Linda Lee, Incorporated Part 23

In the upshot, though street clocks advised that she had the best part of two hours to kill before she could board her train, she tapped on the window and directed her driver to proceed to the Santa Fe Station. She felt reasonably safe in a.s.suming that Bel wouldn't look for her there.

Since she had told him she was going to Reno, his natural inference would be that she meant to travel by the direct overland route, he would set himself to waylay her in the Union Pacific terminal if anywhere.

Provided, of course, that he had succeeded in discouraging the attentions of the gallant busybody in fit shape to make himself a nuisance again that night.

She couldn't help giggling nervously over the picture painted by a superexcited imagination.

The remaining hours of the evening worked out as eventlessly as she had hoped. Bellamy didn't show up at the station, she dined after a fas.h.i.+on in its restaurant, with her nose in a newspaper none of whose intelligence meant anything to hers, as soon as the platform gates were opened she was conducted by a porter to her reservation in the last car of the train but one, the observation-car; and in the latter Lucinda waited till her berth had been made ready. Then she went to bed.

She had planned to read herself asleep, but the armful of books and magazines purchased at the station bookstall either purveyed only fiction of a peculiarly insipid sort or else life itself was just then too richly coloured, too swift of movement to admit of that self-surrender which is requisite if mere artistic effort is to take effect.

And then the thoughtful porter had fastened a folded sheet across the double windows to temper the penetrating breath of that bitter night. So it wasn't possible to divert oneself by watching the snow-clad land unroll its blurred vistas of blue nocturnal beauty.

One could do nothing, indeed, but try vainly not to think, watch the curtains swaying that shut out the aisle, listen to the tireless thrumming of the trucks and the melancholy hooting with which the engine saluted every cross-road, and pray for sleep.

Somewhere a peevish child wailed fitfully for hours on end, somewhere else a man snored as if strangling in his sleep. Till long after midnight noisy feet straggled intermittently to and from the observation car. And once Lucinda, at last on the verge of drifting off, started suddenly wide-awake, stabbed to the heart by tardy appreciation of the fact that, now Bel knew where she was bound, she could not be sure of finding even Reno a refuge from his persistence, his importunities.

For the matter of that, if Bel, or the detectives whom he had told Willis he might employ, had been cunning enough to trace her to Chicago, they would find her no matter where else she might seek to hide herself away.

Only perhaps by changing her name....

But how could she sue for divorce if she lived under an a.s.sumed name?

Toward morning she drifted into an uneasy form of semi-slumber, and from this into deep sleep. It was late when she was awakened by the bustle of people fighting with their garments and breaking the trails to the wash-rooms, and in the aisle a negro voice intoning musically: "Las'

call fo' brekfus in the dinin'-cyar"--over and over.

To find the dining-car Lucinda had to make her way through so many sleeping-cars that she lost count, cars all alike as to aisles obstructed by people dressing, people pa.s.sing to and fro, porters dismantling tumbled berths. By way of some slight compensation, she was allotted a small table with places for two, the other chair being untenanted, which she considered much preferable to the tables for four across the aisle. Then, too, the napery was spotless, the silverware l.u.s.trous, flowers were brave in a vase at her elbow, the waiter was civil and seemed eager to please.

Lucinda scribbled her order on the blank form provided, then rested her cheek on a hand and gazed moodily out at wheeling perspectives of a countryside blanketed with snow. Reminding herself that the train was due in Kansas City during the morning, she seriously thought of leaving it there and waiting over till accommodations could be had that would insure privacy for the remainder of the journey, even though this might involve weeks of delay.

Grape-fruit, coffee, and toast, all excellent, made her feel a bit better. Nevertheless she made up her mind to ask the conductor to arrange a stop-over for her at Kansas City.

As she was pouring herself a second cup of coffee, the vacant chair at her table was drawn out and an amiable, amused voice asked: "Do you mind my sitting here, Mrs. Druce?"

Lucinda jumped in consternation. The speaker bowed with an ingratiating smile: her unsought champion of the night before!...

She recollected herself and gave a jerky inclination of her head; but all she could find to say was "Oh!" Whereupon the young man laughed quietly and, construing her consent, sat down.

"I'm surprised, too," he confessed--"pleasantly, if you don't mind my saying so. And yet the dear public continually kicks about coincidences!"

Lucinda found her tongue but found it incompetent to frame any but formal phrases: "I have a great deal to thank you for----"

"Please don't think of it that way. To the contrary, I owe you all sorts of apologies----"

"Apologies!"

"For b.u.t.ting in where any rational angel would have been scared to death to tread, and particularly for being here--though that was my fault and this isn't. But I'm glad you're not angry with me--" The waiter thrust an order blank with the bill of fare under the young man's nose, and he concluded to give them attention with an easy: "If you'll excuse me...."

The head he bowed over the cards was well-modelled and thatched with a good quant.i.ty of hair, light brown in colour and amazingly l.u.s.trous. A skin whose patina of faint tan resembled that of old ivory, with never a blemish, covered boldly fas.h.i.+oned features. The mobile face had a trick of lighting up when its owner was talking as if aglow with the light of his thought, so that his look was in fact more eloquent than his speech.

Lucinda thought she had never seen hands more strong and graceful, or any better cared for, not even Bel's. Nor had Bel ever dressed in better taste.

The object of her interest waved the waiter away and met her openly interested regard without loss of countenance.

"I guess it's time I introduced myself, Mrs. Druce. My name is Summerlad." After a slight pause and with a hint of self-consciousness, he amplified: "Lynn Summerlad."

Sensible that he seemed to expect her to think well of that precious name, Lucinda found no echo for it in the chambers of her memory. She bowed and said "Thank you," and all at once discovered that she had reason to be mystified.

"But how is it you know my name, Mr. Summerlad?"

"That's easy: your husband told me."

Again Lucinda was reduced to a blank "Oh!" This time she felt that she was colouring.

"In the police station," Mr. Summerlad added with a broad grin. "But don't be alarmed, we weren't either of us mussed up much. Only, you see, Mr. Druce rather lost his head--can't say I blame him--and when the innocent bystanders insisted on separating us, and a cop happened along and took a hand, he--wouldn't be happy till he'd had me arrested on a charge of a.s.sault. So the officer marched us both off to the nearest station-house, with half Chicago tagging at our heels. By the time we got there your husband had cooled down and remembered that publicity wasn't his best bet. So he withdrew the charge."

"How dreadful!" Lucinda murmured, her thoughts with Bellamy. "I'm so sorry."

"No reason to be. If you must know, I enjoyed the adventure tremendously. That's what one gets for having been born with a perverted sense of humour."

"But if you had been locked up----!"

"Oh, it wouldn't have been for long, I'd have got somebody to bail me out inside of fifteen minutes. But there wasn't ever any danger of that, really. You see, the sergeant knew me at sight and--well, the sentiment of all hands seemed to be with me. Besides, it wasn't as if I'd never been pinched before."

"You don't mean to tell me you're in the habit of--of--"

"Of mixing in every time I run across a matrimonial rukus? Hardly! I mean, pinched for speeding. You know what the roads are, out on the Coast, hard and smooth and straight as a string for miles at a time. You can hardly resist them, once you get beyond the city limits. Guess I'll have to after this, though. The last time they got me, the judge gave me his word I wouldn't get off again with a fine, the next offense would mean the hoosegow for mine. And between you and me, I haven't any hankering to see the inside of the Los Angeles County jail."

"I should hope not."

Lucinda caught the eye of her waiter and gave him a bill to pay for her breakfast. But she couldn't escape with good grace just yet, unless she wished to administer a downright snub she would have to wait for her change.

"I'd like to show you what motoring is around Los Angeles," Mr.

Summerlad pursued with breath-taking a.s.surance. "If it isn't an impertinent question, may I ask if that's where you're bound?"

"No," Lucinda replied briefly. One began to foresee that to put a damper on such abounding enterprise would prove far from easy.

"I see: taking in the Grand Canyon, I suppose. You'll find it well worth your while. Gorgeous scenery and everything. I've done the Canyon a dozen times, used to run up there whenever I got a week to myself, you know. If it wasn't for this wretched business I'm in"--again that suspicion of self-consciousness--"I'd drop off there for a few days this trip. But I'm afraid it's no go. Too busy. Beastly nuisance. Still, there's nothing more uncertain than a job like mine. So it's well to make pay while the sun s.h.i.+nes."

"I'm sure ..." said Lucinda, gathering up her change. And Summerlad's face fell touchingly as he grasped the fact that she was really going to leave him to finish his breakfast alone. "I am deeply indebted to you,"

she pursued. "No, please don't tell me again I must forget it, because I can't and don't want to. I was at my wits' ends last night. But, of course, it isn't a thing one can talk about----"

"Well, there are lots of other things we can talk about," Summerlad rejoined cheerily. "So let's forget the unpleasant ones. That is--hope you don't think I'm impertinent--but it's a long, lonesome trip, and I'll be very happy if you'll let me prattle in your company now and then."

Since she was leaving the train at Kansas City there was nothing to be gained by being rude. Lucinda contented herself with replying, no, she wouldn't mind, and thrust back her chair. Immediately Summerlad was on his feet, napkin in hand, bowing prettily.

"Awfully good of you, Mrs. Druce. Where shall I find you, say in an hour or two? The observation car?"

"Perhaps," Lucinda smiled.

"Or would you rather I looked you up----?"