"Barbara, I love you!—Dearest! Dearest!"
She thought the gesture unseen, unguessed by any one. But in the forward car, beyond the glass vestibule door, which to her was only a trembling mirror, a man sat watching with burning eyes. He had been gazing through the window when the train stopped, had risen to his feet with instant recognition—to shrink back into his seat, his fingers clenched, his bitten lip indrawn, and a pallor on his face.
It was Austen Ware, and he had seen that kiss.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE COMING OF AUSTEN WARE
Dusk purpled over the rice-fields as the train sped on. Still the man who had witnessed that farewell sat crouched in his seat in the forward car, stirless and pallid.
From boyhood Austen Ware had trod a calculate path. Judicious, masterful, possessed, he had gone through life with none of the temptations that had lain in wait for his younger brother Phil. These traits were linked to a certain incapacity for bad luck and an unwearying tenaciousness of purpose. Seldom had any one seen his face change color, had seldom seen his poise of glacial complacency shaken.
To-night, however, the oil lamps which glowed dully in the ceiling of the carriage threw their faint light on a face torn with passion. Barbara's beauty, whose perfect indifference no touch of sentimental passion had devitalized, had, from the first, aroused Ware's stubborn sense of conquest. He had been too wise to make missteps—had put ardor into the background, while surrounding her with tactful and graceful observances which unconsciously usurped a large place in her thought. In the end he had broken down an instinctive disinclination and converted it into liking.