seeking its fullest seclusion, with her head against a pillow, and the tips of her suède shoes showing under her gray traveling skirt on the further half of the section. She twirled idly in her fingers a half-opened white rosebud—a fact unimportant in itself, but destined to linger long in Griswold's memory. The pillow[Pg 22] afforded the happiest possible background for her brown head, her cheek bright with color, and a profile clear-cut, and just now—an impression due, perhaps, to the slight quiver of her nostrils and the compression of her lips—seemingly disdainful of the world. Griswold hung up his hat and opened his portfolio; but the presence of the girl suggested Ardmore and his ridiculous quest of the alluring blue eye, and it was refreshing to recall Ardmore and his ways. Here was one man, at least, in this twentieth century, at whose door the Time Spirit might thump and thunder in vain. [Pg 22] The black woman rose and ministered to her mistress, muttering in kind monotone consolatory phrases from which "chile" and "honey" occasionally reached Griswold's ears. The old mammy produced from a bag several toilet bottles, a fresh handkerchief, a hand mirror and a brush, which she arranged in the empty seat. The silver trinkets glowed brightly against the blue upholstery. "Thank you, Aunt Phœbe, I'm feeling much better. Just let me alone now, please." The girl put aside the white rose for a moment and breathed deeply of the vinaigrette, whose keen, pungent odor stole across the aisle to Griswold. She bent [Pg 23]forward, took up the hand mirror, and brushed the hair away from her forehead with half a dozen light strokes. She touched her handkerchief to the cologne flask, passed it across her eyes, and then took up the rose again and settled back with a little sigh of relief. In her new upright position her gaze rested upon Griswold's newspapers, which he had flung down on the empty half of his section. One of them had fallen open and lay with its outer page staring with the bold grin of display type. [Pg 23] TWO GOVERNORS AT WAR! What Did the Governor of North Carolina Say to the Governor of South Carolina? What Did the Governor of North Carolina Say to the Governor of South Carolina?
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