Excuse Me! Part 36

And now there was a small commotion in the smoking room. Through the gla.s.s along the corridor the men caught sight of the girl who had got on at Green River. Ashton saw her first and she saw him.

"There she goes," Ashton hissed to the others, "look quick! There's the nectarine."

"My word! She's a little bit of all right, isn't she?"

Even Dr. Temple stared at her with approval: "Dear little thing, isn't she?"

The girl, very consciously unconscious of the admiration, moved demurely along, with eyes downcast, but at such an angle that she could take in the sensation she was creating; she went along picking up stares as if they were bouquets.

Her demeanor was a remarkable compromise between outrageous flirtation and perfect respectability. But she was looking back so intently that when she moved into the observation room she walked right into the newspaper Mallory was holding out before him.

Both said: "I beg your pardon."

When Mallory lowered the paper, both stared till their eyes almost popped. Her amazement was one of immediate rapture. He looked as if he would have been much obliged for a volcanic crater to sink into.

"Harry!" she gasped, and let fall her handbag.

"Kitty!" he gasped, and let fall his newspaper. Both bent, he handed her the newspaper and tossed the handbag into a chair; saw his mistake, withdrew the newspaper and proffered her Snoozleums. Marjorie stopped writing, pen poised in air, as if she had suddenly been petrified.

The newcomer was the first to speak. She fairly gushed: "Harry Mallory--of all people."

"Kitty! Kathleen! Miss Llewellyn!"

"Just to think of meeting you again."

"Just to think of it."

"And on this train of all places."

"On this train of all places!"

"Oh, Harry, Harry!"

"Oh, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!"

"You dear fellow, it's so long since I saw you last."

"So long."

"It was at that last hop at West Point, remember?--why, it seems only yesterday, and how well you are looking. You are well, aren't you?"

"Not very." He was mopping his brow in anguish, and yet the room seemed strangely cold.

"Of course you look much better in your uniform. You aren't wearing your uniform, are you?"

"No, this is not my uniform."

"You haven't left the army, have you?"

"I don't know yet."

"Don't ever do that. You are just beautiful in bra.s.s b.u.t.tons."

"Thanks."

"Harry!"

"What's the matter now?"

"This tie, this green tie, isn't this the one I knitted you?"

"I am sure I don't know, I borrowed it from the conductor."

"Don't you remember? I did knit you one."

"Did you? I believe you did! I think I wore it out."

"Oh, you fickle boy. But see what I have. What's this?"

He stared through the gla.s.sy eyes of complete helplessness. "It looks like a bracelet."

"Don't tell me you don't remember this!--the little bangle bracelet you gave me."

"D-did I give you a baygled branglet?"

"Of course you did. And the inscription. Don't you remember it?"

She held her wrist in front of his aching eyes and he perused as if it were his own epitaph, what she read aloud for him. "_From Harry to Kitty, the Only Girl I Ever Loved._"

"Good night!" he sighed to himself, and began to mop his brow with Snoozleums.

"You put it on my arm," said Kathleen, with a moonlight sigh, "and I've always worn it."

"Always?"

"Always! no matter whom I was engaged to."

The desperate wretch, who had not dared even to glance in Marjorie's direction, somehow thought he saw a straw of self-defense. "You were engaged to three or four others when I was at West Point."

"I may have been engaged to the others," said Kathleen, moon-eyeing him, "but I always liked you best, Clifford--er, Tommy--I mean Harry."

"You got me at last."

Kathleen fenced back at this: "Well, I've no doubt you have had a dozen affairs since."

"Oh, no! My heart has only known one real love." He threw this over her head at Marjorie, but Kathleen seized it, to his greater confusion: "Oh, Harry, how sweet of you to say it. It makes me feel positively faint," and she swooned his way, but he shoved a chair forward and let her collapse into that. Thinking and hoping that she was unconscious, he made ready to escape, but she caught him by the coat, and moaned: "Where am I?" and he growled back:

"In the Observation Car!"