Well, I am not sure that I should have liked to hear the rest. I shifted my attention back to the apostle of the linen union suit, who had talked on, unremittingly. His conversation had, at least, the merit of entire frankness. He was a man with nothing to conceal.
"Yes, sir!" I heard him declare, "every time you get on to a railroad train you take your life in your hands. That's a positive fact. I was reading it up just the other day. We had almost sixteen thousand accidents to trains in this country last year. A hundred and thirty-nine passengers killed and between nine and ten thousand injured. That's not counting employees, either—just passengers like us." He emphasized his statements by waving a fat forefinger beneath the listener's nose, and I noticed that the latter seemed to wish to draw his head back out of range, as though in momentary fear of a collision.
For my part, I did not care for these statistics. They were not pleasant to the ears of one on the first leg of a long railroad journey. I rose, aimed the end of my cigar at the convenient nickel-plated receptacle provided for that purpose by the thoughtful Pullman Company, missed it, and retired from the smoking room. Or, rather, I emerged and went to luncheon.
Our charming neighbor of the parlor car was already in the diner. She finished luncheon before we did, and, passing by our table as she left, held her chin well up and kept her eyes ahead with a precision almost military—almost, but not quite. Try as she would, she was unable to control a slight but infinitely gratifying flicker of the eyelids, in which nature triumphed over training and femininity defeated feministic theory.
A little later, on our way back to the smoking room, we saw her seated, as before, behind the sheltering ramparts of her magazine. This time it pleased our fancy to take the austere military cue from her. So we filed by in step, as stiff as any guardsmen on parade before a princess seated on a green plush throne. Resolutely she kept her eyes upon the page. We might have thought she had not noticed us at all but for a single sign. She uncrossed her knees as we passed by.
In the smoking room we entered conversation with a young man who was sitting by the window. He proved to be a civil engineer from Buffalo. He had lived in Buffalo eight years, he said, without having visited Niagara Falls. ("I've been meaning to go, but I've kept putting it off.") But in New York he had taken time to go to Bedloe Island and ascend the Statue of Liberty. ("It's awfully hot in there.") Though my companion and myself had lived in New York for many years, neither of us had been to Bedloe Island. But both of us had visited the Falls. The absurd humanness of this was amusing to us all; to my companion and me it was encouraging as well, for it seemed to give us ground for hope that, in our visits to strange places, we might see things which the people living in those places fail to see.
When, after finishing our smoke, we went back to our seats, the being across the way began to make believe to read again. But now and then, when some one passed, she would look up and make believe she wished to see who it might be. And always, after doing so, she let her eyes trail casually in our direction ere they sought the page again. And always we were thankful.
As the train slowed down for Rochester we saw her rise and get into her slinky little coat. The porter came and took her Russia leather bag. Meanwhile we hoped she would be generous enough to look once more before she left the car. Only once more!