Part 23 (1/2)

John Henry got along. Even his _cloppety-clop_ did not waken Miss Webling.

The return of the rattletrap and the racket of filling the tank with the elixir finished her sleep, however. She woke in confusion, finding herself sitting up, dressed, in her little room, with three strange men at work outside.

When the tank was filled, Davidge entered her compartment with a cheery ”Good morning,” and slammed the door after him. The gasolene, like the breath of a G.o.d, gave life to the dead. The car snarled and jumped, and went roaring across the bridge, up the hill and down another, and down that and up another.

Here they caught, through a frame of leaves, a glimpse of Was.h.i.+ngton in the sunrise, a great congregation of marble temples and trees and sky-colored waters, the shaft of the Monument lighted with the milky radiance of a mountain peak on its upper half, the lower part still dusk with valley shadow, and across the plateau of roofs the solemn Capitol in as mythical a splendor as the stately dome that Kubla Khan decreed in Xanadu.

This sight of Canaan from Pisgah-height was no luxury to the taxi-driver, and he hustled his coffee-grinder till he reached Rosslyn once more, crossed the Potomac's many-tinted stream, and rattled through Georgetown and the shabby, sleeping little shops of M Street into the tree-tunnels of Was.h.i.+ngton.

He paused to say, ”Where do we go from here?”

Davidge and Marie Louise looked their chagrin. They still had no place to go.

”To the Pennsylvania Station,” said Davidge. ”We can at least get breakfast there.”

The streets of Was.h.i.+ngton are never so beautiful as at this still hour when nothing stirs but the wind in the trees and the gra.s.s on the lawns, and hardly anybody is abroad except the generals on their bronze horses fronting their old battles with heroic eyes. The station outside was something Olympic but unfrequented. Inside, it was a vast cathedral of untenanted pews.

Davidge paid the driver a duke's ransom. There was no porter about, and he carried Marie Louise's suit-cases to the parcel-room. Her baggage had had a long journey. She retreated to the women's room for what toilet she could make, and came forth with a very much washed face. Somnambulistic negroes took their orders at the lunch-counter.

Marie Louise had weakly decided to return to New York again, but the hot coffee was full of defiance, and she said that she would make another try at Mrs. Widdicombe as soon as a human hour arrived.

And she showed a tactfulness that won much respect from Davidge when she said:

”Do get your morning paper and read it. I'm sure I have nothing to say that I haven't said, and if I had, it could wait till you find out how the battle goes in Europe.”

He bought her a paper, too, and they sat on a long bench, exchanging comments on the news that made almost every front page a chapter in world history.

She heard him groan with rage. When she looked up he pointed to the submarine record of that week.

”Last week the losses took a horrible jump--forty s.h.i.+ps of over sixteen hundred tons. This week it's almost as bad--thirty-eight s.h.i.+ps of over sixteen hundred, thirteen s.h.i.+ps under, and eight fis.h.i.+ng-vessels. Think of it--all of 'em merchant-s.h.i.+ps!

”Pretty soon I've got to send my s.h.i.+p out to run the gantlet. She's like Little Red Riding Hood going through the forest to take old Granny Britain some food. And the wolves are waiting for her. What a race of people, what a pack of beasts!”

Marie Louise had an idea. ”I'll tell you a pretty name for your s.h.i.+p--_Little Red Riding Hood_. Why don't you give her that?”

He laughed. ”The name would be heavier than the cargo. I wonder what the crew would make of it. No, this s.h.i.+p, my first one, is to be named after”--he lowered his voice as one does on entering a church--”after my mother.”

”Oh, that's beautiful!” Marie Louise said. ”And will she be there to christen-- Oh, I remember, you said--”

He nodded three or four times in wretchedness. But the grief was his own, and he must not exploit it. He a.s.sumed an abrupt cheer.

”I'll name the next s.h.i.+p after you, if you don't mind.”

This was too glorious to be believed. What bouquet or jewel could equal it? She clapped her hands like a child hearing a Christmas promise.

”What is your first name, Miss Webling?”

She suddenly realized that they were not, after all, such old friends as the night had seemed to make them.

”My first two names,” she said, ”are Marie Louise.”