The Haunted Pajamas Part 23

"Exactly, sir." And he stood waiting. "So, shall I pack, sir? You'll want to take the four-ten express, I suppose?"

By Jove, it was the most amazingly, dashed clever guess I ever knew Jenkins to get off! Fact! I knew that if there was one thing more than another in all the world that I wanted to do, it was to take that four-ten express. To think of seeing Frances again, and _to-day_!

Of course, it was quite clear that Billings must have antic.i.p.ated the possibility of something unusual, and that was why he had impressed a sort of personal responsibility upon Jenkins--kind of tipping him off, as it were, so he would be sure to see that I got off in case he did not show up himself. It was very easy to see this, especially as Jenkins saw it that way, too, but what made it specially so awfully jolly easy to see was the fact that I _wanted_ to go, you know.

So I let Jenkins shoot a wire up to Billings, stating my train, and I just had to chuckle as in my mind's eye I saw old brazen face Jack coming down to the station to meet me, and just ignoring his going off in the middle of the night in my pajamas. By Jove, perhaps he would bring _her_ down to the train in his car, so I would be sure not to ask him any questions!

I left Jenkins to travel by a later train, and a little after four I was whirling above Spuyten Duyvil and looking about the chair-car to see if there was any one I knew. But, by Jove, there was hardly a soul in the car--n.o.body except just women, you know, and these filled the whole place. And they were talking about all sorts of dashed silly things.

Most of them were devilish pretty as the word goes, but, of course, not a patch on _her_. Oh, well, of course, they _couldn't_ be that! Don't know how they were behind me, you know--too much trouble to turn round and fix my gla.s.s. So I just took the range in front, looking at the tops of the hats and the chairs and wondering if women would ever become extinct like that bird--the great what's-its-name, you know.

"By Jove, _she_ could be spared!" I thought, studying a young woman who stood in the aisle beside me. She was rather heavy set--what you might call egg-shaped. Her face and her heavy gla.s.ses seemed to proclaim a mission in life, and the dowdyish cut of her rig and the reckless way it was hurled on made it plain that she was on to the fact that nature had made a blunder in her s.e.x, and she wanted the world to _know_ she knew.

She was talking to the lady immediately behind me. At least, I discovered after five minutes that she was talking. By Jove, up to that time, I thought she was canva.s.sing for a book! The other never got in a word, don't you know. And I was getting devilish tired of it and wis.h.i.+ng she would move on, when she s.h.i.+fted, preparatory to doing so, and raised her voice:

"Very well, then, if you don't care to come, I think I will go forward again and finish the discussion with Doctor Jennie Newman upon the metamorphoses of the primordial protoplasms. Watch out for Tarrytown now, Frances."

Tarrytown! Frances! By Jove, my heart skipped a beat!

The other murmured something.

Her voice! Her blessed, sweet voice, of which every syllable, every shade, was indented in my memory like the record of a what's-its-name!

By Jove, my Frances, and right behind me!

All I could do to sit still a minute longer, but I knew jolly well if I turned now I would be introduced to the freak and lose I couldn't tell how many precious moments with my dear one. So I sat low in the chair, polis.h.i.+ng my monocle, you know, and noting with satisfaction that my part reflected all right in the little strip of mirror. I tried to get a glimpse of her in it, too, but all I could see was a glorious white hat--a stunning Neapolitan, flanked with a sheaf of wild ostrich plumes.

And then the freak left. I watched her spraddle down the aisle and out through the little corridor before I dared risk the accident of a backward turn of that funny green hat.

Then, when all was safe, I took a deep breath, gripped hard the arms of the chair, and whirled suddenly around.

"Frances!" I whispered. "My darling!"

CHAPTER XIV

"YOU NEVER SAW ME IN BLACK"

"Oh!" she gasped faintly.

That was all she said at first, her big blue eyes wide distended, her white-gloved wrists curving above the chair-arms as though to rise. Easy to see she was completely floored at seeing me.

And as it was her move, I just sat kind of grinning, you know, and holding her tight with my monocle.

Then her mouth twitched a bit; next her head went up and I heard again that delicious birdlike carol of a laugh. Her eyes came to rest upon the hat in my hand. I had slipped my Harvard band around it, remembering the admiration she had expressed for our colors.

"Oh!" she said again, and she looked at me hesitatingly. "Mr. Jones, is it not--or is it--"

I chuckled. "Mr. Smith, you know," I said. "Mr. Smith, of course."

And then I just went on chuckling, for I thought it so devilish clever of her, so humorous. And just then I thought of a dashed good repartee:

"Months--so many months, you know, since we met!" And I thought it delightful the way she puckered her lovely little forehead and looked me over. But she just looked so devilish enticing, I couldn't keep it up myself. I leaned nearer and spoke behind my hat, trying to look the love I felt.

"Didn't expect to see me, did you?"

She looked at me oddly and bit her lip. But her eyes were dancing and the delicious dimple in her cheek twitched on the verge of laughter. She shook her head.

"Indeed I did not." And again came that odd look in her face as though she were studying, kind of balking, don't you know. By Jove, she was perfectly dazzling!

"My dearest!" slipped softly from me as I held the hat.

She stared. Then once more that canary peal of merriment.

"Oh, dear!" Then her face sobered and she almost pouted. "Now you mustn't--please, _really_--it gets so tiresome. Don't you American, or rather, you Harvard men, ever talk anything to a girl but love? Why, it's absurd." She smiled, but her lashes dropped reproof. By Jove, I was taken back a little! Evidently she was piqued with me about something, but what the devil was it? And then I thought I had it.

I slipped nearer--to the edge of the chair.

"I didn't know you were in town to-day--'pon honor, I didn't. Billings never said a word about it," I explained. "Why, dash it, I would have given _anything_ to have known."

She looked at me with a queer little smile, stroked her little lip with the point of one gloved finger and looked across the river at the Palisades. Dash the Palisades! Never could see any sense in them, anyhow!

"Oh, thank you, but Elizabeth and I didn't know ourselves until last evening that we would make the New York trip. She wanted to hear a suffragette lecture at the Carnegie, and I had some shopping to do."

And she just gave me one of those calm, self-contained, thoroughbred sort of smiles that are harder to get past than a six-foot hedge. What the deuce _was_ the matter with the girl? Something had changed her; yet I knew that nothing could really change her at heart--never.

But it was certain that she was put out about something. I would just have to play her easy and try to find out what it was. I remembered hearing Pugsley say--and he has had no end of experience with them--that when women are put out they expect you to find out what it is, no matter how devilishly improbable or unreasonable it may be.

And just then I remembered another clever idea of Pugsley's--what he said was a corking good way of diverting their minds.

"I say, you know," I said suddenly--and though I threw a whole lot of enthusiasm into my face in carrying out his idea, I didn't have to try very hard--"I think that's a ripping gown. White is ever so much more your style than--than--"

By Jove, I swallowed just in time! But it had roused her. I could see her brighten.

"Oh!" she said. "Let me see--what _is_ it you remember?" And she kind of muttered, "Perhaps I can tell from that--"

She paused expectantly.

"Oh, I say, you know!" And I twirled the hat, feeling a bit rattled. Why the deuce did she want to rub it in?

"But I want you to tell me." Her beautiful eyes were teasing.

"_You_ know--in black." I twirled the hat faster.

"_Black!_" She stared, her exquisite lips standing apart like the two petals of a rose. "Why, I never wore black in my life. You _know_ you never saw me in black."

I felt hurt. I couldn't blame her for wanting to appear to forget about it, but still--