He was on board the Verbena Special—the southern train-de-luxe—bound for Jacksonville, St. Augustine, Palm Beach, Verbena Inlet, or Miami—or for Nassau, Cuba, and the remainder of the West Indies—just as he chose.
He had no other luggage than a walking-stick.[209] Even his overcoat was in possession of somebody else. That was the situation that now faced George Z. Green.
But as the train emerged from the river tube, and he realised all this, he grew calmer; and the calmer he grew the happier he grew.
He was no longer on the threshold of Romance; he had crossed it, and already he was being whirled away blindly into the Unusual and the Unknown!
Exultingly he gazed out of the windows upon the uninspiring scenery of New Jersey. A wonderful sense of physical lightness and mental freedom took delightful possession of him. Opportunity had not beckoned him in vain. Chance had glanced sideways at him, and he had recognised the pretty flirt. His was certainly some brain!
And now, still clinging to the skirts of Chance, he was being whisked away, pell mell, headlong toward Destiny, in the trail of a slender, strange young girl who had swiped his overcoat and who seemed continually inclined to tears.
The incident of the overcoat no longer troubled him. That garment of his was not unlike the rough travelling coat she herself wore. And it might have been natural to her, in her distress of[210] mind and very evident emotion, to have seized it by mistake and made off with it, forgetting that she still wore her own.
Of course it was a mistake pure and simple. He had only to look at the girl and understand that. One glance at her sweet, highbred features was sufficient to exonerate her as a purloiner of gentlemen's garments.
Green crossed his legs, folded his arms, and reflected. The overcoat was another and most important element in this nascent Romance.
The difficulty lay in knowing how to use the overcoat to advantage in furthering and further complicating a situation already delightful.