Part 7 (1/2)
”No, no!” said Elizabeth eagerly, recovering herself, ”I am only a spectator. _We_ see the drama--we feel it--much more than they can who are in it. At least”--she wavered--”Well!--I have met one man who seems to feel it!”
”Your Canadian friend?”
Elizabeth nodded.
”He sees the vision--he dreams the dream!” she said brightly. ”So few do. But I think he does. Oh, dear--_dear_!--how time flies! I must go and see what Philip is after.”
Delaine was left discontented. He had come to press his suit, and he found a lady preoccupied. Canada, it seemed, was to be his rival! Would he ever be allowed to get in a word edgewise?
Was there ever anything so absurd, so disconcerting? He looked forward gloomily to a dull afternoon, in quest of fat cattle, with a car-full of unknown Canadians.
CHAPTER IV
At three o'clock, in the wide Winnipeg station, there gathered on the platform beside Lady Merton's car a merry and motley group of people. A Chief Justice from Alberta, one of the Senators for Manitoba, a rich lumberman from British Columbia, a Toronto manufacturer--owner of the model farm which the party was to inspect, two or three ladies, among them a little English girl with fine eyes, whom Philip Gaddesden at once marked for approval; and a tall, dark-complexioned man with hollow cheeks, large ears, and a long chin, who was introduced, with particular emphasis, to Elizabeth by Anderson, as ”Mr. Felix Mariette”--Member of Parliament, apparently, for some const.i.tuency in the Province of Quebec.
The small crowd of persons collected, all eminent in the Canadian world, and some beyond it, examined their hostess of the afternoon with a kindly amus.e.m.e.nt. Elizabeth had sent round letters; Anderson, who was well known, it appeared, in Winnipeg, had done a good deal of telephoning. And by the letters and the telephoning this group of busy people had allowed itself to be gathered; simply because Elizabeth was her father's daughter, and it was worth while to put such people in the right way, and to send them home with some rational notions of the country they had come to see.
And she, who at home never went out of her way to make a new acquaintance, was here the centre of the situation, grasping the ident.i.ties of all these strangers with wonderful quickness, flitting about from one to another, making friends with them all, and constraining Philip to do the same. Anderson followed her closely, evidently feeling a responsibility for the party only second to her own.
He found time, however, to whisper to Mariette, as they were all about to mount the car:
”Eh bien?”
”Mais oui--tres gracieuse!” said the other, but without a smile, and with a shrug of the shoulders. _He_ was only there to please Anderson.
What did the aristocratic Englishwoman on tour--with all her little Jingoisms and Imperialisms about her--matter to him, or he to her?
While the stream of guests was slowly making its way into the car, while Yerkes at the further end, resplendent in a b.u.t.tonhole and a white cap and ap.r.o.n, was watching the scene, and the special engine, like an impatient horse, was puffing and hissing to be off, a man, who had entered the cloak-room of the station to deposit a bundle just as the car-party arrived, approached the cloak-room door from the inside, and looked through the glazed upper half. His stealthy movements and his strange appearance pa.s.sed unnoticed. There was a noisy emigrant party in the cloak-room, taking out luggage deposited the night before; they were absorbed in their own affairs, and in some wrangle with the officials which involved a good deal of lost temper on both sides.
The man was old and grey. His face, large-featured and originally comely in outline, wore the unmistakable look of the outcast. His eyes were bloodshot, his mouth trembled, so did his limbs as he stood peering by the door. His clothes were squalid, and both they and his person diffused the odours of the drinking bar from which he had just come. The porter in charge of the cloak-room had run a hostile eye over him as he deposited his bundle. But now no one observed him; while he, gathered up and concentrated, like some old wolf upon a trail, followed every movement of the party entering the Gaddesden car.
George Anderson and his French Canadian friend left the platform last.
As Anderson reached the door of the car he turned back to speak to Mariette, and his face and figure were clearly visible to the watcher behind the barred cloak-room door. A gleam of savage excitement pa.s.sed over the old man's face; his limbs trembled more violently.
Through the side windows of the car the party could be seen distributing themselves over the comfortable seats, laughing and talking in groups.
In the dining-room, the white tablecloth spread for tea, with the china and silver upon it, made a pleasant show. And now two high officials of the railway came hurrying up, one to shake hands with Lady Merton and see that all was right, the other to accompany the party.
Elizabeth Merton came out in her white dress, and leant over the railing, talking, with smiles, to the official left behind. He raised his hat, the car moved slowly off, and in the group immediately behind Lady Merton the handsome face and thick fair hair of George Anderson showed conspicuous as long as the special train remained in sight.
The old man raised himself and noiselessly went out upon the platform.
Outside the station he fell in with a younger man, who had been apparently waiting for him; a strong, picturesque fellow, with the skin and countenance of a half-breed.
”Well?” said the younger, impatiently. ”Thought you was goin' to take a bunk there.”
”Couldn't get out before. It's all right.”
”Don't care if it is,” said the other sulkily. ”Don't care a d.a.m.n b.u.t.ton not for you nor anythin' you're after! But you give me my two dollars sharp, and don't keep me another half-hour waitin'. That's what I reckoned for, an' I'm goin' to have it.” He held out his hand.
The old man fumbled slowly in an inner pocket of his filthy overcoat.