Part 40 (2/2)

”I'll answer it,” she said to Helen. ”Don't cry now. I'm sure it's nothing.”

But when she returned in a few minutes, Helen only needed one glance to tell her how far it was from being nothing.

”Your maid,” said Mary, hurrying to her dresser. ”Wally's car ran into the Bar Harbor express at the crossing near the club.... He's terribly hurt, but the doctor says there's just a chance.... You run and dress now, as quickly as you can.... I have a key to the garage....”

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The first east-bound express that left New York the following morning carried in one of its Pullmans a famous surgeon and his a.s.sistant, bound for New Bethel. In the murk of the smoker ahead was a third pa.s.senger whose ticket bore the name of the same city--a bearded man with rounded shoulders and tired eyes, whose clothes betrayed a foreign origin.

This was Paul Spencer on the last stage of his journey home.

Until the train drew out of the station, the seat by his side was unoccupied. But then another foreign looking pa.s.senger entered and made his way up the aisle.

You have probably noticed how some instinctive law of selection seems to guide us in choosing our companion in a car where all the window seats are taken. The newcomer pa.s.sed a number of empty places and sat down by the side of Paul. He was tall, blonde, with dusty looking eyebrows and a beard that was nearly the colour of dead gra.s.s.

”Russian, I guess,” thought Paul, ”and probably thinks I am something of the same.”

The reflection pleased him.

”If that's the way I look to him, n.o.body else is going to guess.”

When the conductor came, Paul's seat-mate tried to ask if he would have to change cars before reaching his destination, but his language was so broken that he couldn't make himself understood.

”I thought he was Russian,” Paul nodded to himself, catching a word here and there; and, aloud, he quietly added in his mother's tongue, ”It's all right, batuchka; you don't have to change.”

The other gave him a grateful glance, and soon they were talking together.

”A Bolshevist,” thought Paul, recognizing now and then a phrase or an argument which he had heard from some of his friends in Rio, ”but what's he going to New Bethel for?”

As the train drew nearer the place of his birth, Paul grew quieter. Old landmarks, nearly forgotten, began to appear and remind him of the past.

”What time do we get there?” he asked a pa.s.sing brakeman.

”Eleven-thirty-four.”

Paul's companion gave him a look of envy.

”You speak English well,” said he.

Paul didn't like that, and took refuge behind one of those Slavonic indirections which are typical of the Russian mind--an indirection hinting at mysterious purpose and power.

”There are times in a life,” said he, ”when it becomes necessary to speak a foreign language well.”

They looked at each other then, and simultaneously they nodded.

”You are right, batuchka,” said the blonde giant at last, matching indirection with indirection. ”For myself, I cannot speak English well--ah, no--but I have a language that all men understand--and fear--and when I speak, the houses fall and the mountains shake their heads.”

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