“No, I haven’t. You mean the revolver, but I thought it was to be a Christmas gift.”
“It was—only I’d like to have it now if you don’t mind.”
“What are you afraid of—train robbers? This isn’t a western movie in spite of the wild nature of our journey.”
“I know, but please let me have it. You don’t know what a comfort it would be just to look at it.”
“All right; just to show you how much I thought of it I didn’t pack it at all. It’s here in my overcoat.”
An eager porter anticipated his movement to reach up to the rack on which the coat had been put, and brought it down for him, and he reached inside the pocket and brought out a box which he put in her hands.
For a moment she did not open it, though he waited, smiling. She was conscious of the movement of the train, of the white flakes flashing past the window, half obscuring the rolling, tree-crowned hills that were fast merging into mountains; of the smell of the Pullman car,—a combination of steam-heated varnish and dusty upholstery—and most of all of Terry, seated opposite her, a half eager, half amused light dancing in his eyes.
“It’s rather an odd gift to give a woman,” he said as she hesitated. She opened the box now, realizing herself more than anything else, as the central figure in a little drama. Inside she found a leather case—pale blue leather, more fit to contain jewels than a weapon of defence, and inside that the tiniest revolver she had ever seen, an exquisite thing with gold mountings.
“Will—will it really shoot?” she gasped. “And it must have been horribly expensive—you shouldn’t have done it.”
Her pleasure was so apparent in her face that her words, which she felt were ill chosen, did not really matter.