The Parlor Car | Page 4

the porter coming after with her wraps and
travelling-bags. The lady's air is of mingled anxiety and desperation,
with a certain fierceness of movement. She casts a careless glance over
the empty chairs.
CONDUCTOR: "Here's your ticket, madam. You can have any of the
places you like here,--glancing at the unconscious gentleman, and then
at the young lady,--"if you prefer, you can go and take that seat in the
forward car."
MISS LUCY GALBRAITH: "Oh, I can't ride backwards. I'll stay here,
please. Thank you." The porter places her things in a chair by a window,
across the car from the sleeping gentleman, and she throws herself
wearily into the next seat, wheels round in it, and lifting her veil gazes
absently out at the landscape. Her face, which is very pretty, with a low
forehead shadowed by thick blond hair, shows the traces of tears. She
makes search in her pocket for her handkerchief, which she presses to
her eyes. The conductor, lingering a moment, goes out.
PORTER: "I'll be right here, at de end of de cah, if you should happen
to want anything, miss,"--making a feint of arranging the shawls and
satchels. "Should you like some dese things hung up? Well, dey'll be
jus' as well in de chair. We's pretty late dis afternoon; more'n four hours
behin' time. Ought to been into Albany 'fore dis. Freight train off de
track jus' dis side o' Rochester, an' had to wait. Was you going to stop
at Schenectady, miss?"
MISS GALBRAITH, absently: "At Schenectady?" After a pause,
"Yes."
PORTER: "Well, that's de next station, and den de cahs don't stop ag'in
till dey git to Albany. Anything else I can do for you now, miss?"
MISS GALBRAITH: "No, no, thank you, nothing." The Porter
hesitates, takes off his cap, and scratches his head with a murmur of

embarrassment. Miss Galbraith looks up at him inquiringly and then
suddenly takes out her porte-monnaie, and fees him.
PORTER: "Thank you, miss, thank you. If you want anything at all,
miss, I'm right dere at de end of de cah." He goes out by the narrow
passage-way beside the smaller enclosed parlor. Miss Galbraith looks
askance at the sleeping gentleman, and then, rising, goes to the large
mirror, to pin her veil, which has become loosened from her hat. She
gives a little start at sight of the gentleman in the mirror, but arranges
her head-gear, and returning to her place looks out of the window again.
After a little while she moves about uneasily in her chair, then leans
forward, and tries to raise her window; she lifts it partly up, when the
catch slips from her fingers, and the window falls shut again with a
crash.
MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, DEAR, how provoking! I suppose I must
call the porter." She rises from her seat, but on attempting to move
away she finds that the skirt of her polonaise has been caught in the
falling window. She pulls at it, and then tries to lift the window again,
but the cloth has wedged it in, and she cannot stir it. "Well, I certainly
think this is beyond endurance! Porter! Ah,--Porter! Oh, he'll never
hear me in the racket that these wheels are making! I wish they'd
stop,--I"--The gentleman stirs in his chair, lifts his head, listens, takes
his feet down from the other seat, rises abruptly, and comes to Miss
Galbraith's side.
MR. ALLEN RICHARDS: "Will you allow me to open the window for
you?" Starting back, "Miss Galbraith!"
MISS GALBRAITH: "Al--Mr. Richards!" There is a silence for some
moments, in which they remain looking at each other; then, -
MR. RICHARDS: "Lucy" -
MISS GALBRAITH: "I forbid you to address me in that way, Mr.
Richards."
MR. RICHARDS: "Why, you were just going to call me Allen!"
MISS GALBRAITH: "That was an accident, you know very well,--an
impulse" -
MR. RICHARDS: "Well, so is this."
MISS GALBRAITH: "Of which you ought to be ashamed to take
advantage. I wonder at your presumption in speaking to me at all. It's
quite idle, I can assure you. Everything is at an end between us. It

seems that I bore with you too long; but I'm thankful that I had the
spirit to not at last, and to act in time. And now that chance has thrown
us together, I trust that you will not force your conversation upon me.
No gentleman would, and I have always given you credit for thinking
yourself a gentleman. I request that you will not speak to me."
MR. RICHARDS: "You've spoken ten words to me for every one of
mine to you. But I won't annoy you. I can't believe it, Lucy; I can NOT
believe it. It seems like some rascally dream, and if I had