So it was that Edward E. Allison, standing quite alone on the platform of the Hoadley Park station, saw the approaching trial trip car stop, and run slowly, and run backwards, and dart forwards, and perform all sorts of experimental movements, before it rushed down to his platform, with a rosy-cheeked girl standing at the wheel, her brown eyes sparkling, her red lips parted in a smile of ecstatic happiness, her hat off and her waving brown hair flowing behind her in the sweep of the wind. To one side stood a highly pleased motorman, while a short, thick old man, and a careless fat man, and a man with a high forehead and one with a red moustache, all smiling indulgently, clogged the space in the rear.
Allison boarded the car, and greeted his guests, and came straight through to the motorman’s cage, as Gail, in response to the clang of the bell, pulled the lever. She was just getting that easy starting glide, and she was filled with pride in the fact.
“You should not stand bare-headed in front of that window,” greeted Allison, almost roughly; and he closed it.
Gail turned very sweetly to the motorman.
“Thank you,” she said, and gave him the lever, then she walked back into the car. It had required some repression to avoid recognising that dictatorial attitude, and Allison felt that she was rather distant, and wondered what was the matter; but he was a practical minded person, and he felt that it would soon blow over.
“This is the deepest line in the city,” he informed her, as she led the way back to the group in the parlour division. “Every subway we build presents more difficult problems of construction because of the crossings.”
“I should think it would be most difficult,” she indifferently responded, and hurried back to the girls.
“I feel horribly selfish,” she confessed, slipping her arm around Lucile on one side and Arly on the other; and the Reverend Smith Boyd, strangely inclined to poetry these days, compared them to the Three Graces, with Hope in the centre. They were an attractive picture for the looking of any man; the blonde Lucile, the brown Gail, and the black-haired Arly, all fresh-cheeked, slender, and sparkling of eye.
“I’m glad your conscience smites you,” smiled Arly. “Wasn’t it fun?”
“The most glorious in the world!” and Gail glanced doubtfully at Tim Corman, who was right on the spot.