“They’re good sorts,” he remarked. “Husband and wife?”
“Not yet,” said Alison, as if she knew. “They are going to be married; I think they fixed it, not long since, at Winnipeg Beach. The girl’s kind, and because she’s happy she wanted to sympathize.”
She turned her head and Kit saw a light. Perhaps the others thinking them man and wife was not remarkable, and he began to muse. Although the Winnipeg girls were attractive, none had a charm like Alison’s. Their walk and carriage indicated that they knew their power to attract, but Alison’s charm was unconscious. Kit liked her level glance, her touch of quiet humor and her independence. When she was gone he would be lonely. Since he was not a romantic sentimentalist, there was the puzzle.
Alison knew he was Evelyn’s lover, and although now he thought about it, she had some physical charm, her beauty did not move him. In fact, he was not attracted because she was a girl; sex had nothing to do with it. Perhaps her trusting him accounted for much. One liked to be trusted and one liked people one helped; but Kit doubted if it accounted for all. Anyhow, he did not want to let her go. Alison was quiet, and he lighted a cigarette from the Canadian’s package.
At length, a bell rang and a long train rolled into the station. Alison got up, as if she braced herself, and Kit seized her bag. He told her to hold his arm and they were carried to the door by a jostling crowd. On the platform the crowd stopped and surged tumultuously about. Tall iron rails enclosed the space and a group of muscular railroad men kept the gate. Kit supposed they wanted to examine the tickets, since another train started soon.
The emigrants, however, had waited long, and now they saw the train they meant to get on board. A number knew no English. On board ship and at the stations strangers drove them about and penned them up like cattle. It looked as if they had had enough and their dull resignation vanished. They growled sullenly, and Kit thought “growl” was the proper word, for the noise carried a hint of animal savageness. When the shipyard gates stopped a strikers’ march, Kit had heard the ominous note before.
“Give me your ticket,” he said to Alison. “I’ll see you on the cars.”
“But the railway people will turn you back.”
“I think not; if they try, they’re fools,” said Kit. “This crowd’s going through.”
For a few minutes the railroad men struggled to hold the jostling passengers, and then one shut the ponderous gate. The mob howled and rolled ahead, and the group was flung against the rails. A whistle pierced the turmoil; porters and train-hands ran to help, but the emigrants’ blood was fired and they raged behind the barrier. A few, perhaps, were fanatic anarchists; others had borne oppression and stern military rule. Now authority again blocked their road they meant to fight.