“At this time of year, I’d rather be in Atlantic City than San Francisco.”
“Oh, isn’t Atlantic City wonderful! There’s only one Atlantic City! And I really like it better in the winter. Nobody but nice people go there in the winter. In the summertime it’s different. I’m no snob, but I don’t mind saying that I hate to mix up with some people a person has to meet at these resort places. Terrible! Two years ago I went to Atlantic City with Bess Eldridge. Like a fool I left it to her to make the reservations and she wired the Traymore, she says, but they didn’t have anything for us. We tried the Ritz and the Ambassador and everywhere else, but we couldn’t get in anywhere, that is, anywhere a person would want to stay. Bess was engaged to Harley Bateman at the time. Now she’s married a man named Wannop from Minneapolis. But this time I speak of, we went to Philadelphia and stayed all night with my aunt and we had scrapple and liver and bacon for breakfast. Harley was a dandy boy when he wasn’t drinking. But give me Atlantic City any time of the year!”
“I’ve got to send a telegram at Grand Island.”
“Oh, if I sent one from there, when would it get to Elkhart?”
“Tonight or tomorrow morning.”
“I want to wire my sister.”
“Well, wire her from Grand Island.”
“I think I’ll wait and wire her from Frisco.”
“But we won’t be in San Francisco for over two days yet.”
“But we change time before then, don’t we?”
“Yes, we change at North Platte.”
“Then I think I’ll wire her from Grand Island.”
“Your sister, you say?”
“Yes. My sister Lucy. She married Jack Kingston, the Kingston tire people.”
“It certainly feels empty, where that tooth was,” said Chapman.
As the train pulled out of North Platte, later in the afternoon, Chapman rejoined the two girls in the observation-car.
“Now, girls,” he said, “you can set your watches back an hour. We change time here. We were Central time and now we’re Mountain time.”
“Mountain time,” repeated Mildred. “I suppose that’s where the expression started, ‘it’s high time.’ ”
Hazel and Chapman looked blank and Mildred blushed. She felt she had made a mistake saying anything at all. She opened her book, “Carlyle on Cromwell and Others,” which Rev. N. L. Veach had given her for Christmas.
“Have you ever been to Washington?” Chapman asked Hazel.
“Oh, isn’t it beautiful! ‘The City of Magnificent Distances.’ Wonderful! I was there two years ago with Bess Eldridge. We were going to meet the President, but something happened. Oh, yes; Bess got a wire from Harley Bateman that he was going to get in that afternoon. And he never came at all. He was awfully nice when he wasn’t drinking, and just terrible when he drank. Bess broke off her engagement to him and married a man named Wannop, who owned some flour-mills in Minneapolis. She was a dandy girl, but bit her fingernails just terribly. So we didn’t get to see the President, but we sat through two or three sessions of the Senate and House. Do you see how they ever get anything done? And we went to Rock Creek Park and Mount Vernon and Arlington Cemetery and Keith’s.
“Moran and Mack were there; you know, the blackface comedians. Moran, or maybe it’s Mack, whichever is the little one, he says to the other—I’ve forgotten just how it went, but they were simply screaming and I thought Bess and I would be put out. We just howled. And the last night we were there we saw Thomas Meighan in Old Home Week. Wonderful! Harley Bateman knows Thomas Meighan personally. He’s got a beautiful home out on Long Island. He invited Harley out there to dinner one night, but something happened. Oh, yes; Harley lost a front tooth once and he had a false one put in and this day he ate some caramels and the tooth came out—”
“Look here,” said Chapman, opening his mouth and pointing in it. “I got that one pulled in Milwaukee—”
“Harley was a perfect peach when he was sober, but terrible when—”
It occurred to Mildred that her presence might be embarrassing. Here were evidently kindred spirits, two people who had been everywhere and seen everything. But of course they couldn’t talk anything but geography and dentistry before her.
“I think I’ll go to our car and take a little nap,” she said.
“Oh, don’t—” began Chapman surprisingly, but stopped there.
She was gone and the kindred spirits were alone.
“I suppose,” said Chapman, “you’ve been to Lake Louise.”
“Wonderful!” Hazel responded. “Did you ever see anything as pretty in your life? They talk about the lakes of Ireland and Scotland and Switzerland, but I don’t believe they can compare with Lake Louise. I was there with Bess Eldridge just before she got engaged to Harley Bateman. He was—”
“Your friend’s a mighty pretty girl.”
“I suppose some people would think her pretty. It’s a matter of individual taste.”
“Very quiet, isn’t she?”
“Poor Mildred hasn’t much to say. You see, she’s never had any advantages and there’s really nothing she can talk about. But what was I saying? Oh, yes; about Harley Bateman—”
“I think that’s a good idea, taking a little nap. I believe I’ll try it, too.”
Hazel and Chapman lunched alone next day.
“I’m afraid Mildred is a little train sick,” said Hazel. “She says she is all right but just isn’t hungry. I guess the trip has been a little too much for her. You see, this is the first time she’s ever been anywhere at all.”
The fact was that Mildred did not like to be stared at and Chapman had stared at her all through dinner the night before, stared at her, she thought, as if she were a curiosity, as
