"Hurry girls, you must go," she said, softly and peremptorily, moving with them to the end of the car. "How I wish you didn't have to!" Then, as they reached the door, the flushed one squeezed their arms. "That was Mr. Fabian, girls!" she added.
"Where? Where?" they ejaculated, looking wildly about.
"Back there in the very next chair to mine. Oh, get off, dears."
They regarded the rosy face.
"Slyboots!" exclaimed Roxana.
"Indeed, I knew nothing of it!" declared Violet.
"Very well." Regina spoke in hasty exhortation. "The sun shines hard enough for you to make all the hay there is. I've a great mind to throw a pump after you!"
The friends slipped off just in time, and Violet waved them a laughing adieu; then her face sobered while her eyes shone. She could not go back to her place at once. The combination was more than flesh and blood could endure nonchalantly: her work finished, she starting for the island earlier than she had hoped, with the joyful anticipation of surprising her aunt, and, instead of journeying alone, to find the man beside her.
Violet was extremely indignant with herself for calling Edgar the man. Never one thing had he done to deserve it. There was no one on earth to whom in reality she was more indifferent. She allowed conductors, porter, passengers, and luggage to stumble by and over her in the narrow passage while she reflected upon the utter uncongeniality of herself and Edgar Fabian; the gulf fixed between their lots, their habits, their tastes. A man who was so artificial that he couldn't like Brewster's Island. How could any girl with genuine feeling do more than politely endure him!
Violet finally, having been bumped and trodden on until she realized that she was being scowled at by all comers, stepped under the portière into the ladies' room and looked in the glass. The neatest and trimmest of visions regarded her.