The color deepened in the girl's face; a slight frown gathered in her smooth forehead; then she called the colored woman and a brief colloquy followed between them. In a moment Griswold was addressed in a tone and manner at once condescending and deferential.

"If yo' please, suh, would yo' all 'low my mistus t' look at yo' newspapahs?"

"Certainly. Take them along."

And Griswold, recalled from a passage in his lecture that dealt with contraband munitions of war, handed over the newspapers, and saw them pass into the hands[Pg 24] of his fellow-passenger. He had read the newspapers pretty thoroughly, and knew the distribution of their contents, so that he noted with surprise the girl's immediate absorption in the telegrams from New Orleans relating to the difficulty between the two governors.

[Pg 24]

As she read she lost, he thought, something of her splendid color, and at one point in her reading her face went white for a moment, and Griswold saw the paper wrinkle under the tightening grasp of her hands. The tidings from New Orleans had undoubtedly aroused her indignation, which expressed itself further in the rigid lines of her figure as she read, and in the gradual lifting of her head, as though with some new resolution. She seemed to lose account of her surroundings, and several times Griswold was quite sure that he heard her half exclaim, "Preposterous! Infamous!"

When she had finished the New Orleans telegrams she cast the offending newspapers from her, then, recalling herself, summoned the black woman, and returned them to Griswold, the dusky agent expressing the elaborate thanks of her race for his courtesy. The girl had utterly ignored Griswold, and she now pulled down the curtain at her elbow with a snap and turned her face away from him.

[Pg 25]

[Pg 25]

Professor Griswold's eyes wandered repeatedly from his manuscript to the car ceiling, then furtively to the uncompromisingly averted shoulder and head of the young lady, then back to his lecture notes, until he was weary of the process. He wished Ardmore were at hand, for his friend would find here a case that promised much better than the pursuit to which he had addressed himself. The girl in this instance was at least a self-respecting lady, not given to flirtations with chance travelers, and the brown eyes, of which Griswold had caught one or two fleeting glimpses, were clearly 

 Prev. P 13/222 next