Part 35 (1/2)
”Well, this morning, even over her breakfast, which was a long way ahead of any one else's on the train, she didn't have no appet.i.te, and seemed in the dumps; whereupon, I suggested that I had hinted to you that she'd kind o' like company probably.”
”You infernal--!” cries Lawrence, fire coming into his eye.
”If you take hold o' me, Cap, I won't tell you the rest!” remarks the boy, retreating a little before Harry's anger. Then he goes on: ”She took it something like you--she got red in the face and said: 'Please don't mention the matter!' quite haughty. Whereupon I thought I'd guessed the p'int, and suggested: 'You an' the Cap must have been havin'
a smash-up in California!' And then she got real anxious and nervous, and cried out at me: 'In California!--what do you mean?' So I told her how I'd seen you at Ogden, four or five days after her party left for California, and that I'd told you she'd gone West, and you took the journey, I reckoned, to catch up to her.”
”And she--” says Lawrence, eagerly.
”Oh, she kept on questioning, and the more I told her, the better pleased she looked, and since then she has been quite chirpy, so I reckon I produced her high spirits.”
”G.o.d bless you, Buck!” cries Harry, slapping the boy on the shoulder, and the astonished Arab of the railway moves off with a five-dollar greenback in his hand, wondering what made the Cap so liberal.
As for Lawrence, it has suddenly occurred to him that Buck Powers has given Miss Travenion the exact information he had taken Ferdie from California to tell her.
A moment's cogitation and he says to himself: ”She was wounded because I hadn't come to Tintic after her. I'll chance a walk through the car, and see if the darling'll cut me again.”
Acting on this impulse, he gets off the train, and walks to the forward end of her car, Miss Travenion's stateroom being at its rear.
”I'll give her the length of the car to meditate upon me,” he thinks.
As he enters the main portion of the Pullman, her stateroom door is open, and as he comes down the aisle, Erma rises. He knows she has seen him--something in her face tells him that.
Then intense surprise falls upon him:--the young lady steps out with extended hand, and says brightly: ”So you have discovered I was on the train _at last_? I had been expecting a visit from you all yesterday.”
At this tremendous but most feminine prevarication, Lawrence fairly gasps. A second after, he discovers the wonderful tact displayed in it, which calls for an explanation from him, and does not require one from her.
However, he is too awfully happy to stand on little points, and seizing the taper fingers of the young lady, and giving her tact for tact, and prevarication for prevarication, remarks: ”You most certainly would have, Miss Travenion, but I only discovered that you were on board this morning, from Buck Powers.”
”Why,” cries Erma, ”I saw you at--” She checks herself suddenly, biting her lips a little, and then goes on: ”We've been near each other a whole day, and have not spoken.”
”That's a great pity! But we'll make up for lost time, now!” answers Lawrence, gallantly. Then he suggests: ”What did you breakfast on?”
”Pies!”
”So did I--our tastes are similar,” he laughs, for there is something in the radiant face looking into his that makes him think this snow blockade, privations and all, is the very nicest thing that has come into his life.
A moment after, for he is too earnest for any more light comedy fencing, he comes to the point with masculine abruptness, remarking: ”Mr. Powers told you--G.o.d bless him!--that I have been in California?”
”Yes.”
”I got this little note”--he produces her card with the ”I have seen my father. Good-bye” sentence on it--”in Salt Lake City, and presumed you had gone to California with the Livingstons. I was then poor. Four days afterwards, I suddenly found myself astounded and rich. I did not ask how it came--I was too anxious to make use of my money. I thought a tour of 'the Golden State' would please me.”
Then he goes on hurriedly and tells her of his wanderings in pursuit of the Livingston party, and his unexpected interview with Ferdie at the Grand Hotel, omitting, however, his journey to Tintic and his rescue of her father, as he doesn't wish to alarm or make Erma think she is under obligation to him.
”Ah!” falters the girl, very pale, and turning her face away from him.
”Then you know--I'm the daughter of Tranyon--the Mormon bishop?”
”Yes,” he cries; ”that is what brought me from California in such a hurry; I wanted to thank you for giving me what I would probably have never got without you--a fortune.”