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Revelations of a Wife

<h2 id="id00483" style="margin-top: 4em">IX</h2> <h5 id="id00484">THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN</h5> "Well, we are in plenty of time." We were seated, Dicky and I, in the waiting room of the Long Island railroad a week after my dinner party that had almost ended in tragedy. Dicky had bought our tickets to Marvin, the little village which was to be the starting point of our country ramble, and we were putting in the time before our train was ready in gazing at the usual morning scene in a railroad station. There were not many passengers going out on the island, but scores of commuters were hurrying through the station on their way to their offices and other places of employment. "You don't see many of the commuters up here," Dicky remarked. "There's a passage direct from the trains to the subway on the lower level, and most of them take that. Some of the women come up to prink a bit in the waiting room, and some of the men come through here to get cigars or papers, but the big crowd is down on the train level." I hardly heard him, for I was so interested in a girl who had just come into the waiting room. I had never seen so self-possessed a creature in my life. She was unusually beautiful, with golden hair that was so real the most captious person could not suspect that hair of being dyed. Her eyes were dark, and the unusual combination of eyes and hair fitted a face with regular features and a fair skin. I had seen Christmas and Easter cards with faces like hers. But I had never seen anyone like her in real life, and I am afraid I stared at her as hard as did everyone else in the waiting room. "By jove!" Dicky drew in a deep breath. "Isn't she the most ripping beauty you ever saw?" His eyes were following her lithe, perfect figure as she walked down the waiting room. I have never seen a pretty girl appear so utterly unconscious of the glances directed toward her as she did. But with a woman's intuition I knew that underneath her calm exterior she was noticing and appraising every admiring look she received. I could not have told how I knew this, but I did know it. She sat down a little distance from us, and Dicky frankly turned quite around to stare at her. "I wonder if she's going on our train," he mused. "By George, I never saw anything like her in my life." I looked at him in open amazement, tinged not a little with resentment. He was with me, his bride of less than a month, for our first day's outing since our marriage, and yet his eyes were following this other woman with the most open admiration. I felt hurt, neglected, but I was determined he should not think me jealous. "Yes, isn't she beautiful," I said as enthusiastically as I could. "I never have seen just that combination of eyes and hair." "It's her features and figure that get me. I'd like to get a glimpse of her hands and feet. Perhaps she will sit near us in the train. If she does, I promise you I am going to stare at her unmercifully." As luck would have it, just as we seated ourselves in the train, the girl we had seen in the railway station came through the door with the same air of regal unconsciousness of her surroundings that she had shown while running the gauntlet of the admiring and critical eyes in the waiting room. She carried in her hand a small traveling bag, which, while not new, had received such good care that it was not at all shabby. She spent no time in selecting a seat, but with an air of taking the first one available sat down directly opposite Dicky and me, depositing her bag close to her feet. As she sat down she calmly crossed her knees, something which I hate to see a woman do in a public place. "Gee, she has the hands and the feet all right!" Dicky has a trick of mumbling beneath his breath, so that no one can detect that he is talking save the person whose ear is nearest to him. It is convenient sometimes, but at other times it is most embarrassing, especially when he is making comments upon people near us. "I don't blame her for elevating one foot above the other," Dicky rattled on. "Not one woman in a thousand can wear those white spats. She must have mighty small, well-shaped tootsies under them." The girl sat looking straight ahead of her. The crossing of her knees revealed a swirl of silken petticoat, and more than a glimpse of filmy silk stockings. Her shoes were patent leather pumps, utterly unsuitable for a trip to the country. Over them she wore spats of the kind affected by so many girls. I had a sudden remembrance of times in my own life when a new pair of shoes was as impossible to attain as a whole wardrobe. I had a sudden intuition that the unsuitable pumps were like the rest of her clothes, left over from some former affluence. She had bravely made the best of them by covering them with spats, which I knew she could obtain quite cheaply at some bargain sale. "Looks like ready money, doesn't she?" mumbled Dicky in my ear. I did not answer, and suddenly Dicky stared at me. "A trifle peeved, aren't you?" Dicky's voice was mocking. But he saw what I could not conceal, that tears were rising to my eyes. I was able to keep from shedding them, and no one but Dicky could possibly have guessed I was agitated. He changed his tone and manner on the instant. "I know I have been thoughtless, sweetheart," he said earnestly, "but I keep forgetting that you are not used to my vagaries yet. Tell me honestly, would you have been so resentful if I had been interested in some old man with chin whiskers as I was in the beautiful lady?" A light broke upon me. How foolish I had been. I looked at Dicky shamefacedly. "You mean—" "That she's exactly the model I've been looking for to pose for those outdoor illustrations Fillmore wants. One of the series is to be a girl on a step ladder, picking apple blossoms. She is to be on her knees, and one foot is to be stretched out behind her. The picture demands a perfect foot and ankle, and this girl has them. Her features and hair, too, are just the type I want. She would know how to pose, too. You can see that from her air as she sits there. And that's half the battle. If they do not have the faculty of posing naturally they could never be taught." I felt much humiliated, and I was very angry, but I must remember, I told myself, that I had married an artist. I foresaw, however, many complications in our lives together. If every time we took a trip anywhere, Dicky was to spend his time planning to secure the services of some possible model I could see very little pleasure for me in our outings. But I knew an apology was due Dicky, and I gathered courage to make it. "I am sorry to have annoyed you, Dicky," I said at last. "But I did not dream that you were looking at her as a possible model." "And looked at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me," admitted Dicky. "But let's forget it. She'll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I'll never see her again." But his prediction was not fulfilled. "Marvin!" The conductor shouted the word as the train drew up to one of the most forlorn looking railroad stations it was ever my lot to see. Dicky and I rose from our seats, he with subdued excitement, I with a feeling of depression. For the girl who had claimed so much of our attention was getting off at Marvin after all. I remembered the bargain I had made with my conscience. "What do you know about that?" Dicky exclaimed, as he saw her go down the aisle ahead of us. "She also is getting off here. I wonder who she is?" "Listen, Dicky," I said rapidly. "Walk ahead, see in which direction she goes, and ask the station master if he knows who she is. I know something which I will tell you when you have done that. Perhaps you may have her for a model, after all." Dicky gave me one swift glance of mingled surprise and admiration, then did as I asked. As I followed him down the aisle and noted the eagerness with which he was hurrying, I felt a sudden qualm of doubt. Was I really doing the wisest thing? I waited quietly on the station platform until Dicky rejoined me. "Her name's Draper," he said. "The station agent doesn't know much about her, except that she visits a sister, Mrs. Gorman, here every summer. He never saw her here in the winter before. I got Mrs. Gorman's address, 329 Shore Road, called Shore Road because it never gets anywhere near the shore. Much good the address will do me, though. Queer she doesn't take the bus. It must be a mile to her sister's home. She's probably one of those walking bugs." "She didn't take the bus because she could not afford it," I said quietly. Dicky stared at me in amazement. "How do you know?" he said finally. "Do you know her? No, of course you don't. But how in creation—" "Listen, Dicky," I interrupted. "I've turned too many dresses of my own not to recognize makeshifts when I see them. Everything that girl has on except her stockings and gloves has been remodelled from her old stuff. Her pumps are not suitable at all for walking; they are evening pumps, of a style two years old at that. But she has covered them with spats, so that no one will suspect that she wears them from necessity, not choice." "Well, I'll be—" Dicky uttered his favorite expletive. "It takes one woman to dissect another. She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me. Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing. I could get her lots of other work, too." "Perhaps she wouldn't like to do that sort of thing." "What sort of thing? What's wrong with it?" Dicky asked belligerently. "Oh, you mean figure posing! She wouldn't have to do that at all if she didn't want to. Plenty of good nudes. It's the intangible, high-bred look and ability to wear clothes well that's hard to get." We had walked past the unpainted little shack that but for the word "Marvin" in large letters painted across one end of it would never have been taken for a railroad station. Without looking where we were going we found ourselves in front of an immense poster on a large board back of the station. The letters upon it were visible yards away. "Marvin," it read, "the prettiest, quaintest village on the south shore. Please don't judge the town by the station." He took my arm and turned me away from the billboard toward a wide, dusty road winding away from the station to the eastward. "But, Dicky," I protested. "I thought you wanted to see about securing that girl as a model." "Oh, that can wait," said Dicky carelessly. My heart sang as I slipped my arm in Dicky's. It was going to be an enjoyable day after all. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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