So glad you're on this side of the water, dear. Do run over and see us. Perfect barn of a house, and lost in the country, but there's always room--especially for you, dear. You'll never get in at a hotel.

Marie Louise propped this against the telephone and tried again.

The seventh central dazed her with, "We can take nothing but gov'ment business till two P.M."

Marie Louise rose in despair, searched in her bag for her watch, gasped, put the watch and the note back in her bag, snapped it, and rose to go.

She decided to send Polly a telegram. She took out the note for the address and telephoned a telegram, saying that she would arrive at five o'clock. The telegraph-operator told her that the company could not guarantee delivery, as traffic over the wires was very heavy.

Marie Louise sighed and rose, worn out with telephone-f.a.g.

She told the maid to ask the hall-boy to get her a taxi, and hastily made ready to leave. Her trunks had gone to the station an hour ago, and they had been checked through from the house.

Her final pick-up glance about the room did not pick up the note she had propped on the telephone-table. She left it there and closed the door on another chapter of her life.

She rode to the station, and, after standing in line for a weary while, learned that not a seat was to be had in a parlor-car to-day, to-morrow, or any day for two weeks. Berths at night were still more un.o.btainable.

She decided that she might as well go in a day-coach. Scores of people had had the same idea before her. The day-coaches were filled. She sidled through the crowded aisles and found no seat. She invaded the chair-cars in desperation.

In one of these she saw a porter bestowing hand-luggage. She appealed to him. "You must have one chair left."

He was hardly polite in his answer. "No, ma'am, I ain't. I ain't a single chair."

"But I've got to sit somewhere," she said.

The porter did not comment on such a patent fallacy. He moved back to the front to repel boarders. Several men stared from the depths of their dentist's chairs, but made no proffer of their seats. They believed that woman's newfangled equality included the privilege of standing up.

One man, however, gave a start as of recognition, real or pretended.

Marie Louise did not know him, and said so with her eyes. His smile of recognition changed to a smile of courtesy. He proffered her his seat with an old-fashioned gesture. She declined with a shake of the head and a coldly correct smile.

He insisted academically, as much as to say: "I can see that you are a gentlewoman. Please accept me as a gentleman and permit me to do my duty." There was a brief, silent tug-of-war between his unselfishness and hers. He won. Before she realized it, she had dropped wearily into his place.

"But where will you sit?" she said.

"Oh, I'll get along."

He smiled and moved off, lugging his suit-case. He had the air of one who would get along. He had shown himself masterful in two combats, and compelled her to take the chair he had doubtless engaged with futile providence days before.

"Rahthah a decentish chap, with a will of his own," she thought.

The train started, left the station twilight, plunged into the tunnel of gloom and made the dip under the Hudson River. People felt their ears buzz and smother. Wise ones swallowed hard. The train came back to the surface and the sunlight, and ran across New Jersey.

Marie Louise decided to take her luncheon early, to make sure of it.

Nearly everybody else had decided to do the same thing. At this time all the people in America seemed to be thinking _en ma.s.se_. When she reached the dining-car every seat was taken and there was a long bread-line in the narrow corridor.

The wilful man was at the head. He fished for her eye, caught it, and motioned to her to take his place. She shook her head. But it seemed to do no good to shake heads at him; he came down the corridor and lifted his hat. His voice and words were pleading, but his tone was imperative.

"Please take my place."

She shook her head, but he still held his hand out, pointing. She was angry at being bossed even for her own benefit. Worse yet, by the time she got to the head of the line the second man had moved up to first.

He stared at her as if he wondered what she was doing there. She fell back, doubly vexed, but That Man advanced and gave the interloper a look like a policeman's shove. The fellow backed up on the next man's toes. Then the cavalier smiled Miss Webling to her place and went back to the foot of the cla.s.s without waiting for her furious thanks.

She wanted to stamp her foot. She had always hated to be cowed or compelled to take chairs or money. People who had tried to move her soul or lend her their experience or their advantages had always aroused resentment.

Before long she had a seat. The man opposite her was just thumbing his last morsel of pie. She supposed that when he left That Man would take the chair and order her luncheon for her. But it was not so to be. She pa.s.sed him still well down the line. He had probably given his place to other women in succession. She did not like that. It seemed a trifle unfaithful or promiscuous or something. The rescuer owes the rescuee a certain fidelity. He did not look at her. He did not claim even a glance of grat.i.tude.

It was so American a gallantry that she resented it. If he had seemed to ask for the alms of a smile, she would have insulted him. Yet it was not altogether satisfactory to be denied the privilege. She fumed.

Everything was wrong. She sat in her cuckoo's nest and glared at the reeling landscape.

Suddenly she began pawing through that private chaos, looking for Polly Widdicombe's letter. She could not find it. She found the checks for her trunks, a handkerchief, a pair of gloves, and various other things, but not the letter. This gave her a new fright.

She remembered now that she had left it on the telephone-table. She could see it plainly as her remembered glance took its last survey of the room. The brain has a way of developing occasional photographs very slowly. Something strikes our eyes, and we do not really see it till long after. We hear words and say, "How's that?" or, "I beg your pardon!" and hear them again before they can be repeated.

This belated feat of memory encouraged Miss Webling to hope that she could remember a little farther back to the contents of the letter and the telephone number written there. But her memory would not respond.

The effort to cudgel it seemed to confuse it. She kept on forgetting more and more completely.

All she could remember was what Polly Widdicombe had said about there being no chance to get into a hotel--"an hotel," Marie Louise still thought it.

It grew more and more evident that the train would be hours late.

People began to worry audibly about the hotels that would probably refuse them admission. At length they began to stroll toward the dining-car for an early dinner.

Marie Louise, to make sure of the meal and for lack of other employment, went along. There was no queue in the corridor now. She did not have to take That Man's place. She found one at a little empty table. But by and by he appeared, and, though there were other vacant seats, he sat down opposite her.

She could hardly order the conductor to eject him. In fact, seeing that she owed him for her seat-- It suddenly smote her that he must have paid for it. She owed him money! This was unendurable!

He made no attempt to speak to her, but at length she found courage to speak to him.

"I beg your pardon--"

He looked up and about for the salt or something to pa.s.s, but she went on:

"May I ask you how much you paid for the seat you gave me?"

He laughed outright at this unexpected demand:

"Why, I don't remember, I'm sure."

"Oh, but you must, and you must let me repay it. It just occurred to me that I had cheated you out of your chair, and your money, too."

"That's mighty kind of you," he said.

He laughed again, but rather tenderly, and she was grateful to him for having the tact not to be flamboyant about it and not insisting on forgetting it.

"I'll remember just how much it was in a minute, and if you will feel easier about it, I'll ask you for it."

"I could hardly rob a perfect stranger," she began.

He broke in: "They say n.o.body is perfect, and I'm not a perfect stranger. I've met you before, Miss Webling."

"Not rilly! Wherever was it? I'm so stupid not to remember--even your name."