FATE
Turning to the man behind him Seabury attempted to extract a little information, and the man was very affable and anxious to be of help, but all he could do was to nod and utter Teutonic gutturals through a bushy beard with a deep, buzzing sound, and Seabury sank back, beaten and dejected.
"Good Lord!" he muttered to himself, "is the entire Fatherland travelling on this accursed car! I—I've half a mind——"
He stole a doubtful sidelong glance at his blue-eyed neighbor across the aisle, but she was looking out of her own window this time, her cheeks buried in the fur of her chinchilla muff.
"And after all," he reflected, "if I ask her, she might turn out to be of the same nationality." But it was not exactly that which prevented him.
The train was slowing down; sundry hoarse toots from the locomotive indicated a station somewhere in the vicinity.
"Plue Pirt Lake! Change heraus für Bleasant Falley!" shouted the conductor, opening the forward door. He lingered long enough to glare balefully at Seabury, then, as nobody apparently cared either to get out at Blue Bird Lake or change for Pleasant Valley, he slammed the door and jerked the signal rope; the locomotive emitted a scornful Teutonic grunt; the train moved forward into the deepening twilight of the December night.
The snow was now falling more heavily—it was light enough to see that—a fine gray powder sifting down out of obscurity, blowing past the windows in misty streamers.
The bulky man opposite breathed on the pane, rubbed it with a thumb like a pincushion, and peered out.