“Hello, Burt, you didn’t tell us your wife was with you,—thought you were off with the boys alone. Don’t apologize. Everybody gets rattled when they’re held up like this and know that four or five good fellows have come to an end a few feet ahead of them.
“Pretty well tired out, aren’t you, Helen?” and there came into the room her father’s oldest friend and business associate, holding her husband by the arm, and pushing his wife and daughter before him in his eagerness.
After a few minutes’ aimless prattle the party of three left, having decided to spend the night on the train, the elderly man making jocular remarks about leaving the couple to have a tête-à-tête in peace.
Complete silence for a moment, and then, that being the last thing the woman’s nerves could endure, she said: “Why did you follow me? What right have you to put me in a position like this after this morning?”
“I did not follow you, for I did not know that you had left Boston.”
“Then it is as Mr. Dale hinted, you were going alone with some men without even telling me.”
“After this morning, what right had you to know?” The blow that she had set in motion, but of which she had not before gauged the full power, struck her squarely between the eyes.
“At least we must assume a part, not make ourselves ridiculous and start a scandal here to-night among people that are almost relations, before,—before things are arranged,” she said, on the verge of tears.
“As you please; creating public comment has never been my plan,” he answered, and drawing a chair to the feeble light, he took a copy of a comic paper from his pocket and at least feigned to read, while the woman closed her eyes, and from holding them closed to keep the angry tears back, finally fell into a sleep of exhaustion where she sat.
An hour passed. Hasleton went out, but as usual, could gather little absolute knowledge of the wreck. He saw his companions playing poker in the parlour car; they, having heard of his wife’s presence and deeming that she had followed him, winked knowingly, and he, having nothing to explain and much to cover, drifted back to the hotel. Seeing that the woman slept, he, in his turn, settled himself as well as might be on the hard sofa, and, cramped and uncomfortable as he was, dozed, being too much bewildered by the condition of things to plan or even think.