A Romance in Transit

Excerpt

P. P. C. ARIADNE

Train Number Three, the "Flying Kestrel," vestibuled, had crossed the yellow Rubicon of the West and was mounting toward the Occident up the gentle acclivities of the Great Plain. The morning was perfect, as early autumn mornings are wont to be in the trans-Missouri region; the train was on time; and the through passengers in the Pullman sleeping-car "Ariadne" had settled themselves, each according to his gifts, to enjoy or endure the day-long run.

There was a sun-browned ranchman in lower eleven, homeward bound from the Chicago stockyards; a pair of school-teachers, finishing their vacation journey, in ten; a Mormon elder, smug in ready-made black and narrow-brimmed hat, vis-à-vis in lower five with two hundred pounds of good-natured, comfort-loving Catholic priesthood in lower six. Two removes from the elder, a Denver banker lounged corner-wise in his section, oblivious to everything save the figures in the financial column of the morning paper; and diagonally across from the banker were the inevitable newly married ones, advertising themselves as such with all the unconscious naïveté of their kind.

Burton and his wife had lower three. They were homing from the passenger agents' meeting in Chicago; and having gone breakfastless at the Missouri River terminal by reason of a belated train, were waiting for the porter to serve them with eggs and coffee from the buffet. The narrow table was between them, and Burton, who was an exact man with an eye to symmetrical detail, raised the spring clips and carefully smoothed the wrinkles out of the table-cloth as he talked. A private car had been attached to the train at the Missouri River, and its freightage was of moment to the couple in section three.

"Are you sure it's the President?" asked the wife, leaning back to give the cloth-laying a fair field. "I thought the Naught-fifty was General Manager Cadogan's car."

"So it is; but President Vennor always borrows it for his annual inspection trip. And I'm quite sure, because I saw Miss Vennor on the platform when the car was coupled on."

"Then we'll get home just in time to go on dress-parade," said the little lady, flippantly. "Colorado and Utah Division, fall in! 'Shun, company! Eyes right! The President is upon you!" and she went through a minimized manual of arms with the table-knife.

The general agent frowned and stroked his beard. "Your anarchistic leanings will get us into trouble some time, Emily. Mr. Vennor is not a man to be trifled with, and you mustn't forget that he is the President of the Colorado and Utah Railway Company, whose bread you eat."

"Whose bread I should like to eat, if that slow-poke in the buffet would ever bring it," retorted the wife. "And it is you who forget. You are a man, and Mr. Vennor is a man; these are the primal facts, and the business relation is merely incidental. He doesn't think any more of you for standing in awe of him."

"I don't stand in awe of him," Burton began; but the opportune arrival of the buffet porter with the breakfast saved him the trouble of elaborating his defence....