"Got your bag? Run for it," cried Channing, and followed through the pelting rain with his own luggage.
The train started even as the chuckling porter helped her on.
"Stateroom fo' N'Yawk,—yessir, yessir! Right in dis way, miss. I done seed you-all comin'. You suttinly did tek yo' foot in yo' han' an' trabbel—yessir! yes, suh!"
"Lord, what a run!" Channing was saying behind her. "I left the engine going, too—old Morty will be furious when he finds her! You must be wet as an otter in spite of that great cape.—Well, little sweetheart, here we are! Let 's—"
He stopped short. Kate had turned, slipping the cape from her shoulders.—There they were, indeed. The train sped on, gathering speed with each mile.
She began to laugh, softly at first, then more and more heartily, till her whole body shook and the tears streamed down her face. The romance-loving porter, listening outside, chuckled in sympathy. Channing essayed a sickly smile.
She stopped as suddenly as she had begun, and a silence fell.
Channing broke it, of course. It was his misfortune in moments of emergency always to become chatty.
"You have taken me by surprise, really!—I—I didn't recognize you at first. That cape—Look here, this isn't entirely my fault. You must know that! I meant to keep my word, I tried to. But Jacqueline would insist upon seeing me to—to prove that she trusted me. I told her it wouldn't do. She said she had made no promise.—Oh, hang it all, how could I help myself, with the girl throwing herself at my head like that? I'm no anchorite."
"No?" murmured Kate.