As I crossed the marble floor to take the train I caught sight of my traveling companion leaning rigidly against the wall beside the gate. He did not see me. Reaching his side, I greeted him.
He showed no signs of life. I felt as though I had addressed a waxwork figure.
"Good morning," I repeated, calling him by name.
"I've just finished packing," he said. "I never got to bed at all."
At that moment a most attractive person put in an appearance. She was followed by a redcap carrying a lovely little Russia leather bag. A few years before I should have called a bag like that a dressing case, but watching that young woman as she tripped along with steps restricted by the slimness of her narrow satin skirt, it occurred to me that modes in baggage may have changed like those in woman's dress and that her little leather case might be a modern kind of wardrobe trunk.
My companion took no notice of this agitating presence.
"Look!" I whispered. "_She_ is going, too."
"The pretty girl," he remarked, with sad philosophy, "is always in the other car. That's life."
"No," I demurred. "It's only early morning stuff."
And I was right, for presently, in the parlor car, we found our seats across the aisle from hers.
Before the train moved out a boy came through with books and magazines, proclaiming loudly the "last call for reading matter."
I think the radiant being believed him, for she bought a magazine--a magazine of pretty girls and piffle: just the sort we knew she'd buy. As for my companion and me, we made no purchases, not crediting the statement that it was really the "last call." But I am impelled to add that having, later, visited certain book stores of Buffalo, Cleveland, and Detroit, I now see truth in what the boy said.
For a time my companion and I sat and tried to make believe we didn't know that some one was across the aisle. And she sat there and played with pages and made believe she didn't know we made believe. When that had gone on for a time and our train was slipping silently along beside the Hudson, we felt we couldn't stand it any longer, so we made believe we wanted to go out and smoke. And as we left our seats she made believe she didn't know that we were going.
Four men were seated in the smoking room. Two were discussing the merits of flannel versus linen mesh for winter underwear. The gentleman who favored linen mesh was a fat, prosperous-looking person, whose gold-rimmed spectacles reflected flying lights from out of doors.