Their glances met for a
second, and perhaps let them into each other's meanings
more deeply than either cared to go.
"Yes; it IS awfully convenient," May brightly agreed,
"that you should be able to meet Ellen after all; you
saw how much Mamma appreciated your offering to
do it."
"Oh, I'm delighted to do it." The carriage stopped,
and as he jumped out she leaned to him and laid her
hand on his. "Good-bye, dearest," she said, her eyes so
blue that he wondered afterward if they had shone on
him through tears.
He turned away and hurried across Union Square,
repeating to himself, in a sort of inward chant: "It's all
of two hours from Jersey City to old Catherine's. It's
all of two hours--and it may be more."
XXIX.
His wife's dark blue brougham (with the wedding
varnish still on it) met Archer at the ferry, and
conveyed him luxuriously to the Pennsylvania terminus
in Jersey City.
It was a sombre snowy afternoon, and the gas-lamps
were lit in the big reverberating station. As he paced
the platform, waiting for the Washington express, he
remembered that there were people who thought there
would one day be a tunnel under the Hudson through
which the trains of the Pennsylvania railway would run
straight into New York. They were of the brotherhood
of visionaries who likewise predicted the building of
ships that would cross the Atlantic in five days, the
invention of a flying machine, lighting by electricity,
telephonic communication without wires, and other
Arabian Night marvels.
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