They would not let me keep my little dog with me on the train, although I had smuggled him into my Pullman in a piece of hand baggage; but in the morning he betrayed us. Naughty, excitable, lonely little Verley! The conductor's heart, unlike that sea-captain's, was made of stone. Verley was banished to the baggage-car. However, I went with him, and I spent all of that day with my dog among the baggage, not even leaving him to get something to eat; for I had brought sandwiches.
There were a number of other dogs there besides Verley, and they kept up an incessant barking. One of the trainmen got me a box to sit on, and I took my little pet on my lap. The trainmen were very kind to me. They told me they'd feed Verley well and see that he got plenty of water; but I would not leave him. I said I thought it was shameful of that conductor to make me keep my little dog there. The men assured me it was one of the rules of the road, and that they could make no exception in my case. They pointed out several other dogs, remarkable and savage-looking hounds, which belonged to a multi-millionaire, so they said, and I could see for myself that even he was obliged to have them travel this way.
While the men were reassuring me, a very tall man came into the car and went over to these hounds. They were making the most deafening noises. They were tied, of course, but kept leaping out on their chains, and I was afraid they would break loose, and perhaps attack and rend my little Verley.
The tall man gave some instructions to a man who seemed to be in charge of the hounds, and after patting the dogs' heads and scratching their ears, he started to leave the car, when he chanced to see me, and stopped to look at Verley.
Before I even saw his face there was something about his personality that affected me strangely, for though I had been talking freely with the men in the baggage-car, I suddenly felt unconscionably shy. He had a curious, drawling voice that I have since learned to know as Southern. He said:
"Is that your little dog?"
I nodded, and looked up at him.
I saw a man of between thirty-five and forty. (I have since learned he was forty-one.) His face was clean-shaven, and while not exactly wrinkled, was lined on the forehead and about the mouth. It was lean and rather haggard-looking. His lips were thin, and his steel-gray eyes were, I think, the weariest and bitterest eyes I have ever seen, though when he smiled I felt strangely drawn to him, even that first time. He was dressed in a light gray suit, and it looked well on him, as his hair at the temples was of the same color. As my glance met his curious smile, I remember that, embarrassed and blushing, I dropped my eyes to his hands, and found that they impressed me almost as much as his face. It is strange how one may be so moved by another at the first meeting! At once I had a feeling, a sort of subtle premonition, you might call it, that this man was to loom large in my life for all the rest of my days.
Stooping down, he patted Verley as he lay on my lap, but as he did so, he kept looking at me with a half-teasing, half-searching glance. I felt flustered, embarrassed, ashamed, and angry with myself for feeling so much confusion.
"What's your dog's name?" he asked.