"If it is, it will come to nothing," she replied, and Eugene heard her. He was strengthened into acquiescence by the tone of her voice. Surely she was a wonderful girl—a master of men and women in her way.
"Very well, if you think it's all right," said Eugene; "but I'll be very lonely. I've been so already. I shall be more so, Flower Face, unless I see you soon. Oh, if the time were only up!"
"It will be, Eugene," she replied, "in a very few days now. I'll be back Thursday, and then you can come down and see me."
"Thursday afternoon?"
"Yes. We're to be back Thursday morning."
She finally hung up the receiver and they entered the automobile and an hour later the train.
CHAPTER XVII
It was a Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec express, and it ran without stopping to Albany. By the time it was nearing the latter place Suzanne was going to bed—and because it was a private car—Mrs. Dale explained that the president of the road had lent it to her—no announcement of its arrival, which would have aroused Suzanne, was made by the porter. When it stopped there shortly after ten o'clock it was the last car at the south end of the train, and you could hear voices calling, but just what it was was not possible to say. Suzanne, who had already gone to bed, fancied it might be Poughkeepsie or some wayside station. Her mother's statement was that since they arrived so late, the car would be switched to a siding, and they would stay aboard until morning. Nevertheless, she and Kinroy were alert to prevent any untoward demonstration or decision on Suzanne's part, and so, as the train went on, she slept soundly until Burlington in the far northern part of Vermont was reached the next morning. When she awoke and saw that the train was still speeding on, she wondered vaguely but not clearly what it could mean. There were mountains about, or rather tall, pine-covered hills, mountain streams were passed on high trestles and sections of burned woodlands were passed where forest fires had left lonely, sad charred stretches of tree trunks towering high in the air. Suddenly it occurred to Suzanne that this was peculiar, and she came out of the bath to ask why.