“Light car this morning, John?” he asked.
The negro grinned. “Yes, sah; you’ right about dat, sholy, sah. You-all come mighty close to hab’n a special cyar last night, sah.”
“So?”
“Yes, sah. De young lady and you-all had de Hesp’rus all to you’ own selves. Po’ portah ain’t gwine get rich out o’ dis trip, sholy.”
“No, I should say not.” Brant was sluicing his face in the dodging basin at the moment, but a little later, when he had a dry pocket hand, he gave the porter a coin of price.
“Take good care of the lady, John; they don’t remember about these little things, you know.”
“No, sah—t’ank you kin’ly, sah—dat dey don’t. But I’s take mighty good keer o’ dat young lady now, sah. Is—is you-all ’quaintin’ wid her, sah?”
“I haven’t so much as seen her face,” said Brant, which was near enough the literal truth to stand uncorrected. And a few minutes later he went back into the body of the car to repair the omission.
What he saw stirred that part of him which had long lain dormant. She was sitting in lonely state in the otherwise unoccupied car, and his first impression, at half-car-length range, was that she was a sweet incarnation of goodness of the protectable sort. Whereupon he shut the door upon the past and betook himself to her section with a kindly offer of service.
“Good morning, Miss Langford,” he began. “I hope you rested well. We are coming to the breakfast station, and there will doubtless be the usual scramble. May I have the pleasure of looking after your wants?”