“Amen,” answered the young man thickly. His face twitched, he paused as though about to speak, and then suddenly turned and left the car.
“Isn’t he strange!” ejaculated Barbara. “I never saw a more melancholy face.”
“He is very strange,” assented Mrs. Sansone.
There was a depth of meaning in her words, unsuspected by Barbara, for the kind Italian woman had recognized the good Samaritan. This melancholy man was, in her estimation, the greatest screen comedian in the world.
“And,” continued Barbara, when the porter had placed a second pillow under her head, “with all his melancholy, he is so kind and so good!”
“I don’t understand,” commented the Italian. Again the depth of this remark was lost upon Barbara. For Mrs. Sansone knew much of the gossip concerning the great comedian. She knew that he had figured in many episodes which, to say the least, were anything but savory. And now she had met the man in a few intimate moments and seen him kind, gentle, gracious, and with a reverence for a good woman and a good woman’s prayers that had filled her with a feeling akin to awe. As she ministered lovingly to Barbara she meditated upon these opposing truths, and so meditating took a new lesson in the school of experience, a lesson the fruits of which are wisdom.
“I am anxious about my boy,” said Barbara opening her eyes and endeavoring vainly to sit up.
Mrs. Sansone threw a quick glance about the car. Her gaze rested presently upon an elderly woman whose face was eminently kindly. She was every inch a matron. Mrs. Estelle Sansone stepped over to her.
“Pardon me,” she said, “but the lady over there is quite ill, and she is worrying about her little boy, who should have been back by this time. I don’t like to leave her alone while I go in search—”
“And,” broke in the other, “you want some one to take your place? I thank you for asking me. I’ve been a widow for nearly fourteen years, and since my husband’s death I have worked as nurse in the Northwestern Railroad’s emergency ward in Chicago.”