Excuse Me!

  CHAPTER VIII

  A MIXED PICKLE

  Mrs. Whitcomb had almost blushed when she had murmured to LieutenantHudson:

  "I should think the young couple would have preferred a stateroom."

  And Mr. Hudson had flinched a little as he explained:

  "Yes, of course. We tried to get it, but it was gone."

  It was during the excitement over the decoration of the bridalsection, that the stateroom-tenants slipped in unobserved.

  First came a fluttering woman whose youthful beauty had a certain hueof experience, saddening and wisering. The porter brought her in fromthe station-platform, led her to the stateroom's concave door andpassed in with her luggage. But she lingered without, a Peri at thegate of Paradise. When the porter returned to bow her in, she shiveredand hesitated, and then demanded:

  "Oh, Porter, are you sure there's nobody else in there?"

  The porter chuckled, but humored her panic.

  "I ain't seen nobody. Shall I look under the seat?"

  To his dismay, she nodded her head violently. He rolled his eyes inwonderment, but returned to the stateroom, made a pretense ofexamination, and came back with a face full of reassurance. "No'm,they's nobody there. Take a mighty small-size burglar to squeeje undathat baid--er--berth. No'm, nobody there."

  "Oh!"

  The gasp was so equivocal that he made bold to ask:

  "Is you pleased or disappointed?"

  The mysterious young woman was too much agitated to rebuke theimpudence. She merely sighed: "Oh, porter, I'm so anxious."

  "I'm not--now," he muttered, for she handed him a coin.

  "Porter, have you seen anybody on board that looks suspicious?"

  "Evvabody looks suspicious to me, Missy. But what was youexpecting--especial?"

  "Oh, porter, have you seen anybody that looks like a detective indisguise?"

  "Well, they's one man looks 's if he was disguised as a balloon, but Idon't believe he's no slooch-hound."

  "Well, if you see anything that looks like a detective and he asks forMrs. Fosdick----"

  "Mrs. What-dick?"

  "Mrs. Fosdick! You tell him I'm not on board." And she gave himanother coin.

  "Yassum," said the porter, lingering willingly on such fertile soil."I'll tell him Mrs. Fosdick done give me her word she wasn't on bode."

  "Yes!--and if a woman should ask you."

  "What kind of a woman?"

  "The hideous kind that men call handsome."

  "Oh, ain't they hideous, them handsome women?"

  "Well, if such a woman asks for Mrs. Fosdick--she's my husband's firstwife--but of course that doesn't interest you."

  "No'm--yes'm."

  "If she comes--tell her--tell her--oh, what shall we tell her?"

  The porter rubbed his thick skull: "Lemme see--we might say you--Itell you what we'll tell her: we'll tell her you took the train forNew York; and if she runs mighty fast she can just about ketch it."

  "Fine, fine!" And she rewarded his genius with another coin. "And,porter." He had not budged. "Porter, if a very handsome man withluscious eyes and a soulful smile asks for me----"

  "I'll th'ow him off the train!"

  "Oh, no--no!--that's my husband--my present husband. You may let himin. Now is it all perfectly clear, porter?"

  "Oh, yassum, clear as clear." Thus guaranteed she entered thestateroom, leaving the porter alone with his problem. He tried to workit out in a semi-audible mumble: "Lemme see! If your present husband'sabsent wife gits on bode disguised as a handsome hideous woman I'm tothrow him--her--off the train and let her--him--come in--oh, yassum,you may rely on me." He bowed and held out his hand again. But she wasgone. He shuffled on into the car.

  He had hardly left the little space before the stateroom when ahandsome man with luscious eyes, but without any smile at all, cameslinking along the corridor and tapped cautiously on the door. Silencealone answered him at first, then when he had rapped again, he heard amuffled:

  "Go away. I'm not in."

  He put his lips close and softly called: "Edith!"

  At this Sesame the door opened a trifle, but when he tried to enter, ahand thrust him back and a voice again warned him off. "You musn'tcome in."

  "But I'm your husband."

  "That's just why you musn't come in." The door opened a little widerto give him a view of a downcast beauty moaning:

  "Oh, Arthur, I'm so afraid."

  "Afraid?" he sniffed. "With your husband here?"

  "That's the trouble, Arthur. What if your former wife should find ustogether?"

  "But she and I are divorced."

  "In some states, yes--but other states don't acknowledge the divorce.That former wife of yours is a fiend to pursue us this way."

  "She's no worse than your former husband. He's pursuing us, too. Mydivorce was as good as yours, my dear."

  "Yes, and no better."

  The angels looking on might have judged from the ready tempers of thenewly married and not entirely unmarried twain that their new alliancepromised to be as exciting as their previous estates. Perhaps the mansubtly felt the presence of those eternal eavesdroppers, for he triedto end the love-duel in the corridor with an appeasing caress and atender appeal: "But let's not start our honeymoon with a quarrel."

  His partial wife returned the caress and tried to explain: "I'm notquarreling with you, dear heart, but with the horrid divorce laws.Why, oh, why did we ever interfere with them?"

  He made a brave effort with: "We ended two unhappy marriages, Edith,to make one happy one."

  "But I'm so unhappy, Arthur, and so afraid."

  He seemed a trifle afraid himself and his gaze was askance as heurged: "But the train will start soon, Edith--and then we shall besafe."

  Mrs. Fosdick had a genius for inventing unpleasant possibilities."But what if your former wife or my former husband should have adetective on board?"

  "A detective?--poof!" He snapped his fingers in bravado. "You are withyour husband, aren't you?"

  "In Illinois, yes," she admitted, very dolefully. "But when we come toIowa, I'm a bigamist, and when we come to Nebraska, you're a bigamist,and when we come to Wyoming, we're not married at all."

  It was certainly a tangled web they had woven, but a ray of light shotthrough it into his bewildered soul. "But we're all right in Utah.Come, dearest."

  He took her by the elbow to escort her into their sanctuary, but stillshe hung back.

  "On one condition, Arthur--that you leave me as soon as we cross theIowa state line, and not come back till we get to Utah. Remember, theIowa state line!"

  "Oh, all right," he smiled. And seeing the porter, he beckoned himclose and asked with careless indifference: "Oh, Porter, what time dowe reach the Iowa state line?"

  "Two fifty-five in the mawning, sah."

  "Two fifty-five A.M.?" the wretch exclaimed.

  "Two fifty-five A.M., yassah," the porter repeated, and wondered whythis excerpt from the time-table should exert such a dramatic effecton the luscious-eyed Fosdick.

  He had small time to meditate the puzzle, for the train was about tobe launched upon its long voyage. He went out to the platform, andwatched a couple making that way. As their only luggage was adog-basket he supposed that they were simply come to bid some of hispassengers good-bye. No tips were to be expected from such transients,so he allowed them to help themselves up the steps.

  Mallory and his Marjorie had tried to kiss the farewell of farewellshalf a dozen times, but she could not let him go at the gate. Sheasked the guard to let her through, and her beauty was bribe enough.

  Again and again, she and Mallory paused. He wanted to take her back tothe taxicab, but she would not be so dismissed. She must spend thelast available second with him.

  "I'll go as far as the steps of the car," she said. When they werearrived there, two porters, a sleeping car conductor and severalsmoking saunterers profaned the tryst. So she whispered that she wouldcome aboard, for the corridor would be a quiet lane for the la
strites.

  And now that he had her actually on the train, Mallory's whole soulrevolted against letting her go. The vision of her standing on theplatform sad-eyed and lorn, while the train swept him off into spacewas unendurable. He shut his eyes against it, but it glowed inside thelids.

  And then temptation whispered him its old "Why not?" While it wasworking in his soul like a fermenting yeast, he was saying:

  "To think that we should owe all our misfortune to an infernaltaxicab's break-down."

  Out of the anguish of her loneliness crept one little complaint:

  "If you had really wanted me, you'd have had two taxicabs."

  "Oh, how can you say that? I had the license bought and the ministerwaiting."

  "He's waiting yet."

  "And the ring--there's the ring." He fished it out of his waistcoatpocket and held it before her as a golden amulet.

  "A lot of good it does now," said Marjorie. "You won't even wait overtill the next train."

  "I've told you a thousand times, my love," he protested, desperately,"if I don't catch the transport, I'll be courtmartialed. If this trainis late, I'm lost. If you really loved me you'd come along with me."

  Her very eyes gasped at this astounding proposal.

  "Why, Harry Mallory, you know it's impossible."

  Like a sort of benevolent Satan, he laid the ground for his abduction:"You'll leave me, then, to spend three years without you--out amongthose Manila women."

  She shook her head in terror at this vision. "It would be too horriblefor words to have you marry one of those mahogany sirens."

  He held out the apple. "Better come along, then."

  "But how can I? We're not married."

  He answered airily: "Oh, I'm sure there's a minister on board."

  "But it would be too awful to be married with all the passengersgawking. No, I couldn't face it. Good-bye, honey."

  She turned away, but he caught her arm: "Don't you love me?"

  "To distraction. I'll wait for you, too."

  "Three years is a long wait."

  "But I'll wait, if you will."

  With such devotion he could not tamper. It was too beautiful to riskor endanger or besmirch with any danger of scandal. He gave up hisfantastic project and gathered her into his arms, crowded her into hisvery soul, as he vowed: "I'll wait for you forever and ever and ever."

  Her arms swept around his neck, and she gave herself up as an exilefrom happiness, a prisoner of a far-off love:

  "Good-bye, my husband-to-be."

  "Good-bye my wife-that-was-to-have-been-and-will-be-yet-maybe."

  "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye."

  "Good-bye."

  "I must go."

  "Yes, you must."

  "One last kiss."

  "One more--one long last kiss."

  And there, entwined in each other's arms, with lips wedded and eyelidsclinched, they clung together, forgetting everything past, future, orpresent. Love's anguish made them blind, mute, and deaf.

  They did not hear the conductor crying his, "All Aboard!" down thelong wall of the train. They did not hear the far-off knell of thebell. They did not hear the porters banging the vestibules shut. Theydid not feel the floor sliding out with them.

  And so the porter found them, engulfed in one embrace, swaying andswaying, and no more aware of the increasing rush of the train than weother passengers on the earth-express are aware of its speed throughthe ether-routes on its ancient schedule.

  The porter stood with his box-step in his hand, and blinked andwondered. And they did not even know they were observed.