The Parlor Car | Page 8

yours. I couldn't be hanging about you all the time, and I was
afraid I might vex you if I went with the other girls; and I didn't know
what to do."
MISS GALBRAITH: "I think you behaved rather silly, giggling so
much with her. But" -
MR. RICHARDS: "I own it, I know it was silly. But" -
MISS GALBRAITH: "It wasn't that; it wasn't that!"
MR. RICHARDS: "Was it my forgetting to bring you those things from
your mother?"
MISS GALBRAITH: "No!"
MR. RICHARDS: "Was it because I hadn't given up smoking yet?"
MISS GALBRAITH: "You KNOW I never asked you to give up
smoking. It was entirely your own proposition."
MR. RICHARDS: "That's true. That's what made me so easy about it. I
knew I could leave it off ANY time. Well, I will not disturb you any
longer, Miss Galbraith." He throws his overcoat across his arm, and
takes up his travelling-bag. "I have failed to guess your fatal-
-conundrum; and I have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am
going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the porter to you for
anything?"
MISS GALBRAITH: "No, thanks." She puts up her handkerchief to her
face.
MR. RICHARDS: "Lucy, do you send me away?"
MISS GALBRAITH, behind her handkerchief: "You were going,
yourself."
MR. RICHARDS, over his shoulder: "Shall I come back?"
MISS GALBRAITH: "I have no right to drive you from the car."
MR. RICHARDS, coming back, and sitting down in the chair nearest

her: "Lucy, dearest, tell me what's the matter."
MISS GALBRAITH: "O Allen! your not KNOWING makes it all the
more hopeless and killing. It shows me that we MUST part; that you
would go on, breaking my heart, and grinding me into the dust as long
as we lived." She sobs. "It shows me that you never understood me, and
you never will. I know you're good and kind and all that, but that only
makes your not understanding me so much the worse. I do it quite as
much for your sake as my own, Allen."
MR. RICHARDS: "I'd much rather you wouldn't put yourself out on
my account."
MISS GALBRAITH, without regarding him: "If you could mortify me
before a whole roomful of people, as you did last night, what could I
expect after marriage but continual insult?"
MR. RICHARDS, in amazement: "HOW did I mortify you? I thought
that I treated you with all the tenderness and affection that a decent
regard for the feelings of others would allow. I was ashamed to find I
couldn't keep away from you."
MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, you were ATTENTIVE enough, Allen;
nobody denies that. Attentive enough in non-essentials. Oh, yes!"
MR. RICHARDS: "Well, what vital matters did I fail in? I'm sure I
can't remember."
MISS GALBRAITH: "I dare say! I dare say they won't appear vital to
you, Allen. Nothing does. And if I had told you, I should have been met
with ridicule, I suppose. But I knew BETTER than to tell; I respected
myself too MUCH."
MR. RICHARDS: "But now you mustn't respect yourself QUITE so
much, dearest. And I promise you I won't laugh at the most serious
thing. I'm in no humor for it. If it were a matter of life and death, even,
I can assure you that it wouldn't bring a smile to my countenance. No,
indeed! If you expect me to laugh, now, you must say something
particularly funny."
MISS GALBRAITH: "I was not going to say anything funny, as you
call it, and I will say nothing at all, if you talk in that way."
MR. RICHARDS: "Well, I won't, then. But do you know what I
suspect, Lucy? I wouldn't mention it to everybody, but I will to you--in
strict confidence: I suspect that you're rather ashamed of your grievance,
if you have any. I suspect it's nothing at all."

MISS GALBRAITH, very sternly at first, with a rising hysterical
inflection: "Nothing, Allen! Do you call it NOTHING, to have Mrs.
Dawes come out with all that about your accident on your way up the
river, and ask me if it didn't frighten me terribly to hear of it, even after
it was all over; and I had to say you hadn't told me a word of it? 'Why,
Lucy!'"--angrily mimicking Mrs. Dawes, "'you must teach him better
than that. I make Mr. Dawes tell me everything.' Little simpleton! And
then to have them all laugh--Oh, dear, it's too much!"
MR. RICHARDS: "Why, my dear Lucy" -
MISS GALBRAITH, interrupting him: "I saw just how it was going to
be, and I'm thankful, THANKFUL that it happened. I saw that you
didn't care enough for me to take me into your whole life; that you
despised and distrusted me, and that it would