“No; do you?”
With this curt reply, she turned her shoulder very coolly on the searcher for information.
Vexation sent the angry blood up into the little woman’s face. She looked as though about to retort, when a gentleman who had just taken possession of a compartment, and noted all that had passed, came forward and addressed our heroine.
“Until your friends come in, will you not take my seat?” he asked, courteously. “I will gladly make the exchange, or go for Mr. Lyster or Mr. Haydon, if you desire it.”
“Thank you; I will take your seat,” she agreed. “It is good of you to offer it.”
“Say, folks, I’m going outside to take in this free Wild West show,” called the variety actress to her companions. “Come along?”
But they declined. She had reached the platform alone, when, coming toward the car, she saw the man of the sombrero, and shrank back with a gasp of utter dismay.
“Oh, good Heaven!” she muttered, and all the color and bravado were gone from her face, as she shrank back out of his range of vision and almost into the arms of the man Harvey, who had given the other girl his seat.
“What’s up?” he asked, bluntly.
She only gave a muttered, unintelligible reply, pushed past him to her own seat, where her feather-laden hat was donned with astonishing rapidity, a great cloak was 15 thrown around her, and she sank into a corner, a huddled mass of wraps and feathers. Any one could have walked along the aisle without catching even a glimpse of her flaxen hair.