Marjorie tossed her head a little higher, grew a little calmer: "What do I care? I want you to back up."
The conductor was reduced to a wet rag, a feeble echo: "Back up—the train up?"
"Yes, back the train up," Marjorie answered, resolutely, "and go slowly till I tell you to stop."
The conductor stared at her a moment, then whirled on Mallory: "Say, what in hell's the matter with your wife?"
Mallory was saved from the problem of answering by Marjorie's abrupt change from a young Tsarina rebuking a serf, to a terrified mother. She flung out imploring palms and with a gush of tears pleaded: "Won't you please back up? My darling child fell off the train."
The conductor's rage fell away in an instant. "Your child fell off the train!" he gasped. "Good Lord! How old was he?"
With one hand he was groping for the bell cord to give the signal, with the other he opened the door to look back along the track.
"He was two years old," Marjorie sobbed.
"Oh, that's too bad!" the conductor groaned. "What did he look like?"
"He had a pink ribbon round his neck."
"A pink ribbon—oh, the poor little fellow! the poor little fellow!"
"And a long curly tail."
The conductor swung round with a yell: "A curly tail!—your son?"
"My dog!" Marjorie roared back at him.
The conductor's voice cracked weakly as he shrieked: "Your dog! You stopped this train for a fool dog?"
"He wasn't a fool dog," Marjorie retorted, facing him down, "he knows more than you do."
The conductor threw up his hands: "Well, don't you women beat——" He studied Marjorie as if she were some curious freak of nature. Suddenly an idea struck into his daze: "Say, what kind of a dog was it?—a measly little cheese-hound?"
"He was a noble, beautiful soul with wonderful eyes and adorable ears."
The conductor was growing weaker and weaker: "Well, don't worry. I got him. He's in the baggage car."
Marjorie stared at him unbelievingly. The news seemed too gloriously beautiful to be true. "He isn't dead—Snoozleums is not dead!" she cried, "he lives! He lives! You have saved him." And once more she flung herself upon the conductor. He tried to bat her off like a gnat, and Mallory came to his rescue by dragging her away and shoving her into a chair. But she saw only the noble conductor: "Oh, you dear, good, kind angel. Get him at once."
"He stays in the baggage car," the conductor answered, firmly and as he supposed, finally.
"But Snoozleums doesn't like baggage cars," Marjorie smiled. "He won't ride in one."
"He'll ride in this one or I'll wring his neck."
"You fiend in human flesh!" Marjorie shrank away from him in horror, and he found courage to seize the bell rope and yank it viciously with a sardonic: "Please, may I start this train?"
The whistle tooted faintly. The bell began to hammer, the train to creak and writhe and click. The conductor pulled his cap down hard and started forward. Marjorie seized his sleeve: "Oh, I implore you, don't consign that poor sweet child to the horrid baggage car. If you have a human heart in your breast, hear my prayer."
The conductor surrendered unconditionally: "Oh, Lord, all right, all right. I'll lose my job, but if you'll keep quiet, I'll bring him to you." And he slunk out meekly, followed by the passengers, who were shaking their heads in wonderment at this most amazing feat of this most amazing bride.
When they were alone once more, Marjorie as radiant as April after a storm, turned her sunshiny smile on Mallory:
"Isn't it glorious to have our little Snoozleums alive and well?"
But Mallory was feeling like a March day. He answered with a sleety chill: "You care more for the dog than you do for me."
"Why shouldn't I?" Marjorie answered with wide eyes, "Snoozleums never would have brought me ona wild goose elopement like this. Heaven knows he didn't want to come."
Mallory repeated the indictment: "You love a dog better than you love your husband."
"My what?" Marjorie laughed, then she spoke with lofty condescension: "Harry Mallory, if you're going to be jealous of that dog, I'll never marry you the longest day I live."
"So you'll let a dog come between us?" he demanded.
"I wouldn't give up Snoozleums for a hundred husbands," she retorted.
"I'm glad to know it in time," Mallory said. "You'd better give me back that wedding ring."
Marjorie's heart stopped at this, but her pride was in arms. She drew herself up, slid the ring from her finger, and held it out as if she scorned it: "With pleasure. Good afternoon, Mr. Mallory."
Mallory took it as if it were the merest trifle, bowed and murmured: "Good afternoon, Miss Newton."
He stalked out and she turned her back on him. A casual witness would have said that they were too indifferent to each other even to feel anger. As a matter of romantic fact, each was on fire with love, and aching madly with regret. Each longed for strength to whirl round with outflung arms of reconciliation, and neither could be so brave. And so they parted, each harking back fiercely for one wordof recall from the other. But neither spoke, and Marjorie sat staring at nothing through raining eyes, while Mallory strode into the Men's Room as melancholy as Hamlet with Yorick's skull in his hands.
It was their first great quarrel, and they were convinced that the world might as well come to an end.
The observation room was as lonely as a deserted battle-field and Marjorie as doleful as a wounded soldier left behind, and perishing of thirst, when the conductor came back with Snoozleums in his arms.
He regarded with contemptuous awe the petty cause of so great an event as the stopping of the Trans-American. He expected to see Marjorie receive the returned prodigal with wild rapture, but she didn't even smile when he said:
"Here's your powder-puff."
She just took Snoozleums on her lap, and, looking up with wet eyes and a sad smile, murmured:
"Thank you very much. You're the nicest conductor I ever met. If you ever want another position, I'll see that my father gets you one."
It was like offering the Kaiser a new job, but the conductor swallowed the insult and sought to repay it with irony.
"Thanks. And if you ever want to run this road for a couple of weeks, just let me know."
Marjorie nodded appreciatively and said: "I will. You're very kind."
And that completed the rout of that conductor. He retired in disorder, leaving Marjorie to fondle Snoozleums with a neglectful indifference that would have greatly flattered Mallory, if he could have seen through the partition that divided them.
But he was witnessing with the cynical superiority of an aged and disillusioned man the, to him, childish behavior of Ira Lathrop, an eleventh-hour Orlando.
For just as Mallory moped into the smoking-room at one door, Ira Lathrop swept in at the other, his face rubicund with embarrassment and ecstasy. He had donned an old frock coat with creases like ruts from long exile in his trunk. But he was feeling like an heir apparent; and he startled everybody by his jovial hail:
"Well, boys—er—gentlemen—the drinks are on me. Waiter, take the orders."
Little Jimmie woke with a start, rose hastily to his feet and saluted, saying: "Present! Who said take the orders?"
"I did," said Lathrop, "I'm giving a party. Waiter, take the orders."
"Sarsaparilla," said Dr. Temple, but they howled him down and ordered other things. The porter shook his head sadly: "Nothin' but sof' drinks in Utah, gemmen."
A groan went up from the club-members, and Lathrop groaned loudest of all:
"Well, we've got to drink something. Take the orders. We'll all have sarsaparilla."
Little Jimmie Wellington came to the rescue.
"Don't do anything desperate, gentlemen," he said, with a look of divine philanthropy. "The bar's closed, but Little Jimmie Wellington is here with the life preserver." From his hip-pocket he produced a silver flask that looked to be big enough to carry a regiment through the Alps. It was greeted with a salvo, and Lathrop said to Jimmie: "I apologize for everything I have said—and thought—about you." He turned to the porter: "There ain't any law against giving this away, is there?"
The porter grinned: "Not if you-all bribe the exercise-inspector." And he held out a glass for the bribe, murmuring, "Don't git tired," as it was poured. He set it inside his sanctum and then bustled round with ice-filled glasses and a siphon.
When Little Jimmie offered of the flask to Dr. Temple, the clergyman put out his hand with a politely horrified: "No, thank you."
Lathrop frightened him with a sudden comment: "Look at that gesture! Doc, I'd almost swear you were a parson."
Mallory whirled on him with the eyes of a hawk about to pounce, and "The very idea!" was the best disclaimer Dr. Temple could manage, suddenly findinghimself suspected. Ashton put in with, "The only way to disprove it, Doc, is to join us."
The poor old clergyman, too deeply involved in his deception to brave confession now, decided to do and dare all. He stammered, "Er—ah—certainly," and held out his hand for his share of the poison. Little Jimmie winked at the others and almost filled the glass. The innocent doctor bowed his thanks. When the porter reached him and prepared to fill the remainder of the glass from the siphon, the parson waved him aside with a misguided caution:
"No, thanks. I'll not mix them."
Mallory turned away with a sigh: "He takes his straight. He's no parson."
Then they forgot the doctor in curiosity as to Lathrop's sudden spasm of generosity—with Wellington's liquor. Wedgewood voiced the general curiosity when he said:
"What's the old woman-hater up to now?"
"Woman-hater?" laughed Ira. "It's the old story. I'm going to follow Mallory's example—marriage."
"I hope you succeed," said Mallory.
"Wherever did you pick up the bride?" said Wedgewood, mellowing with the long glass in his hand.
"Brides are easy," said Mallory, with surprising cynicism. "Where do you get the parson?"
"Hang the parson," Wedgewood repeated, "Who's the gel?"
"I'll bet I know who she is," Ashton interposed; "it's that nectarine of a damsel who got on at Green River."
"Not the same!" Lathrop roared. "I found my bride blooming here all the while. Girl I used to spark back in Brattleboro, Vermont. I've been vowing for years that I'd live and die an old maid. I've kept my head out of the noose all this time—till I struck this train and met up with Anne. We got to talking over old times—waking up old sentiments. She got on my nerves. I got on hers. Finally I said, 'Aw, hell, let's get married. Save price of one stateroom to China anyway.' She says, 'Damned if I don't!'—or words to that effect."
Mallory broke in with feverish interest: "But you said you were going to get married on this train."
"Nothing easier. Here's How!" and he raised his glass, but Mallory hauled it down to demand: "How? that's what I want to know. How are you going to get married on this parsonless express. Have you got a little minister in your suitcase?"
Ira beamed with added pride as he explained:
"Well, you see, when I used to court Anne I had a rival—Charlie Selby his name was. I thought he cut me out, but he became a clergyman in Utah—Oh, Charlie! I telegraphed him that I was passingthrough Ogden, and would he come down to the train and marry me to a charming lady. He always wanted to marry Anne. I thought it would be a durned good joke to let him marry her—to me."
"D-did he accept?" Mallory asked, excitedly, "is he coming?"
"He is—he did—here's his telegram," said Ira. "He brings the license and the ring." He passed it over, and as Mallory read it a look of hope spread across his face. But Ira was saying: "We're going to have the wedding obsequies right here in this car. You're all invited. Will you come?"
There was a general yell of acceptance and Ashton began to sing, "There was I waiting at the church." Then he led a sort of Indian war-dance round the next victim of the matrimonial stake. At the end of the hullaballoo all the men charged their glasses, and drained them with an uproarious "How!"
Poor Doctor Temple had taken luxurious delight in the success of his disguise and in the prospect of watching some other clergyman working while he rested. He joined the dance as gaily, if not as gracefully, as any of the rest, and in a final triumph of recklessness, he tossed off a bumper of straight whisky.
Instantly his "How!" changed to "Wow!" and then his throat clamped fast with a terrific spasm that flung the tears from his eyes. He bent andwrithed in a silent paroxysm till he was pounded and shaken back to life and water poured down his throat to reopen a passage.
The others thought he had merely choked and made no comment other than sympathy. They could not have dreamed that the old "physician" was as ignorant of the taste as of the vigor of pure spirits.
After a riot of handshaking and good wishes, Ira was permitted to escape with his life. Mallory followed him to the vestibule, where he caught him by the sleeve with an anxious:
"Excuse me."
"Well, my boy——"
"Your minister—after you get through with him—may I use him?"
"May you—what? Why do you want a minister?"
"To get married."
"Again? Good Lord, are you a Mormon?"
"Me a Mormon!"
"Then what do you want with an extra wife? It's against the law—even in Utah."
"You don't understand."
"My boy, one of us is disgracefully drunk."
"Well, I'm not," said Mallory, and then after a fierce inner debate, he decided to take Lathrop into his confidence. The words came hard after so long a duplicity, but at last they were out:
"Mr. Lathrop, I'm not really married to my wife."
"You young scoundrel!"
But his fury changed to pity when he heard the history of Mallory's ill-fated efforts, and he promised not only to lend Mallory his minister at secondhand, but also to keep the whole affair a secret, for Mallory explained his intention of having his own ceremony in the baggage-car, or somewhere out of sight of the other passengers.
Mallory's face was now aglow as the cold embers of hope leaped into sudden blaze. He wrung Lathrop's hand, saying: "Lord love you, you've saved my life—wife—both."
Then he turned and ran to Marjorie with the good news. He had quite forgotten their epoch-making separation. And she was so glad to see him smiling at her again that she forgot it, too. He came tearing into the observation room and took her by the shoulders, whispering: "Oh, Marjorie, Marjorie, I've got him! I've got him!"
"No, I've got him," she said, swinging Snoozleums into view.
Mallory swung him back out of the way: "I don't mean a poodle, I mean a parson. I've got a parson."
"No! I can't believe it! Where is he?" She began to dance with delight, but she stopped when he explained:
"Well, I haven't got him yet, but I'm going to get one."
"What—again?" she groaned, weary of this old bunco game of hope.
"It's a real live one this time," Mallory insisted. "Mr. Lathrop has ordered a minister and he's going to lend him to me as soon as he's through with him, and we'll be married on this train."
Marjorie was overwhelmed, but she felt it becoming in her to be a trifle coy. So she pouted: "But you won't want me for a bride now. I'm such a fright."
He took the bait, hook and all: "I never saw you looking so adorable."
"Honestly? Oh, but it will be glorious to be Mrs. First Lieutenant Mallory."
"Glorious!"
"I must telegraph home—and sign my new name. Won't mamma be pleased?"
"Won't she?" said Mallory, with just a trace of dubiety.
Then Marjorie grew serious with a new idea: "I wonder if mamma and papa have missed me yet?"
Mallory laughed: "After three days' disappearance, I shouldn't be surprised."
"Perhaps they are worrying about me."
"I shouldn't be surprised."
"The poor dears! I'd better write them a telegram at once."
"An excellent idea."
She ran to the desk, found blank forms and then paused with knitted brow: "It will be very hard to say all I've got to say in ten words."
"Hang the expense," Mallory sniffed magnificently, "I'm paying your bills now."
But Marjorie tried to look very matronly: "Send a night letter in the day time! No, indeed, we must begin to economize."
Mallory was touched by this new revelation of her future housewifely thrift. He hugged her hard and reminded her that she could send a day-letter by wire.
"An excellent idea," she said. "Now, don't bother me. You go on and read your paper, read about Mattie. I'll never be jealous of her—him—of anybody—again."
"You shall never have cause for jealousy, my own."
But fate was not finished with the initiation of the unfortunate pair, and already new trouble was strolling in their direction.
There was an air of domestic peace in the observation room, where Mallory and Marjorie had been left to themselves for some time. But the peace was like the ominous hush that precedes a tempest.
Mallory was so happy with everything coming his way, that he was even making up with Snoozleums, stroking the tatted coat with one hand and holding up his newspaper with the other. He did not know all that was coming his way. The blissful silence was broken first by Marjorie:
"How do you spell Utah?—with a y?"
"Utah begins with You," he said—and rather liked his wit, listened for some recognition, and rose to get it, but she waved him away.
"Don't bother me, honey. Can't you see I'm busy?"
He kissed her hair and sauntered back, dividing his attention between Snoozleums and the ten-inning game.
And now there was a small commotion in thesmoking room. Through the glass 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 brass buttons."
"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 glassy 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!"
Kathleen's life and enthusiasm returned without delay: "Fancy meeting you again! I could just scream."
"So could I."
"You must come up in our car and see mamma."
"Is Ma-mamma with you?" Mallory stammered, on the verge of imbecility.
"Oh, yes, indeed, we're going around the world."
"Don't let me detain you."
"Papa is going round the world also."
"Is papa on this train, too?"
At last something seemed to embarrass her a trifle: "No, papa went on ahead. Mamma hopes to overtake him. But papa is a very good traveler."
Then she changed the subject. "Do come and meet mamma. It would cheer her up so. She is so fond of you. Only this morning she was saying, 'Of all the boys you were ever engaged to, Kathleen, the one I like most of all was Edgar—I mean Clarence—er—Harry Mallory."
"Awfully kind of her."
"You must come and see her—she's some stouter now!"
"Oh, is she? Well, that's good."
Mallory was too angry to be sane, and too helpless to take advantage of his anger. He wondered how he could ever have cared for this molasses and mucilage girl. He remembered now that she had always had these same cloying ways. She had always pawed him and, like everybody but the pawers, he hated pawing.
It would have been bad enough at any time to have Kathleen hanging on his coat, straightening his tie, leaning close, smiling up in his eyes, losing him his balance, recapturing him every time he edged away. But with Marjorie as the grim witness it was maddening.
He loathed and abominated Kathleen Llewellyn, and if she had only been a man, he could cheerfully have beaten her to a pulp and chucked her out of the window. But because she was a helpless little baggage, he had to be as polite as he could while she sat and tore his plans to pieces, embittered Marjorie's heart against him, and either ended all hopes of their marriage, or furnished an everlasting rancor to be recalled in every quarrel to their dying day. Oh, etiquette, what injustices are endured in thy name!
So there he sat, sweating his soul's blood, and able only to spar for time and wonder when the gong would ring. And now she was off on a new tack:
"And where are you bound for, Harry, dear?"
"The Philippines," he said, and for the first time there was something beautiful in their remoteness.
"Perhaps we shall cross the Pacific on the same boat."
The first sincere smile he had experienced came to him: "I go on an army transport, fortu—unfortunately."
"Oh, I just love soldiers. Couldn't mamma and I go on the transport? Mamma is very fond of soldiers, too."
"I'm afraid it couldn't be arranged."
"Too bad, but perhaps we can stop off and payyou a visit. I just love army posts. So does mamma."
"Oh, do!"
"What will be your address?"
"Just the Philippines—just the Philippines."
"But aren't there quite a few of them?"
"Only about two thousand."
"Which one will you be on?"
"I'll be on the third from the left," said Mallory, who neither knew nor cared what he was saying. Marjorie had endured all that she could stand. She rose in a tightly leashed fury.
"I'm afraid I'm in the way."
Kathleen turned in surprise. She had not noticed that anyone was near. Mallory went out of his head completely. "Oh, don't go—for heaven's sake don't go," he appealed to Marjorie.
"A friend of yours?" said Kathleen, bristling.
"No, not a friend," in a chaotic tangle, "Mrs.—Miss—Miss—Er—er—er——"
Kathleen smiled: "Delighted to meet you, Miss Ererer."
"The pleasure is all mine," Marjorie said, with an acid smile.
"Have you known Harry long?" said Kathleen, jealously, "or are you just acquaintances on the train?"
"We're just acquaintances on the train!"
"I used to know Harry very well—very well indeed."
"So I should judge. You won't mind if I leave you to talk over old times together?"
"How very sweet of you."
"Oh, don't mention it."
"But, Marjorie," Mallory cried, as she turned away. Kathleen started at the ardor of his tone, and gasped: "Marjorie! Then he—you——"
"Not at all—not in the least," said Marjorie.
At this crisis the room was suddenly inundated with people. Mrs. Whitcomb, Mrs. Wellington, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Fosdick, all trying to look like bridesmaids, danced in, shouting:
"Here they come! Make way for the bride and groom!"
The commotion of the matrimony-mad women brought the men trooping in from the smoking room and there was much circumstance of decorating the scene with white satin ribbons, a trifle crumpled and dim of luster. Mrs. Whitcomb waved them at Mallory with a laugh:
"Recognize these?"
He nodded dismally. His own funeral baked meats were coldly furnishing forth a wedding breakfast for Ira Lathrop. Mrs. Wellington was moving about distributing kazoos and Mrs. Temple had an armload of old shoes, some of which had thumped Mallory on an occasion which seemed so ancient as to be almost prehistoric.
Fosdick was howling to the porter to get some rice, quick!
"How many portions does you approximate?"
"All you've got."
"Boiled or fried?"
"Any old way." The porter ran forward to the dining-car for the ammunition.
Mrs. Temple whispered to her husband: "Too bad you're not officiating, Walter." But he cautioned silence:
"Hush! I'm on my vacation."
The train was already coming into Ogden. Noises were multiplying and from the increase of passing objects, the speed seemed to be taking on a spurt. The bell was clamoring like a wedding chime in a steeple.
Mrs. Wellington was on a chair fastening a ribbon round one of the lamps, and Mrs. Whitcomb was on another chair braiding the bell rope with withered orange branches, when Ashton, with kazoo all ready, called out:
"What tune shall we play?"
"I prefer the Mendelssohn Wedding March," said Mrs. Whitcomb, but Mrs. Wellington glared across at her.
"I've always used the Lohengrin."
"We'll play 'em both," said Dr. Temple, to make peace.
Mrs. Fosdick murmured to her spouse: "The old Justice of the Peace didn't give us any music at all," and received in reward one of his most luscious-eyed looks, and a whisper: "But he gave us each other."
"Now and then," she pouted.
"But where are the bride and groom?"
"Here they come—all ready," cried Ashton, andhe beat time while some of the guests kazooed at Mendelssohn's and some Wagner's bridal melodies, and others just made a noise.
Ira Lathrop and Anne Gattle, looking very sheepish, crowded through the narrow corridor and stood shamefacedly blushing like two school children about to sing a duet.
The train jolted to a dead stop. The conductor called into the car: "Ogden! All out for Ogden!" and everybody stood watching and waiting.
Ira, seeing Mallory, edged close and whispered: "Stand by to catch the minister on the rebound."
But Mallory turned away. What use had he now for ministers? His plans were shattered ruins.
The porter came flying in with two large bowls of rice, and shouting, "Here comes the 'possum—er posson." Seeing Marjorie, he said: "Shall I perambulate Mista Snoozleums?"
She handed the porter her only friend and he hurried out, as a lean and professionally sad ascetic hurried in. He did not recognize his boyish enemy in the gray-haired, red-faced giant that greeted him, but he knew that voice and its gloating irony:
"Hello, Charlie."
He had always found that when Ira grinned and was cordial, some trouble was in store for him. He wondered what rock Ira held behind his back now, but he forced an uneasy cordiality: "And is this you, Ira? Well, well! It is yeahs since last we met.And you're just getting married. Is this the first time, Ira?"
"First offense, Charlie."
The levity shocked Selby, but a greater shock was in store, for when he inquired: "And who is the—er—happy—bride?" the triumphant Lathrop snickered: "I believe you used to know her. Anne Gattle."
This was the rock behind Ira's back, and Selby took it with a wince: "Not—my old——"
"The same. Anne, you remember, Charlie."
"Oh, yes," said Anne, "How do you do, Charlie?" And she put out a shy hand, which he took with one still shyer. He was so unsettled that he stammered: "Well, well, I had always hoped to marry you, Anne, but not just this way."
Lathrop cut him short with a sharp: "Better get busy—before the train starts. And I'll pay you in advance before you set off the fireworks."
The flippancy pained the Rev. Charles, but he was resuscitated by one glance at the bill that Ira thrust into his palm. If a man's gratitude for his wife is measured by the size of the fee he hands the enabling parson, Ira was madly in love with Anne. The Rev. Charles had a reminiscent suspicion that it was probably a counterfeit, but for once he did Ira an injustice.
The minister was in such a flutter from losing his boyhood love, and gaining so much money all atonce and from performing the marriage on a train, that he made numerous errors in the ceremony, but nobody noticed them, and the spirit, if not the letter of the occasion, was there and the contract was doubtless legal enough.
The ritual began with the pleasant murmur of the preacher's voice, and the passengers crowded round in a solemn calm, which was suddenly violated by a loud yelp of laughter from Wedgewood, who emitted guffaw after guffaw and bent double and opened out again, like an agitated umbrella.
The wedding-guests turned on him visages of horror, and hissed silence at him. Ashton seized him, shook him, and muttered:
"What the—what's the matter with you?"
The Englishman shook like a boy having a spasm of giggles at a funeral, and blurted out the explanation:
"That story about the bridegroom—I just saw the point!"
Ashton closed his jaw by brute force and watched over him through the rest of the festivity.
Mallory had fled from the scene at the first hum of the minister's words. His fate was like alkali on his palate. For twelve hundred miles he had ransacked the world for a minister. When one dropped on the train like manna through the roof, even this miracle had to be checkmated by a perverse miracle that sent to the train an early infatuation, a silly affair that he himself called puppy-love. And now Marjorie would never marry him. He did not blame her. He blamed fate.
He was in solitude in the smoking room. The place reeked with drifting tobacco smoke and the malodor of cigar stubs and cigarette ends. His plans were as useless and odious as cigarette ends. He dropped into a chair his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands—Napoleon on St. Helena.
And then, suddenly he heard Marjorie's voice. He turned and saw her hesitating in the doorway. He rose to welcome her, but the smile died on his lips at her chilly speech:
"May I have a word with you, sir?"
"Of course. The air's rather thick in here," he apologized.
"Just wait!" she said, ominously, and stalked in like a young Zenobia. He put out an appealing hand: "Now, Marjorie, listen to reason. Of course I know you won't marry me now."
"Oh, you know that, do you?" she said, with a squared jaw.
"But, really, you ought to marry me—not merely because I love you—and you're the only girl I ever——" He stopped short and she almost smiled as she taunted him: "Go on—I dare you to say it."
He swallowed hard and waived the point: "Well, anyway, you ought to marry me—for your own sake."
Then she took his breath away by answering: "Oh, I'm going to marry you, never fear."
"You are," he cried, with a rush of returning hope. "Oh, I knew you loved me."
She pushed his encircling arms aside: "I don't love you, and that's why I'm going to marry you."
"But I don't understand."
"Of course not," she sneered, as if she were a thousand years old, "you're only a man—and a very young man."
"You've ceased to love me," he protested, "just because of a little affair I had before I met you?"
Marjorie answered with world-old wisdom: "Awoman can forgive a man anything except what he did before he met her."
He stared at her with masculine dismay at feminine logic: "If you can't forgive me, then why do you marry me?"
"For revenge!" she cried. "You brought me on this train all this distance to introduce me to a girl you used to spoon with. And I don't like her. She's awful!"
"Yes, she is awful," Mallory assented. "I don't know how I ever——"
"Oh, you admit it!"
"No."
"Well, I'm going to marry you—now—this minute—with that preacher, then I'm going to get off at Reno and divorce you."
"Divorce me! Good Lord! On what grounds?"
"On the grounds of Miss Kitty—Katty—Llewellington—or whatever her name is."
Mallory was groggy with punishment, and the vain effort to foresee her next blow. "But you can't name a woman that way," he pleaded, "for just being nice to me before I ever met you."
"That's the worst kind of unfaithfulness," she reiterated. "You should have known that some day you would meet me. You should have saved your first love for me."
"But last love is best," Mallory interposed, weakly.
"Oh, no, it isn't, and if it is, how do I know I'm to be your last love? No, sir, when I've divorced you, you can go back to your first love and go round the world with her till you get dizzy."
"But I don't want her for a wife," Mallory urged, "I want you."
"You'll get me—but not for long. And one other thing, I want you to get that bracelet away from that creature. Do you promise?"
"How can I get it away?"
"Take it away! Do you promise?"
Mallory surrendered completely. Anything to get Marjorie safely into his arms: "I promise anything, if you'll really marry me."
"Oh, I'll marry you, sir, but not really."
And while he stared in helpless awe at the cynic and termagant that jealousy had metamorphosed this timid, clinging creature into, they heard the conductor's voice at the rear door of the car: "Hurry up—we've got to start."
They heard Lathrop's protest: "Hold on there, conductor," and Selby's plea: "Oh, I say, my good man, wait a moment, can't you?"
The conductor answered with the gruffness of a despot: "Not a minute. I've my orders to make up lost time. All aboard!"
While the minister was tying the last loose ends of the matrimonial knot, Mallory and Marjorie were struggling through the crowd to get at him.Just as they were near, they were swept aside by the rush of the bride and groom, for the parson's "I pronounce you man and wife," pronounced as he backed toward the door, was the signal for another wedding riot.
Once more Ira and Anne were showered with rice. This time it was their own. Ira darted out into the corridor, haling his brand-new wife by the wrist, and the wedding guests pursued them across the vestibule, through the next car, and on, and on.
Nobody remained to notice what happened to the parson. Having performed his function, he was without further interest or use. But to Mallory and Marjorie he was vitally necessary.
Mallory caught his hand as it turned the knob of the door and drew him back. Marjorie, equally determined, caught his other elbow:
"Please don't go," Mallory urged, "until you've married us."
The Reverend Charles stared at his captors in amazement:
"But my dear man, the train's moving."
Marjorie clung all the tighter and invited him to "Come on to the next stop."
"But my dear lady," Selby gasped, "it's impossible."
"You've just got to," Mallory insisted.
"Release me, please."
"Never!"
"How dare you!" the parson shrieked, and with a sudden wriggle writhed out of his coat, leaving it in Marjorie's hands. He darted to the door and flung it open, with Mallory hot after him.
The train was kicking up a cloud of dust and getting its stride. The kidnapped clergyman paused a moment, aghast at the speed with which the ground was being paid out. Then he climbed the brass rail and, with a hasty prayer, dropped overboard.
Mallory lunged at him, and seized him by his reversed collar. But the collar alone remained in his clutch. The parson was almost lost in the dust he created as he struck, bounded and rolled till he came to a stop, with his stars and his prayers to thank for injuries to nothing worse than his dignity and other small clothes.
Mallory returned to the observation room and flung the collar and bib to the floor in a fury of despair, howling:
"He got away! He got away!"
The one thing Mallory was beginning to learn about Marjorie was that she would never take the point of view he expected, and never proceed along the lines of his logic.
She had grown furious at him for what he could not help. She had told him that she would marry him out of spite. She had commanded him to pursue and apprehend the flying parson. He failed and returned crestfallen and wondering what new form her rage would take.
And, lo and behold, when she saw him so downcast and helpless, she rushed to him with caresses, cuddled his broad shoulders against her breast, and smothered him. It was the sincerity of his dejection and the complete helplessness he displayed that won her woman's heart.
Mallory gazed at her with almost more wonderment than delight. This was another flashlight on her character. Most courtships are conducted under a rose-light in which wooer and wooed wear their best clothes or their best behavior; or in a starlit,moonlit, or gaslit twilight where romance softens angles and wraps everything in velvet shadow. Then the two get married and begin to live together in the cold, gray daylight of realism, with undignified necessities and harrowing situations at every step, and disillusion begins its deadly work.
This young couple was undergoing all the inconveniences and temper-exposures of marriage without its blessed compensations. They promised to be well acquainted before they were wed. If they still wanted each other after this ordeal, they were pretty well assured that their marriage would not be a failure.
Mallory rejoiced to see that the hurricane of Marjorie's jealousy had only whipped up the surface of her soul. The great depths were still calm and unmoved, and her love for him was in and of the depths.
Soon after leaving Ogden, the train entered upon the great bridge across the Great Salt Lake. The other passengers were staring at the enormous engineering masterpiece and the conductor was pointing out that, in order to save forty miles and the crossing of two mountain chains, the railroad had devoted four years of labor and millions of dollars to stretching a thirty-mile bridge across this inland ocean.
But Marjorie and Mallory never noticed it. They were absorbed in exploring each other's souls, andthey had safely bridged the Great Salt Lake which the first big bitter jealousy spreads across every matrimonial route.
They were undisturbed in their voyage, for all the other passengers had their noses flattened against the window panes of the other cars—all except one couple, gazing each at each through time-wrinkled eyelids touched with the magic of a tardy honeymoon.
For all that Anne and Ira knew, the Great Salt Lake was a moon-swept lagoon, and the arid mountains of Nevada which the train went scaling, were the very hillsides of Arcadia.
But the other passengers soon came trooping back into the observation room. Ira had told them nothing of Mallory's confession. In the first place, he was a man who had learned to keep a secret, and in the second place, he had forgotten that such persons as Mallory or his Marjorie existed. All the world was summed up in the fearsomely happy little spinster who had moved up into his section—the section which had begun its career draped in satin ribbons unwittingly prophetic.
The communion of Mallory and Marjorie under the benison of reconciliation was invaded by the jokes of the other passengers, unconsciously ironic.
Dr. Temple chaffed them amiably: "You two will have to take a back seat now. We've got a new bridal couple to amuse us."
And Mrs. Temple welcomed them with: "You're only old married folks, like us."
The Mallorys were used to the misunderstanding. But the misplaced witticisms gave them reassurance that their secret was safe yet a little while. At their dinner-table, however, and in the long evening that followed they were haunted by the fact that this was their last night on the train, and no minister to be expected.
And now once more the Mallorys regained the star rôles in the esteem of the audience, for once more they quarreled at good-night-kissing time. Once more they required two sections, while Anne Gattle's berth was not even made up. It remained empty, like a deserted nest, for its occupant had flown South.
The following morning the daylight creeping into section number one found Ira and Anne staring at each other. Ira was tousled and Anne was unkempt, but her blush still gave her cheek at least an Indian summer glow.
After a violent effort to reach the space between her shoulder blades, she was compelled to appeal to her new master to act as her new maid.
"Oh, Mr. Lathrop," she stammered—"Ira," she corrected, "won't you please hook me up?" she pleaded.
Ira beamed with a second childhood boyishness: "I'll do my best, my little ootsum-tootsums, it's the first time I ever tried it."
"Oh, I'm so glad," Anne sighed, "it's the first time I ever was hooked up by a gentleman."
He gurgled with joy and, forgetting the poverty of space, tried to reach her lips to kiss her. He almost broke her neck and bumped his head so hard that instead of saying, as he intended, "My darling," he said, "Oh, hell!"
"Ira!" she gasped. But he, with all the proprietorship he had assumed, answered cheerily: "You'll have to get used to it, ducky darling. I could never learn not to swear." He proved the fact again and again by the remarks he addressed to certain refractory hooks. He apologized, but she felt more like apologizing for herself.
"Oh, Ira," she said, "I'm so ashamed to have you see me like this—the first morning."
"Well, you haven't got anything on me—I'm not shaved."
"You don't have to tell me that," she said, rubbing her smarting cheek. Then she bumped her head and gasped: "Oh—what you said."
This made them feel so much at home that she attained the heights of frankness and honesty by reaching in her handbag for a knob of supplementary hair, which she affixed dextrously to what was homegrown. Ira, instead of looking shocked, loved her for her honesty, and grinned:
"Now, that's where you have got something on me. Say, we're like a couple of sardines trying to make love in a tin can."
"It's cosy though," she said, and then vanished through the curtains and shyly ran the gauntlet of amused glances and over-cordial "Good mornings" till she hid her blushes behind the door of the women's room and turned the key. If she had thought of it she would have said, "God bless the man thatinvented doors—and the other angel that invented locks."
The passengers this morning were all a little brisker than usual. It was the last day aboard for everybody and they showed a certain extra animation, like the inmates of an ocean liner when land has been sighted.
Ashton was shaving when Ira swaggered into the men's room. Without pausing to note whom he was addressing, Ashton sang out:
"Good morning. Did you rest well?"
"What!" Ira roared.
"Oh, excuse me!" said Ashton, hastily, devoting himself to a gash his safety razor had made in his cheek—even in that cheek of his.
Ira scrubbed out the basin, filled it and tried to dive into it, slapping the cold water in double handfuls over his glowing face and puffing through it like a porpoise.
Meanwhile the heavy-eyed Fosdick was slinking through the dining-car, regarded with amazement by Dr. Temple and his wife, who were already up and breakfasting.
"What's the matter with the bridal couples on this train, anyway?" said Dr. Temple.
"I can't imagine," said his wife, "we old couples are the only normal ones."
"Some more coffee, please, mother," he said.
"But your nerves," she protested.
"It's my vacation," he insisted.
Mrs. Temple stared at him and shook her head: "I wonder what mischief you'll be up to to-day? You've already been smoking, gambling, drinking—have you been swearing, yet?"
"Not yet," the old clergyman smiled, "I've been saving that up for a good occasion. Perhaps it will rise before the day's over."
And his wife choked on her tea at the wonderful train-change that had come over the best man in Ypsilanti.
By this time Fosdick had reached the stateroom from which he had been banished again at the Nevada state-line. He knocked cautiously. From within came an anxious voice: "Who's there?"
"Whom did you expect?"
Mrs. Fosdick popped her head out like a Jill in the box. "Oh, it's you, Arthur. Kiss me good morning."
He glanced round stealthily and obeyed instructions: "I guess its safe—my darling."
"Did you sleep, dovie?" she yawned.
"Not a wink. They took off the Portland car at Granger and I had to sleep in one of the chairs in the observation room."
Mrs. Fosdick shook her head at him in mournful sympathy, and asked: "What state are we in now?"
"A dreadful state—Nevada."
"Just what are we in Nevada?"
"I'm a bigamist, and you've never been married at all."
"Oh, these awful divorce laws!" she moaned, then left the general for the particular: "Won't you come in and hook me up?"
Fosdick looked shocked: "I don't dare compromise you."
"Will you take breakfast with me—in the dining-car?" she pleaded.
"Do we dare?"
"We might call it luncheon," she suggested.
He seized the chance: "All right, I'll go ahead and order, and you stroll in and I'll offer you the seat opposite me."
"But can't you hook me up?"
He was adamant: "Not till we get to California. Do you think I want to compromise my own wife? Shh! Somebody's coming!" And he darted off to the vestibule just as Mrs. Jimmie Wellington issued from number ten with hair askew, eyes only half open, and waist only half shut at the back. She made a quick spurt to the women's room, found it locked, stamped her foot, swore under her breath, and leaned against the wall of the car to wait.
About the same time, the man who was still her husband according to the law, rolled out of berth number two. There was an amazing clarity to his vision. He lurched as he made his way to the men's room, but it was plainly the train's swerve and notan inner lurch that twisted the forthright of his progress.
He squeezed into the men's room like a whole crowd at once, and sang out, "Good morning, all!" with a wonderful heartiness. Then he paused over a wash basin, rubbed his hands gleefully and proclaimed, like another Chantecler advertising a new day:
"Well—I'm sober again!"
"Three cheers for you," said his rival in radiance, bridegroom Lathrop.
"How does it feel?" demanded Ashton, smiling so broadly that he encountered the lather on his brush.
While he sputtered Wellington was flipping water over his hot head and incidentally over Ashton.
"I feel," he chortled, "I feel like the first little robin redbreast of the merry springtime. Tweet! Tweet!"
When the excitement over his redemption had somewhat calmed, Ashton reopened the old topic of conversation:
"Well, I see they had another scrap last night."
"They—who?" said Ira, through his flying toothbrush.
"The Mallorys. Once more he occupied number three and she number seven."
"Well, well, I can't understand these modern marriages," said Little Jimmie, with a side glance atIra. Ira suddenly remembered the plight of the Mallorys and was tempted to defend them, but he saw the young lieutenant himself just entering the washroom. This was more than Wellington saw, for he went on talking from behind a towel:
"Well, if I were a bridegroom and had a bride like that, it would take more than a quarrel to send me to another berth."
The others made gestures which he could not see. His enlightenment came when Mallory snapped the towel from his hands and glared into his face with all the righteous wrath of a man hearing his domestic affairs publicly discussed.
"Were you alluding to me, Mr. Wellington?" he demanded, hotly.
Little Jimmie almost perished with apoplexy: "You, you?" he mumbled. "Why, of course not. You're not the only bridegroom on the train."
Mallory tossed him the towel again: "You meant Mr. Lathrop then?"
"Me! Not much!" roared the indignant Lathrop.
Mallory returned to Wellington with a fiercer: "Whom, then?"
He was in a dangerous mood, and Ashton came to the rescue: "Oh, don't mind Wellington. He's not sober yet."
This inspired suggestion came like a life-buoy to the hard-pressed Wellington. He seized it and spoke thickly: "Don't mind me—I'm not shober yet."
"Well, it's a good thing you're not," was Mallory's final growl as he began his own toilet.
The porter's bell began to ring furiously, with a touch they had already come to recognize as the Englishman's. The porter had learned to recognize it, too, and he always took double the necessary time to answer it. He was sauntering down the aisle at his most leisurely gait when Wedgewood's rumpled mane shot out from the curtains like a lion's from a jungle, and he bellowed: "Pawtah! Pawtah!"
"Still on the train," said the porter.
"You may give me my portmanteau."
"Yassah." He dragged it from the upper berth, and set it inside Wedgewood's berth without special care as to its destination. "Does you desire anything else, sir?"
"Yes, your absence," said Wedgewood.
"The same to you and many of them," the porter muttered to himself, and added to Marjorie, who was just starting down the aisle: "I'll suttainly be interested in that man gittin' where he's goin' to git to." Noting that she carried Snoozleums, he said: "We're comin' into a station right soon." Without further discussion she handed him the dog, and he hobbled away.
When she reached the women's door, she found Mrs. Wellington waiting with increasing exasperation: "Come, join the line at the box office," she said.
"Good morning. Who's in there?" said Marjorie, and Mrs. Wellington, not noting that Mrs. Whitcomb had come out of her berth and fallen into line, answered sharply:
"I don't know. She's been there forever. I'm sure it's that cat of a Mrs. Whitcomb."
"Good morning, Mrs. Mallory," snapped Mrs. Whitcomb.
Mrs. Wellington was rather proud that the random shot landed, but Marjorie felt most uneasy between the two tigresses: "Good morning, Mrs. Whitcomb," she said. There was a disagreeable silence, broken finally by Mrs. Wellington's: "Oh, Mrs. Mallory, would you be angelic enough to hook my gown?"
"Of course I will," said Marjorie.
"May I hook you?" said Mrs. Whitcomb.
"You're awfully kind," said Marjorie, presenting her shoulders to Mrs. Whitcomb, who asked with malicious sweetness: "Why didn't your husband do this for you this morning?"
"I—I don't remember," Marjorie stammered, and Mrs. Wellington tossed over-shoulder an apothegm: "He's no husband till he's hook-broken."
Just then Mrs. Fosdick came out of her stateroom. Seeing Mrs. Whitcomb's waist agape, she went at it with a brief, "Good morning, everybody. Permit me."
Mrs. Wellington twisted her head to say "Goodmorning," and to ask, "Are you hooked, Mrs. Fosdick?"
"Not yet," pouted Mrs. Fosdick.
"Turn round and back up," said Mrs. Wellington. After some maneuvering, the women formed a complete circle, and fingers plied hooks and eyes in a veritable Ladies' Mutual Aid Society.
By now, Wedgewood was ready to appear in a bathrobe about as gaudy as the royal standard of Great Britain. He stalked down the aisle, and answered the male chorus's cheery "Good morning" with a ramlike "Baw."
Ira Lathrop felt amiable even toward the foreigner, and he observed: "Glorious morning this morning."
"I dare say," growled Wedgewood. "I don't go in much for mawnings—especially when I have no tub."
Wellington felt called upon to squelch him: "You Englishmen never had a real tub till we Americans sold 'em to you."
"I dare say," said Wedgewood indifferently. "You sell 'em. We use 'em. But, do you know, I've just thought out a ripping idea. I shall have my cold bath this mawning after all."
"What are you going to do?" growled Lathrop. "Crawl in the icewater tank?"
"Oh, dear, no. I shouldn't be let," and he produced from his pocket a rubber hose. "I simplyaffix this little tube to one end of the spigot and wave the sprinklah hyah over my—er—my person."
Lathrop stared at him pityingly, and demanded: "What happens to the water, then?"
"What do I care?" said Wedgewood.
"You durned fool, you'd flood the car."
Wedgewood's high hopes withered. "I hadn't thought of that," he sighed. "I suppose I must continue just as I am till I reach San Francisco. The first thing I shall order to-night will be four cold tubs and a lemon squash."
While the men continued to make themselves presentable in a huddle, the hook-and-eye society at the other end of the car finished with the four waists and Mrs. Fosdick hurried away to keep her tryst in the dining-car. The three remaining relapsed into dreary attitudes. Mrs. Wellington shook the knob of the forbidding door, and turned to complain: "What in heaven's name ails the creature in there. She must have fallen out of the window."
"It's outrageous," said Marjorie, "the way women violate women's rights."
Mrs. Whitcomb saw an opportunity to insert a stiletto. She observed to Marjorie, with an innocent air: "Why, Mrs. Mallory, I've even known women to lock themselves in there and smoke!"
While Mrs. Wellington was rummaging her brain for a fitting retort, the door opened, and out stepped Miss Gattle, as was.
She blushed furiously at sight of the committee waiting to greet her, but they repented their criticisms and tried to make up for them by the excessive warmth with which they all exclaimed at once: "Good morning, Mrs. Lathrop!"
"Good morning, who?" said Anne, then blushed yet redder: "Oh, I can't seem to get used to that name! I hope I haven't kept you waiting?"
"Oh, not at all!" the women insisted, and Anne fled to number Six, remembered that this was no longer her home, and moved on to number One. Here the porter was just finishing his restoring tasks, and laying aside with some diffidence two garments which Anne hastily stuffed into her own valise.
Meanwhile Marjorie was pushing Mrs. Wellington ahead:
"You go in first, Mrs. Wellington."
"You go first. I have no husband waiting for me," said Mrs. Wellington.
"Oh, I insist," said Marjorie.
"I couldn't think of it," persisted Mrs. Wellington. "I won't allow you."
And then Mrs. Whitcomb pushed them both aside: "Pardon me, won't you? I'm getting off at Reno."