“Of course I do,” the voice interrupted. “If I had not, I dare say I would have sat on the station platform until—until you had finished fussing with that old machine of yours. Oh! I have heard all about your pet weakness. It was by the car I identified you. But I forgive you. You have waited a whole train for me. Go on with your tinkering. Only let me have a seat in the car, and tell the agent to bring over my trunk.”
“Trunk!” I echoed.
“Yes, trunk! But not a very large one—you see, it is only for a few days. It will go nicely in the—now, what do you call the back part of your car?”
“The tonneau? But, really——”
The hat tilted just a shade more, and I was silenced by the command: “Not another word! Positively, you would keep me standing here forever. I had no idea you were so—contentious. Please help me in, and please have my trunk brought over. Here is my check. Then, if you insist, we can discuss the propriety of trunks on our way to the clubhouse.”
I hesitated; but I gave her my arm, and, when she had settled herself in the seat beside the driver’s, I walked over to where the agent stood beside the guns and a steamer trunk of modest size. I picked up the guns and told him to bring over the trunk. Together we put it into the tonneau, the while I debated with myself what to do and what to say. As a matter of fact, there seemed to be small choice. The lady was plainly determined to listen to no explanations. Moreover, to attempt to make her mistake clear to her just now was to place her in an embarrassing predicament; for whoever was to have met her had failed to appear, and already the station master had began to extinguish the lights. I caught at her words “the clubhouse.” That could be none other than the Agawan. Well, I would take her there; the trip should be quickly made, and I would do my best to keep her in ignorance of my identity, at least until she was among friends.
“Now, this is very nice,” she said, as I threw in the high gear and we shot into the darkness. “I’ve never been in an automobile before; we have very few of them in”—she named a little town in the South. “You must explain everything to me.”
I welcomed the invitation, and promised myself to keep the topic alive as long as there was need for conversation. But I had hardly begun an enthusiastic exposition of the principles of a four-cylinder, gear-driven, twenty-horse-power, French touring car, when she checked me. “I forgot,” she said. “We have never met before. We must start fair. You are to call me ‘Margery’; I hate ‘Miss Gans’ from one who is really an old friend. And I shall call you—let me see?—yes, for the present, I shall call you ‘Mr. Page.’”
I started. Who would not have started? “Page” is my Christian name. And I was to call her “Margery”? For just the briefest moment I wondered if my first impression of my companion could have been amiss. But I rallied my self-command and such shreds of gallantry as my life and my convictions had left. Undeniably she was a pretty girl, despite the disguising veil.
“It is a bargain,” I said. “I shall hold you to it. But why the ‘Mister Page’?”