FullReads

But it was not until the Young Electrician had come striding back to his seat, and wrapped himself up in the fold of a big newspaper, and not until the train had started on again and had ground out another noisy mile or so, that the Traveling Salesman spoke again–and this time it was just a little bit surreptitiously.

“What–you–crying–for?” he asked with incredible gentleness.

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” confessed the Youngish Girl, snuffingly. “I guess I must be tired.”

“U-m-m,” said the Traveling Salesman.

After a moment or two he heard the sharp little click of a watch.

“Oh, dear me!” fretted the Youngish Girl’s somewhat smothered voice. “I didn’t realize we were almost two hours late. Why, it will be dark, won’t it, when we get into Boston?”

“Yes, sure it will be dark,” said the Traveling Salesman.

After another moment the Youngish Girl raised her forehead just the merest trifle from the back of the Traveling Salesman’s seat, so that her voice sounded distinctly more definite and cheerful. “I’ve–never–been–to–Boston–before,” she drawled a little casually.

“What!” exclaimed the Traveling Salesman. “Been all around the world–and never been to Boston?–Oh, I see,” he added hurriedly, “you’re afraid your friends won’t meet you!”

Out of the Youngish Girl’s erstwhile disconsolate mouth a most surprising laugh issued. “No! I’m afraid they will meet me,” she said dryly.

Just as a soldier’s foot turns from his heel alone, so the Traveling Salesman’s whole face seemed to swing out suddenly from his chin, till his surprised eyes stared direct into the Girl’s surprised eyes.

“My heavens!” he said. “You don’t mean that you’ve–been writing an–‘indiscreet letter’?”

“Y-e-s–I’m afraid that I have,” said the Youngish Girl quite blandly. She sat up very straight now and narrowed her eyes just a trifle stubbornly toward the Traveling Salesman’s very visible astonishment. “And what’s more,” she continued, clicking at her watch-case again–“and what’s more, I’m on my way now to meet the consequences of said indiscreet letter.'”

“Alone?” gasped the Traveling Salesman.

The twinkle in the Youngish Girl’s eyes brightened perceptibly, but the firmness did not falter from her mouth.

“Are people apt to go in–crowds to–meet consequences?” she asked, perfectly pleasantly.

“Oh–come, now!” said the Traveling Salesman’s most persuasive voice. “You don’t want to go and get mixed up in any sensational nonsense and have your picture stuck in the Sunday paper, do you?”

The Youngish Girl’s manner stiffened a little. “Do I look like a person who gets mixed up in sensational nonsense?” she demanded rather sternly.

“N-o-o,” acknowledged the Traveling Salesman conscientiously. “N-o-o; but then there’s never any telling what you calm, quiet-looking, still-waters sort of people will go ahead and do–once you get started.” Anxiously he took out his watch, and then began hurriedly to pack his samples back into his case. “It’s only twenty-five minutes more,” he argued earnestly. “Oh, I say now, don’t you go off and do anything foolish! My wife will be down at the station to meet me. You’d like my wife. You’d like her fine!–Oh, I say now, you come home with us for Sunday, and think things over a bit.”

As delightedly as when the Traveling Salesman had asked her how she fixed her hair, the Youngish Girl’s hectic nervousness broke into genuine laughter. “Yes,” she teased, “I can see just how pleased your wife would be to have you bring home a perfectly strange lady for Sunday!”

“My wife is only a kid,” said the Traveling Salesman gravely, “but she likes what I like–all right–and she’d give you the shrewdest, eagerest little ‘helping hand’ that you ever got in your life–if you’d only give her a chance to help you out–with whatever your trouble is.”

“But I haven’t any ‘trouble,'” persisted the Youngish Girl with brisk cheerfulness. “Why, I haven’t any trouble at all! Why, I don’t know but what I’d just as soon tell you all about it. Maybe I really ought to tell somebody about it. Maybe–anyway, it’s a good deal easier to tell a stranger than a friend. Maybe it would really do me good to hear how it sounds out loud. You see, I’ve never done anything but whisper it–just to myself–before. Do you remember the wreck on the Canadian Pacific Road last year? Do you? Well–I was in it!”