"Thank you,"she replied to munificent Charley's offer that she would use his second automobile.She managed to make her polite words cut like a scythe."I should crowd it.""But they shall get out and walk;it will be good for them,"said Charley,indicating the valets and maids,and possibly the dogs,too.
Beverly Rodgers did much better than Charley.With a charming gesture and bow,he offered his own seat in the first automobile."I am going to walk in any case,"he assured her.
"One gentleman among them,"I heard John Mayrant mutter behind me.
Miss La Heu declined,the chorus urged,but Beverly (who was indeed a gentleman,every inch of him)shook his head imperceptibly at Charley;and while the little exclamations--"Do come!So much more comfortable!So nice to see more of you!"--dropped away,Miss La Heu had settled her problem quite simply for herself.A little procession of vehicles,townward bound,had gathered on the bridge,waiting until the closing of the draw should allow them to continue upon their way.From these most of the occupants had descended,and were staring with avidity at us all;the great glass eyes and the great refulgent cars held them in timidity and fascination,and the poor lifeless white body of General,stretched beside the way,heightened the hypnotic mystery;one or two of the boldest had touched him,and found no outward injury upon him;and this had sent their eyes back to the automobile with increased awe.Eliza La Heu summoned one of the onlookers,an old negro;at some word she said to him he hurried back and returned,leading his horse and empty cart,and General was lifted into this.The girl took her seat beside the old driver.
"No,"she said to John Mayrant,"certainly not."I wondered at the needless severity with which she declined his offer to accompany her and help her.
He stood by the wheel of the cart,looking up at her and protesting,and I joined him.
"Thank you,"she returned,"I need no one.You will both oblige me by saying no more about it.""John!"It was the slow,well-calculated utterance of Hortense Rieppe.
Did I hear in it the caressing note of love?
John turned.
The draw had swung to,the mast and sail of the vessel were separating away from the bridge with a stealthy motion,men with iron bars were at work fastening the draw secure,and horses'hoofs knocked nervously upon the wooden flooring as the internal churning of the automobiles burst upon their innocent ears.
"John,if Mr.Rodgers is really not going with us--"Thus Hortense;and at that Miss La Heu:--
"Why do you keep them waiting?"There was no caress in that note!It was polished granite.
He looked up at her on her high seat by the extremely dilapidated negro,and then he walked forward and took his place beside his veiled fiancee,among the glass eyes.A hiss of sharp noise spurted from the automobiles,horses danced,and then,smoothly,the two huge engines were gone with their cargo of large,distorted shapes,leaving behind them--quite as our present epoch will leave behind it--a trail of power,of ingenuity,of ruthlessness,and a bad smell.
"Hold hard,old boy!"chuckled Beverly,to whom I communicated this sentiment."How do you know the stink of one generation does not become the perfume of the next?"Beverly,when he troubled to put a thing at all (which was seldom--for he kept his quite good brains well-nigh perpetually turned out to grass--or rather to grass widows)always put it well,and with a bracing vocabulary."Hullo!"he now exclaimed,and walked out into the middle of the roadway,where he picked up a parasol.
"Kitty will be in a jolly old stew.None of its expensive bones broken however."And then he hailed me by a name of our youth."What are you doing down here,you old sourbelly?""Watching you sun yourself on the fat cushions of the yellow rich.""Oh,shucks,old man,they're not so yellow!""Charley strikes me as yellower than his own gold.""Charley's not a bad little sort.Of course,he needs coaching a bit here and there--just now,for instance,when he didn't see that that girl wouldn't think of riding in the machine that had just killed her dog.By Jove,give that girl a year in civilization and she'd do!Who was the young fire-eater?""Fire-eater!He's a lot more decent than you or I.""But that's saying so little,dear boy!"
"Seriously,Beverly."
"Oh,hang it with your 'seriously'!Well,then,seriously,melodrama was the correct ticket and all that in 1840,but we've outgrown it;it's devilish demode to chuck things in people's faces.
"I'm not sorry John Mayrant did it!"I brought out his name with due emphasis.
"All the same,"Beverly was beginning,when the automobile returned rapidly upon us,and,guessing the cause of this,he waved the parasol.
