Read Ebook: The Parlor Car by Howells William Dean

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Ebook has 206 lines and 9813 words, and 5 pages

MR. RICHARDS: "Cowardly? You've no idea how much courage it took." Miss Galbraith puts her handkerchief to her face, and sobs. "Oh, don't cry! Bless my heart,--I'm sorry I did it! But you know how dearly I love you, Lucy, though I do think you've been cruelly unjust. I told you I never should love any one else, and I never shall. I couldn't help it; upon my soul, I couldn't. Nobody could. Don't let it vex you, my"--He approaches her.

MISS GALBRAITH: "Please not touch me, sir! You have no longer any right whatever to do so."

MR. RICHARDS: "You misinterpret a very inoffensive gesture. I have no idea of touching you, but I hope I may be allowed, as a special favor, to--pick up my hat, which you are in the act of stepping on." Miss Galbraith hastily turns, and strikes the hat with her whirling skirts; it rolls to the other side of the parlor, and Mr. Richards, who goes after it, utters an ironical "Thanks!" He brushes it, and puts it on, looking at her where she has again seated herself at the window with her back to him, and continues, "As for any further molestation from me" -

MISS GALBRAITH: "If you WILL talk to me" -

MR. RICHARDS: "Excuse me, I am not talking to you."

MISS GALBRAITH: "What were you doing?"

MR. RICHARDS: "I was beginning to think aloud. I--I was soliloquizing. I suppose I may be allowed to soliloquize?"

MISS GALBRAITH, very coldly: "You can do what you like."

MR. RICHARDS: "Unfortunately that's just what I can't do. If I could do as I liked, I should ask you a single question."

MISS GALBRAITH, after a moment: "Well, sir, you may ask your question." She remains as before, with her chin in her hand, looking tearfully out of the window; her face is turned from Mr. Richards, who hesitates a moment before he speaks.

MR. RICHARDS: "I wish to ask you just this, Miss Galbraith: if you couldn't ride backwards in the other car, why do you ride backwards in this?"

MISS GALBRAITH, burying her face in her handkerchief, and sobbing: "Oh, oh, oh! This is too bad!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Oh, come now, Lucy. It breaks my heart to hear you going on so, and all for nothing. Be a little merciful to both of us, and listen to me. I've no doubt I can explain everything if I once understand it, but it's pretty hard explaining a thing if you don't understand it yourself. Do turn round. I know it makes you sick to ride in that way, and if you don't want to face me--there!"-- wheeling in his chair so as to turn his back upon her--"you needn't. Though it's rather trying to a fellow's politeness, not to mention his other feelings. Now, what in the name" -

PORTER, who at this moment enters with his step-ladder, and begins to light the lamps: "Going pretty slow ag'in, sah."

MR. RICHARDS: "Yes; what's the trouble?"

PORTER: "Well, I don't know exactly, sah. Something de matter with de locomotive. We sha'n't be into Albany much 'fore eight o'clock."

MR. RICHARDS: "What's the next station?"

PORTER: "Schenectady."

MR. RICHARDS: "Is the whole train as empty as this car?"

PORTER, laughing: "Well, no, sah. Fact is, dis cah don't belong on dis train. It's a Pullman that we hitched on when you got in, and we's taking it along for one of de Eastern roads. We let you in 'cause de Drawing-rooms was all full. Same with de lady,"--looking sympathetically at her, as he takes his steps to go out. "Can I do anything for you now, miss?"

MISS GALBRAITH, plaintively: "No, thank you; nothing whatever." She has turned while Mr. Richards and The Porter have been speaking, and now faces the back of the former, but her veil is drawn closely. The Porter goes out.

MR. RICHARDS, wheeling round so as to confront her: "I wish you would speak to me half as kindly as you do to that darky, Lucy."

MISS GALBRAITH: "HE is a GENTLEMAN!"

MISS GALBRAITH, wildly: "O Allen, Allen! You KNOW I think you are a gentleman, and I always did!"

MR. RICHARDS, languidly: "Oh, I merely had your word for it, just now, that you didn't." Tenderly, "Will you hear me, Lucy?"

MISS GALBRAITH, faintly: "Yes."

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, what is it I've done? Will you tell me if I guess right?"

MISS GALBRAITH, with dignity: "I am in no humor for jesting, Allen. And I can assure you that though I consent to hear what you have to say, or ask, NOTHING will change my determination. All is over between us."

MR. RICHARDS: "Yes, I understand that, perfectly. I am now asking merely for general information. I do not expect you to relent, and, in fact, I should consider it rather frivolous if you did. No. What I have always admired in your character, Lucy, is a firm, logical consistency; a clearness of mental vision that leaves no side of a subject unsearched; and an unwavering constancy of purpose. You may say that these traits are characteristic of ALL women; but they are pre-eminently characteristic of you, Lucy." Miss Galbraith looks askance at him, to make out whether he is in earnest or not; he continues, with a perfectly serious air. "And I know now that if you're offended with me, it's for no trivial cause." She stirs uncomfortably in her chair. What I have done I can't imagine, but it must be something monstrous, since it has made life with me appear so impossible that you are ready to fling away your own happiness-- for I know you DID love me, Lucy--and destroy mine. I will begin with the worst thing I can think of. Was it because I danced so much with Fanny Watervliet?"

MISS GALBRAITH, indignantly: "How can you insult me by supposing that I could be jealous of such a perfect little goose as that? No, Allen! Whatever I think of you, I still respect you too much for that."

MR. RICHARDS: "I'm glad to hear that there are yet depths to which you think me incapable of descending, and that Miss Watervliet is one of them. I will now take a little higher ground. Perhaps you think I flirted with Mrs. Dawes. I thought, myself, that the thing might begin to have that appearance, but I give you my word of honor that as soon as the idea occurred to me, I dropped her--rather rudely, too. The trouble was, don't you know, that I felt so perfectly safe with a MARRIED friend of yours. I couldn't be hanging about you all the time, and I was afraid I might vex you if I went with the other girls; and I didn't know what to do."

MISS GALBRAITH: "I think you behaved rather silly, giggling so much with her. But" -

MR. RICHARDS: "I own it, I know it was silly. But" -

MISS GALBRAITH: "It wasn't that; it wasn't that!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Was it my forgetting to bring you those things from your mother?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "No!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Was it because I hadn't given up smoking yet?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "You KNOW I never asked you to give up smoking. It was entirely your own proposition."

MR. RICHARDS: "That's true. That's what made me so easy about it. I knew I could leave it off ANY time. Well, I will not disturb you any longer, Miss Galbraith." He throws his overcoat across his arm, and takes up his travelling-bag. "I have failed to guess your fatal- -conundrum; and I have no longer any excuse for remaining. I am going into the smoking-car. Shall I send the porter to you for anything?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "No, thanks." She puts up her handkerchief to her face.

MR. RICHARDS: "Lucy, do you send me away?"

MISS GALBRAITH, behind her handkerchief: "You were going, yourself."

MR. RICHARDS, over his shoulder: "Shall I come back?"

MISS GALBRAITH: "I have no right to drive you from the car."

MR. RICHARDS, coming back, and sitting down in the chair nearest her: "Lucy, dearest, tell me what's the matter."

MISS GALBRAITH: "O Allen! your not KNOWING makes it all the more hopeless and killing. It shows me that we MUST part; that you would go on, breaking my heart, and grinding me into the dust as long as we lived." She sobs. "It shows me that you never understood me, and you never will. I know you're good and kind and all that, but that only makes your not understanding me so much the worse. I do it quite as much for your sake as my own, Allen."

MR. RICHARDS: "I'd much rather you wouldn't put yourself out on my account."

MISS GALBRAITH, without regarding him: "If you could mortify me before a whole roomful of people, as you did last night, what could I expect after marriage but continual insult?"

MR. RICHARDS, in amazement: "HOW did I mortify you? I thought that I treated you with all the tenderness and affection that a decent regard for the feelings of others would allow. I was ashamed to find I couldn't keep away from you."

MISS GALBRAITH: "Oh, you were ATTENTIVE enough, Allen; nobody denies that. Attentive enough in non-essentials. Oh, yes!"

MR. RICHARDS: "Well, what vital matters did I fail in? I'm sure I can't remember."

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