The High Heart

by Basil King

This last I did only when it was too late for him to answer or intercept me.

"Called suddenly out of town," I wrote. "May lead to a new place. Will write or wire as soon as possible." Having sent this off at half past four, I took a taxicab for the station.

My instructions were so far carried out successfully that, with a colored porter wearing a red cap to precede me, I was the first to pass the barrier leading to the train, and the first to take my seat in the long, narrow parlor-car. My chair was two from the end toward the entrance and exit. Once enthroned within its upholstered depths I watched for strange occurrences.

But I watched in vain. For a time I saw nothing but the straight, empty cavern of the car. Then a colored porter, as like to my own as one pea to another, came puffing his way in, dragging valises and other impedimenta, and followed by an old gentleman and his wife. These the porter installed in chairs toward the middle of the car, and, touching his cap on receipt of his tip, made hastily for the door. Similar arrivals came soon after that, with much stowing of luggage into overhead racks, and kisses, and injunctions as to conduct, and farewells. Within my range of vision were two elderly ladies, a smartly dressed young man, a couple in the disillusioned, surly stage, a couple who had recently been married, a clergyman, a youth of the cheap sporting type. To one looking for the solution of a mystery the material was not promising.

The three chairs immediately in front of mine remained unoccupied. I kept my eye on them, of course, and presently got some reward. Shortly before the train pulled out of the station a shadow passed me which I knew to be that of Larry Strangways. He went on to the fourth seat, counting mine as the first, and, having reached it, turned round and looked at me. He looked at me gravely, with no sign of recognition beyond a shake of the head. I understood then that I was not to recognize him, and that in the adventure, however it turned out, we were to be as strangers.

One more thing I saw. He had never been so pale or grim or determined in all the time I had known him. I had hardly supposed that it was in him to be so determined, so grim, or so pale. I gathered that he was taking our mission more to heart than I had supposed, and that, prompt in action as I had been, I was considering it too flippantly. Inwardly I prayed for nerve to support him, and for that presence of mind which would tell me what to do when there was anything to be done.

Perhaps it increased my zeal that he was so handsome. Straight and slim and upright, his features were of that lean, blond, regular type I used to consider Anglo-Saxon, but which, now that I have seen it in so many Scandinavians, I have come to ascribe to the Norse strain in our blood. The eyes were direct; the chin was firm; the nose as straight as an ancient Greek's. The relatively small mouth was adorned by a relatively small mustache, twisted up at the ends, of the color of the coffee-bean, and, to my admiring feminine appreciation, blooming on his face like a flower.

His neat spring suit was also of the color of the coffee-bean, and so was his soft felt hat. In his shirt there were lines of tan and violet, and tan and violet appeared in the tie beneath which a soft collar was pinned with a gold safety pin. The yellow gloves that men have affected of late years gave a pleasant finish to this costume, which was quite complete when he pulled from his bag an English traveling-cap of several shades of tan and put it on. He also took out a book, stretching himself in his chair in such a way that the English traveling-cap was all I could henceforth see of his personality.

I give these details because they entered into the mingled unwillingness and zest with which I found myself dragged on an errand to which I had no clue. Still less had I a clue when the train began to move, and I had nothing but the view of the English traveling-cap to bear me company. But no, I had one other detail. Before sitting down Mr. Strangways had carefully separated his own hand-luggage from that of the person who would be behind him, and which included an ulster, a walking-stick, and a case of golf-clubs. I inferred, therefore, that the wayfarer who owned one of the two chairs between Mr. Strangways and myself must be a man. The chair directly in front of mine remained empty.

As we passed into the tunnel my mind lashed wildly about in search of explanations, the only one I could find being that Larry Strangways was kidnapping me. On arriving in Boston I might find myself confronted by a marriage license and a clergyman. If so, I said to myself, with an extraordinary thrill, there would be nothing for it but submission to this force majeure, though I had to admit that the averted head, the English traveling-cap, and the intervening ulster, walking-stick, and golf-clubs worked against my theory. I was dreaming in this way when the train emerged from the tunnel and stopped so briefly at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street that, considering it afterward, I concluded that the pause had been arranged for. It was just long enough for an odd little bundle of womanhood to be pulled and shoved on the car and thrown into the seat immediately in front of mine. I choose my verbs with care, since they give the effect produced on me. The little woman, who was swathed in black veils and clad in a long black shapeless coat, seemed not to act of her own volition and to be more dead than alive. The porter who had brought her in flung down her two or three bags and waited, significantly, though the train was already creeping its way onward. She was plainly unused to fending for herself, and only when, as a reminder, the man had touched his hat a second time did it occur to her what she had to do. Hastily unfastening a small bag, she pulled out a handful of money and thrust it at him. The man grinned and was gone, after which she sagged back helplessly into her seat, the satchel open in her lap.