PAGE 12
The Parlor-Car
by
MR. RICHARDS: “Oh, I dare say!” After a pause: “Well, I am a poor, weak, helpless man, with no one to advise me or counsel me, and I have been cruelly deceived. How could you, Lucy, how could you? I can never get over this.” He drops his head upon her shoulder.
MISS GALBRAITH, starting away again, and looking about the car: “Allen, I have an idea! Do you suppose Mr. Pullman could be induced to SELL this car?”
MR. RICHARDS: “Why?”
MISS GALBRAITH: “Why, because I think it’s perfectly lovely, and I should like to live in it always. It could be fitted up for a sort of summer-house, don’t you know, and we could have it in the garden, and you could smoke in it.”
MR. RICHARDS: “Admirable! It would look just like a travelling photographic saloon. No, Lucy, we won’t buy it; we will simply keep it as a precious souvenir, a sacred memory, a beautiful dream,–and let it go on fulfilling its destiny all the same.”
PORTER, entering, and gathering up Miss Galbraith’s things: “Be at Schenectady in half a minute, miss. Won’t have much time.”
MISS GALBRAITH, rising, and adjusting her dress, and then looking about the car, while she passes her hand through her lover’s arm: “Oh, I do HATE to leave it. Farewell, you dear, kind, good, lovely car! May you never have another accident!” She kisses her hand to the car, upon which they both look back as they slowly leave it.
MR. RICHARDS, kissing his hand in the like manner: “Good-by, sweet chariot! May you never carry any but bridal couples!”
MISS GALBRAITH: “Or engaged ones!”
MR. RICHARDS: “Or husbands going home to their wives!”
MISS GALBRAITH: “Or wives hastening to their husbands.”
MR. RICHARDS: “Or young ladies who have waited one train over, so as to be with the young men they hate.”
MISS GALBRAITH: “Or young men who are so indifferent that they pretend to be asleep when the young ladies come in!” They pause at the door and look back again. “‘And must I leave thee, Paradise?'” They both kiss their hands to the car again, and, their faces being very close together, they impulsively kiss each other. Then Miss Galbraith throws back her head, and solemnly confronts him. “Only think, Allen! If this car hadn’t broken ITS engagement, we might never have mended ours.”