She emphasized the importance of it with two tight fists placed not overgently in the center of the guard’s rotundity, and accompanied by a shove. In some miraculous fashion this accomplished it. The gate clanged at Patsy’s back instead of in her face, as she had expected. A bell rang, a whistle tooted, and Patsy’s feet clattered like mad down the platform.
A good-natured brakeman picked her up and lifted her to the rear platform of the last car as it drew out. That saved the day for Patsy, for her strength and breath had gone past summoning.
“Thank you,” she said, feebly, with a vagabond glove held out in proffered fellowship. “That’s the kindest thing any one has done for me since I came over.”
“Are ye—”
“Irish—same as yourself.”
“How did ye know?”
“Sure, who but an Irishman would have had his wits and his heart working at the same time?” And with a laugh Patsy left him and went inside.
Her eye ran systematically down the rows of seats. Billy Burgeman was not there. She passed through to the next car, and a second, and a third. Still there was no back she could identify as belonging to the man she was pursuing.
She was crossing a fourth platform when she ran into the conductor, who barred her way. “Smoking-car ahead, lady; this is the last of the passenger-coaches.”
Patsy had it on the end of her tongue to say she preferred smoking-cars, intending to duck simultaneously under the conductor’s arm and enter, willy-nilly. But the words rolled no farther than the tongue’s edge. She turned obediently back, re-entering the car and taking the first seat by the door. For this her memory was responsible. It had spun the day’s events before her like a roulette wheel, stopping precisely at the remark of Marjorie Schuyler’s concerning William Burgeman: “He’s the most conventional young gentleman I ever saw in my life. Why, you would shock—”