“Oh, nothin',” was the solemn answer. “I was wonderin', that's all. Just wonderin' if he would talk English. It would be a terrible thing if he could speak nothin' but French or a foreign language and I couldn't understand him. But Ardelia was American and that brute of a Morley spoke plain enough, so I suppose—”
I judged it high time to interrupt.
“Come, Hephzy,” said I. “It is half-past ten. We may as well start at once.”
Broadway, seen through the cab windows, was bright enough, a blaze of flashing signs and illuminated shop windows. But —th street, at the foot of which the wharves of the Trans-Atlantic Steamship Company were located, was black and dismal. It was by no means deserted, however. Before and behind and beside us were other cabs and automobiles bound in the same direction. Hephzy peered out at them in amazement.
“Mercy on us, Hosy!” she exclaimed. “I never saw such a procession of carriages. They're as far ahead and as far back of us as you can see. It is like the biggest funeral that ever was, except that they don't crawl along the way a funeral does. I'm glad of that, anyhow. I wish I didn't FEEL so much as if I was goin' to be buried. I don't know why I do. I hope it isn't a presentiment.”
If it was she forgot it a few minutes later. The cab stopped before a mammoth doorway in a long, low building and a person in uniform opened the door. The wide street was crowded with vehicles and from them were descending people attired as if for a party rather than an ocean voyage. I helped Hephzy to alight and, while I was paying the cab driver, she looked about her.
“Hosy! Hosy!” she whispered, seizing my arm tight, “we've made a mistake. This isn't the steamboat; this is—is a weddin' or somethin'. Look! look!”
I looked, looked at the silk hats, the opera cloaks, the jewels and those who wore them. For a moment I, too, was certain there must be a mistake. Then I looked upward and saw above the big doorway the flashing electric sign of the “Trans-Atlantic Navigation Company.”
“No, Hephzy,” said I; “I guess it is the right place. Come.”
I gave her my arm—that is, she continued to clutch it with both hands—and we moved forward with the crowd, through the doorway, past a long, moving inclined plane up which bags, valises, bundles of golf sticks and all sorts of lighter baggage were gliding, and faced another and smaller door.