“Are we near New York?”

“Yes,” said Justin, smiling encouragement at his young companion. He stood up and took down from the rack above them Dosia’s jacket, which had been reclaimed from the wreck soaked and torn, and a boy’s cap in lieu of her missing hat.

“You had better put these on now, and then you can rest again for a little while before we have to move.”

It was unavoidable that after the enforced journey the sight of Dosia’s white face and imploring eyes should have filled him with a rush of tender compassion which completely blotted out the previous reluctance from his memory. Few men spend their time regretting past stages of thought, and he had naturally accepted her tremulous thankfulness for his solicitude.

After the long day of travel in Justin’s company, the color had begun to return faintly to Dosia’s lips and cheeks. She was also growing to feel a little more at home with him; he had seemed too much a stranger and she had been too greatly in awe of him at first to ask many questions. He himself had spoken little, but had been kind in numberless ways, and thoughtful of her comfort, and always smiled encouragingly when he looked at her. Now, at the journey’s end, he began to talk, in a secret restlessness which he could not own. His mind had been busy all day with the typometer and his plans for the morrow, but as he neared home he could not shake off a haunting premonition of something unpleasant to come.

“Lois and the children will all be drawn up in line expecting the new cousin,” he said.

“Will they?” asked Theodosia, with pleased interest. “But they will be looking out for you as well as for me.”

“Yes, I suppose so; I very seldom go away from home. But I was wrong in saying that both children would be up, for it will be nearly seven when we reach the house, and they go to bed at six; perhaps Zaidee will be there. I hope you like children, or you will have a bad time of it at our house.”

“I love children,” said Dosia, with the solemnity of a profession of faith.

“I think you will like Zaidee, then; she is a little girl who has her hair tied up with bunches of blue ribbon, and the rest of it straggles around in light wisps, or is gathered into an inconceivably small pigtail at the back of her neck. She has a pug-nose, round blue eyes, little white teeth, and an expression of great responsibility and wisdom, because at the age of six she is the eldest daughter—and that means a great deal, you know.”

“Oh,” said Dosia, “I am an ‘eldest daughter.’” She choked, momentarily, as she thought of the family at home. “Was it only last night that you started for me?” she asked, after a pause during which she had looked hard out of the car-window.

“Yes; I’ve made pretty good time, I think. It was lucky that we could catch that eight-thirty express this morning; if we hadn’t it would have put us back nearly twenty-four hours—and that would have been bad,” he added under his breath.

“Perhaps it was hard for you to leave even for one day,” said Dosia timidly. She felt somehow away outside of his inner thought, as if she had no inherent place in his mind at all. “You are just starting in business, aren’t you?”

“Oh, that is all right. We are both starting in new ventures—Dosia and the typometer appear on the scene at the same moment, starting out on a career together; and for this time Dosia had to take precedence, that is all. I hope we’ll both be equally successful.”

“Yes, indeed.” She responded to his smile, and tried to rally her failing powers.

“I am very glad I went for you.” He regarded her with anxiety. “You could not have made the journey alone.”

“Oh, I could have—but I am so glad you came!” said Dosia. She leaned against the window, with closed eyes, to rest—her wan face, her dress, crumpled and stained, the negligence of her hair, which she had been unable to arrange properly, and her air of fatigue making a pitiful contrast to the girl who had started out so gayly on her travels in her trim attire two days before. Now, as in many another moment of silence, she felt once more the hurtling fall, the pressure of darkness, and the ravages of the rain and wind; the nightmare horror of the wreck was upon her; only the remembered clasp of a hand held her reason firm. She had spent half the day in thinking of that unknown friend, and the thought seemed to put her under some obligation of high and pure living, in a cloistered gratitude. A girl who had been saved in that way ought to be worthy of it. Some day or other—some day—it must be meant that she should meet him again and tell him what his help had been to her. She imagined herself engaged in some errand of mercy—supporting the tottering footsteps of an old woman as she crossed a crowded street, or carrying a little sick child, or kneeling by a fever-touched bedside in a tenement-house, or encouraging a terror-stricken creature through smoke and fire. She would meet him thus, and when he said, “How good and brave you are!” she might look up and say: “I learned it from you. Do you remember the girl you helped the night the train was wrecked? I am she.” And when he asked, “How did you know it was I?” she would answer: “By the tones of your voice; I would know that anywhere.” And then he would take her hand again——

Her eyes ached with unshed tears at the lost comfort of it. She tried to see his form through the blur of darkness that had enveloped it,—a swinging step, a square set of the shoulders, an effect of strong young manhood,—and she pictured his face as noble and beautiful as his care for her. Her reverie passed through different grades. She found herself after a while idly scanning Justin’s face and wondering if it embodied all that was high and good to her cousin Lois; after one was married a long time, say six or seven years, did it still matter how a man looked? She felt herself a little in awe of his keen blue eyes, in spite of his kindness; she thought she preferred a dark man.

She clung to Justin’s arm at the crossings and ferry, and hardly heard his words, bewildered by the unaccustomed sights and sounds and the weakness of her knees. Her feet slipped on the cobblestones, the hurrying people made her dizzy, and the electric lights danced before her eyes.

As they were standing on the boat, two men came up to speak to Justin; she gathered that they had heard of the accident and of his journey from Mrs. Alexander at the whist club the night before, and stopped now to make courteous inquiries. One, who was short and stout, with a pleasant if commonplace face, passed on, after his introduction to Dosia; but the other turned back, as he was following, to say:

“By the way, I see that there was a fire in your new quarters to-day, Alexander.”

“A fire! For Heaven’s sake, Barr——”

“Oh, I don’t think it amounted to much; there’s just a line in the evening paper about it. Here, read for yourself—‘fire confined to one floor, machinery slightly damaged.’ Insured, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, yes—that isn’t the point now. We can’t afford to be kept back a minute! I’m glad you told me; I must go—I must go back at once and see for myself.” He stopped and looked hopelessly at Dosia.

Short as the journey was now, he could not let her continue it by herself; yet every fiber in him was quivering in his wild desire to get over to the scene of disaster. He looked at his informant, who, in his turn, was regarding the girl beside Justin.

“I can go on by myself,” said Dosia, divining his thought, and wondering when this terrible journey would ever end. “Truly, I can. I know you want to go and see about the fire; please, please do! Oh, please!”

“Barr, will you take charge of Miss Linden?” asked Justin abruptly. He did not particularly like Barr, but this was an emergency. “Will you take her to Mrs. Alexander?”

“I will, indeed,” said the newcomer, with responsive earnestness.

“Very well, then; I’ll go back on this boat. I’ll be out on a later train, tell Lois.” He started to make his way to the other end of the boat, to be in readiness for the return trip, and turned back once more to give the girl her ticket; then he was lost to sight, and Theodosia was left, for the third time, on the hands of an unknown man.

This one only spoke to give her the necessary directions as they joined the usual rush for the train, and refrained from talking, to her great relief, after he had settled her comfortably in the car for the last half-hour of traveling. She leaned against the window-casing, as before, as far away from him as possible, suddenly and wretchedly aware of her dilapidated appearance and the boy’s cap that covered the fair hair curling out from under it. Her cheeks were whiter than ever, and the corners of her mouth had the pathetic droop of extreme fatigue.

She looked, without knowing it, very young, very forlorn, and very frightened, and the hand in which she held the ticket given her by Justin trembled. She was morbidly afraid that this new person would question her as to the accident, about which she shrank from speaking; but after a while, encouraged by his silence, she tried to turn her thoughts by stealthily observing him.

If her friend of the voice and hand of the night before had been only a tall blur in the darkness, the man beside her was effectively concrete. Neither tall nor large, he gave an impression of strength and vitality in the ease and quickness of his motions, which bespoke trained muscles. She decided that he was rather old—perhaps thirty. Dark-skinned, black-haired, with a thin face, a low forehead, deep-set eyes, a high, rather hooked nose, and a mustache, he was somewhat of the Oriental type, although, as she learned later, a New Englander by birth and heritage. Dosia was not quite sure whether the effect was pleasing or the reverse; there seemed to be something about him different from the other men she had seen, even in his clothing, although it was plain enough.

Interspersed with these observations were the increasing throbs of homesickness that threatened to overwhelm her. Kind as Justin had been, she had felt all the time outside of his thought and affection. This new companion had shown consideration for her; she was grateful for it, but she was unprepared to have him lean suddenly toward her, as a tear trembled perilously on her lashes, and say, with twinkling eyes:

“I beg your pardon, but do I look like him?”

“Like—like whom?” asked Dosia, in amazement.

“Like a person to be approved of.”

“I haven’t considered the subject,” said Dosia, with swift dignity.

“Ah, you see, it’s the reverse with me. As soon as Mrs. Alexander told me she was expecting you, my mind was filled with visions of a sweet young thing from the South. All sweet young things from the South have dreams; mine was to embody yours. And when I saw you, I said to myself—I beg your pardon, do you think I am getting too personal, on such short acquaintance?”

“Yes,” answered Dosia, dimpling in spite of herself, “very much too personal.” She turned her head away from him, that she might not see those sparkling, quizzical eyes so close.

“Very well; I will finish the sentence to-morrow, as you suggest. In the meantime, let me ask you if you have ever made a collection of conductors’ thumbs?”

“No!” said Dosia, in astonishment, turning around again to face him.

“I am told that there is a great deal of character in them; it is given by the broad, free movement of punching tickets. I have thought of collecting thumbs for purposes of study—in alcohol, of course. But why do you look so surprised?”

“I am surprised that you have no collection already,” said Dosia, with spirit; “you seem to be so enterprising.”

He shook his head sadly. “No. How little you know me! I’m not enterprising in the least; I have no heroic virtues, I’m only—loving.”

“Oh!” cried Dosia, and stopped short in a ripple of merriment that was more invigorating than wine, and that brought a rush of color to her cheeks.

“No? well, not until the day after to-morrow, then, if you say so. You’re so very, very good to me, Miss Linden; it’s not often I find anyone so considerate as you are. And have you come up North to make your entrance into society?”

“I have come North to study music,” said Theodosia impressively.

“Music! Ah, there you have me.” He spoke with a new soberness.

“Do you like it?”

“I like it almost better than anything else in the world—too much, and yet not enough, after all.” He shook his head with a quick, somber gesture. “I’ll help you with the music, if you’ll let me. Did you notice how very quickly we became acquainted? Yes? I know now why; it puzzled me at first. It was the music in you to which I responded—I can tell you just what little song of Schubert’s your smile is from, if you’ll give me time.”

“No,” said Dosia, “it isn’t from Schubert at all, and you’ll never find the key-note to it, so you needn’t try.” She could not help daring a little, in her girlishness.

He laughed. “Oh, I shall make it my business to find out. For what else what I constituted your guardian at the beginning of your career? And it’s so good of you to say that I can come to-morrow and pour out my heart to you! Shall it be at five? No, please don’t trouble to answer; I like to look at your ear in that position—it’s so pearly. Too personal again? Then let us converse about your Old Kentucky Home.”

“It isn’t in Kentucky,” interpolated Dosia desperately, but there was no stopping him. He was so irrelevantly absurd that she succumbed at last entirely, and hardly knew when they left the train; when they walked up the path to her cousin’s door, they were both laughing causelessly and irresponsibly, in delightful comradeship.

He turned to Dosia after he had rung the bell and said, “Good night.”

“Aren’t you coming in to see my cousin?”

“Oh, yes; but this is our farewell. Please make it as touching as you can.”

She looked up frankly as she gave him her hand and said:

“Thank you for taking charge of me.”

“And making a fool of myself? It was in a good cause, at any rate. But what I wanted you to say was——”

She did not hear, for the door had opened, and he only waited a moment inside the house to explain her husband’s absence to Mrs. Alexander. The news arrested her greeting to Dosia, whom she held tentatively by the hand as she repeated:

“Justin went back to the fire! Oh, I’m so sorry! Do you think that it was very bad?”

“The paper said not.”

“It must be out now, anyway. I’m so disappointed that he did not come home, and I have such a nice little dinner. Will you not stay, Lawson?”

“Thank you—I wish I could.” There was a penetrative, lingering flash of those still quizzical eyes at Dosia as he made his adieus, and then he was gone. Why should she feel alone?

Her cousin’s arms were at last around her in welcome, the warmer for being deferred; and the little Zaidee, whom she would have known from Justin’s description of her, was standing first on one tiptoe and then on the other, waiting to be kissed before going off to bed, as she announced. From above came the sound of small running feet, and a child’s voice calling:

“Cousin Dosia—I want to see my Cousin Dosia!” A bare foot and leg surmounted by a fluttering scrap of white raiment was thrust through the balusters, followed by a protesting scream as his nurse heavily pursued the fugitive with upraised voice:

“Coom back, Reginald, coom back!” There was the noise of a scuffle as Dosia, with her escort, laughingly ascended the stairs, to elicit a shriek of terror and a rear view of the mercurial Reginald in full flight for the nursery door, which banged after him, and behind which he still raised his voice, to the shrill accompaniment of the nurse.

“I’ll go in and keep him quiet,” said Zaidee reassuringly, in answer to her mother’s look of appeal, and she also disappeared beyond the prison bars, after a whisk of her short crisp pink skirt, and a smile at Dosia in which her little white teeth gleamed in an infantile glee that only accentuated her air of preternatural capability.

Her cousin’s kindly hands helped Dosia to remove the traces of travel, when she had definitely refused the offer pressed upon her to be undressed and go to bed and have her dinner brought up to her. It was sweet to be in feminine care once more, and be pitied for the terrors she had undergone, and feel the bond of relationship assert itself in spite of the fact that the cousins had not seen each other since Dosia’s early childhood. She did not want to be alone up-stairs, and sat instead in Justin’s place at the table, clad in a soft silken tea-gown of Lois’ that was in itself restful, trying to eat and drink and keep up her part in the conversation about her journey and the absent members of the family. Changes had crowded so upon poor Dosia that she felt as if she were living in a kaleidoscope that rattled her every minute or two into a new position; the glittering table and her cousin’s form would presently dissolve, and leave her perhaps out in the crowded, unknown streets, with wild-eyed faces pressing near her.

After all, she only changed to an arm-chair in the little drawing-room, with her head against a cushion and her feet on a foot-stool, and her cousin still beside her, pulling back the window-curtains once in a while to take a peep outside for her missing husband; in spite of the real kindness of her welcome, Dosia felt a certain preoccupation in it. Her coming was only accessory to the real importance of his, when she herself should have been the event; the warmth of heart which she had expected to feel toward her cousin somehow seemed to fail of expression in this attitude. At the same time, Lois was also conscious of a lack of response, a dullness, in Theodosia. Perhaps the likeness of relationship was answerable for a certain reserve of manner, a formality which neither knew how to break then or at a later time, and which was to last until the barriers were swept away by a mighty flood; but the real cause of the lack of sympathy lay in something much deeper. The strong thought of self is inevitably insulating—it is as restrictive of human contact as a live wire. Dosia, whose young life had all been spent in unselfishness, was experiencing unexpectedly the other swing of the pendulum in an intense and absorbing desire to have everything now as she wanted it. She was tired of thinking of other people; the scene should be set now for her. This desire was a huge mushroom growth, sprung up in a night; it had no real root in her nature, and would vanish as suddenly as it had come, but the shadow of it distorted her.

The house was very much smaller than Dosia had imagined, and her eyes roved over the little drawing-room in some perplexity, trying to make it come up to her anticipation. All dwellers in small country places, where economy is Heaven’s first law, expect to be dazzled by the grandeur and elegance of “the city.” People in Balderville never dreamed of buying new furniture from towns twenty or thirty miles away; as chair-legs broke off, or rockers split, or tables came to pieces, all sorts of domestic devices were resorted to by all but shiftless householders who tamely submitted to ruin, in coaxing the article into seeming wholeness and keeping it still in active use. The best families were learned in all the little ways and capabilities of string and wire, and wooden cleats and old hinges and tacks, and pieces of tin cut from tomato-cans, and in the glueing on of piano-keys, black-walnut excrescences, ornaments, and sofa-arms.

Mended furniture has, however, a deprecating expression of its own, not to be concealed by any art. Dosia recognized the absence of it in these trim chairs that stood nattily on their slender curved legs, in the little shining tables which did not require to be hidden by a hanging cloth, and in the china and bric-À-brac placed boldly where they could be seen on all sides. She wondered a little at the low wicker arm-chair in which she was sitting, for they had wicker furnishings in the Balderville hotel, but the blue-skyed water-color sketches on the walls caught her fancy, and the vista of a blue-and-white dining-room, seen through half-closed reddish portiÈres, was charming. For all the shine and polish and multiplicity of small ornaments in the tiny apartment, it seemed to lack a kind of comfort to which she was used, and of which she had caught a glimpse in the sitting-room as she passed it. She gave an exclamation of delight as her eyes fell on a stand in one corner of the room on which was a long glass filled with pink roses.

“How beautiful these are! I haven’t seen any finer ones in Balderville, and you know we are famed for our roses there.”

“Oh,” said Lois, “to think that you have been in the house for over an hour and I never told you about them! Justin’s not coming upset everything. They were sent to you this afternoon.”

“Sent to me?”

“Yes—by Mr. Sutton. Didn’t you say you met him with Justin on the boat?—a short, stout man with sandy hair.”

“Yes, Justin introduced him, but he hardly spoke to me.”

“That doesn’t make any difference, he sent them before he saw you at all. I told him you were coming, and these arrived this afternoon. You needn’t feel particularly flattered; he sends them to everybody.”

“Sends them to everybody!” Dosia looked amazed.

“Oh, yes; he’s rich, and devoted to girls. They laugh at him, but I notice that they are quite ready to accept his flowers and candy and tickets for the opera. I believe that he wants to get married; but he really is sensible and quite nice underneath it all.”

“Oh!” said Dosia, indefinably revolted. “And—and is Mr. Barr like that, too?”

“Who, Lawson? Oh, dear, no; he can’t even support himself, let alone sending presents.”

“He said such queer things,” ventured Dosia, with a shy desire to talk about him. “I did not know what to make of it at first.”

“Oh, nobody pays any attention to what Lawson says,” said Lois indifferently.

Dosia longed to ask why, with an instant wave of resentment at this way of speaking; a cloud seemed suddenly to have descended upon the glittering possibilities of her future. She fixed her eyes on her cousin, who sat in a high, slender chair, one arm gowned in yellow silk thrown over the back of it, and her cheek upon her arm—her rich coloring, the grace of her attitude, the sweep of her long black skirt, made a deep impression on the mind of the little country girl, who seemed slight and meager and insignificant to herself. And this other woman had been loved—she had passed through all the experiences to which Dosia looked forward. Was it that which gave her this charm thrown over her like a gauzy veil?

“What a beautiful waist you have on!” she exclaimed impulsively. “Yellow is such a lovely color.”

“Do you think so?” said Lois. “This is an old thing that I mended to wear because Justin always likes it. I do wish he’d come.” She rose and walked restlessly to the window. “I’m worried about him.”

“Yes,” said Dosia, still looking, and pleased that the remark bore out her fancy. But she wondered; married women in Balderville looked different—the hot Southern sun had burned the color out of their cheeks, and the gowns they mended were of cotton, not of yellow silk; this fresh youthfulness and self-sufficiency both attracted and repelled, it seemed so beyond her. Her heart bounded at the thought that Aunt Theodosia had sent money for her clothes as well as for her music lessons.

She did not resist the second attempt to send her to bed, although Justin was still absent. Lois had brought her all the things she needed in the absence of her wrecked luggage, and kissed her good night with tenderness, saying, “I hope you’ll be very happy here, Dosia,” and she answered, “Thank you so much for having me.”

In spite of her helpless fatigue, she lay awake for a long time in her tiny room. The brass bed, the polished floor with the crimson rug on it, the dainty dressing-table, had all seemed charmingly luxurious and like a book, but now that she was in darkness, she only saw vividly a pair of sparkling eyes looking into hers, and caught the sound of a kind, half-mocking voice. Every word of the conversation repeated itself again to her excited mind; it was delightful to remember, because she had acquitted herself so well; if she had replied stupidly she would have died of vexation now. How clever he had been, and how really considerate!—for she was glad to think that he had said foolish things to her to keep her from breaking down.

“Do I look like a person of whom you would approve?”

“I haven’t considered the subject.” She flashed the answer back again, and laughed, with her cheek glowing on the pillow. Why had Lois spoken of him so strangely? She vainly strove to fathom the significance of the words, which she resented, although they had coincided with an instinctive feeling she had that he was not at all the kind of man she would ever want to marry. She had already taken that provisionary leap into a mythical future which is one of the perfunctory attitudes of maidenhood.

But who wanted to think of marrying now, anyway? That was something so far off that it seemed like the end of all things to Dosia, who at present only innocently desired plenty of emotions to live upon—costlier living than she knew, poor child! The very instinct that warned her against it added a heightened charm to the perilous pleasure. And the other man—Mr. Sutton—had already sent her flowers! Oh, this was life, life—the life she had read of and longed for, where dark eyes looked at you and made you feel how interesting you were; where you could have pretty clothes, and look like other people, and be brilliant and witty and sought after. She blushed with pleasure and excitement. Then she said a little prayer, with palm pressed to palm under the covers, and the glamour faded away as a sweet and pure feeling welled up from the clear depths of her heart. Her hand was once more held in safety. In her drowsiness, it was as if she had lifted her soft cheek to be kissed.

To the eager inquiries of Lois, Justin answered that he had had his dinner long before and wanted nothing.

He asked if she and the children were all right,—his usual question,—and she waited until he had dropped down in the arm-chair in the sitting-room up-stairs, after changing his shoes for slippers, before questioning him. Then she sat down by him and asked:

“Well, how was it?”

She spoke with eagerness, holding one of his hands in hers tenderly, although it hung limp after the first strong, responsive clasp.

“The fire was out before I got there.”

“Do they know how it started?”

“Not yet.”

“Was the place burned much?”

“No, not much.”

“Did it do any damage to the machinery?”

“Some.”

Lois looked at him in despair.

“Aren’t you going to tell me anything?”

“There really isn’t anything to tell, dear.” He strove to speak with attention. “You know just about as much of it all as I do.”

“Oh, but I’m so sorry for you! Will it put you back any?”

“I suppose so.”

“Oh, dear!” she moaned helplessly. “Isn’t it too bad! If only you had not been obliged to take that journey! Do you suppose it would have happened if you had stayed at home?”

“I really can’t tell. The fire might have been discovered earlier; it started at noon, when most of the clerks were out at lunch.”

“I see. But no one can hold you responsible.”

“I am responsible for everything. If you do not mind, Lois, I’ll go to bed. I’m tired; I didn’t get any sleep last night.”

“Yes, of course.” She smoothed his hair with her fingers in remorseful tenderness, leaning against him, with her laces touching his cheek. “Such a long, long, tiresome journey! It’s such a pity you had to go.”

“Oh, well, I had to, and that’s the end of it. Don’t let’s talk about it any more. I hope that poor girl gets some sleep to-night; she needs it. She can’t hear us, can she?”

“No. Didn’t you think she was sweet?”

“Yes, she seemed nice enough; she’s pretty—a little stupid, perhaps.”

“Oh, poor Dosia!” said Lois, “stupid! I should think she might have been, after all she had gone through. But then, you’re so used to my cleverness!” She looked up at him with provocative eyes, into which he smiled faintly, in recognition of what was expected of him; then he said, with a sudden appealing change of tone, “I’m very tired, Lois.”

She kissed him good night tenderly, with magnanimous concession to his unresponsiveness; there was no room for her in his thoughts to-night, and she had been so longing to see him! But she would tell him all about it to-morrow.

Justin laid his head upon the pillow, but his eyes burned into the darkness; there was a proud and bitter disappointment at his heart, even while reason adjusted his losses to their proper place. Before him in disagreeable force came the face of Leverich, and it was not the face of a man to whom one would care to make excuse or from whom one would challenge reproof; he could see the heavy jowl, the piercing eyes, the half-pompous, half-shrewd expression of one who respected nothing but success. This tangle up of the machinery, unusual and costly in its parts and appointments—Heaven only knew what far-reaching complications the delay of its repair might occasion! Justin had seen only too well in others how a false step at the first may count.

Whether or not Dosia and the typometer were united in their destinies, they had at least one thing in common—they were both embarked upon perilous ways.