第74章

Finally, he sawed it back and forth across them, and, with a sigh, languidly dropped it upon the floor, where it remained.

Returning to the mirror, he again brushed his hair--he went so far, this time, as to brush his eyebrows, which seemed not much altered by the operation.Suddenly, he was deeply affected by something seen in the glass.

``By George!'' he exclaimed aloud.

Seizing a small hand-mirror, he placed it in juxtaposition to his right eye, and closely studied his left profile as exhibited in the larger mirror.

Then he examined his right profile, subjecting it to a like scrutiny emotional, yet attentive and prolonged.

``By George!'' he exclaimed, again.``By George!''

He had made a discovery.There was a downy shadow upon his upper lip.What he had just found out was that this down could be seen projecting beyond the line of his lip, like a tiny nimbus.It could be seen in PROFILE.

``By GEORGE!'' William exclaimed.

He was still occupied with the two mirrors when his mother again tapped softly upon his door, rousing him as from a dream (brief but engaging)

to the heavy realities of that day.

``What you want now?''

``I won't come in,'' said Mrs.Baxter.``I just came to see.''

``See what?''

``I wondered-- I thought perhaps you needed something.I knew your watch was out of order--''

``F'r 'evan's sake what if it is?''

She offered a murmur of placative laughter as her apology, and said: ``Well, I just thought I'd tell you--because if you did intend going to the station, I thought you probably wouldn't want to miss it and get there too late.I've got your hat here all nicely brushed for you.It's nearly twenty minutes of one, Willie.''

``WHAT?''

``Yes, it is.It's--''

She had no further speech with him.

Breathless, William flung open his door, seized the hat, racketed down the stairs, and out through the front door, which he left open behind him.Eight seconds later he returned at a gallop, hurtled up the stairs and into his room, emerging instantly with something concealed under his coat.Replying incoherently to his mother's inquiries, he fell down the stairs as far as the landing, used the impetus thus given as a help to greater speed for the rest of the descent--and passed out of hearing.

Mrs.Baxter sighed, and went to a window in her own room, and looked out.

William was already more than half-way to the next corner, where there was a car-line that ran to the station; but the distance was not too great for Mrs.Baxter to comprehend the nature of the symmetrical white parcel now carried in his right hand.Her face became pensive as she gazed after the flying slender figure:--there came to her mind the recollection of a seventeen-

year-old boy who had brought a box of candy (a small one, like William's) to the station, once, long ago, when she had been visiting in another town.For just a moment she thought of that boy she had known, so many years ago, and a smile came vaguely upon her lips.She wondered what kind of a woman he had married, and how many children he had--and whether he was a widower----The fleeting recollection passed; she turned from the window and shook her head, puzzled.

``Now where on earth could Jane and that little Kirsted girl have gone?'' she murmured.

...At the station, William, descending from the street-car, found that he had six minutes to spare.Reassured of so much by the great clock in the station tower, he entered the building, and, with calm and dignified steps, crossed the large waiting-room.Those calm and dignified steps were taken by feet which little betrayed the tremulousness of the knees above them.Moreover, though William's face was red, his expression--cold, and concentrated upon high matters --scorned the stranger, and warned the lower classes that the mission of this bit of gentry was not to them.

With but one sweeping and repellent glance over the canaille present, he made sure that the person he sought was not in the waiting-room.

Therefore, he turned to the doors which gave admission to the tracks, but before he went out he paused for an instant of displeasure.Hard by the doors stood a telephone-booth, and from inside this booth a little girl of nine or ten was peering eagerly out at William, her eyes just above the lower level of the glass window in the door.

Even a prospect thus curtailed revealed her as a smudged and dusty little girl; and, evidently, her mother must have been preoccupied with some important affair that day; but to William she suggested nothing familiar.As his glance happened to encounter hers, the peering eyes grew instantly brighter with excitement;--she exposed her whole countenance at the window, and impulsively made a face at him.

William had not the slightest recollection of ever having seen her before.

He gave her one stern look and went on;

though he felt that something ought to be done.

The affair was not a personal one--patently, this was a child who played about the station and amused herself by making faces at everybody who passed the telephone-booth--still, the authorities ought not to allow it.People did not come to the station to be insulted.

Three seconds later the dusty-faced little girl and her moue were sped utterly from William's mind.For, as the doors swung together behind him, he saw Miss Pratt.There were no gates nor iron barriers to obscure the view; there was no train-shed to darken the air.She was at some distance, perhaps two hundred feet, along the tracks, where the sleeping-cars of the long train would stop.But there she stood, mistakable for no other on this wide earth!

There she stood--a glowing little figure in the hazy September sunlight, her hair an amber mist under the adorable little hat; a small bunch of violets at her waist; a larger bunch of fragrant but less expensive sweet peas in her right hand;

half a dozen pink roses in her left; her little dog Flopit in the crook of one arm; and a one-pound box of candy in the crook of the other--ineffable, radiant, starry, there she stood!