Part 7 (1/2)

One afternoon, a month after Miss Dangerlie's reception, Henry Floyd was packing his trunk. He had just looked at his watch, when there was a ring at the bell. He knew it was the postman, and a soft look came over his face as he reflected that even if he got no letter he would see her within a few hours. A large box of glorious old-fas.h.i.+oned roses was on the floor near him, and a roll of money and a time-table lay beside it. He had ridden thirty miles that morning to get and bring the roses himself for one whom he always thought of in connection with them.

A letter was brought in, and a pleased smile lit up the young man's face as he saw the handwriting. He laid on the side of the trunk a coat that he held, and then sat down on the arm of a chair and opened the letter.

His hand stroked it softly as if it were of velvet. He wore a pleased smile as he began to read. Then the smile died away and a startled look took its place. The color faded out of his face, and his mouth closed firmly. When he was through he turned back and read the letter all over again, slowly. It seemed hard to understand; for after a pause he read it over a third time. Then he looked straight before him for a moment, and then slowly tore it up into thin shreds and crumpled them up in his hand. Ten minutes later he rose from his seat and dropped the torn pieces into the fireplace. He walked over and put on his hat and coat, and going out, pulled the door firmly to behind him. The trunk, partly packed, stood open with the half-folded coat hanging over its edge and with the roses lying by its side.

Floyd walked into the Club and, returning quietly the salutations of a group of friends, went over to a rack and drew out a newspaper file, with which he pa.s.sed into another room.

”Announcement of Engagement: Router and Dangerlie,” was the heading on which his eye rested. ”It is stated,” ran the paragraph, ”that they have been engaged some time, but no announcement has been made until now, on the eve of the wedding, owing to the young lady's delicacy of feeling.”

That night Henry Floyd wrote a letter. This was the close of it:

”Possibly your recollection may hereafter trouble you. I wish to say that I do not hold you accountable in any way.”

That night a wretched creature, half beggar, half worse, was standing on the street under a lamp. A man came along. She glanced at him timidly.

He was looking at her, but it would not do to speak to him, he was a gentleman going somewhere. His hands were full of roses. He posted a letter in the box, then to her astonishment he stopped at her side and spoke to her.

”Here are some roses for you,” he said, ”and here is some money. Go home to-night.”

He pushed the roses and money into her hands, and turning, went back up the dim street.

HOW THE CAPTAIN MADE CHRISTMAS

It was just a few days before Christmas, and the men around the large fireplace at the club had, not unnaturally, fallen to talking of Christmas. They were all men in the prime of life, and all or nearly all of them were from other parts of the country; men who had come to the great city to make their way in life, and who had, on the whole, made it in one degree or another, achieving sufficient success in different fields to allow of all being called successful men. Yet, as the conversation had proceeded, it had taken a reminiscent turn. When it began, only three persons were engaged in it, two of whom, McPheeters and Lesponts, were in lounging-chairs, with their feet stretched out towards the log fire, while the third, Newton, stood with his back to the great hearth, and his coat-tails well divided. The other men were scattered about the room, one or two writing at tables, three or four reading the evening papers, and the rest talking and sipping whiskey and water, or only talking or only sipping whiskey and water. As the conversation proceeded around the fireplace, however, one after another joined the group there, until the circle included every man in the room.

It had begun by Lesponts, who had been looking intently at Newton for some moments as he stood before the fire with his legs well apart and his eyes fastened on the carpet, breaking the silence by asking, suddenly: ”Are you going home?”

”I don't know,” said Newton, doubtfully, recalled from somewhere in dreamland, but so slowly that a part of his thoughts were still lingering there. ”I haven't made up my mind--I'm not sure that I can go so far as Virginia, and I have an invitation to a delightful place--a house-party near here.”

”Newton, anybody would know that you were a Virginian,” said McPheeters, ”by the way you stand before that fire.”

Newton said, ”Yes,” and then, as the half smile the charge had brought up died away, he said, slowly, ”I was just thinking how good it felt, and I had gone back and was standing in the old parlor at home the first time I ever noticed my father doing it; I remember getting up and standing by him, a little sc.r.a.p of a fellow, trying to stand just as he did, and I was feeling the fire, just now, just as I did that night.

That was--thirty-three years ago,” said Newton, slowly, as if he were doling the years from his memory.

”Newton, is your father living?” asked Lesponts. ”No, but my mother is,”

he said; ”she still lives at the old home in the country.”

From this the talk had gone on, and nearly all had contributed to it, even the most reticent of them, drawn out by the universal sympathy which the subject had called forth. The great city, with all its manifold interests, was forgotten, and the men of the world went back to their childhood and early life in little villages or on old plantations, and told incidents of the time when the outer world was unknown, and all things had those strange and large proportions which the mind of childhood gives. Old times were ransacked and Christmas experiences in them were given without stint, and the season was voted, without dissent, to have been far ahead of Christmas now. Presently, one of the party said: ”Did any of you ever spend a Christmas on the cars? If you have not, thank Heaven, and pray to be preserved from it henceforth, for I've done it, and I tell you it's next to purgatory. I spent one once, stuck in a snow-drift, or almost stuck, for we were ten hours late, and missed all connections, and the Christmas I had expected to spend with friends, I pa.s.sed in a nasty car with a surly Pullman conductor, an impudent mulatto porter, and a lot of fools, all of whom could have murdered each other, not to speak of a crying baby whose murder was perhaps the only thing all would have united on.”

This harsh speech showed that the subject was about exhausted, and someone, a man who had come in only in time to hear the last speaker, had just hazarded the remark, in a faint imitation of an English accent, that the sub-officials in this country were a surly, ill-conditioned lot, anyhow, and always were as rude as they dared to be, when Lesponts, who had looked at the speaker lazily, said:

”Yes, I have spent a Christmas on a sleeping-car, and, strange to say, I have a most delightful recollection of it.”

This was surprising enough to have gained him a hearing anyhow, but the memory of the occasion was evidently sufficiently strong to carry Lesponts over obstacles, and he went ahead.

”Has any of you ever taken the night train that goes from here South through the c.u.mberland and Shenandoah Valleys, or from Was.h.i.+ngton to strike that train?”

No one seemed to have done so, and he went on:

”Well, do it, and you can even do it Christmas, if you get the right conductor. It's well worth doing the first chance you get, for it's almost the prettiest country in the world that you go through; there is nothing that I've ever seen lovelier than parts of the c.u.mberland and Shenandoah Valleys, and the New River Valley is just as pretty,--that background of blue beyond those rolling hills, and all,--you know, McPheeters?” McPheeters nodded, and he proceeded:

”I always go that way now when I go South. Well, I went South one winter just at Christmas, and I took that train by accident. I was going to New Orleans to spend Christmas, and had expected to have gotten off to be there several days beforehand, but an unlooked-for matter had turned up and prevented my getting away, and I had given up the idea of going, when I changed my mind: the fact is, I was in a row with a friend of mine there. I decided, on the spur of the moment, to go, anyhow, and thus got off on the afternoon train for Was.h.i.+ngton, intending to run my luck for getting a sleeper there. This was the day before Christmas-eve and I was due to arrive in New Orleans Christmas-day, some time. Well, when I got to Was.h.i.+ngton there was not a berth to be had for love or money, and I was in a pickle. I fumed and fussed; abused the railroad companies and got mad with the ticket agent, who seemed, I thought, to be very indifferent as to whether I went to New Orleans or not, and I had just decided to turn around and come back to New York, when the agent, who was making change for someone else, said: 'I'm not positive, but I think there's a train on such and such a road, and you may be able to get a berth on that. It leaves about this time, and if you hurry you may be able to catch it.' He looked at his watch: 'Yes, you've just about time to stand a chance; everything is late to-day, there are such crowds, and the snow and all.' I thanked him, feeling like a dog over my ill-temper and rudeness to him, and decided to try. Anything was better than New York, Christmas-day. So I jumped into a carriage and told the driver to drive like the--the wind, and he did. When we arrived at the station the ticket agent could not tell me whether I could get a berth or not, the conductor had the diagram out at the train, but he thought there was not the slightest chance. I had gotten warmed up, however, by my friend's civility at the other station, and I meant to go if there was any way to do it, so I grabbed up my bags and rushed out of the warm depot into the cold air again. I found the car and the conductor standing outside of it by the steps. The first thing that struck me was his appearance. Instead of being the dapper young naval-officerish-looking fellow I was accustomed to, he was a stout, elderly man, with bushy, gray hair and a heavy, grizzled mustache, who looked like an old field-marshal. He was surrounded by quite a number of people all crowding about him and asking him questions at once, some of whose questions he was answering slowly as he pored over his diagram, and others of which he seemed to be ignoring. Some were querulous, some good-natured, and all impatient, but he answered them all with imperturbable good humor. It was very cold, so I pushed my way into the crowd. As I did so I heard him say to someone: 'You asked me if the lower berths were all taken, did you not?' 'Yes, five minutes ago!'

snapped the fellow, whom I had already heard swearing, on the edge of the circle. 'Well, they are all taken, just as they were the first time I told you they were,' he said, and opened a despatch given him by his porter, a tall, black, elderly negro with gray hair. I pushed my way in and asked him, in my most dulcet tone, if I could get an upper berth to New Orleans. I called him 'Captain', thinking him a pompous old fellow.