When the daylight blue had faded, there was a kind of dusky lull. Then, as if flames leaped up out of the clear water, river and mountains and sky ran gold, reddening slowly till the colour burned deep and vivid as the heart of a rose. From crimson was born violet, soft blue-violet that hung like a robe over the mountains, while the living azure of the river was slashed with silver; and as one gazed and gazed, afraid to turn away, there broke a sudden flood of amethyst light out of the floating haze. It was dazzling for a moment, but before one realised the change the brilliance had been drunk up by purple shadows. The outline of trees and foot-hills melted into the pansy gloom, and at last, with one dying quiver of light all warmth of colour was blotted out. Water and sky paled to a pensive grey-blue, and as the French say, "it made night."
There was a tremendous menu for dinner, such as we used to have for breakfast on shipboard, and droves of things whose names I'd never heard before. Just for curiosity, I ordered several of the strangest, and some of them were a great success. For instance, there was "succotash," which sounds as if it might be a guttural insult flung at the mouth of one Red Indian Brave by another; but when it was (figuratively speaking) flung at mine by a black waiter, it turned out to be something more in the nature of a compliment. It looked like beryls mixed with pearls, though it was really only green beans stirred up with American corn; and the two got on so well together you felt they had been born for each other.
It's now about two o'clock in the morning, and it seems as if we must have raced across half America, but we have a long, long way to go still, so says the soft brown thing, who looked in on me about an hour ago to ask in a casual way whether, if she should go to Europe to live, she might not be taken for an Italian?
When I was a little girl, and my nurse used to make up tales to put me to sleep at night, I would sometimes get impatient and tell her to "go down into the story and find out what happened next." Just now, I feel as if that is what I should like to do in my future.
XV
ABOUT SEEING CHICAGO
The first face I saw on the platform when we arrived in Chicago was Mr. Brett's. He was waiting to help me, and looked as fresh as if he hadn't spent eighteen hours in the train. He said I looked fresh, too; but if I did it must have been excitement, as I'd written half the night and dreamed desperately the other half, about Potter Parker--dressed like one of those Red Indians they have for cigar signs in New York--pursuing me with a jewelled tomahawk.
Mr. Brett had insisted on my telegraphing to Sally before we left New York, to say I was coming, and asking her to meet the train, therefore, we were surprised not to find her at the station. I was rather anxious, and so I could see was Mr. Brett. He thought he had better not drive in a cab with me to the friend's house where she was staying, but he told me the name of a hotel where he would go at once, and made me promise that I would send him a line by the cabman to say whether everything was well with me.
"Miss Woodburn probably has a headache, or perhaps is out of town for the day," said he. "It can't be anything else; still, I shall be a little uneasy till I hear. And you know I hold myself absolutely at your service."