"Please don't, Selwyn." The hand I had drawn away I held out to him.
"We must not think or talk of ourselves to-day. This is not our day."
"But I want my day." His strong fingers twisted into mine with bruising force. "I have waited long for it. For all others you have consideration, but my happiness alone you ignore. You seem to think my endurance is beyond limit. How long are you going to keep this thing up? Some day you are going to marry me. Why not to-day?"
I shook my head. "I cannot marry you today. Take care—" The conductor was coming down the aisle toward us.
CHAPTER XXV
By the time we learn a few of the lessons life teaches we stop living. I should have known it is the unexpected that happens, but I forgot it. What I expected at Claxon did not come to pass.
At a little station a few miles east of the tiny town to which we were going, Tom and Madeleine left our train and waited for a crawling accommodation to Shelby, where, later, they would be married. From the car window I waved to them and tried to transmit a portion of my courage, for which there was no credit, and of my enjoyment, of which I should have been ashamed and was not ashamed. A taste for adventure will ever be a part of me, and I was getting much more pleasure out of an unexpected experience than Madeleine was. The playing of shadow to her substance was not so serious for me as for her, and then, too, I had the joyful irresponsibility of not going to be married. I do not want to be a married person yet.
As we left the car at Claxon I glanced in the mirror at the end of our coach and was pleased. About me was a bridal atmosphere that was unmistakable. Madeleine's clothes were new and lovely and I looked well. So did Selwyn. As we reached the platform I was undecided whether to cling timidly to Selwyn's arm or to walk bravely apart, and the indecision, together with the certainty that some one would put a hand on Selwyn's shoulder and say words I had never before heard, made my heart beat with a rapidity that was as genuine as if I were soon to become a bride in very truth. The sensation was exhilarating. I liked it.
On the platform of the little station a few negroes in overalls, two boys, and five men, having apparently nothing to do, were hanging around, hands in their pockets; and, looking about me, I waited. Nothing happened. Ahead of us and across a muddy road half a dozen stores, hunched together in a row of detached and shabby frame houses, with upper stories seemingly used for residential purposes, comprised the business portion of the little town, and on our right the post-office, telegraph and express offices, and telephone exchange were in the one large building of the place. Out of each window facing us some one was looking, and in the open door a man was standing, hat off and sweater-coated, who, at regular intervals, and with unfailing accuracy of aim, ejected tobacco juice into a puddle of water some distance away. No one but ourselves got off the train, and, its stay at the station being short, the attention of the loungers near by and those resting themselves on boxes and barrels in front of the stores across the road was turned determinatedly to us. I looked at Selwyn. In his face was relief. In mine was anxiety and, I'm afraid, disappointment. The situation was flat.
I had read various accounts of runaway marriages which had taken place at Claxon, several of which had only succeeded after eluding the sheriff, waiting under orders from irate parents to arrest them; and feeling confident Mrs. Swink would wire the proper person to prevent the marriage of her daughter, I looked around for the one most likely to do the work. No one appeared. What if my plan had failed and Madeleine, in my un-wedding garments, was to be taken into custody in Shelby? I turned to Selwyn.
"Do you suppose—" My voice was low. A man close to me, with hands in his pockets, hat on the back of his head, and his left cheek lumpy, was looking at us appraisingly. "Do you suppose anything will happen at Shelby? Nothing is happening here."