Part 18 (2/2)

Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on his coat slowly, the cloud black on his face. Fairfax wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, he wanted to look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks along the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was crazy about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that her lifted lashes and her Irish eyes would bring. Temptations are all of one kind; there are no different kinds. What they are and where they lead depends upon the person to whom they come.

”Good-night,” said Sanders, shortly. ”Give up the door, Kenny, will you?

You're not a ghost.”

”I'm going with you, Sanders,” Fairfax said; ”hold on a bit.”

Sanders' heart bounded and his whole expression changed. He growled--

”What are you going for? You're not due. It's cold as h.e.l.l down in the yards.”

Fairfax was looking at Molly and instinctively she raised her head and her eyes.

”Better give this cigar to your fireman, Sandy,” Fairfax said to him as the two men b.u.t.toned up their coats and bent against the January wind.

”All right,” muttered the other graciously, ”give it over here. Ain't this the deuce of a night?”

The wind went down Sandy's throat and neither man spoke again. They parted at the yards, and Sanders went across the track where his fireman waited for him on his engine, and Fairfax went to the engine-house and found his legitimate mistress, his steel and iron friend, with whom he was not forbidden by common-sense to play.

CHAPTER VI

By the time he reached the engine-house he was white with snow, and wet and warm. There was no heating in the sheds where the locomotives waited for their firemen, and the snow and wind beat in, and on the cow-catchers of the two in line was a fringe of white like the embroidery on a woman's dress. The gas lamps lit the big place insufficiently, and the storm whistled through the thin wooden shed.

Number Ten at the side of Antony's engine was the midnight express locomotive, to be hitched at West Albany to the Far West Limited. His own, Number Forty-one, was smaller, less powerful, more slender, graceful, more feminine, and Antony kept it s.h.i.+ning and gleaming and l.u.s.treful. It was his pride to regard it as a living thing. Love was essential to any work he did; he did not understand toil without it, and he cared for his locomotive with enthusiasm.

He did not draw out for half an hour. His machine was in perfect order; the fire had already been started by one of the shed firemen, and Fairfax shook down the coals and prepared to get up steam. They were scheduled to leave West Albany at nine and carry a freight train into the State as far as Utica. He would be in the train till dawn. It was his first night's work in several weeks, and the first ever in a temperature like this. Since morning the thermometer had fallen twenty points.

His thoughts kindled as his fire kindled--a red dress flashed before his eyes. Sometimes it was vivid scarlet, too vivid and too violent, then it changed to a warm crimson, and Bella's head was dark above it. But the vision of the child was too young to hold Antony, now desirous and gloomy. His point of view had changed and his face set as he worked about in the cab and his adjustable lamp cast its light upon a face that was grave and stern.

He hummed under his breath the different things as they came to him.

”_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._”

Dear old Professor Dufaucon, with his yellow goatee and his broken English. And the magnolias were blooming in the yard, for the professor lived on the veranda and liked the open air, and in the spring there were the nightingales.

”_J'ai perdu ma tourterelle._”

”First catch your hare,” Antony said. ”I have never had a turtle-dove, never had a sweetheart since I fell from the cherry-tree.”

Sounds that were now familiar to him came from outside, the ringing of the bells as the locomotives drew through the storm, the high scream of the whistles, the roll and rumble of the wheels and the calling of the employer to the railroad hands as they pa.s.sed to their duties outside the shed. Fairfax left Louisiana and stopped singing. He threw open the door of his furnace, and the water hissed and bubbled in the boiler. He opened the c.o.c.k and the escaping steam filled the engine-house and mixed with the damp air.

Looking through the window of the cab, Fairfax saw a figure pa.s.s in under the shed. It was a woman with a shawl over her head. He climbed down out of the cab; the woman threw the shawl back, he saw the head and dress.

”Why, Miss Molly!” he exclaimed. He thought she had come for Sanders.

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