He was so hungry that unconsciously he despatched one entire layer of the box while she talked. She laughed heartily at his appetite, and at his solicitation began tasting the sweetmeats herself. She led him to ask where the box had come from and refused to answer more than to wonder, as she discarded the tongs and proffered him a bonbon from her fingers, whether possibly she was not having more pleasure in disposing of the contents than the donor of the box had intended. Changing the subject capriciously she recalled the night in the car that he had assisted in Louise Bonner's charade, and his absurdly effective pirouetting in a corner behind the curtain where Louise and he thought no one saw them.
"And, by the way," she added, "you never told me whether your stenographer finally came that day you tried to put me at work."
He laughed and was about to reply when the train conductor coming forward touched him on the shoulder and spoke. Gertrude could not hear what he said, but Glover turned his head and straightened in his chair. "I can't smell anything," he said, presently. With the conductor he walked to the hind end of the car, opened the door, and the three men went out on the platform.
"What is it?" asked Gertrude, when Glover came back.
"One of the journals in the rear truck is heating. It is curious," he mused; "as many times as I've ridden in this car I've never known a box to run hot till to-night--just when we don't want it to."
He drew down the slack of the bell cord, pulled it twice firmly and listened. Two freezing pipes from the engine answered; they sounded cold. A stop was made and Glover, followed by the trainmen, went outside. Gertrude walking back saw them in the driving snow beneath the window. Their lamps burned bluishly dim. From the journal box rose a whipping column of black smoke expanding, when water was got on the hot steel, into a blinding explosion of white vapor that the storm snatched away in rolling clouds. There was running to and from the engine and the delay was considerable, but they succeeded at last in rigging a small tank above the wheel so that a stream of water should run into the box.
The men re-entered with their faces stung by the cold, the engine hoarsely signalled and the car started. Glover made little of the incident, but Gertrude observed some preoccupation in his manner. He consulted frequently his watch. Once when he was putting it back she asked to see it. His watch was the only thing of real value he had and he was pleased to show it. It contained a portrait of his mother, and Gertrude, to her surprise and delight, found it. She made him answer question after question, asked him to let her take the watch from the chain and studied the girlish face of this man's mother until she noticed its outlines growing dim and looked impatiently up at the deck burner: the gas was freezing in the storage tanks.