it for myself; but this is different.”

“Oh, I see.” He put his arm round her and looked down into her eyes. This was a humorous suggestion to him, who spent half his time on the trains. “I think I'll take out an accident policy.”

“Don't say that. But you men are so reckless. Promise you won't stand on the platform, and won't get off while the train is in motion, and all the rest of the directions,” she said, laughing a little with him; “and you will be careful?”

“I'll take such care of myself as I never did before, I promise. I never felt of so much consequence in my life.”

“You'll think me silly. But you know, don't you, dear?” She put a hand on each shoulder, and pushing him back, studied his face. “You are all the world. And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn't think of the trains at all.”

To have one look like that from a woman! To carry it with him! Henderson still forgot to light his cigar.

“Hello, Rodney!”

“Ah, Hollowell! I thought you were in Kansas City.”

The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders, deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution and good-nature.

“Well, how's things? Been up to fix the Legislature?”

“No; Perkins is attending to that,” said Henderson, rather indifferently, like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. “Don't seem to need much fixing. The public are fond of parallels.”

Hollowell laughed. “I guess that's so--till they get 'em.”

“Or don't get them,” Henderson added. And then both laughed.

“It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s badly scared. They'll have to come down lively.”

“I shouldn't wonder. By-the-way, look in tomorrow. I've got something to show you.”

Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some moments.

“By-the-way, did I ever show you this?” Hollowell took from his breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion. “I never travel without that. It's better than an accident policy.”

Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs--a showy-looking handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.

Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny, and expressed his admiration.

“Yes, it's hard to beat,” Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his face. “It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it.” He looked at it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: “Well, there's a figure for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in.” And he put his hand affectionately on Henderson's knee.

Jeremiah Hollowell--commonly known as Jerry--was a remarkable man. Thirty years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a “hand” on a coast schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a freight conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position a lucky hit set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of property. He was now a railway magnate, the president of a system, a manipulator of dexterity and courage. All this would not have come about if his big head had not been packed with common-sense brains, and he had not had uncommon will and force of character. Success had developed the best side of him, the family side; and the worst side of him--a brutal determination to increase his big fortune. He was not hampered by any scruples in business, but he had the good-sense to deal squarely with his friends when he had distinctly agreed to do so.

Henderson did not respond to the matrimonial suggestion; it was not possible for him to vulgarize his own affair by hinting it to such a man as Hollowell; but they soon fell into serious talk about schemes in which they were both interested. This talk so absorbed Henderson that after they had reached the city he had walked some blocks towards his lodging before he recalled his promise about the message. On his table he found a note from Carmen bidding him to dinner informally--an invitation which he had no difficulty in declining on account of a previous engagement. And then he went to his club, and passed a cheerful evening. Why not? There was nothing melancholy about the young fellows in the smoking-room, who liked a good story and the latest gossip, and were attracted to the society of Henderson, who was open-handed and full of animal spirits, and above all had a reputation for success, and for being on the inside of affairs. There is nowhere else so much wisdom and such understanding of life as in a city club of young fellows, who have their experience still, for the most part, before them. Henderson was that night in great “force”--as the phrase is. His companions thought he had made a lucky turn, and he did not tell them that he had won the love of the finest girl in the world, who was at that moment thinking of him as fondly as he was thinking of her--but this was the subconsciousness of his gayety. Late at night he wrote her a long letter--an honest letter of love and admiration, which warmed into the tenderness of devotion as it went on; a letter that she never parted with all her life long; but he left a description of the loneliness of his evening without her to her imagination.

It was for Margaret also a happy evening, but not a calm one, and not gay. She was swept away by a flood of emotions. She wanted to be alone, to think it over, every item of the short visit, every look, every tone. Was it all true? The great change made her tremble: of the future she dared scarcely think. She was restless, but not restless as before; she could not be calm in such a great happiness. And then the wonder of it, that he should choose her of all others--he who knew the world so well, and must have known so many women. She followed him on his journey, thinking what he was doing now, and now, and now. She would have given the world to see him just for a moment, to look in his eyes and be sure again, to have him say that little word once more: there was a kind of pain in her heart, the separation was so cruel; it had been over two hours now. More than once in the evening she ran down to the sitting-room, where her aunt was pretending to be absorbed in a book, to kiss her, to pet her, to smooth her grayish hair and pat her cheek, and get her to talk about her girlhood days. She was so happy that tears were in her eyes half the time. At nine o'clock there was a pull at the bell that threatened to drag the wire out, and an insignificant little urchin appeared with a telegram, which frightened Miss Forsythe, and seemed to Margaret to drop out of heaven. Such an absurd thing to do at night, said the aunt, and then she kissed Margaret, and laughed a little, and declared that things had come to a queer pass when people made love by telegraph. There wasn't any love in the telegram, Margaret said; but she knew better--the sending word of his arrival was a marvelous exhibition of thoughtfulness and constancy.

And then she led her aunt on to talk of Mr. Henderson, to give her impression, how he looked, what she really thought of him, and so on, and so on.

There was not much to say, but it could be said over and over again in various ways. It was the one night of the world, and her overwrought feeling sought relief. It would not be so again. She would be more reticent and more coquettish about her lover, but now it was all so new and strange.

That night when the girl went to sleep the telegram was under her pillow, and it seemed to throb with a thousand messages, as if it felt the pulsation of the current that sent it.

The prospective marriage of the budding millionaire Rodney Henderson was a society paper item in less than a week--the modern method of publishing the banns. This was accompanied by a patronizing reference to the pretty school-ma'am, who was complimented upon her good-fortune in phrases so neatly turned as to give Henderson the greatest offense, and leave him no remedy, since nothing could have better suited the journal than further notoriety. He could not remember that he had spoken of it to any one except the Eschelles, to whom his relations made the communication a necessity, and he suspected Carmen, without, however, guessing that she was a habitual purveyor of the town gossiper.