Marie Louise propped this against the telephone and tried again.
The seventh central dazed her with, “We can take nothing but gov’ment business till two P.M.”
Marie Louise rose in despair, searched in her bag for her watch, gasped, put the watch and the note back in her bag, snapped it, and rose to go.
She decided to send Polly a telegram. She took out the note for the address and telephoned a telegram, saying that she would arrive at five o’clock. The telegraph-operator told her that the company could not guarantee delivery, as traffic over the wires was very heavy. Marie Louise sighed and rose, worn out with telephone-fag.
She told the maid to ask the hall-boy to get her a taxi, and hastily made ready to leave. Her trunks had gone to the station an hour ago, and they had been checked through from the house.
Her final pick-up glance about the room did not pick up the note she had propped on the telephone-table. She left it there and closed the door on another chapter of her life.
She rode to the station, and, after standing in line for a weary while, learned that not a seat was to be had in a parlor-car to-day, to-morrow, or any day for two weeks. Berths at night were still more unobtainable.
She decided that she might as well go in a day-coach. Scores of people had had the same idea before her. The day-coaches were filled. She sidled through the crowded aisles and found no seat. She invaded the chair-cars in desperation.
In one of these she saw a porter bestowing hand-luggage. She appealed to him. “You must have one chair left.”
He was hardly polite in his answer. “No, ma’am, I ain’t. I ain’t a single chair.”