CHAPTER XXXII
The first east-bound express that left New York the following morning carried in one of its Pullmans a famous surgeon and his assistant, bound for New Bethel. In the murk of the smoker ahead was a third passenger whose ticket bore the name of the same city—a bearded man with rounded shoulders and tired eyes, whose clothes betrayed a foreign origin.
This was Paul Spencer on the last stage of his journey home.
Until the train drew out of the station, the seat by his side was unoccupied. But then another foreign looking passenger entered and made his way up the aisle.
You have probably noticed how some instinctive law of selection seems to guide us in choosing our companion in a car where all the window seats are taken. The newcomer passed a number of empty places and sat down by the side of Paul. He was tall, blonde, with dusty looking eyebrows and a beard that was nearly the colour of dead grass.
"Russian, I guess," thought Paul, "and probably thinks I am something of the same."
The reflection pleased him.
"If that's the way I look to him, nobody else is going to guess."
When the conductor came, Paul's seat-mate tried to ask if he would have to change cars before reaching his destination, but his language was so broken that he couldn't make himself understood.
"I thought he was Russian," Paul nodded to himself, catching a word here and there; and, aloud, he quietly added in his mother's tongue, "It's all right, batuchka; you don't have to change."
The other gave him a grateful glance, and soon they were talking together.
"A Bolshevist," thought Paul, recognizing now and then a phrase or an argument which he had heard from some of his friends in Rio, "but what's he going to New Bethel for?"
As the train drew nearer the place of his birth, Paul grew quieter. Old landmarks, nearly forgotten, began to appear and remind him of the past.
"What time do we get there?" he asked a passing brakeman.
"Eleven-thirty-four."
Paul's companion gave him a look of envy.
"You speak English well," said he.
Paul didn't like that, and took refuge behind one of those Slavonic indirections which are typical of the Russian mind—an indirection hinting at mysterious purpose and power.
"There are times in a life," said he, "when it becomes necessary to speak a foreign language well."
They looked at each other then, and simultaneously they nodded.
"You are right, batuchka," said the blonde giant at last, matching indirection with indirection. "For myself, I cannot speak English well—ah, no—but I have a language that all men understand—and fear—and when I speak, the houses fall and the mountains shake their heads."
His eyes gleamed and he breathed quickly—intoxicated by the poetry of his own words; but Paul had heard too much of that sort of imagery to be impressed.
"A Bolshevist, sure enough," he thought.
A familiar landscape outside attracted his attention.
"We'll be there in a few minutes," he thought. "Yes, there's the road … and there's the lower bridge…. I hope that old place at the bend of the river's still there. I'll take a walk down this afternoon, and see."
At the station he noted that his late companion was being greeted by a group of friends who had evidently come to meet him. Paul stood for a few minutes on the platform, unrecognized, unheeded, jostled by the throng.
"The prodigal son returns," he sighed, and slowly crossed the square….
Late in the afternoon a tired figure made its way along the river below the factory. The banks were high, but where the stream turned, a small grass-covered cove had been hollowed out by the edge of the water.
"This is the best of all," thought Paul after he had climbed down the bank and, sinking upon the grass, he lay with his face to the sun, as he had so often lain when he was a boy, dreaming those golden dreams of youth which are the heritage of us all.
"I was a fool to come," he told himself. "I'll get back to the ship tomorrow…."
For where he had hoped to find pleasure, he had found little but bitterness. The sight of the house on the hill, the factory in the hollow below the dam, even the faces which he had recognized had given him a feeling of sadness, of punishment—a feeling which only an outcast can know to the full—an outcast who returns to the scene of his home after many years, unrecognized, unwanted, afraid almost to speak for fear he will betray himself….
For a long time Paul lay there, sometimes staring up at the sky, sometimes half turning to look up the river where he could catch a glimpse of the factory grounds and, farther up, the high cascade of water falling over the dam—the bridge just above it….
Gradually a sense of rest, of relaxation took possession of him. "This is the best of all," he sighed, "but I'll get back to the ship tomorrow…."
The sun shone on his face…. His eyes closed….
When he opened them again it was dark.
"First time I've slept like that for years," he said, sitting up and stretching. Around him the grass was wet with dew. "Must be getting late," he thought. "I'd better get under shelter."
On the bridge above the dam he saw the headlights of a car slowly moving.
In the centre it stopped and the lights went out.
"That's funny," he thought. "Something the matter with his wires, maybe."
He stood up, idly watching. After a few minutes the lights switched on again and the car began to move forward. Behind it appeared the approaching lights of a second machine.
"That first car doesn't want to be seen," thought Paul. At each end of the bridge was an arc lamp. As the first car passed under the light, he caught a glimpse of it—a grey touring car, evidently capable of speed.
Paul didn't think of this again until he was near the place where he had decided to pass the night. At the corner of the street ahead of him a grey car stopped and three men got out—his blonde companion of the train among them, conspicuous both on account of his height and his beard.
"That's the same car," thought Paul, watching it roll away; and frowning as he thought of his Russian acquaintance of the morning he uneasily added, "I wonder what they were doing on that bridge…."