“What ‘things’ were those he spoke of, father?” she asked, after a long pause.
The passengers who had temporarily left the train for the doubtful solace of the refreshment counter were beginning now to return. Some of them jostled past the couple who stood blocking the narrow path; and one of these, a stout and choleric man in a silk skull-cap and a fur-lined overcoat, brusquely kicked the big valise out of the way, overturning it in the snow. Lawton had not found the courage necessary for a complete explanation. He bent over now, set the bag on its bottom again, and made partial answer:
“This is one of ’em.”
The heavy train, snow-capped and sombre, began to draw out of the yard. The two Lawtons stood and silently watched it unfold its length—saw first the broad, plate-glass panes of the drawing-room and sleeping cars, with their luxurious shadows and glimpses of well-groomed heads and costly stuffs behind, glide slowly, sedately by; then, more rapidly, the closer-set windows of the yellow, common cars, through the steam on which visions of hats and faces dimly crowded; and last, the diminishing rear platform, with its solitary brakeman vehemently whirling the horizontal wheel of the brake—grow small, then indistinct, then vanish altogether. A sense of desertion, of having been left behind, seemed to brood over the old clapboarded dépôt like a cloud, darkening the ashen masses of snow round about and chilling the very air.
The daughter looked once more at her father.
“You are going to carry his things!” she said, with a stern, masterful inflection in her voice, and with flashing eyes.
“Hope-to-die, Jess, I tried as hard as I could to get out of it—made all sorts of excuses,” Lawton pleaded, shrinking meantime from her gaze, and furtively but clumsily slipping the coin into his pocket. “But you know the kind of fellow Hod is—” he stammered here with confusion, and made haste to add—“what I mean is—he—well, he just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
She went, on coldly, as if she had not heard: “You have got his money—I saw it—there in your hand.”
“Well, I tell you what, Jess,” the father answered, with an accession of boldness, “half-dollars don’t grow on every bush up this way. I ain’t seen one afore in a fortnight. And to-morrow’s Thanksgiving, you know—and then you’ve come home—and what was a fellow to do?”
The girl turned, as if it were fruitless to say more. Then the necessity for relief mastered her: she faced him again, and ground the words from between her set teeth with scornful sadness: