A little dazed by the turn of events, Glynn had acquiesced in this latter decree, almost too easily, he feared. He told himself that he needed time to adjust his ideas to the prospect of riches. As a matter of fact, he was relieved not to become Posey's husband until he knew her better. The pretty, half-baked, freakish creature, who offended his sense of conventionality, who dealt with him so unemotionally, seemed about as practical a bride as Undine must have been to her long-suffering knight! Between Posey's image and himself, that of high-bred Helen Carstairs, stepping down from her proud pedestal to give him the first passion of her woman's love, had, in the beginning, perpetually come. Latterly, this had been wearing off, and stern habit had asserted itself, as it fortunately does.
Posey's letters, surely the strangest ever penned by a betrothed maiden to her lover, came to Glynn regularly. She had told him, with appalling frankness, that after engaging herself to him (by telephone!) she had suffered many pangs of fear that the whole thing was a mistake; also, she must confess, she had met another man with whom, had there been no obstructions in the way, she might have been happier. During her father's illness, seeing the enormous stress he laid upon her promise to marry John, she had come to see things more clearly, had recognized in herself a vain, silly child, and was now resolved to devote her whole future life to being more worthy of her good fortune as Glynn's wife.
To read these artless effusions had been like looking into a crystal globe. Whatever came, Glynn could not complain that she had deceived him. During his benefactor's dangerous illness, when it was essential for Glynn to remain where he was, and he could only cable his anxiety and sympathy, his heart had become more awakened to Posey's claim upon him, and he had felt for her loyal tenderness. When the summons from Mr. Winstanley arrived that was to bring him once more in actual touch with her, he had set out to obey it, believing that he was at last effectually cured of old weakness, and panoplied to begin the new life.
And he had hardly set foot in France before he found himself seated side by side with Helen Carstairs in a railway train, flying southward, with nothing to disturb their intercourse during a long day and evening, and actually bound for the same goal!
Simultaneously, Glynn and Helen rose to the occasion, put behind them the temptation to revert to the fond chapter lived in their young lives, and took up again the sort of intercourse that had so pleased and refreshed her at the beginning of their acquaintance. It was like one of their old talks at the house of Helen's friend who had introduced them to each other, and fostered their intimacy; a woman who had the cleverness to find interesting people in the whirlpool of business and pleasure and money-spending that calls itself New York society, and the courage to draw them out of it to herself.
Glynn felt that he would long have cause to remember that February day. The new fast train justified all that had been claimed for it in speed and comfort. It tore down the Rhone valley as the mistral tears, it left behind Avignon, city of Popes, and other spots of classic interest, as if it had been a "Flyer" between Chicago and New York. The light carriages rocked and swayed, stones from the road-bed rose up like a fusillade of small-arms, striking the bottom of the train; one dared not leave one's seat for the dining-car for fear of falling; people who had not exchanged a word previously began, by common consent, to talk all together, and all their talk was of the speed of trains they had known and heard about. Miss Bleecker went yellow in her nervous anxiety, declaring she had no use for a train in which one could not brew a cup of tea for fear of setting things on fire. Mlle. Eulalie wept under her veil, and accepted brandy offered her from Miss Bleecker's flask. The two solemn travellers who filled the other seats, and now joined in general animated talk, turned out to be one a French railway engineer, to whose utterances all listened humbly, the other an Italian musical genius, en route for Monte Carlo. In the confusion of tongues and exclamations, the little string of toy carriages bounced and flew onward, until suddenly the air brakes were put on, and with a long protracted jolting, they came to a full stop!
Something had happened, but what? Glynn and the engineer, going outside to investigate matters, in the falling dusk, returned to report that their carriage was to go no farther, and its passengers were to be transferred to the one ahead.
"As well as I can make out, it is the complaint not unknown to our railways of a 'hot box,'" said Glynn. "The bother is, that you ladies must take what seats you can get till our journey's end."
Officials, coming to hurry them, showed but scant sympathy with Miss Bleecker's indignant protests, with Eulalie's fresh burst of tears. Helen, following her chaperon quietly, had an odd sensation that nothing mattered much so long as Glynn was at her elbow speaking cheery, merry words!
They threaded their way into the carriage ahead, to be received with what enthusiasm by the tired, nervous, over-strained passengers already filling its full space, may be imagined. Miss Bleecker was accommodated with the odd seat of a compartment reserved by a French couple of her acquaintance, who, feeling rather bored by so much of each other's society, made a virtue of necessity in welcoming the stranded American lady. Eulalie was tucked somewhere happily out of sight. For Helen and Glynn there remained but two camp-stools, produced by a guard, and placed in the corridor at the rear!