His lips trembled when he turned to me and said: “Heron, if I knew that, I should be the happiest of men. But, you know, these are her best days. She ought not to wait for me.”
We rode part of the way over steel rails at fifty miles an hour in a new “parlor-car,” which the road was trying, with a small buffet at the front, and where we could be served with fruit and sandwiches and tea and coffee.
We arrived at the Commodore's ten minutes ahead of time. The first Caesar of the corporations came into the small reception-room to greet us, his straight, columnar form neatly fitted with a frock suit of black broadcloth. His dignified face, his white hair and choker gave him the look of an archbishop.
“Boy, I want to talk with you for five minutes,” he said to McCarthy. “Come up to my room.”
They were gone about half an hour, and on their return a clock on the mantel was striking six.
“Look here, boys,” said the Commodore, “it's six o'clock; you must come in to supper with us.”
“We're not dressed for company,” said the gentleman.
“You're all right,” said Mr. Vanderbilt. “You know where the bath-room is—go right up an' wash if ye want to.”
In two or three minutes we entered the parlors, and were introduced to a number of people; among whom was the Rev. Doctor Deems. It was a plainly furnished house, as things go now, but comfortable and homelike. The pictures were mostly family portraits, the largest of which was one of the Commodore's mother. There were models, in gold and silver, of steamships and locomotives on the mantel in the great front parlor. We took our seats at the supper-table.
At his best the Commodore was a playful and kindly man. There had been days when he wore his “railroad look,” and his words were as thunder and lightning, but now he was like a schoolboy. He ate only Spanish mackerel and a small venison steak, and drank a glass of champagne with it, and meanwhile said many droll things which have quite escaped my memory.