AN INTRODUCTION
Forbes waited for the door to be opened with sensations approximating those of a naughty boy, caught in mischief. Man of the world as he was, he recoiled from the prospect before him. He had never been of the temperament to ignore precedent and defy regulations, and the necessary explanations to outraged authority were no more attractive because they were something new in his experience. Hardly more agreeable than his anticipations of an interview with the conductor was the realization of the probable comments of his fellow passengers, the smiles that would be exchanged, the curious conjectures passed from one to another, as to the occasion for his act.
As Forbes reflected ruefully on the coming ordeal, his hat was lifted lightly from his head and sent whirling on an independent journey. His impulse to snatch after it was checked by the discovery that he needed both hands for another purpose, needed them imperatively, for the lurch of the train had nearly thrown him off his balance. He tightened his grip and gave himself up to irritated reflection. Like most men, Forbes was pathetically dependent on his hat. He never so much as crossed the street without it. Now it would be necessary to make the rest of his journey hatless and leave the train in some unfamiliar city, stared at by the crowd who would mistake him for a faddist, demonstrating a protest against conventional garb. Forbes' annoyance gave vent in a profane ejaculation.
The next to go were his eye-glasses. Again Forbes' inclination to clutch for his vanishing possessions was conquered just in time to save him from following in their wake. The narrow margin by which he had missed death did not prevent him from grieving over his glasses. He had no others with him. He would not be able to read till he reached home, and the strain on his eyes would probably bring on a severe headache. His hat could be replaced at the first shop, but not his glasses. He found it hard to be reconciled to such ill luck.
It was several minutes before the realization was brought home to Forbes that the loss of these belongings was a very trifling matter. By that time his feeling of reluctance to have the door opened had entirely vanished. In his boyhood he had frequently played "crack the whip." His sensations when the line of runners suddenly halted, and he, a little fellow bringing up the rear, was sent sprawling over the grass, were being duplicated in this memorable ride. The express was playing "crack the whip" with himself as snapper. Once as the train rounded a curve, both feet flew from under him, and the unexpected jerk upon his arms almost broke his hold. He could hardly believe in his good fortune when he found himself still standing on the step, holding on literally for dear life. For now he knew that in his desperate determination to see Agatha again, he had taken his life in his hands.
Oddly enough it was not the likelihood of a sudden and violent death which presented itself most forcibly to his imagination. The opportunities he had missed with Agatha were infinitely more disturbing. If only he had spoken in her defense the day Julia had exhausted her ingenuity in wounding and insulting the rival she instinctively feared. But he had stood silent while Julia's malice spent itself. And later when time had revealed the affair in a truer perspective, if he had but gone to her and said to her all that was in his heart, she might have been his wife by now. One inevitably gets down to realities when life flickers like a candle in the wind, and Forbes no longer debated the question of Agatha's love for him. In addition to Warren's testimony, he had the memory of a kiss, a dream kiss, pressed on his cheeks as he struggled back to consciousness after the stormy interview with Hephzibah, a kiss salt with tears and sweet with ineffable promise. Forbes heard his bitter laughter above the roar of the train. "God!" his voice said, "what a mess I've made of things."
Forbes had never had a high opinion of the intelligence of that portion of the traveling public which puts its head out of the window of a moving train. Indeed he had always classified it with the people who maim or kill their best friends by playful maneuvers with guns that are not loaded. From this time on, his ideas on the subject were to be revolutionized. He was destined to think of the above-named individuals as philanthropists of a high order.
A man in the smoking-car, thrusting his head out of the window at a time when the curving of the track brought the rear coach into full view, made a discovery which he promptly imparted to the conductor. That official, properly incredulous, extended his own head from the window and verified the passenger's astonishing statement. And at the moment when Forbes' imagination was busy with the gruesome details relating to the discovery of his lifeless body lying beside the tracks, the vestibule door suddenly opened and the face of indignant authority looked down at him.
They dragged Forbes inside after unclenching his hands for him, his stiffened muscles refusing that simple service. The conductor failing to recognize in this disheveled individual with the unsteady knees, the respectable passenger whose ticket he had punched earlier in the trip, not unnaturally assumed that Forbes was drunk and acting on that supposition, proceeded to make himself very disagreeable. As Forbes regained his shaken dignity, and paid his fare, the man in uniform became less truculent and in the end, positively congratulatory.