Excuse Me! Part 31

She could hardly controvert this gracefully, so she sank back with grim resignation. "Well, I've proposed my plan, and you don't like it. Now, suppose you propose something."

The silence was oppressive. They sat like stoughton bottles. There the conductor found them some time later. He gave them a careless look, selected a chair at the end of the car, and began to sort his tickets, spreading them out on another chair, making notes with the pencil he took from atop his ear, and shoved back from time to time.

Ages seemed to pa.s.s, and Mallory had not even a suggestion. By this time Marjorie's temper had evaporated, and when he said: "If we could only stop at some town for half an hour," she said: "Maybe the conductor would hold the train for us."

"I hardly think he would."

"He looks like an awfully nice man. You ask him."

"Oh, what's the use?"

Marjorie was getting tired of depending on this charming young man with the very bad luck. She decided to a.s.sume command herself. She took recourse naturally to the original feminine methods: "I'll take care of him," she said, with resolution. "A woman can get a man to do almost anything if she flirts a little with him."

"Marjorie!"

"Now, don't you mind anything I do. Remember, it's all for love of you--even if I have to kiss him."

"Marjorie, I won't permit----"

"You have no right to boss me--yet. You subside." She gave him the merest touch, but he fell backward into a chair, utterly aghast at the shameless siren into which desperation had altered the timid little thing he thought he had chosen to love. He was being rapidly initiated into the complex and versatile and fearfully wonderful thing a woman really is, and he was saying to himself, "What have I married?"

forgetting, for the moment, that he had not married her yet, and that therein lay the whole trouble.

CHAPTER XXVI

DELILAH AND THE CONDUCTOR

Like the best of women and the worst of men, Marjorie was perfectly willing to do evil, that good might come of it. She advanced on the innocent conductor, as the lady from Sorek must have sidled up to Samson, coquetting with one arch hand and snipping the shears with the other.

The stupefied Mallory saw Marjorie in a startling imitation of herself at her sweetest; only now it was brazen mimicry, yet how like! She went forward as the shyest young thing in the world, pursed her lips into an ecstatic simper, and began on the unsuspecting official:

"Isn't the country perfectly----"

"Yes, but I'm getting used to it," the conductor growled, without looking up.

His curt indifference jolted Marjorie a trifle, but she rallied her forces, and came back with: "How long do we stop at Ogden?"

"Five minutes," very bluntly.

Marjorie poured maple syrup on her tone, as she purred: "This train of yours is an awfully fast train, isn't it?"

"Sort of," said the conductor, with just a trace of thaw. What followed made him hold his breath, for the outrageous little hussy was actually saying: "The company must have a great deal of confidence in you to entrust the lives and welfare of so many people to your presence of mind and courage."

"Well, of course, I can't say as to that----" Even Mallory could see that the man's reserve was melting fast as Marjorie went on with relentless treacle:

"Talk about soldiers and firemen and life-savers! I think it takes a braver man than any of those to be a conductor--really."

"Well, it is a kind of a responsible job." The conductor swelled his chest a little at that, and Marjorie felt that he was already hers.

She hammered the weak spot in his armor:

"Responsible! I should say it is. Mr. Mallory is a soldier, but soldiers are such ferocious, destructive people, while conductors save lives, and--if I were only a man I think it would be my greatest ambition to be a conductor--especially on an overland express."

The conductor told the truth, when he confessed: "Well, I never heard it put just that way." Then he spoke with a little more pride, hoping to increase the impression he felt he was making: "The main thing, of course, is to get my train through On Time!"

This was a facer. He was going to get his train through On Time just to oblige Marjorie. She stammered:

"I don't suppose the train, by any accident, would be delayed in leaving Ogden?"

"Not if I can help it," the hero averred, to rea.s.sure her.

"I wish it would," Marjorie murmured.

The conductor looked at her in surprise: "Why, what's it to you?" She turned her eyes on him at full candle power, and smiled:

"Oh, I just wanted to do a little shopping there."

"Shopping! While the train waits! Excuse me!"

"You see," Marjorie fluttered, "by a sad mistake, my baggage isn't on the train. And I haven't any--any--I really need to buy some--some things very badly. It's awfully embarra.s.sing to be without them."

"I can imagine," the conductor mumbled. "Why don't you and your husband drop off and take the next train?"

"My husb--Mr. Mallory has to be in San Francis...o...b.. to-morrow night.

He just has to!"

"So have I."

"But to oblige me? To save me from distress--don't you think you could?" Like a sweet little child she twisted one of the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his coat sleeve, and wheedled: "Don't you think you might hold the train just a little tiny half hour?"

He was sorry, but he didn't see how he could. Then she took his breath away again by asking, out of a clear sky: "Are you married?"

He was as awkward as if she had proposed to him, she answered for him: "Oh, but of course you are. The women wouldn't let a big, handsome, n.o.ble brave giant like you escape long." He mopped his brow in agony as she went on: "I'm sure you're a very chivalrous man. I'm sure you would give your life to rescue a maiden in distress. Well, here's your chance. Won't you please hold the train?"

She actually had her cheek almost against his shoulder, though she had to poise atiptoe to reach him. Mallory's dismay was changing to a boiling rage, and the conductor was a pitiable combination of Saint Anthony and Tantalus. "I--I'd love to oblige you," he mumbled, "but it would be as much as my job's worth."

"How much is that?" Marjorie asked, and added rea.s.suringly, "If you lost your job I'm sure my father would get you a better one."

"Maybe," said the conductor, "but--I got this one."

Then his rolling eyes caught sight of the supposed husband gesticulating wildly and evidently clearing for action. He warned Marjorie: "Say, your husband is motioning at you."

"Don't mind him," Marjorie urged, "just listen to me. I implore you.

I----" Seeing that he was still resisting, she played her last card, and, crying, "Oh, you can't resist my prayers so cruelly," she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing, "Do you want to break my heart?"

Mallory rushed into the scene and the conductor, tearing Marjorie's arms loose, retreated, gasping, "No! and I don't want your husband to break my head."