The great Pullman was whirling with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring . Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquit and , little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a .
A newly-married pair had boarded this train at San Antonio. The man's face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-coloured hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his . He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber's shop. The glances he to other passengers were and shy.
The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with small reservations of here and there, and with steel buttons . She continually twisted her head to regard her puff-sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high. They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class , which was in , almost emotionless lines.
They were evidently very happy. "Ever been in a parlour-car before?" he asked, smiling with delight.
"No," she answered; "I never was. It's fine, ain't it?"
"Great. And then, after a while, we'll go forward to the diner, and get a big lay-out. Finest meal in the world. Charge, a dollar."
"Oh, do they?" cried the bride. "Charge a dollar? Why, that's too much—for us—ain't it, ?"
"Not this trip, anyhow," he answered bravely. "We're going to go the whole thing."
Later, he explained to her about the train. "You see, it's a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other, and this train runs right across it, and never stops but four times."
He had the pride of an owner. He out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and, in truth, her eyes opened wider as she the sea-green figured velvet, the shining , silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated , and at convenient places on the ceiling were in olive and silver.
To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment of their new estate, and the man's face, in particular, beamed with an that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of . He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that unfrequently a number of travellers covered them with stares of . Historically there was supposed to be something humorous in their situation.
"We are due in Yellow Sky at 3.42," he said, looking tenderly into her eyes.
"Oh, are we?" she said, as if she had not been aware of it.
To evince surprise at her husband's statement was part of her wifely . She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before her, and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband's face shone.
"I bought it in San Anton' from a friend of mine," he told her gleefully.
"It's seventeen minutes past twelve," she said, looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry.
A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively , and at himself in one of the numerous mirrors.
At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters in dazzling white suits surveyed their entrance with the interest, and also the , of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with . The entwined with the ordinary was not palpable to them. And yet as they returned to their coach they showed in their faces a sense of escape.
To the left, miles down ............