"What matters," says Erma airily, "if she loved you?"
"Do you mean that?" remarks Harry, a peculiar ring coming into his voice.
"Yes," says the girl, rising; "if I loved a man I believe I could give up for him—even New York. But it is growing late. You tell me we have an early breakfast to-morrow morning, Captain Lawrence?"
"Yes, six o'clock," he says shortly, and escorts his charge to the door of the hotel, where her maid is waiting for her. Here she nonchalantly says, "Good-night. Thank you so much!" Then, a sudden impulse impelling her, she steps to the man who is just turning from her and whispers, her eyes glowing gratefully, "God bless you for saving Ferdie's life! God bless you for being kind to me!"
Next, seemingly frightened at herself, she runs lightly up the stairs to her bedroom, where she goes to sleep; but once she is awakened by the clanging of freight trains in the night, and this thought comes into her head: "What manner of man is this who two days ago was a stranger to me, but who has built railroads and slain desperadoes and Indians and whom I think about waking and sleeping?" Then she utters a little affrighted cry, "Why, he has even made me forget my father!"
The gentleman she has slighted has been under discussion on the railroad platform below.
Mr. Chauncey and Lawrence, strolling out before going to bed to take a preliminary smoke, the Captain suddenly asks, between puffs of his cigar: "Miss Travenion's father was quite a swell in New York?"
"Was?—IS!" cries Ferdie. "I only know him by sight, but I inspected him once or twice last year when he was in town, sitting in the Unity windows, chewing a cane, and following with his eyes any likely ankle up the Avenue. In fact, he's about as heavy a swell now as you'd want to see, though they say when he lived in New York permanently he used to be heavier."
"Ah," replies Harry, taking a long puff at his Havana, "a thorough club man?"
"I should think so!" returns Mr. Chauncey. "He is an out and outer. There are some curious stories extant that would make your hair stand on end about Ralph Travenion in the old days. They say——"