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THE first objects to meet his sight when he opened his eyes a moment later were his feet pointing skyward at an angle of about forty-five degrees. He had an indistinct recollection of having turned one complete somersault after striking the bank. Now he was lying on his back with his head and shoulders far below the level and eyes, nose and mouth filled with snow. After a struggle he pulled his body up and his feet down, and then scrambled and slid out of his soft couch and gained the track. Snow had worked down his neck and up his sleeves and into his shoes, and for awhile he was busy shaking himself and stamping and wiping his moist face with his handkerchief, and when he finally looked toward the station platform
his only reward was a fleeting glimpse of a slim, fur-coated back disappearing into the waiting-room.
"I wonder if she's laughing?" he said to himself. "Anyhow, I did it!"
He walked back along the track to the station, smoothing his disarranged attire and striving to forget that the melting snow was trickling down his back. When he pushed open the door the girl was speaking to the agent through the little window.
"The stupidest thing I ever knew!" she was saying. "That conductor should have told me that the train was leaving. Will you kindly tell me how I am going to get to Quebec now?"
"He did not know, I think, that madame was here," explained the agent, gesticulating excitedly, behind the small opening. "Me, I cannot say how sorry I am for madame. I will telegraph to that conductor and tell him what madame say, that he is one big stupid, one fool, one—Ah!" The sound of the closing door attracted him and he saw Wade. "Madame, the train is back! All right now, yes?"
"No, the train isn't back," said Wade. "I left it as it pulled out."
"But monsieur is a friend of madame, yes?" He smiled joyously from Wade to the girl. "She will not have to wait here alone. Tres bien, tres bien!" Wade looked doubtfully at the girl and received the stoniest of glances. But,
"Yes, I am a friend of the lady. When does the next train pass here for Quebec?"
"At eight-forty-seven, monsieur, if on time."
"Eight-forty-seven!" exclaimed Wade.
"Eight-forty-seven!" cried Prue. "But I can't wait all that time! The idea!"
The agent, who was young and impressionable, looked devastated with sorrow.
"Madame, I regret, me, but that is the first train. Madame may be comfortable here and quite warm, and it is to wait only four, five hours, no?"
"Only four or five hours!" sighed Prue. "In this—this place!" She glanced disdainfully around at the empty benches and the cracked walls and the white-washed stove. "Well, I suppose if I must wait, I must. Please telegraph to the conductor to tell my party that I am all right and will get to Quebec at—what time, Agent?"
"Nine-thirty, madame. Yes, madame at once, instantly. Have no care; all shall be done." The agent smiled ingratiatingly through the window, but if he hoped to win thanks or commendation he was disappointed for the girl turned away with a shrug of her shoulders and crossed to the stove where she placed one small foot on the rail, turning her damp shoe from side to side and apparently forgetting the presence of both the agent and Wade.
"Tell the conductor to look after my things in Section Five," he instructed the agent. "I suppose he'd better leave them with the agent at Levis and I'll get them when I reach there."
"Certainly, monsieur, certainly. And believe me, monsieur, I am sorry, oh, very sorry for so stupid a mistake! Anything I can do, me, I will be so glad; monsieur has only to say."
"Thanks. Just get those messages off, please."
"At once, this moment, monsieur!" The agent disappeared from the window and the instrument began to click. Wade turned and surveyed the uncompromising black fur coat. He discovered that it was going to require a good deal of courage to do what common sense and ordinary courtesy as well as his own desire demanded. He approached the stove.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am, Miss Burnett," he began. "That conductor ought to be tarred-and-feathered."
She looked across at him coldly and distantly for a brief instant. Then, with a slight inclination of her head, she returned to her occupation of drying her shoe.
"Four or five hours here isn't a very cheerful prospect," he went on, "but I dare say we're lucky not to have to wait longer."
"Probably," she said uninterestedly.
"It was quite by accident that I looked back and saw you," he continued, gaining courage from the sound of his own voice. "In another moment it would have been too late."
"Too late?" she repeated questioningly, glancing at him. "Too late for what?"
"Why, too late to get off. You see, the train was already making pretty good time and I had to jump between the telegraph poles."
"It was—very heroic of you," she replied with a wealth of sarcasm. Wade colored.
"Well, I didn't mean that," he said ruefully. There was a protracted pause. Then she turned toward him, tilting her head back so that she could see from under the brim of her felt hat. It was a charming pose, he reflected, but a fearsomely haughty one. She was viewing him with something almost approaching interest, and when she spoke her voice was almost affable.
"Perhaps," she said, "you'll be good enough to tell me in what way you consider that you have bettered the situation by throwing yourself into a snowdrift?"
"Why—er—you were left here quite alone. Miss Burnett, and it seemed to me that perhaps I might be of service—"
"Really? And it didn't occur to you that the most serviceable thing you could have done would have been to pull the bell-cord?"
Wade flushed, opened his mouth and closed it again.
"I suppose that even on this road the trains are supplied with bell-cords?" she went on in half-smiling irony.
"I think—yes, they are."
"And it didn't occur to you, when you saw that I was being left behind, to pull the cord and stop the train?"
Wade dropped his gaze, swallowed hard and temporized.
"I'll confess, Miss Burnett, that in the—the confusion of the moment I acted stupidly—"
He paused, perhaps hoping for something in the nature of a contradiction. But Prue was staring indifferently at the stove.
"When I saw you alone here my only thought was to—to—"
"To force your society on me," she finished icily.
Wade bit his lip. She was plainly in a very bad humor and he was in danger of losing his own temper, he found. Discretion indicated retreat.
"If you think that,you are mistaken," he said frigidly. "To prove that I have neither desire nor intention of inflicting my society on you., Miss Burnett, I'll—withdraw." Withdraw wasn't just the word for the occasion, but it was the only one that came to him. Annoyed by the reflection that he had spoken like the hero of a melodrama he turned toward the waiting-room door.
"One moment, please!" Prue was facing him with a dangerous sparkle in her dark eyes. "You say you had no thought of inflicting your society on me, Mister—Forbes, is it not?" Wade bowed.
"My desire was to be of service to you," he answered.
"And you didn't think of stopping the train?"
Wade hesitated. Then,
"I did," he answered steadily.
"But instead of doing it you—" She finished with a shrug of her slender shoulders. "Why, Mr. Forbes?"
Wade hesitated. The girl smiled disdainfully.
"I suppose you will say that your presence on the train from New York and on the train from Boston was merely accidental, Mr. Forbes?"
"No, it wasn't," he answered. "I don't pretend that it was. I followed you quite deliberately, Miss Burnett."
"And you call that gentlemanly behavior?" she demanded.
"Have I annoyed you at any time, Miss Burnett? "
"Do you think it is pleasant or agreeable to a girl to be shadowed by a total stranger, Mr. Forbes?"
"I don't think you have any right to use the word 'shadowed.' That suggests spying. I haven't spied on you. I haven't attempted to force my society on you—until now, and that was done thoughtlessly, on the moment's impulse, and I am sorry for it. I own up to having followed you. What else could I do? If I hadn't I'd have lost sight of you completely, Miss Burnett."
"Oh!"
"Besides," he went on, warming to his defence, "the fact that I am a total stranger isn't my fault. I don't want to be a stranger; that's why I followed. I guess it seems rather cheeky to you, Miss Burnett, but you stop and think about it you'll recognize the fact that what I've done was the only thing to do."
"How perfectly absurd!" she said impatiently. "What right have you to think that I—want to know you?"
"I don't suppose you do—yet. But I want to know you. Now look here, Miss Burnett; be fair! Wanting to know you isn't a crime, is it? Other chaps have wanted the same thing, and I dare say they've gone about much as I have. If they haven't pursued you from New York to Quebec it is because they haven't had to. But I dare say they've schemed and manoeuvred in the city, sought invitations to the places you went to and begged introductions. Well, I didn't have a chance to do that. While I was trying to find out where you lived, and who you were, you started off on this trip. If I had stayed behind and waited you might not have come back. I could get nothing out of that close-mouthed butler."
She flashed a startled look at him.
"You went to the house?" she exclaimed.
"Why not?" He shrugged his shoulders. "What else could I do? You were leaving New York and I had to find out where you were going."
There was a moment's silence. Prue studied the stove frowningly. Then,
"May I inquire, Mr. Forbes, what part of the world you come from?"
"Colorado. Why?"
"Why? Well, it explains your—your absurd conduct in a measure, don't you think?" she replied amusedly.
"Don't see it," he answered. "I'd have done the same thing if I'd lived in—in New Jersey!"
"I'm afraid you're a little bit stupid, Mr. Forbes. I was generously providing you with an excuse."
"I don't want any. If I had seen you, as I did, at the opera the other night and hadn't wanted to know you I might have been grateful for your excuse. Miss Burnett."
The frown deepened.
"Mr. Forbes," she said sweetly, "you have been very frank with me. Now it is my turn." She paused, smiling across at him. Wade bowed uneasily, "You have given yourself a good deal of trouble so far and it seems rather a shame. Perhaps I ought to feel flattered that you consider me—shall I say attractive?—enough to be worth all this bother; but somehow, I don't." She wrinkled her forehead charmingly and glanced mockingly at him. "Strange, isn't it? And now, to be equally frank, Mr. Forbes, I'm going to tell you something that will save you all further sacrifices of time and comfort. It's simply this; I haven't the slightest desire in the world to make your acquaintance any further, and I sincerely hope that this will be our last meeting. That is both frank and plain, isn't it, Mr. Forbes?"
Wade smiled.
"Absolutely," he replied calmly. Her smile gave place to the little frown again. Possibly his total lack of consternation disappointed her.
"Then may I hope that—"
"I will remove my unwelcome presence?" he inquired politely. "You may. I'll go in just a minute. As this is to be our final meeting, Miss Burnett, you won't begrudge me another moment, I'm sure. I merely want to say that as it takes two to make a quarrel so it needs two to effect an eternal separation. You hope that we won't meet again, but I hope that we will—many times."
"Let me remind you," she returned, quite as politely, "that it also takes two to effect a meeting."
"Don't think that I mean to annoy you, Miss Burnett. I wouldn't do that for anything in the world. But you mustn't expect me to give up just because you are angry with me at the moment. When you get to thinking it over calmly you'll see that I haven't done anything very dreadful. And I hope that after awhile you'll be willing to let me prove that I am not quite the—the bounder you evidently think me now. I'm mighty sorry that I've started wrong, sorry that I've annoyed you when that was the last thing in my mind to do. I plead guilty to selfishness this afternoon, but that is all. I did think of pulling the signal-cord and stopping the train. But the prospect of being able to talk to you and spending a few hours in your company got the better of me. I'm sorry and I beg your pardon. I shall be outside until the train comes. If you should want anything, please let me do for you at least as much as you would allow a stranger to do. I promise you that I will not attempt to presume any further on your—good-nature."
He bowed, turned and went out onto the platform. Prue's gaze followed him until the door had closed. Then she dropped her eyes to the point of the shoe on the railing, staring at it with a puzzled frown. Presently her face cleared, the corners of her mouth went up and there sounded in the quiet room a sigh that somehow suggested more of amusement than despair.